Talk:Kosovo/Archive 30

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difficulty editing

Hello. It appears that it is not possible to edit the article? Is it locked or something? (Lilicneiu (talk) 06:36, 4 May 2013 (UTC))

Due to vandalism and/or POV-pushing, the article is semi-protected. See WP:SEMI. Bazonka (talk) 06:58, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

That makes sense. (Lilicneiu (talk) 05:22, 11 May 2013 (UTC)).

The therm "region" (first paragraph) is inaccurate.

I propose changing it to "…is a state in southeastern Europe". Zoef1234 (talk) 05:06, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

No. This article is intended to take a neutral point of view and is primarily about the geographical area - it is not an article about Kosovo the country. "Region" is an accurate geographical term. (There are separate articles for the competing political entities Republic of Kosovo and Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija.) Bazonka (talk) 08:25, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

I propose we change it to "…is a province of Serbia". (j/k) Do you see why proposals like these pose a problem, that the differences in our two proposals is actually viewpoint based? If not, that's OK. Int21h (talk) 09:32, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Serbo-croatian

There is an attempt to replace Serbian language with Serbo-Croatian (diff) although this long-term editing pattern of one editor has been rejected by other editors many times. In this case it is also a change of the referenced assertion so I will restore the stable version.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 07:08, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Problems with the lede

Why does every paragraph of the lede go out of its way to frame Kosovo in terms of Serbia? Kosovo is not Serbia. Can't we have a more balanced lede which mostly focusses on Kosovo instead of Serbia? This is supposed to be an article about Kosovo. bobrayner (talk) 22:19, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

I completely agree with Bobrayner. An example of nonsense: Prizren infobox: Country: Kosovo → Kosovo sometimes referred to as Kosovo and Metohija is a region in southeastern Europe.??? What is with Republic of Kosovo.--Sokac121 (talk) 10:50, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

You are welcomed to propose something here on talk, Bob. For Sokac. Please, read Frequently Asked Questions on this page, and you will get your answer. --WhiteWriter^speaks 14:49, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Recent edits

I've partly reinstated some of the material recently inserted by Bobrayner, which was blanket-reverted by WhiteWriter [1]. While I can see why WhiteWriter was not happy with some of the rewordings, there is valid material in what Bobrayner added, and I've tried to combine the wording of both versions [2].

At the same time, I warn WhiteWriter against violating the article restrictions. Accusing another editor of breaking the restriction while at the same time making a blanket, undiscussed revert, as WhiteWriter did, is unacceptable. The restrictions do not say that anybody making new edits is required to discuss in advance; what they do say is that anybody who makes reverts must explain them on the talkpage. The person who broke the restrictions here was WhiteWriter, and this will not be tolerated. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:54, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

No, unacceptable is to remove one POV and replace it with other POV, as Bobrayner did. Your edit is by far better, and i would never react that Bob did that. Also, your deep involvement in this subject does not give you right to decide what is good and what is not. All users are obliged to use talk page, and your comment just stoped me in explanation, so i will use this section for it, while other user didn't comment anything, while removed important data and sources. You should try to see situation as it is. --WhiteWriter^speaks 14:23, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

I just want to state that current situation may be misleading, as i was actually writing the question about this during FPS comment. As far as i see now, current situation is ok, as that was actually the idea, both version of any question. I was just very tired of user Bob constant POV pushing all over Wikipedia, so this was just one of the articles where question should be raised. Current version is ok, i will just add one link... --WhiteWriter^speaks 14:30, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, i will also say that i find very strange that only reverts need to be commented per restriction. Some of the worst problems are not actually in reverts, that can be easily stopped, but in content changes, that can drive the article away from NPOV, while using sources. I think that agreement would be needed for any bigger edit on this page actually... --WhiteWriter^speaks 14:47, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Whitewriter, your constant accusations of POV-pushing are quite tiresome. Please stop. Sooner or later we will get articles which reflect what sources say, and the more you hit the revert button, the longer that date is postponed. bobrayner (talk) 15:56, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

North Kosovo

I made a change to what said North Kosovo was controlled by Republic of Serbia. It may seem that way but Belgrade authorities are excluded from the region and may not enforce anything there. What you actually have is the local non-Albanian population administering the region and they by their own choosing observe the institutions of the Republic of Serbia (eg. use of dinars, Serbian passport/identity card, vehicle registration plates, etc.). The Big Hoof! (talk) 19:06, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Nice work. bobrayner (talk) 23:10, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Three articles when there should be one

If the situation is not enough confusional in Kosovo, there are in wikipedia three articles for the same thing:

• Kosovo
• Republic of Kosovo
• Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija

Right now the first and the third have Serbian stamp, the second (kind of) Albanian.

Wouldn't it make sense to merge Kosovo into Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija, so that from three we go to two? --LinditaBukuroshja (talk) 12:49, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

This has been discussed numerous times before, e.g. at Talk:Kosovo/Archive 27 and Talk:Kosovo/Archive 28. In the past there have constantly been highly disputed changes, splits and mergers for all things related to Kosovo, so that even Wikipedia's arbitration committee had to deal with the matter. The trifold structure of Kosovo articles is a result of this mess and actually all three articles deal strictly with a different subject. This article, Kosovo, is about the greater geographical region regardless of all political definitions, while Republic of Kosovo deals with said republic (history, politics, society), and Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija presents the official Serbian province. De728631 (talk) 16:18, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes; we have dealt with this before.

There was no consensus to split; when repeated polls failed to deliver the right result, somebody went ahead and achieved it through edit-warring instead. This problem cannot be easily solved. Better to concentrate on other problems, for now. bobrayner (talk) 16:57, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes. I know this flies in the face of the indoctrination people are learning in schools and television over there, but it is disputed territory and Wikipedia should reflect this in an appropriate way. This is an appropriate way. Int21h (talk) 20:54, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

I would certainly oppose such a merge.. -- Director (talk) 14:33, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

I would also oppose. The situation Bobrayner refers to as existing before the split was simply incoherent. At one point the infobox told us that Kosovo was an autonomous republic within Serbia that had its own president. As far as Serbia was concerned, there was no President of Kosovo. And as far as the Presidency of Kosovo was concerned, that office existed as part of the government of the Republic of Kosovo and was in no way part of Serbia. At other times we had 3 infoboxes and constant arguments about which order they should appear in. These three articles allow us to present a clear picture of each reality: the physical and the two competing political ones. --Khajidha (talk) 11:14, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Nothing is perfect here, but at least there is stability. Bazonka (talk) 18:39, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

rename article from "Kosovo" to " Kosovo Region" as soon it shows region not real Kosovo

Article shows region Kosovo and Not Kosovo itself 46.19.227.193 (talk) 03:25, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Not done: please refer to the "Useful information for this article" banner near the top of this page, and especially the second bullet there. Thanks. --Stfg (talk) 16:04, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

RfC: Serbian register vs Serbo-Croatian language on Kosovo?

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

---

Am herewith proposing that references to the Serbian register of the Serbo-Croatian language ("Serbian") be replaced with references to Serbo-Croatian in general. As per numerous sources listed in the aforementioned article and indeed, in the Serbian article itself: "Serbian is a standardized register of the Serbo-Croatian language". (I sincerely hope no one wishes to challenge this fact (again)? But if so, abundant high-quality refs can of course be provided.. again.)

I submit that it is inaccurate and detrimental to the understanding of the reader to restrict references to this language only to its Serbian standard, where the implications of that restriction are unnecessary and misleading (and on such a controversial article - also biased by omission). A couple examples:

• In the lede we have "(Serbian: Косово or Косово и Метохија or Космет, Kosovo or Kosovo i Metohija or Kosmet)". - Those are names accurate not only in the Serbian standard of Serbo-Croatian, but also in the other three (Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin).
• In the "Name" section we have this: "Kosovo is the Serbian neuter possessive adjective of kos (кос) "blackbird", an ellipsis for Kosovo Polje, 'blackbird field'" - here too the statement is completely accurate for all four standardized registers of Serbo-Croatian, not just Serbian.

I therefore hold it would be manifestly beneficial to present the reader with the information that the quoted names and terms are accurate for the entire language, as opposed to (as is inescapably implied) - only its Serbian standard. I.e that they are just as accurate in Bosnia, Croatia, and Montenegro, as in Serbia. -- Director (talk) 08:04, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Just to be clear: I am not here proposing this change be applied to other articles. Where the standards are used they are used on the pretext that the relevant state entities are enforcing them. I am simply arguing that this article is not associated with any particular state entity, and that therefore its just one of the many articles where we have no reason to avoid using the language. I'm saying its the same as with, say, the Yugoslavia article. SC is the term used on a great many articles, and thus far - no armageddon. -- Director (talk) 08:55, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: While I might be sympathetic to this proposal in principle, I doubt this particular article (with all its additional ideological baggage) is the best place to hack it out. What is our practice on other Serbo-Croatian-related articles, geographical or biographical? It's been my impression that in most articles that are related predominantly or exclusively to one of the Serbo-Croatian-speaking nations, we have mostly been using that particular synonym of the language name. In articles that are related to several or all of them, I've often seen a full enumeration of "Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian". I certainly don't think this latter affectation is a good solution, but this ought to be clarified centrally, don't you think? Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:25, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I honestly had (and still don't have) no intention to duke anything out. I came here to write about how Kosovo is named after blackbirds, only to find out the subject is already covered excellently - with one exception. I saw the Name section and said to myself "well that's not right, I too call a blackbird 'kos', and I don't use Serbian standard.. and the same is true for three countries and millions of people". I certainly don't intend to start some revolution of replacing all "Serbian:" and "Croatian:" etc. entries with "Serbo-Croatian" (not least because I live in Croatia and do not wish to be lynched :)) - I just think this article is one of those where "Serbo-Croatian" is the more appropriate term, such as Yugoslavia, e.g., as its not associated specifically with any state entity (that enforces one of the four standards). -- Director (talk) 09:16, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

• Mild support - while sharing both the sympathy and doubt of Future Perfect, pretty much verbatim with all above, I think BSC is largely a language-teaching usage, and Serbo-Croatian is useful neutral and perhaps also indicates more use of Latinica in Kosovo than in Serbia. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:07, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose This is not a place to ask for general use in Wikipedia. You may try to use it in this article, but not in general by this RfC. Anyway, as before, i Oppose that, as we do have sources for Serbian standard also, and other languages are irrelevant in this article. Also, Bosnian and Croatian do not use only Serbian Cyrilic script, so it would be misleading to add that. Also oppose per numerous reasons i already stated before. --WhiteWriter^speaks 09:39, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Languages and scripts are two entirely different matters. Serbo-Croatian would be Serbo-Croatian in Cyrillic as well as in Arabic script. It is commonly written in Latin as well as in Cyrillic, just like the official Serbian standard proscribed by the Republic of Serbia. The argument re Cyrillic really makes no sense. And it has been clearly and repeatedly shown (by much more knowledgeable users than myself) that the scientific consensus does not regard Serbian, Croatian, etc. as different "languages". The sources are demonstrably not on your side, whatever you may claim. For the rest please see the Comment below. -- Director (talk) 10:37, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

• Comment. As I said, I am not here proposing "Serbo-Croatian" replace "Serbian" or "Croatian" everywhere. That would be a significant improvement in my opinion, but such a move would require much consensus-building. And this is certainly, as has been pointed out, not to place to start.

My argument, however, is that this article is disassociated (by design one might say) from any state entities that enforce one or more of the four standards. Hence that argument by which these standards are used on many articles in loo of SC in general - is inapplicable. This article, it is argued, is the same as many others where "Serbo-Croatian" is used. In other words, not even the flimsy excuses by which Serbo-Croatian is avoided on some articles apply here - I can see no argument not to use the proper language term here. -- Director (talk) 10:42, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

• Comment - Idea to replace Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian/Montenegrin/.... languages with Serbo Croatian language should be discussed more centrally in more appropriate place. Insisting to remove only Serbian language in articles with controversial topics put on probation by The Arbitration Committee is not constructive. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 10:29, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

This proposal concerns this article, and this article alone. Some articles still use the standards in place of the actual language, on the basis that the authorities, wherein lies the scope of the article, use the standard and proscribe it as a "language" - I do not propose to modify them. I would leave them alone. However, the aforementioned argument used on those articles does not apply here, and this article should not be forced to wait for improvements on an imaginary date which (as I'm sure you know full well) may never come at all. In other words, it should imo be counted among the many articles where "Serbo-Croatian" is the term in use, i.e where political bias has not been allowed to influence content in this matter. The controversy surrounding this article seems to me all the more reason to go through with this. -- Director (talk) 10:37, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

I wonder if we could take some of the ideological urgency out of this debate if we all resolved to look at names like "Serbian" and "Croatian" not as implying a status as separate languages, but simply as alternate names, i.e. contextually used synonyms, referring to the same language? Just like few people appear to have a problem with calling the same language "Indonesian" when applied to an Indonesian context and "Malay" when applied to a Malaysian context. For Kosovo, no matter which way we want to see its present political status, its connection to the Serbian sphere is obviously closer than that to any of the other ethnic focal points, so I really don't see a whole big lot of a problem with calling the language Serbian in this context. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:10, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

More than a few international organizations are doing just that, in fact that's the origin of the "BCMS" name. However, Wikipedia does not unfortunately treat the terms "Serbian" and "Croatian" as synonyms redirecting to the Serbo-Croatian article. Rather "Serbian" takes us to the expansive Serbian language article where the reader finds out its a "standardized register" of a "language", not just a synonym (and also not really a "language" as the title confusingly states). And really, apart from the first sentence the article just treats it as a language (i.e a seperate language) and not even a standard. I mean we can't just pretend they're just synonyms for the same language without actually treating them as such, can we? -- Director (talk) 23:35, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose: The problem with the above proposal is that both the constitution of Serbia and the consitution of the self-declared Republic of Kosovo state that Serbian is the official language (alongside Albanian in Kosovo's case). See: The BBC , the CIA and numerous other sources list Serbian as being one of the official languages of Kosovo. 23 editor (talk) 19:21, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

What a shock, every Serbian user opposes the motion.. does that mean Albanian users will agree? :) -- Director (talk) 23:35, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

• Comment. Not sure were I stand. Definitely so that the registers of Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian are all Serbo-Croat linguistically but this is probably the worst article to launch the radical amendment. I see from talk page activity on Kosovar topics that there some editors are stuggling hard enough against Kosovo Albanians and their sympathisers in maintaining neutrality where the language and status quo are concerned. This might hammer a nail into the coffin of Serbian influence on Kosovo articles, not that it should dominate of course, but an Albanian/Serbian joint perspective needs to take precedence over all else. beztraga (talk) 06:28, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh for goodness sake, I say again: I am not attempting to launch anything. Where standards are used they are used on the pretext that the relevant state entities are enforcing them. I am simply arguing that this article is not associated with any particular state entity, and that therefore its just one of the many articles where we have no reason to avoid using the language. I'm saying its the same as with, say, the Yugoslavia article. SC is used on a great many articles, and thus far - no armageddon. (I'll try to make this clear in the proposal.) -- Director (talk) 08:49, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Whether or not you are attempting to launch the overall discussion, Wikipedia is a single project, so consensus in one article is generally used in other articles, unless there's a specific reason for it to not apply. We appreciate your intent, but unfortunately, you cannot constrain this discussion to only this page. Whatever consensus is reached here will affect all usage across Wikipedia unless there's a clear reason to limit the scope. Arathald (talk) 00:05, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

• Support. Good idea, keep politics out of articles where there is no need to be specific. The Big Hoof! (talk) 17:10, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
• Comment. Firstly, like I mentioned above, whether or not you're trying to discuss this as it applies across articles, this discussion inherently applies to other articles, so this is not the correct forum in which to discuss it. Secondly, your wording of the RFC is not neutral -- it proposes a specific position. RFCs must be neutrally worded with no bias (e.g. "Should this article use the term 'Croatian' or 'Serbo-Croatian' when describing the language in question?"). Finally, while I see your argument, you likely want to make it differently. Just because a word is common across Serbo-Croatian doesn't make it incorrect to talk about the word in Croatian. Maybe it makes it imprecise, but not incorrect. All that said, this is a geopolitical issue that I'm not familiar enough with to make a suggestion. In this case, it would be interesting to know what people native to Kosovo would refer to their language as. If approached from that angle, we might be able to restrict the scope of this discussion to only this article, though an attempt to do so may be misguided, due to the reasons I explained above. Arathald (talk) 00:05, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
• Support per nomination and above comments, with understanding of comments. Official languages are not necessarily the only languages that should be taken into consideration, anyhow. --Jackson Peebles (talk) 05:33, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Comment: I think DIREKTOR should consider adding "Serbo-Croatian" in the opening paragraph for the Croatia article and see what other users think. Just a thought. 23 editor (talk) 21:29, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

• Support. 23 editor is doubly wrong; firstly, we don't base these decisions on what nationalists have put in constitutions (for instance the constitution of Turkey pretends that Kurds don't exist), and secondly as far as the Serbian constitution is concerned, Kosovo never became part of Serbia. A shift to Serbo-croat would hopefully relieve just a little of the constant nationalist infighting... bobrayner (talk) 20:17, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

• And in any case, certain Serbian editors made it quite clear that this article is about the geographical region, whilst anything related to the Republic of Kosovo belongs in that POV fork; I'm surprised that constitutional matters are now being brought to bear on this article. Only when it suits one side of the argument... bobrayner (talk) 20:21, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Comment: Bob, if you want to talk about geographical regions, then please go ahead and add Serbo-Croatian to Slavonia, Bosnia, Dalmatia, etc. Otherwise, quit being a hypocrite. 23 editor (talk) 21:45, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Those are non-sequiteurs. This is Talk:Kosovo. Where's the hypocrisy? bobrayner (talk) 21:48, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Paging 23 editor... those examples are non-sequiteurs. This is Talk:Kosovo. Where's the hypocrisy? bobrayner (talk) 19:21, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

23 editor is doubly wrong; firstly, we don't base these decisions on what nationalists have put in constitutions (for instance the constitution of Turkey pretends that Kurds don't exist), and secondly as far as the Serbian constitution is concerned, Kosovo never became part of Serbia. But these problems are when challenged, all we get is personal attacks, angry non-sequiteurs, and no attempt to support the point. Why is this so common? bobrayner (talk) 01:01, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. This is a matter non-natives rarely acquire a full understanding for, while natives of the region commonly slant it to advance their conflicting views. There is no definite truth here since the issue can be equally well-described from either base; linguistic or socio-cultural alike. Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia historically constitute three distinct and separate entities, and apart from a few exceptions, have not employed a common name for their language up to the mid-19th century. The brief period of shallow political and cultural unity under the Yugoslav banner was more of an exception than a rule, and its subsequent breakdown certainly attributable in part to chauvinistic nationalism, but equally to unbridgeable differences of culture and heritage. These differences must not simply be dismissed as "nationalism" but are in fact valid characteristics upon which different nations rest. Purely linguistically, however, the three languages are indeed one and the same language, dubbed "Serbo-Croatian" in the 19th century. While proponents of "Serbo-Croatian" frequently accuse their opponents of "nationalism" they for the most part have an equal share of vested interest not much nobler in the matter, and are without any reservation to gloss over the distinct and separate heritages of the peoples in the region. The Kosovo-article is surely not a proper place to hash out such linguistics as the socio-cultural aspect definitely trumps the former in my opinion. Kosovo, and the Slavic language historically spoken in the region, distinctly belongs to the Serbian sphere (as opposed to the Croatian or "Serbo-Croatian"): in this regard, indicating "Serbo-Croatian" makes little sense since it diminishes and subordinates region's relation to Serbia in favor of a linguistic term coined in the 19th century. The same principle should apply to all geographical and historiographic pieces apart from those directly related to the former Yugoslavia. The point DIRECTOR makes by pointing out that the individual language articles have indeed been limited to their standardized registers is not a definition I would agree on to begin with, but this has somehow been voted through by the persistent efforts of a few editors who shall remain nameless. Moreover, the current Serbo-Croatian article simply chooses to ignore the purely terminological character of "Serbo-Croatian"; i.e. the language which "Serbo-Croatian" intends to denote is certainly one and the same language, but "Serbo-Croatian" as such is not a language since there is no "Serbo-Croatian" people. Anyways, these are just thoughts on a side-note. Praxis Icosahedron ϡ (TALK) 01:58, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support A lot of time and effort was spent trying to strip this page of politics and funnel it off to other articles. Given that, it seems to follow that the political definitions of the languages should be funnelled elsewhere as well. CMD (talk) 07:10, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support I really like this proposal. Less politics in article less nationalism and conflict.--Sokac121 (talk) 11:18, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

O, cool, we should replace Croatian language with SH on Croatia article then also. Would you agree to that too, Sokac? --WhiteWriter^speaks 16:08, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

User:23 editor and User:WhiteWriter here we talk about Kosovo. Talk about Kosovo. Thanks!--Sokac121 (talk) 09:08, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Croatia is a country article, with a legal language name. I thought this wasn't a country article? CMD (talk) 09:15, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

It isn't, that's the whole point. -- Director (talk) 22:00, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose Anti-Serbism: You clearly want to erase thraces of Serbian culture and history from Kosovo. Serbian language, history and culture is more than 1000 years old in Kosovo and more than 1000 years older than the so called Serbo-Croatian language you are trying to inplant here. If Croatian editors are so pecictent to brotherly Albanize Kosovo, we can change language of Croats in vojvodina to Serbo-Croatian aswell, or mabye better to Serbian. Its an irony that editors like Shokac mention satisfaction over non-nationalism, coz thats the biggest nationalist obssesed with haterede towards serbs i have ever seen here... wherever there are discussions like this, he will always be (if not the only one) to back up any ideas that would be against proposals of Serbian editors. Pathetics... Serbian editors we can not be foolish enough to let "goody two shoes acting-dušmani" change and rewrite our history.. this maybe only wikipedia, but thats how it starts. (Правичност (talk) 14:33, 7 August 2013 (UTC))

This is not the first time you blatantly violate WP:NPA. Since you have already been warned for such activities I expect first un-involved administrator to impose sanctions to you. I think that what you wrote in edit line of this edit can serve as a reason for indefinite ban. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 15:46, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

looks fine for me, atleast that "ustashi lover" can continue on with his internet wars. (Правичност (talk) 18:37, 7 August 2013 (UTC))

You're too late, Правичност, my plan is already too far gone. Soon the Serbian identity will be erased forever *evil laugh* :). Well, at least you're honest that resisting perceived "de-serbianization" of Kosovo is behind your opposition.. -- Director (talk) 19:53, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Yep, well i got better things to do than concern my self over your evil plans aimed against Serbian articles on wikipedia... i beleive everybody is already calmed with the fact that croatian editors concern themselves more with Serbian articles, than with Croatian ones. :) (Правичност (talk) 20:06, 7 August 2013 (UTC))

Comment: All allegations of evil, far-reaching conspiracies aside, I want to point out that there are virtually no "Serbo-Croatian" speakers in Kosovo. Serbs declare their language to be the Serbian one, Bosniaks declare their's to be the Bosnian one, etc. See: 2011 Census Data page 64-65. Adding "Serbo-Croatian" is bizarre as it not only doesn't reflect the language spoken by the people who form the majority of the population in Kosovo (Albanians), but it also doesn't reflect what Bosniaks, Croats, Serbs and Montenegrins declare their language to be. 23 editor (talk) 22:09, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Allegations of evil conspiracy of Croatian editors are unfounded because related discussion at WikiProject Yugoslavia talkpage (link) shows that members of this project do not support replacing Serbian and Croatian languages with Serbo-Croatian. I think that, based on this discussions, it can be concluded that group of editors who try to push their position on multiple talkpages should either try to reach consensus for their position centrally or refrain from pushing their position on individual articles.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 22:39, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Good to hear.. i agree (Правичност (talk) 02:59, 12 August 2013 (UTC))

That wasn't the point of my comment. I was trying to point out how few inhabitants of Kosovo speak "Serbo-Croat". You must have missed that bit. 23 editor (talk) 22:45, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

I replied to Правичносt.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 23:01, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

@23 editor. I fear you're operating on a false assumption, 23. In fact, a great many inhabitants of Kosovo do most certainly speak the Serbo-Croatian language, following its Serbian standardized register to be exact (please see the Serbian article). They don't call it "Serbo-Croatian", but then practically nobody does since the wars. Nevertheless, as can be expected, linguistic science is practically unanimous that the language did not disappear as a consequence of its speakers despising each-other. -- Director (talk) 09:59, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, its been a while. I count 7 support and 4 oppose, and those opposing are mostly just Serbian users defending "Serbian" as a language. More importantly I myself see no truly valid argument for continuing on with this confusing state of affairs. I propose to proceed with the edit? -- Director (talk) 22:24, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

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

This "article probation" was superseded a long time ago

The ArbCom-imposed "article probation" on Kosovo-related articles was superseded in 2011 by the "standard discretionary sanctions" in the Macedonia case (sanctions which, as everyone hopefully remembers, are applicable to "topics related to the Balkans, broadly interpreted"). The header subpage for Kosovo-related talk pages should be updated accordingly. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 17:37, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Would anyone care to explain what exactly are these infamous "standard discretionary sanctions"? At least compared to the strictest 1RR parole and the "banning clause" to which this article is subjected, are those standard discretionary sanctions any heavier than the ones already in place? And if so, how exactly should they apply to the infamous Kosovo article and other "Kosovo-related" pages? I mean, I find the whole Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Macedonia a way too long and intertwined to interpret for even an attentive editor and not just a lazy ass such as me. Also this Macedonia case section doesn't explicitly mention some newer 2011 Kosovo decision anywhere - at least AFAICT. I cannot escape the feeling that this is as if someone stepped in front of a crowd and informed it of some highly important message but in a language that is an open secret. And this someone being one of the few most trusted people to this crowd. Anyway, I think some further clarification would surely come in handy. --biblbroks (talk) 21:41, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 December 2013, Culture of Kosovo

Culture of Kosovo

For centuries, the social system known as extensive families, containing 70 to 100 members into the so-called “Fis”, was the way of living for ethnic Albanians. Nowadays, these extensive families are still present in the rural areas and trying to keep the loyalty and devotion towards tradition, which is different from major cities. They had started advancements headed for modernization since the end of World War II. Some traditional rules which somehow are considered as laws, such as personal honor and the word honor called “Besa” leading to unbreakable trust, and equality for every person. At this modern time, the Kosovar traditions are vanishing, as a result of the western world influence. People are more educated, therefore they are adopting to the westernized lifestyle. Nevertheless, the older generation is still trying to keep the traditions of Kosovo alive. Clothes Traditional clothes in Kosovo change, depending on the village, and they also have a similarity with the Albanian traditional clothes. The common clothes for every rural area was first, the “Plis” for men, and the headdress for women. Second, woolen pants for men and the skirts for men. And third, “Opengat” the shoes for men and wooden clogs for women. Nowadays, Kosovo fashion is same as any Westernized country. Art l Music l Theater The Music in Kosovo is intensely westernized and combined with many music genres of the western countries, but traditional Albanian music is still very popular in the Kosovo region. Kosovo has many music artists. One of the traditional instruments used in both Albanian countries Albania and Kosovo, is the “Ciftelia” and the mandolin. The traditional music of the Kosovar culture is folk music which is represented by the folk group Shota. Shota as well is a traditional dance style of the Kosovar and Albanian culture named after the remarkable figure, Shote Galica. The dance requires a high tempo with quick steps and it is danced and played in many traditional Kosovar ceremonies.

Kosovar film-making is not as frequent as it is in other countries, the problem is the very high needed budget to have success in this industry. There are only a few movies that have been produced and the most of them deal with the concerns of the war.” Kukumi” for example by Isa Qosja is, to this date, the most famous film made in Kosovo in 1999. The film won a jury prize at the Sarajevo Film Festival. None the less, Kosovo shows interest in film-making and have proved it through their hosting of film festivals. For example “The Doku Film Festival” which is held in Prizren every year at the end of summer, and has grown slowly to become well-known in Europe. As for theaters, there are many all-around Kosovo: some for children, others for the use of jazz music or any type of live bands in general. The main theater is the Kosovo National Theater located in the heart of Prishtina where you can enjoy theater pieces performed regularly. There are also held the special theater weeks which usually have visitors coming from outside of Kosovo to watch. In Kosovo’s National Theater you can among other artistic shows, enjoy also ballet pieces, created by Kosovo’s National Ballet Group. The first troupe of the Kosovo Ballet was formed in 1972. Ballet dancers from this generation were educated in the Secondary School of Ballet in Skopje, under the leadership of director Tatjana Petkovska. Today’s Ballet Troupe of Kosovo is one of the youngest in the Balkan region with talented and dedicated dancers and is ranked alongside European troupes for their quality. The Kosovo Ballet has participated in many International Festivals such as: Festival of Ohrid - "I do not hear Gong" (07/08/2005), twice in the International Festival of Modern Dance and Theatre in Durres - "I do not hear Gong" (09/04/2006) and "Performance" (14/04/2000), Apollonia International Festival in Apollonia-Fier - "Contrast" (29/08/2006), International Festival "Dance Fest" in Skopje – “Performance (10/04/2009), "Scampa Dance Competition, Creativity and Interpretation" in Elbasan – “Performance” (10/09/2009) won first prize as best choreography, "Kosova International Theatre Festival" in Pristina - "Performance" (05/11/2009)

References Beinkosovo. "Kosovo Culture." Be In Kosovo. Ed. Beinkosovo. beepromarketing,

    n.d. Web. 15 Dec. 2013. <http://beinkosovo.com/en/kosovo-culture>. 

Ditamorina (talk) 19:27, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

• Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. Due to the possibly controversial nature of this change and and topic, please acquire a consensus before requesting an edit here. Thank you. Technical 13 (talk) 04:02, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Links to archives

There were a couple of requests for admin attention generated by the RM above, all of them I think now archived. It would be good to link to the archived discussions, to try to reduce the amount of time we spend reinventing the wheel next time around. I'll do it when I find time, or feel free to beat me to it. Andrewa (talk) 16:49, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved as proposed.

I'm closing this per a WP:ANRFC request.

Numerically, a few more editors oppose the proposal than support it. That would amount to no consensus. After, however, discounting the opinions that appear to be motivated by personal opinions about the underlying political situation rather than by Wikipedia policy (my favorite is the "only ignorant foreigners" one), as well as the one in which everything is underlined because it is visually painful to read, I must conclude that consensus as informed by Wikipedia policy and practice is in support of the proposal.

Quite a number of the opinions opposed to the move do not or only superficially address the "most common name" or "consistency" arguments advanced in favor of the move, but instead focus on comparisons with other difficult cases like "Macedonia", or on the political history and recognition status of the country, which isn't very on point. Some opinions are also barely comprehensible to me. Finally, there are credible and not seriously contested allegations of canvassing among people that can be expected to be mostly opposed to the proposal, which also cause me to give the "oppose" side less weight.

Consequently, the articles are moved as proposed.  Sandstein  20:32, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

---

• Kosovo → Kosovo (region)
• Republic of Kosovo → Kosovo

– As per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and WP:CONSISTENCY. The term "Kosovo" in our language generally refers to the country located roughly in the region of Kosovo, just as the word "Cuba" usually refers to the country that occupies the island of Cuba, which is why Cuba gets you the country and if you want to find out about the region it covers, you need to go to Geography of Cuba (where Cuba (island) redirects to). There are definite historic usages of the term to refer to the region, and even some current usages, just as a marine biologist might really not care about Castro but care deeply about a rare fish found near Cuba, the island; clearly Geography of Cuba should exist, but the country has clear primary topic. In truth, Kosovo is no different. This is not a situation like at Ireland, where one fixed region with a long history is now currently divided into two countries, each very notable even though the southern one is significantly more important. This is not Georgia, where two completely different states (and several other entities) share a name by historical accidents and neither one has gained primary topic. This is not even Macedonia, where a historic region only vaguely corresponds to the country that claims its name. There is no reason whatsoever to give primary topic to an area of land while excluding the only government that actually runs it. Again, look at Google News. Most of the results I got dealt specifically with the Republic and not the region; this is the totality of the first page of results I got. [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] They all deal with the independent republic that governs Kosovo. Point of clarification: most of the information here should be merged back into the Republic of Kosovo article. Just like at Canada or even Serbia, the article containing the information on the government of the country needs to be at the main article for the country, and barring a profoundly good reason to ignore our strong desire for consistency in article titles, that should be at the base title, which is "Kosovo" in this case. We follow English-language use in reliable sources, and the country--not some abstract idea of a region apart from its government--is what people typically refer to when they use the word "Kosovo" in English. Red Slash 05:50, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

• Support Makes sense; although my only knowledge about the Balkans is that it's too complicated ethnically/politically for me to understand... Timmyshin (talk) 06:23, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
• Comment. It seems misleading to compare Kosovo to Cuba. Cuba controls all of its claimed territory, and there is no dispute about the sovereign status of Cuba. OTOH, the Republic of Kosovo has little control in North Kosovo, and crucially it is recognised by only 108 out of 193 (56%) United Nations (UN) member states. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:42, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Many countries have refused to recognize the Republic of Kosovo, but I have yet to see a single reliable source that disputes its actual sovereign control over (almost) all the territory it claims. North Kosovo is a bit different. Then again, Morocco (is this a better comparison?) claims all of Western Sahara, and we pretty clearly and impartially point out A) exactly what Morocco claims; B) exactly what its opponents (for lack of a better term) claim; C) what outsiders like the EU, China, or the USA think; and D) what the real-life situation is like on the ground according to reliable sources. I think we can do that here. Red Slash 02:36, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

• Comment The autonomous self governing ethnic-Serb intuitions in Northern Kosovo are coming under the jurisdiction of the Republic of Kosovo per the Brussels Agreement (2013).

The 'Republic of Kosovo' is the full constitutional name of the country. Of course, people are going to shorten in to just "Kosovo" for the sake of convenience. Just like people shorten the 'People's Republic of China' to just China or PR China and people shorten the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland' to a million and one different names. We have the article the 'Republic of Macedonia' which is the constitutional name of the country and we have the article the 'Republic of Ireland' which isn't the constitutional name of the country.

I think the article 'Kosovo' should be moved to 'Kosovo (region)', however I'm not entirely convinced that the article 'Republic of Kosovo' should be moved to the article 'Kosovo'.

To be honest, I think the article 'Kosovo' should be a disambiguation page. IJA (talk) 14:54, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

• Obviously, the country is the primary topic, so I would support a move like this. However, it would be even better if we could go one step further and merge the two articles - there was never a consensus to split them despite various sockpuppetry and votestacking. This would get rid of the thoroughly synthetic implication that kosovo-the-country is a completely different thing to kosovo-the-area-of-land. bobrayner (talk) 19:03, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

+1 --BDD (talk) 19:39, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

• Support Nations, even those with partial recognition or those involved in territorial disputes, should almost always occupy their base title. China is a good title. Republic of Ireland and Republic of Macedonia should be moved to Ireland and Macedonia, respectively. The Palestinian territories are, as always, their own can of worms, which I've Talk:State of Palestine#Proposed merge with Palestinian territories. But this one really isn't so difficult. --BDD (talk) 19:39, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

  I agree wholeheartedly about Macedonia, even filing a request for Arbcom to explicitly say that an RM is permissible there. I've been building up my wiki-courage for a couple of months to propose it. Ireland is a bit trickier, but as I was writing this lead I found myself wondering whether or not I'd support it. I mean, I have my own personal biases on the Ireland naming dispute, but if I put those aside and went with what our policies would dictate... I think I'd have to support. What's Palestine? I assume it's the region... yep, that's it. I see that the situation there is very complicated. This one isn't, as you well said. Red Slash 02:40, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Ireland is never going to work, though I suspect Macedonia could. Frankly, many British editors still get really sensitive about the former, whereas not many English speakers have very strong opinions about the latter. I'm of Greek descent and I really don't care. If someone told me they went to Macedonia, I'd assume they meant the country unless otherwise specified. --BDD (talk) 17:19, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Why should nations occupy the 'base title'? This isn't a popularity contest. — Lfdder (talk) 16:22, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC actually "Kosovo" in English even refers more to the region that the self-proclaimed country in it, and per WP:CONSISTENCY is also wrong, other users already gave exemples of complex situations where it doesn´t aply (Republic of Macedonia for exemple). This move is highly controversial. FkpCascais (talk) 02:45, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

  "'Kosovo' in English even refers more to the region that the self-proclaimed country in it" - really? Please, do you have any sources for that, because that would really be helpful in determining the primary topic here!

"other users already gave exemples of complex situations where it doesn´t aply (Republic of Macedonia for exemple" Actually, the nominator himself gave those examples. Ooh, counter-examples: North Korea (refers to land claimed by both the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, but since it's actually run by the latter, the article is about the latter); South Korea (exactly the opposite situation); Taiwan (same exact situation as before, just with the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China bickering over it) and China; Northern Cyprus... I mean, I think we could go on for a while on this. So the move proposed here would be WP:CONSISTENT with those disputed titles, though (admittedly!) inconsistent with Ireland. (It's already inconsistent with Macedonia, a disambiguation page.)

"This move is highly controversial" - yeah, perhaps. That's not a reason against it. Red Slash 02:54, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

When you read BBC news about "incidents in Kosovo" you suggest they are talking about the Republic of Kosovo? Or is is perhaps as earthquakes in Siberia? I think you went too far sugesting that all mentions of Kosovo are about the country. Some are of course, like local elections, but others not necessarily. FkpCascais (talk) 18:12, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence for that claim? bobrayner (talk) 00:06, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Well the BBC does refer to Kosovo as a territory, not a country, in its country profiles page, so there is that ;). Buttons (talk) 03:43, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

That's not what FkpCascais said, and that page contradicts FkpCascais' position. Still, thanks for discrediting one of the Oppose voters on my behalf bobrayner (talk) 13:56, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Who discredited me? Your puppet? Buttons only cemented further BBC stance on the subject. FkpCascais (talk) 03:21, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Have you read the BBC article we're talking about? If you had, you'd note that the BBC uses Kosovo to refer to the country. CMD (talk) 04:37, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Actualy, that news speack about territory, and not republic. Just read everything, its about territory history, look "Kosovo, an impoverished land" --Ąnαșταη (ταlκ) 14:01, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, we should "Just read everything", or we could perhaps read even just another few words. "Kosovo, an impoverished land with a mainly Albanian population, unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in February 2008". Quite clearly the Republic. CMD (talk) 22:15, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

• Support - I've decided to support this move because I can't see a compelling reason to not refer to the country by it's short name. There is no truth in FkpCascais's argument that Kosovo in English even refers more to the region that the self-proclaimed country in it. In fact, in the English language "Kosovo" is almost exclusively used to refer to the country when not talking about it in a historical context. Also there was no agreement for the current status quo, it was achieved by edit warring. I also support this move per the Precedent set by Abkhazia. When our audiences/ readers search for Kosovo, they should be directed to the government/ country profile of Kosovo. There isn't a need for it to be at the "Republic of Kosovo" like there is with Ireland and Macedonia. They're at their respective articles to disambiguate them from regions/ areas they're in with the same name. This isn't the case for Kosovo. IJA (talk) 10:23, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
• Support, per primary usage argument (and reserve later decision on possibly actually merging the two articles back into each other, which would be my preferred outcome. Unlike in the Macedonia case, the two articles refer to physically the same thing and can easily be treated together.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:29, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose, per Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. Associating Kosovo, a disputed territory, exclusively with the unilaterally declared Republic of Kosovo gives undue weight to only one side of the dispute. Should we move the Republic of Macedonia to Macedonia given the naming dispute with Greece? Of course not. The status quo works just fine. Buttons (talk) 03:43, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Kosovo and Metohija

• Oppose - Macedonia has ambiguous meaning, yet article on modern state is Republic of Macedonia. Only ignorant foreigners (no hard feeling) can tell that Kosovo rregion coresponds to Modern state. In fact ROK encopases two regions Kosovo and Metohija (Duqadjin). See the map.-- Bojan  Talk  03:53, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
• Strong oppose per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NPOV. Wikipedia mustn't show only one side of the story and portray it as one and only. Kosovo is a disputed region and this self-proclaimed "state" doesn't have enough international recognition. Alex ^{discussion ★} 11:18, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
• @ Bojan Metohija is a region inside Kosovo. You're the ignorant foreigner.
• @ Aleksa Lukic Please tell us what WP:COMMONNAME has to with your opposition. If anything, WP:NPOV goes in favour of the RM because the current situation gives WP:UNDUE to the minority Serbian Point of View. IJA (talk) 11:34, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Wrong, if the current situation treated Kosovo as the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija, then you could argue that it gives undue weight to the "minority" Serbian view. Buttons (talk) 04:14, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

IJA, are you trying to teach me geography of my country? Why don't you check this article -- Bojan  Talk  03:06, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Bojan, the Geography of your country? I didn't realise you were from Kosovo, anyway just because you're from a place doesn't make you an expert. Anyway, as to that article, the first sentence says "There are two main plains in Kosovo."; so thank you for disproving your own argument. IJA (talk) 16:10, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

It was still undisputed part of my country. Kosovo is name of one plane, Metohija is another. -- Bojan  Talk  01:24, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose - Territory of Kosovo does not mean onlz republic. Current situation is much more better. Who want to know more about diefferent subject, can go to that article. If you merge everzthing in one article, that will be wrong, as people may be misleaded. Also, that republic doe not control entire territory, so one more reason to leave current situation. --Ąnαșταη (ταlκ) 13:59, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
• Comment The Republic does control the entire country per Brussels Agreement (2013). IJA (talk) 14:10, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
• Strongly Oppose - Republic of Kosovo is independent a "country", not region of Serbia. Currently, 108 sovereign and UN members regognized Kosovo's independence, per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NPOV — Maurice07 (talk) 18:56, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose as proposed. In my opinion, it was a bad idea that the articles were split in the first place some 3-4 years ago, leaving history and geography at one, and politics and economy on the other. You cannot fix that by simply swapping their places. We need a more stable consensus, with more information in the base article, but that cannot be achieved via a simple RM. No such user (talk) 19:03, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose (conditional). I'd say that it worsens consistency to do this move, considering the current status of Macedonia, Ireland, and Palestine articles on Wikipedia. Also, nearly half of the world's countries reject Kosovo independence (among them populous countries such as China, India, Indonesia and Brazil), which makes this move quite questionable today. - Anonimski (talk) 20:08, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
• Support the move. Given that the artificial article divide exists, we should give readers who search for Kosovo, which they'll know as the state given that's what the word is used for in modern English media, the article on what they're looking for. The state is the primary topic. It's use to not mean the state in articles discussing history is irrelevant to the modern topic. Everywhere has history. The control argument is also irrelevant: sources discussing Kosovo the state discuss it regardless of its specific territorial holdings. Indeed, as one of the above opposers noted, under some definitions the Kosovo "region" is half of what's covered here, so there's little basis for Kosovo going to a "region" article devoid of and ignoring the politics, when the region is entirely defined by politics. CMD (talk) 20:32, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose English language is not spoken only in UK. What about English speakers in India for example? Or, why not, in Serbia? If they are speaking about Kosovo, they think about them like conflict region. Not like independent country "Republic Kosovo". --Јованвб (talk) 17:55, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

• Hello User:Јованвб Thank you for making your first edit since 20 December 2013. You're an administrator and Bureaucrat on Serbian Wikipedia. Any chance you saw the advertisement for this talk page on Serbian Wikipedia? Have you ever read WP:CANVASSING? IJA (talk) 18:29, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose I propose "Kosova" redirect to Republic of Kosovo, not "Kosovo" to Republic of Kosovo. Kosovo should link to Kosovo (region). 23 editor (talk) 23:50, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

• Support both. Excellent analysis by the proposer, which should be incorporated into naming guidelines for territories subject to current ethnic disputes. Andrewa (talk) 06:56, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose. Associating the term Kosovo primarily with the semi-recognized "state" named Republic of Kosovo, means discarding WP:NPOV and taking a side in the political dispute over the region of Kosovo. Of course, it should neither be primarily associated with the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija, which would be POV of Serbia and other countries that didn't recognize Kosovo's independence. It's true that all English-speaking countries recognized it, and that most of books and media from these countries implicitly or explicitly refer to Kosovo as an independent state. However, I think that WP:NPOV weighs much more than, so to say, counting Google books. I suppose that this wikipedia is not a project of only native English speakers, and that it has a somewhat broader perspective. Vladimir (talk) 22:25, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose I oppose this move. Without going into what is what, the whole disscusion above is to tiresome. The main point here is Kosovo as region and Kosova a country. Well it is clearly not thesame. Kosova is a country no matter what I think of it but the region is still called Kosovo not Kosova. Kosovo is the eastern part of the republic called Kosova. The western part geographicly is called Metohija, I apologyze I dont remmember the albanian spelling. Lets take Sweden for example. Götaland is one out of three regions in Sweden. Each has their own page. Why? Becouse the are different from the country of Sweden. So are Metohija. Religiously its very important not only for serbs but also for several other folk groups it should have its own page. There is a differance between a region and a country no matter if wrongly the english translation names it thesame. PS. Before everyone start questioning me I must say I only edit en.wp with over 1000 edits only this month and noone sr.wp Stepojevac (talk) 10:06, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
• Support. The proposer's evidence makes it pretty clear that when people are looking for "Kosovo" they're looking for the country. Minus the canvassing and vote-stacking, I think the consensus here is in agreement. I'd also be amenable to a (re)merge of the content.--Cúchullain ^t/c 16:11, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

• As previous discussions, I support this move. We have Spain and France, not Kingdom of Spain and French Republic. I find "Kosovo" to be perfectly consistent with WP:COMMONNAME. In my opinion, the current name is the result of persistent edit-warring and POV-pushing. Also, lots of canvassing. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:13, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

• Comment: I did some research on this. This whole conversation is going on now, because in January 25, 2011, user:Alinor decided to use two articles when only one is needed without consulting anybody (and edit warring on top of it). In addition, in preparation of this activity, 16 days earlier, he had "fixed the infobox" of Kosovo by designating it "geographical region". It's good that this conversation is taking place, but I wanted to put some context, because some people may be unaware of the history of the article (I, on the other hand, like to go to the root of the problems). --KazanElia (talk) 20:39, 28 February 2014 (UTC)— KazanElia (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 23:12, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. We generally don't talk about the "Canada region" or the "Serbia region" — I, at least, have never heard of regions by those names; the names only ever refer to the areas within the boundaries of those countries. "Kosovo", on the other hand, is used in reference to a region distinct from the jurisdiction governed by Priština, regardless of what you call that jurisdiction. Note that I came here in response to a noticeboard message, but it was the one at WP:AN that Guy Macon mentions, not something partisan. Nyttend (talk) 13:16, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
  • The purported region this page currently covers has borders that are identical to the jurisdiction governed by Pristina, which are also borders identical to the former autonomous region. It's not distinct from the government, as it's boundaries are the boundaries of the government's jurisdiction. CMD (talk) 15:53, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose - Republic of Kosovo created a couple of years ago for the first time in history is not primary topic.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 14:23, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

• Good point. See a comparable situation at Talk:John Paul Jones, in which people have repeatedly attempted to move it because a pop culture figure supposedly deserves equal-or-more weight than someone who's been encyclopedic since the 18th century. Nyttend (talk) 14:57, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

• Support per primary topic argument. Will also probably support merge. --T*U (talk) 17:20, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose given that most of Asia and South America and half of Africa have not recognized Kosovo, particularly the BRICS nations, it is not really consistent with a neutral POV to treat the Republic of Kosovo as synonymous with Kosovo. I saw this on AN, in case anyone is wondering.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 18:07, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose: "Kosovo" is the "region" in general context and the common name of the region (for THOUSANDS years!). When the context is the context of countries, "Republic of Kosovo" may be shorthened/abbreviated as "Kosovo". As long as the context mentioned and covered is clear to make a separation between the "region (Kosovo)" and "Republic of Kosovo"; for the things related with "Republic of Kosovo", "Kosovar/Kosovo" may be used to refer the country.
  

"General" context is much bigger than the "countries" context. Outside of the context of "countries", "Kosovo" is not the common name of the state ("Republic of Kosovo"), but the common name of the "region" in "general" context. In universal naming standards, the "GENERAL" context is much bigger than and far overrides the "COUNTRIES" context. In universal naming standards, the bigger entity always takes the name. The entity "region of Kosovo" (with thousands of years of history) is much bigger than the entity "Republic of Kosovo" (with in the baby-hood years).Alexyflemming (talk) 13:21, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

"Ireland" is the "island" in general context and the common name of the island (for THOUSANDS years!). When the context is the context of countries, "Republic of Ireland" may be shorthened/abbreviated as "Ireland". As long as the context mentioned and covered is clear to make a separation between the "island" and the "country(Ireland)"; for the things related with "Republic of Ireland", "Irish/Ireland" may be used to refer the country.
"General" context is much bigger than the "countries" context. Outside of the context of "countries", "Ireland" is not the common name of the state ("Republic of Ireland"), but the common name of the "island" in "general" context. In universal naming standards, the "GENERAL" context is much bigger than and far overrides the "COUNTRIES" context. In universal naming standards, the bigger entity always takes the name. The entity "island of Ireland" (with thousands of years of history) is much bigger than the entity "Republic of Ireland" (with (1922-2014)years old). Look and see the beauty of the coverage of Ireland, and take it as a sample model for "Kosovo"!!!

"Kosovo" is the common name of the "region" (the "region" and the "country (Republic of Kosovo)" are not coterminous): "Kosovo" is NOT the common name of the "country (Republic of Kosovo)" in "general" context:

A. History: 1. Colarodo State University; "A Short History of Kosovo" 2. "Kosovo's Conflict" 3. "History, bloody history" 4. Lonely Planet, "History" B. Art: 1. Art of Living, "Prison Kosovo" C. Culture: 1. "Kosovo: History and Culture" D. Geography: 1. Florida State University, "International Boundary Study:Bulgaria – Yugoslavia Boundary" 2.Marxists; "The national Question in Yugoslavia" 3. SoftSchools; "Kosovo Geography" E. People: 1. NATO; "Kosovo Refugee Problem".

Alexyflemming (talk) 14:56, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

• Support. Most people won't know of the distinction, and will be looking for the political entity. Rothorpe (talk) 14:05, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

• Support. Per nom. I've read the discussion. There is obviously a lot of emotion behind the opposition (much of which is alleged below to have been canvassed), but nothing that refutes the basis for the move. The term in English is used in reliable sources most commonly to refer to the country today. The fact that the country is relatively new is irrelevant. This is not a fleeting aspect of popular culture. Like it or not, WP:COMMONNAME, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and WP:AT in general is how we select our titles on Wikipedia, not WP:JDLI. --B2C 16:21, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose. I should say that Kosovo is disputed region. Thus it should be 3 articles. This one, article about Serbia's province and article about Republic of Kosovo who declared it's independence from Serbia and didn't get a full support. Every everything else is breaking of neutral point of view.VuXman ^talk 19:39, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Offsite canvassing

I would point out that the sudden influx of Oppose voters was recruited by a sockpuppet here. It's not the first time that Serbian Wikipedia editors have been canvassed in order to maintain a serb-nationalist position on other wikipedias. bobrayner (talk) 12:41, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

I can't say I'm surprised by this canvassing. If you look at all the users who are opposed, the vast majority are Serbs/ speak Serbian/ have Serbian names. Not to mention that a lot of them are only semi-active judging by their contributions. This isn't the first time we've had Serbs canvass before either. User:BokicaK aka Bojan is only here through canvassing. It is a shame that we can't exclude all Balkan people from such things because they are blatantly emotionally and politically involved and want to push their own POV on Wikipedia. IJA (talk) 14:10, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Excluding Balkan people won't stop POV editing, bobrayner is a good example of that. I don't know what he is, he may or may not be from the Balkans, but I can see as clear as day through his edits and tone of language that he has a vested interest in attempting to discredit everything Serbian related to Kosovo and blatantly promote only the Albanian/pro-independence view. If I am a "Serb nationalist" editor for not supporting the move, then bobrayner is an anti-Serb editor for supporting it. See how that works? It cuts both ways. Buttons (talk) 04:00, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Comment. I want to protest against that remark in the end of your post (even if I agree that canvassing is problematic for the debate). Opposition to the POV-pushing for giving the Republic of Kosovo undue weight, and a "serb-nationalist position" is not the same thing. Sometimes they come together, and sometimes not. Further, if we use associative arguments, there are some things to say about your conduct as well. In a recent move debate for Anti-Serb riots/pogrom in Sarajevo, your only input was this:

• It's not a pogrom. Antidiskriminator, why did you write an article with pogrom in the title, when you knew it wasn't a pogrom? bobrayner (talk) 23:17, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

This ill-mannered loaded question, you wrote, despite that User:Antidiskriminator (creator of the article) had multiple and diverse sources which described the 1914 persecutions as pogroms, and it was your only input to the debate. Then you came with a variant of the same loaded question against me, when I critisized your conduct. (Try to CTRL-F and write "bobrayner" in that talk page and see the approach to the debate, there's only provocational conduct, where are the debates about the source material?)

With all this being said, I want to make the participants in this move debate aware about that there are two "bad" forces that may influence the debate: Serbian nationalism and Anti-Serb sentiment (I'm taking myself the freedom to interpret the "pogrom" example as an indicator of possible bias against Serbs) - Anonimski (talk) 20:46, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

A great deal has been written about "Anti-serb sentiment" by Antidiskriminator etc. However, there is no reason to believe that it's an actual problem in this discussion. Unlike, for instance, the blatant canvassing of editors on sr.wikipedia to block this requested move. That is a real problem. bobrayner (talk) 21:57, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

It should though be stated clearly that there often are coordinated actions from the other side, too. For example, in the recent issue that you and IJA had with the sockpuppet, the outcome on the Edit War noticeboard became the following:

• Bobrayner and IJA are strongly warned for tag-team edit warring. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 12:51, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Both problems should be brought to public scrutiny. Whitewashing selected parts of these kinds of conflicts brings nothing good to Wikipedia's NPOV. What keeps you going on like this? Anonimski (talk) 22:42, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

IJA and I both reverted a sock that was stalking us. You know that. The account was blocked as a sock of Evlekis: Who had been topic-banned and then permablocked. Reverting a sock is a Good Thing, not a Bad Thing (although I note that you haven't reverted any Evlekis socks). Coincidentally, Evlekis has a habit of canvassing people to discussions like this one... Now, can we move on from the irrelevant mudslinging, and deal with the very real canvassing problem? bobrayner (talk) 04:45, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

I think that both you and Evlekis are part of the Balkan mudslinging problem... Anonimski (talk) 14:17, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

And now I found that you were the one who put back the Coatrack tag on Anti-Serb sentiment, despite that the similar Albanophobia has been left alone without any tagging. Anonimski (talk) 14:29, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

You're presenting me as biased because I didn't apply a tag to an article which has different problems and which I never edited before? Please, stop inventing problems.

Meanwhile, there's a very real problem: Repeated off-wiki canvassing, sockpuppetry, and deception. Canvassing the "Oppose" voters in this debate. What do you think we should do about that? bobrayner (talk) 15:45, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

My criticism against your conduct does not include a denial of the problems that you mentioned. The admins can deal with them by checking the IP of accounts, and making necessary blocks - I don't oppose that. Anonimski (talk) 16:15, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm keeping this page in my watchlist since 200x. -- Bojan  Talk  02:55, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

It is not at all unusual to see Serbian editors involved in what is a Serbian-related article. Also, it is not at all unusual to see Bobrainer winning and making conspiracy theories about "Serb nationalists" when things don´t go his way. FkpCascais (talk) 03:17, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

• Hello BokicaK! You said "I'm keeping this page in my watchlist since 200x". Which is strange, since the last time you edited here was on a very similar proposal two years ago, and you edited hours after WhiteWriter canvassed on sr.wikipedia. Now a sockpuppet makes another attempt to round up "Oppose" voters on sr.wikipedia, you diligently come here and cast your vote with the others - and you pretend that it just popped up on your watchlist. Perhaps cheating, canvassing, and systematic deception are acceptable on Serbian wikipedia; but they are not acceptable here. bobrayner (talk) 05:02, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

And? -- Bojan  Talk  01:24, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

And you were caught cheating, again. bobrayner (talk) 01:41, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Unlike You, I am aware that Wikipedia is not a democracy. And I didn't expect you would like my rationale. -- Bojan  Talk  02:43, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

I've deleted the advertisement on Serbian Wikipedia aka Canvassing, however I don't suppose it'll do any good as this RM discussion has been ruined by the influx of Serbs from Serbian Wikipedia. I don't think they'd be happy if I advertises this discussion on on Albanian Wikipedia. This off site canvassing on Serbian Wikipedia has directly affected the result of this RM. IJA (talk) 18:33, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

That's OK. We can hold another discussion later, when the meatpuppets have gone. The article has been broken for years, thanks to this abuse; a little longer won't hurt. bobrayner (talk) 22:00, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

It's been restored. bobrayner (talk) 01:43, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

• Don't worry; presumably people who don't ever edit en.wp and just come in here and give oppose "rationales" having little to no basis in reality or WP policies will have their !votes discounted (they aren't votes, after all). Not naming names, but there's only a couple of oppose rationales that hold any water at all. Red Slash 03:27, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• I'd like to hope that a closing admin will carefully analyse the background of every !voter and the validity of their comment; but that is very time-consuming and subjective, and we could hardly fault any closing admin who didn't quite dig deep enough when the discussion has been long and tense. This canvassing and meatpuppetry has been very successful in previous discussions. bobrayner (talk) 13:31, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• It goes with the turf. I did a quick review of the eight other supporters in view of the comment at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive260#Closers needed for contentious RM that most of the "support" votes are invited to that page by the offline canvassing. [12] It's a ridiculous claim and easily seen to be so, IMO we're quite an impressive bunch regarding our edit histories and commitment to Wikipedia policies and polity, and I don't think there's any danger of any of our "votes" being discounted on that basis. I haven't bothered to do a similar check on the opposition, there would be no point my even reporting it if I did as I'm now involved, and any pointless attack however mild and well-founded is counterproductive. But the closing admin will do so I'm sure, and there are some valid shortcuts to it... for example ignoring the obvious POV of the poster of that baseless canvassing allegation! That particular IP hasn't voted here (or if they have it's been while signed on... which checkuser will tell us if it's needed) but no point wasting any more time on that one if they had, and I'd guess that at least some of the oppose votes will be far more easily dismissed. But I could be wrong, and that's for the closer to determine. Andrewa (talk) 14:44, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

• I would disagree on one detail. 200.54.92.187 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) is another open proxy; and it's unlikely that checkuser would make a connection to an account in this case. The opposition may include much deception, canvassing, and occasionally outright lies; but they'll get away with it. bobrayner (talk) 17:39, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

• A request for closers has been posted at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive260#Closers needed for contentious RM. It has been my experience that the sort of admin who takes on such a task tends to be very careful and thorough. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:03, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Not for lack of trying if not! Thank you. In hindsight I probably should have closed this myself rather than becoming involved, but I thought one more uninvolved support might be of more help long term. We will see. Andrewa (talk) 14:44, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Template

Could any1 be so kind to put a Template:Serbia topics at the end of the article, since i cnt coz locked :(...tnx..--Ivan VA (talk) 20:59, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

 Not done

Cross-wiki canvassing is not welcome here. bobrayner (talk) 00:38, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Merge?

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

---

Frankly, after the RM, I don't see much purpose in this article. (Not that I've seen purpose in splitting articles in the first place). Let's go section by section:

1. Name - already has main article Names of Kosovo, could be repeated in Kosovo article
2. History - duplicate of History of Kosovo
3. Economy - has main article Economy of Kosovo, a summary is necessary in Kosovo anyway. Same for "Electrical energy"
4. Geography - has main article Geography of Kosovo, a summary is necessary in Kosovo anyway
5. Architecture - has main article Architecture of Kosovo, a summary is necessary in Kosovo anyway
6. Demographics - same as above
7. Society - Should be merged into Kosovo

In sum, all the information here exists in other places, and a lot of it is exact duplicate. I don't see how is the reader served by two largely parallel articles. We already explain the delicate political situation about the status in Kosovo article, but for all intents and purposes, {History, Economy, Geography, Architecture, Demographics} of the region of Kosovo is identical to that of disputed state of Kosovo. No such user (talk) 11:13, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Full-hearted support. As far as I'm aware, there never was a clear consensus for this article split anyway. The main motivation for it never was any reasonable consideration of how to usefully package information for the reader, but the purely political urge on the parts of some editors to have a page that was not symbolically encumbered with the presence of the visual symbols of political independence, such as the Kosovar flag in the infobox. This urge was then rationalized post-facto by lots of waffle about the geographical territory being somehow not "the same thing" as the political territory – as if such ontological niceties were what our division of article topics should be based on. It just isn't. It's a wide-spread fallacy to think that everything that is somehow notionally an "entity" that can be logically distinguished from others needs a separate article for that reason alone. Of course we'll get loads of opposition again here on these very grounds: "they are different things, so they need different articles!" Boring. They don't, even if they were. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:49, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Just as a technical note, probably the merge ought to be done on the basis of this article's edit history, not the other article's, because it is significantly older and always used to be the main "Kosovo" article before the split. Technically, this will mean we have to first revert the recent moves, but that should be no problem if we have consensus here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:20, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

• Support merge per No such user's arguments. No need for two parallel universes. --T*U (talk) 15:26, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
• I opposed the split when it was proposed. I support this merge. It's better to cover the region and the country in a single article, just like France, Spain, etc. --Enric Naval (talk) 17:47, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose - Some recently created states are given the same name as geographic regions whose names originate since ancient or medieval times. In one such case a member of Austrian Academy of Sciences recommended to introduce the term "region of Albania" instead of Albania, so no associations can come up with a political entity or a particular culture, but to point out that "Albania" in the Middle Ages is a geographic concept.

Schmitt, Oliver Jens (2001), Das venezianische Albanien (1392-1479), München: R. Oldenbourg Verlag GmbH München, p. 47, ISBN 3-486-56569--9, Eine eigenständige albanische Kultur gab es nicht. Es empfiehlt sich deshalb, Anstelle von Albanien den Terminus "albanischer Raum" einzuführen, der keine Assoziationen mit einem politischen Gebilde oder einer besonderen Kultur aufkommen lässt, sondern darauf hinweist, das "Albanien" im Mittelalter ein geographicer Begriff ist. {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |nopp=, |doi-inactive-date=, |month=, and |chapterurl= (help)

I think that this scholar is right and that the same rationale is much more valid in case of RoKosovo. The "purely political urge" could be attributed to any of support or oppose editors, but I don't think it would be constructive.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 21:42, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

That argument calls to create Spain (region), Italy (region), etc., to separate the modern state from the older region with the same name. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:32, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Not necessarily. In some cases associations with a political entity or a particular culture are less misleading.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 22:45, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't see the misleading? Country Italy is located in region Italy, and country Kosovo is located in region Kosovo. Italy (region) was divided in several small countries which changed many times over centuries, and nobody has claimed it's misleading? --Enric Naval (talk) 10:54, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

• Strong support - makes perfect sense to me. Good idea. Red Slash 22:47, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
• Support - I support merging this article into Names of Kosovo, History of Kosovo, Economy of Kosovo, Geography of Kosovo and Architecture of Kosovo. IJA (talk) 21:17, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
• Support. Fut.Perf. is wise. There was never a consensus for a split, despite various attempts at gaming the system. There is no legitimate purpose for this to be a separate article, other than as a sop to a small number of active editors who seem deeply uncomfortable with content that reflects the reality of Kosovo. We are cleaning up the mess, page by page. bobrayner (talk) 14:56, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Merging

It seems that we have a consensus. I'd like to gradually compare and merge the content elsewhere in the following weeks, and then redirect this article to Kosovo. Before that, I'd ask Fut.Perf. to swap or merge page histories with Kosovo, or whichever magic is required. No such user (talk) 06:29, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

I think that merging of this article should be supported with more wide consensus than 5:1. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 06:49, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, it is more wide, 7:1 by my count... --T*U (talk) 10:01, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, you are right. My mistake. Anyway, almost all editors are heavily involved in numerous disputes in this and related subjects, so additional input of uninvolved editors would be beneficial not only to close this discussion, but to participate in it as well.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 10:09, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

It looks like a strong consensus to me. Agreed. bobrayner (talk) 06:58, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

After consulting with Sandstein, who adminned the previous move discussion, I have put in a request for formal independent closure at WP:ANRFC, just to make sure there can be no doubt on the legitimacy of the further steps. Technically, I think it may be best if we first develop the merged text in the current Kosovo article and swap the histories afterwards. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:17, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

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

Okay, procedural note: I have swapped article locations, so that the page with the full history of the original unified article from before the split is now back from Kosovo (region) to Kosovo, and the split-off article about the republic is back from Kosovo to Republic of Kosovo but has been redirected here. To start implementing the merge, I have first wholesale copied over the current latest version of Republic of Kosovo into the Kosovo article. Further merging can now proceed step by step by recovering material on geography/history etc. from the previous version [13] (the version shown at Kosovo (region) before today). Per IaR, I trust that such edits will not count as a breach of the 1rv/wk limitation. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:05, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

I merged what I found worth salvaging, so I think that the coverage is reasonably complete now. As I suspected, practically all material was WP:CFORK, and there was little to merge save for occasional formatting fix (however, few sections like #Society and #Demographics were completely missing). Maybe merging #History section is worth revisiting, but I think it's overlong anyway, and should be merged into History of Kosovo and then pruned. I didn't have energy for that in this round. No such user (talk) 14:47, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Climate

Somebod recently marked the claim that Kosovo's climate is "continental" as dubious, but didn't point to any discussion here. Any views? I don't know a thing about climate classification. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:09, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Just as a point of reference, the CIA factbook has the following: "influenced by continental air masses resulting in relatively cold winters with heavy snowfall and hot, dry summers and autumns; Mediterranean and alpine influences create regional variation; maximum rainfall between October and December". The detail article Geography of Kosovo has a statement sourced to "Strahler & Strahler. (2006).Introducing Physical Geography, Boston:John Wiley & Sons Inc." that "[a]ccording to the Strahler classification map the climate in Kosovo is considered moist continental". Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:15, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

That'd be me. It sounded rather strange to have unqualified "continental" here, so southerly and close to seas, so I tagged it, but forgot about it later. Generally, climate of Balkans exhibits a lot of local variability, and seldom has a pure type in Koppen climate classification, being borderline and transient (Mediterranean/oceanic/humid subtropical/humid continental). So, that statement at least requires some refinement and citation. No such user (talk) 16:55, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

@Chipmunkdavis:: we edit-conflicted, so I just copied my version over yours. Just a few words on the Geography/Climate coverage: since Kosovo is a small country without that much regional variation, I feel that a climate chart for the capital would be more informative than the precipitation map, but I don't insist. In country articles, climate is commonly, but not universally, a separate section within Geography. For example, Germany has it and Bulgaria doesn't. I'm not sure what are layout guidelines of WP:COUNTRIES, or wherever that page is hidden in the forest of MOS. No such user (talk) 14:39, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Not to worry, e/cs happen. You said above that there's a large amount of local variability, so I don't understand how you can also argue that a climate chart for just one city is very informative for the whole country. The layout guidelines of countries don't specify on subsections, so it's down to the individual articles/countries. I wouldn't rely too much on other countries as precedents, as subsections are one of those things which spread across articles because of the "this article has X so that article should have X" mentality. This article's currently a mess, but the eventual question in a good article would be how significant climate is when discussing Kosovo, and summarising Kosovo's geography. Creating a subsection draws attention to that thing as more significant than those items without subsections, say topography, geology, hydrology, etc. It also suggests we should (eventually) have more than just a couple of paragraphs, as if it's that significant we should have more prose on it, which should be considered under WP:Summary style and WP:Page size. CMD (talk) 16:02, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, "local variability" probably was a misnomer; there certainly is 'variability and uncertainty in classification, as can be observed e.g. from the patchwork on File:Koppen_World_Map_(retouched_version).png, but there can't be much variation in an area of 100x100 km. Your point about relative importance of climate is taken though, so I guess I provided too much detail for an overview article. However, I agree that the article is messy overall, and overly detailed in some aspects (history) and lacking coverage of others. No such user (talk) 20:29, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Haha, history. The section on this page is almost as long as the actual article. CMD (talk) 21:11, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

History is far too long?

I think we should trim it down a bit, the current history section alone is 59,368 bytes. This is an article on Kosovo, not an article on the history of Kosovo. We should just be introducing the history briefly to our readers/ audience, if they find it interesting and want to read more, then they can go to the main article(s) which focus on the relevant historical periods. I think we should limit ourselves to two paragraphs each (instead of 5-6 paragraphs) for the following periods: Early Kosovo, Medieval Serbian Period, Ottoman Period, Kingdom of Serbia, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, WW2, FRY Yugoslavia, Kosovo War, UNMIK, 2008 to Present. It'll still be a very long history section, but much shorter than it is at present. Does this seem reasonable? Your thoughts? IJA (talk) 22:03, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Any reduction is good, and we could start anywhere. Personally I don't think any one war should get a great deal of detail, despite its importance. However, we should check that the information is on History of Kosovo before removing it from here. Given that the History section on this page is almost as long as the main article, this is entirely likely. CMD (talk) 22:15, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Sovereign state/county, partially recognised...

I often follow discussions here but as my wiki time recently has been limited because of personal obligations, I choosed not to participate as often participating in this discussions implicates many hours/days/weeks/months of repeated discussions and argumets and I haven´t had the time to dedicate myself to them.

However, there is one crutial aspect of the article that strikes into my eyes. The aspect of state/country partially recognised. I find it wrong. It implies as if the territory/state is recognised in some aspects and others not. It misses to adress one real and simple issue: Kosovo is considered by some sovereign countries as fully recognised as sovereign, and by others not recognised at all and considered as Serbian province. The current wording fails completelly to adress that. FkpCascais (talk) 15:41, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree. The status of "contested territory" is a central topic to this article and it must be described, since that aspect has much notability and significance to the political state of affairs there. - Anonimski (talk) 16:14, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Please don't get us dragged in ontological disputes; you've been hanging with Director too much lately :). That's exactly what List of states with limited recognition, piped as "partially recognized state" means, and outlines in is lead: a breakaway polity + internal control + support by majority of population + limited international recognition − UN membership − the ability to enter many international relations. Those who don't recognize it as sovereign, naturally recognize status quo ante. It isn't that complicated, nor is Kosovo a really unique case. Many today's countries (e.g. former colonies) started their sovereign existence in that way, and yet many others ceased. No such user (talk) 16:19, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

If some editors insist so much in including the "sovereign state, country, etc." then the lede is obviusly being shifted from the neutral POV, and thus including the view of the Serbian province will also have to be included. Either we have a concise lede, or we add both views. I don´t oppose at all the second option, and would probably satisfy the editors who insist in adding sovereignity and the entire country aspect. It´s considered a sovereign country by some, a Serbian province by others. I am curious what the proponents of sovereign country think. FkpCascais (talk) 17:00, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Partially recognised state is fair enough. IJA (talk) 18:36, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

But Kosovo is sovereign. Serbia signed a series of legal documents recognizing that Kosovo is sovereign. There is no opposing view. Serbia does not say that the Republic of Kosovo is not sovereign. It does not recognize the Republic's independence, but it does recognize its sovereignty. There is no opposing view. Red Slash 22:29, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

No, none of the documents which Serbia has signed mention anything about sovereignty. (If you dispute this, prove me wrong with sources.) Serbia most certainly does dispute that Kosovo is sovereign. That is the very essence of the dispute. Independence is necessary for sovereignty, so your interpretation of Serbia's position is logically inconsistent. (There's no such thing as a dependent sovereign state.) Serbia's lack of recognition of Kosovo's sovereignty can be verified by sources: see for example "Though Serbia does not recognize Kosovo as sovereign" . Do you have any sources to support your claim that Serbia recognizes Kosovo's sovereignty? TDL (talk) 22:48, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Serbia has not and likely never will officially recognize Kosovo's independence. But yeah, here's a quote for you: "Ultimately a nationalist government, which came to power after the 2012 general election in Serbia, has recognised de facto that Kosovo is no longer subject to Serb sovereignty." Red Slash 03:32, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

I didn't ask whether they de facto recognize Kosovo's sovereignty. You said Serbia "recognize its sovereignty" without any sort of qualification. Now you admit that "officially" they do not. Therefore they still "officially" dispute Kosovo's sovereignty. You can't claim "there is no opposing view" when even you admit that "officially" there is. TDL (talk) 04:54, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Sovereignty and recognition are two different things. Unrelated, although the most of time occurring at the same time. A state can be recognized by the entire world expect by one country, the one occupying illegally. It is in this case fully recognized by not sovereign (situation of Cambodia in the past, which for many years had the ousted government recognised by the UN and majority of countries and the occupying regime unrecognised). A state can be not recognized but being fully sovereign (situation of Taiwan today).

• Sovereignty has to do with the actual control of the state over its territory without the interference of another state/entity. And about the sovereignty of Kosovo I think Wikipedia should be silent unless valuable sources won't state about the actual capacity of Kosovo to rule itself without the help of other states/entities/political bodies.
• Recognition has to do with the right that the other states recognize you to speak and act for yourself. In this sense saying that Kosovo is partially recognised if clearly fine.

For this reason the format "partially recognized state" is probably currently the best compromise, although everyone should realise that things are changing faster and it will not take 100% of the UN countries recognizing Kosovo to remove the word "partially".Silvio1973 (talk) 06:50, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Precisely. "Sovereign" means "in actual control". It is indisputable or at least undisputed that the Republic of Kosovo is in actual control of Kosovo. [14] Therefore, it is sovereign. Red Slash 02:03, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

According to you. But not according to the sources I posted above (ie "It is also obvious that Kosovo does not satisfy all of the statehood criteria and that it was created not as a fully sovereign but rather as a protected state".) It has been very much in dispute whether Kosovo exercises sovereign control over its territory. If you think the Republic of Kosovo does exercise sovereign control then WP:PROVEIT with sources saying they exercise sovereign control. Repeating your mantra, throwing out some red herrings and claiming that it is indisputably WP:TRUE, when all known sources say exactly the opposite of what you claim, doesn't make it so. TDL (talk) 04:27, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

See below. I'm tired of typing in two places! Red Slash 17:40, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Lead editing

I'm a bit disappointed that @Red Slash: chose to partially revert the wording of the lead sentences with a barely informative edit summary of "accuracy". Since this is now supposed to be again a merged article about both the current Republic and the entire history of the region, I felt that the more comprehensive wording "Kosovo [...] is a disputed territory and a partially recognised state in Southeastern Europe" expressed the scope of the article rather well. What is more "accurate" about Red Slash's version of "The Republic of Kosovo [...] is a country in Southeastern Europe"?

About IJA's prior edit [15], it's mostly a matter of taste, but I would still somewhat prefer the prior version. The connector "As ..." in "As the Republic of Kosovo it declared..." serves to make clear that the topic of the previous sentence (plain "Kosovo") and the subject of the next ("it", under the name of "Republic of Kosovo") are at least in some sense the same thing, which is what justifies treating them in the same article. As for the "however", I find it somewhat redundant and stylistically slightly inferior to simply having two main clauses juxtaposed, but as I said, that's really a matter of taste.

On a more general note, I have the feeling that in this situation, where there will evidently be some need for more active editing to complete the merge than during routine maintenance of the article, the current 1rv/week revert limitation may be something of an obstacle. It unduly slows down legitimate constructive tinkering. Would people agree if we asked for at least a temporary relaxation to a more standard 1rv/day or so? The 1rv/week thing has been in force since 2009; it's quite unique as far as I'm aware, and I've always found it to be not really very helpful. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:36, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Personally, I think Red Slash's wording is better.

However, I'd agree that a relaxed revert limit would be an improvement, since the worst problems have passed. bobrayner (talk) 10:43, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

I support position of RedSlash. The self-proclaimed state deserves its article, without mixing with territory historically referred to Kosovo. Its obvious that merging state and territory referred to as Kosovo into this hodge podge is not viable. The only solution is to split this article to article about state and article about the territory of Kosovo (per WP:CONSPLIT), or to create new article on territory historically and in modern terminology referred to as Kosovo, distinguished from current statehood dispute.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 10:49, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately, a clear consensus disagrees with your position - despite many different polls, RfCs, and attempts at vote-manipulation over the years. You know that. bobrayner (talk) 10:59, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

I too support RedSlash's wording, although for reasons of prose and concision rather than a desire to split states from the land they're on. The former "a disputed territory and a partially recognised state" is simply redundant. It shouldn't be a surprise when articles on current countries cover history. As for 1RR, such an old restriction could definitely use a test period of relaxation. CMD (talk) 13:00, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm doubly disappointed, since I already went at great length to explain to Red Slash why unqualified "country" is not an acceptable wording, at now nearly hidden page Talk:Republic of Kosovo#Kosovo: a country?. No such user (talk) 20:22, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Kosovo is a country. It has borders that everyone agrees on (did you miss how Serbia accepted the borders of Kosovo?). It has a government that exercises sovereign control over the land within those borders. By any possible definition of a "country", Kosovo is one. Is it partially recognized? Sure thing. If the USA, the UK and friends suddenly decided not to recognize Russia any more, that would not somehow make Russia less of a country. And don't overestimate the importance of the merger. Cuba deals with both the island and the country, but look at that first sentence. Look at the first sentence of partially-recognized Taiwan. Come on, Kosovo is a country and that should be in the very first sentence like it is with basically every country on Wikipedia. Red Slash 04:39, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Exactly! The subject of this article is a country. Not territory historically referred to as Kosovo, which is notable subject for separate article. Disappointments and feelings of editors are irrelevant here.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 07:29, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Oh for chrissake. We have just reached a freaking consensus decision that the region is not going to have its own article. We are now having a discussion here about what the lede should be under the premise that this is going to be the sole top level article. If you have nothing to say about what you think would be best under this premise, don't comment here. Trying to derail the discussion by shoehorning it back into a debate about a split is nothing but pure disruption. If you must re-open the split debate, do it elsewhere. If you continue bringing this issue up where it doesn't belong, I'm going to hat off your contributions as being obviously off-topic. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:33, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Per WP:LEADSENTENCE "The first sentence should tell the nonspecialist reader what (or who) the subject is." The merger meant that the region is not going to have its own article because the subject of Kosovo article was to include both state and region. If not, then region should be covered by the separate article. My comment is directly related to the first sentence of the lede which is the subject of discussion here and certainly not off topic.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 22:52, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Ah, so let me get this straight. You actually do feel that in order to serve for a properly merged article, the "country" and the "region" ought to be separately mentioned as two aspects of the combined topic in the lede, but then you deliberately support a version that fails to meet your own demand, so that you will then have a pretext for arguing that the merge wasn't proper and for bringing the split back up again? That's got to be the most bald-faced attempt at sabotage of collaborative editing I've seen in a while. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:13, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Please don't blame me because the position of many editors here is inconsistent with their !votes at merger discussion. I guess that "?" means you expect me to reply to you if I will propose splitting of this article. No. I will not. If I will have some time, I will initiate more centralized discussion about having separate articles about ancient and medieval historical regions and recently created modern states which are from some reasons given the same names. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 10:59, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

It's fine as your opinion, but the catch is that it isn't opinion of about half of the world. As for "sovereign control", you might consider what would happen (and has happened) should the Pristina government decide to send special forces to North Kosovo, or try to introduce passport regime on the border with Serbia. No such user (talk) 08:23, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Are people happy with User:Danlaycock's change to "...is a partially recognised state in Southeastern Europe which unilaterally..."? It is no longer unqualified, yet does convey that the country exists. CMD (talk) 12:01, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

I like that almost Occamish solution. I would even go one step further, to say simply "Kosovo is a partially recognised state..." instead of the full RoK formula. It still says the same: exists+disputed. --T*U (talk) 13:10, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

By trying to add as many conditions as possible to the first sentence, we make it harder to read and, of course, there are serious problems with undue weight. It's understandable that most talkpage discussion is about the Kosovo/Serbia problem because that's the controversial bit, but in reality there's a lot more to Kosovo. Readers would be better served if we put all the conditions in a second sentence - something like this: "Kosovo is a landlocked country in southeastern Europe. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008; while Serbia recognises the Republic's governance of Kosovo, it still continues to claim it as its own Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija." bobrayner (talk) 13:53, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

It makes sense to me to use the short form "Kosovo" instead of the formal "Republic of Kosovo" in prose, and while I'm a fan of simplification, I disagree that "partially recognised" is an overload of conditions. It seems more important than "landlocked" anyway. I agree with shifting the 2008 bit to the second sentence though. CMD (talk) 14:06, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't following this discussion when I made my edit. I just found it repetitive to say it was a country in the first sentence and a state in the second. Better to combine them. The problem with describing Kosovo as a state without qualifications is that no one has been able to produce any reliable sources which describes it as such, and many are available that say that its status as a state is up for debate. Other sources included qualifications in their first sentence, ie Britanica: "Kosovo, self-declared independent country". This very issue was the subject of a recent DRN thread. I have no problem with moving the details of Serbia's claim to a later paragraph, but I think the first sentence needs to make it clear that Kosovo is disputed per WP:DUE. TDL (talk) 14:27, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Although I somehow would still have preferred my own earlier version, I find Danlaycock's version acceptable and generally agree with Chipmunkdavis. I can't follow Bobrayner's argumentation – to say that mentioning the sovereignty/recognition issues in the first sentence is "undue weight" is really, really far fetched. Red Slash's edit [16] is definitely unacceptable. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:57, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

My concern about undue weight is more about the lede as a whole. At the moment, roughly 50% of the lede covers the dispute and the other 50% covers the history underlying the dispute. Surely there's more to Kosovo than that? Certainly the dispute dominates the talkpage, and it's why nerves are frayed now, but Kosovo is actually notable for other things apart from the dispute. I think we'd get better results if we tried to describe Kosovo as a whole, rather than tweaking every phrase to fit some POV around the dispute, and - I recognise this will be a shocking step for some - we might get some prominent content in the lede which describes other aspects of Kosovo apart from the dispute. Trying to get exactly the right conditions into the very first sentence just makes a difficult start for readers - just the same problem as BLPs where somebody feels it necessary to use the first sentence to describe a person and give their date and place of birth and death, and their titles, and so on. It's better to start with a concise first sentence and then launch into the details. bobrayner (talk) 11:25, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

"but Kosovo is actually notable for other things apart from the dispute"... can you say a few? FkpCascais (talk) 13:27, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

You do realise we're talking about an entire country, yes? My time is has value; I won't waste it on obviously silly dead-ends. If you are genuinely unaware of what else might be interesting or noteworthy about Kosovo, the best way forward is for you to read the body of the article. Most of it isn't about the dispute. That difference from the lede brings us to WP:LEDE. bobrayner (talk) 13:38, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

I was just curious what were you thinking about when you said it, and you didn´t answered me, what you consider so notable about Kosovo? PS: I´ve been there ;) FkpCascais (talk) 13:48, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

： Polemics aside, I still don't see how we are giving undue weight to the sovereignty issue if we treat it as the first thing in the lead sentences. I also don't see how the history parts of the subsequent lede paragraphs are purely motivated as information "underlying the dispute" – much of it is just plain necessary history. I can see how the history paragraph might be streamlined a bit, and one or two statements regarding the details of recognition. I can also think of a few other bits that might yet go into the lede as a whole (two or three sentences about size, demographics, etc. Other bits that might be useful for a lede of a generic country article are again difficult to describe independently of the dispute, and might end up being understood as again giving extra weight to that – e.g. ethnicities, languages, political system, etc. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:03, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)For good or for bad, our country articles are generally dominated by history, and that is particularly reflected on their lead sections. The fact is that Kosovo's recent history is most notable for the dispute (compare dulls lead of Vojvodina or North Ossetia with recent history-laden North Cyprus and South Ossetia) and that it still takes a very important part in shaping its present and future. Now, I agree that it could use some re-balancing in favor of other aspects, but If you could propose a more balanced formula for presentation, please go ahead, but "clarifications and simplifications" like the ones by Red Slash are not encountered with enthusiasm. While we should not teach the controversy, we also can't pretend that nothing has happened recently. No such user (talk) 14:02, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

@Red Slash:, my supplies of AGF wih you are running thin, after you tried to introduce "country" wording for the third time [17] under the guise of "cleaner, clearer, and a more logical ordering", and despite kilobytes of reasoning against it on this and the other talk page. No such user (talk) 07:05, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

I think that edit was an improvement. bobrayner (talk) 11:28, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

No such user, Kosovo is a country. Both consensus and the dictionary agree. We just had a big move request saying that Kosovo should be about the country and it passed, against your objections. I think everyone here besides you agrees that Kosovo is a country and just like basically every other sovereign state's article, that should be in the first sentence of the article. Red Slash 15:12, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Then, I will be so kind to repeat what "everyone" said on this talk page: "I'm a bit disappointed that @Red Slash: chose to partially revert the wording of the lead sentences with a barely informative edit summary of "accuracy"." (Fut. Perf.); "I disagree that 'partially recognised' is an overload of conditions. [...] I agree with shifting the 2008 bit to the second sentence." (CMD) "The problem with describing Kosovo as a state without qualifications is that no one has been able to produce any reliable sources which describes it as such, and many are available that say that its status as a state is up for debate" (TDL). Since you obviously couldn't hear me before, I'll repeat that even BBC profile of Kosovo does not use the word "country", nor other Wikipedia articles with states of similar status do so. I understand it's convenient to take into account only opinions of those people which agree with you, but we need much more solid referencing than that. No such user (talk) 15:23, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

To boot, here's some fresh For Crimea, Secession Is Only as Good as Recognition, New York Times, March 15, 2014 for you:

While dozens of countries, including the United States, Germany, France and Britain, have recognized Kosovo as a sovereign nation, the United Nations, which confers legitimacy, has not.

No such user (talk) 15:36, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

In all seriousness, what does legitimacy have to do with anything? When I open Crimea I want to know first and foremost who runs it, and only secondly how that governance is perceived by other parties. When I open theory of gravity I want to know first and foremost what it is, and only secondly how that is perceived. When I open Kosovo, I would want to know "okay, is this actually a real country or not?" and by any existent definition of country/sovereign state it is. The (highly important) partial recognition of its independence and full recognition of its sovereignty are not as relevant as the existence of them both. Red Slash 22:23, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, and whether Kosovo is "actually a real country or not" is very much in dispute. While you are free to your opinion on whether Kosovo meets the definition of a sovereign state, this is certainly disputed by academic sources. As you don't seem to have looked at the DR thread I linked to, I will reproduce some of the sources from there:

• "it is debated whether Kosovo is a State under international law"
• "Kosovo is such an example. With 98 recognitions to date, it is impossible objectively to determine its legal status. For some it is a State, for others it is not."
• "...Kosvo's statehood does not seem to be disputed only on the basis of the absence of the consent of the parent state and lack of universally-granted recognition. It is also obvious that Kosovo does not satisfy all of the statehood criteria and that it was created not as a fully sovereign but rather as a protected state"
• "Before the number of recognitions was granted, it was clear that Kosovo was not a state. This is now unclear and remains unclear even after the Kosovo Opinion"
• "it is at least debatable whether Kosovo is a state"

We should not tell readers that it is a state when sources disagree on this matter. TDL (talk) 22:59, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Please review the definition of a country. A nation with its own government, occupying a particular territory. We use normal definitions for words here, not specialist jargon. Does the nation (people) of Kosovo have their own government and does that nation occupy a particular territory? Yes? Done. Obviously, governments that do not think the declaration was okay will say "Kosovo is not a country" or that it's unclear. They have to. NATO has to. The UN has to. But we don't have to. I spent my childhood growing up looking at maps and thinking that there was a country called Western Sahara that's the size of Morocco. No, there isn't. There's a rebel government that runs a small portion of that land, but Morocco runs almost all of "Western Sahara". Wikipedia has to tell the actual story. Read lots of sources from all kinds of places that matter-of-factly consider Kosovo as at least "de facto" independence for Kosovo. Red Slash 03:32, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm well aware of the definition of "country". You said "by any existent definition of country/sovereign state [Kosovo] is". I refuted your claim that Kosovo was indisputably a sovereign state by providing numerous sources that say that this is in dispute. Note that these are academic sources and not from NATO/UN/etc so I'm not quite sure what the relevance of your point on that was. And while your personal analysis of Kosovo's statehood claims is interesting, such original analysis is irrelevant and is refuted by the academic sources I linked above.

As for your linkfarm, this is a red herring. No one disputes that it is de facto independent of Serbia. The question is, does the Republic of Kosovo meet the definition of a sovereign state? You claimed it did above, and I refuted this claim with sources. I'll ask again more clearly: do you have any sources that say "Kosovo indisputably meets the definition of a sovereign state" to support your claim above?

The word "country" is so ambiguous that it is essentially meaningless. North Kosovo, the District of Peć or Pristina also meet the definition. And the word has quite different meanings in different parts of the world. If we're going to introduce the subject, we should use precise terminology that actually explains to readers what Kosovo is. "Sovereign state" isn't "specialist jargon", it's the proper term for polities that claim sovereignty. You can find it used in the first sentence of other prominent sovereign states. TDL (talk) 04:54, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

"Sovereign state" is not at all the proper term for polities that claim sovereignty. It is the proper term for those that have it. What do Serbian claims or Chinese doubts or Spanish reservations have to do with the facts of whether or not Kosovo's government runs Kosovo? If Kosovo's government runs Kosovo, than Kosovo is sovereign. As an adjective, definition 1.1. Check this out, too. Red Slash 02:03, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

You've entirely missed the point of my statement. The Republic of Kosovo claims to be a sovereign state. That is the proper term of what they claim to be. Whether they are a sovereign state is a different question entirely, but clearly that is the precise terminology for what Kosovo claims to be.

The sources I posed were the analysis of academic experts, not "Serbian claims or Chinese doubts or Spanish reservations" so again this is just more red herrings. These sources explicitly dispute that Kosovo is sovereign.

And once again, while your WP:OR analysis attempting to deduce whether Kosovo is a sovereign or not by WP:SYNing together a bunch of sources is fascinating, it is irrelevant. (And you might want to take a look at this if you are under the mistaken belief that issuing passports=sovereignty.) If it is your opinion that Kosovo is sovereign then stop dodging the question and produce some sources that verify what you claim. I've shown you sources which explicitly refute your claim. If you can't back up your opinion with sources, then there isn't much sense in us continuing this discussion since OR claims can't be included in the encyclopedia. TDL (talk) 04:27, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

See my response at the bottom of the page, please. Red Slash 17:41, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

(ec) No, obviously we don't all agree that this page should simply state Kosovo's status as being that of an independent country as an unhedged, unqualified fact. You know that perfectly well. You made your edit in the full knowledge that it would not meet consensus. I was just trying to get the editing restrictions on this article relaxed, but that will only work if we are all seen to be working reasonably together; edits like yours are poison for that. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:27, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

My problem, to make it explicit, is not really with "partially recognized". Clearly it's partially recognized. The problem is that the article needs to say in the first sentence that Kosovo is a country/state. See Taiwan. I didn't find anyone who disagreed with that. Are we just talking past each other? Did I fail to make that clear in my edits? I apologize if so. Red Slash 15:33, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

The article did say that when you made your change, in the word "state" immediately following "partially recognised", and I have no personal preference between "state" and "country" there if you prefer country. I don't think the "word" sovereign adds too much clarification though, there's no reason to assume this is part of a federal state, especially given the surrounding context of the entire article. Taiwan and Serbia don't have it. CMD (talk) 15:50, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

The lead sentence before I changed it (back several days ago) referred to Kosovo first as a region. I did think that was unacceptable. Red Slash 22:23, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Full sovereignty

One of the things I have learned as I have researched is that Kosovo was not reeeeeally sovereign upon declaring independence. Instead, it was still basically puppy-guarded by the U.S., NATO and friends (the International Steering Group) until September of 2012. Therefore, most reliable sources would not have considered the country to be truly sovereign prior to 2012. In September of 2012, the ISG gave over full and sovereign control of the country to Kosovo's government, which was then de facto begrudgingly acknowledged in the Brussels agreements. From then on, the Pristina-based government has in fact enjoyed sovereign control of the country.

You want sources, I'm sure, and I am glad to provide in response to such a reasonable request. Most (not all) of these postdate the transference of sovereignty but predate the Brussels Agreements. [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] ... I can absolutely get more if you'd like. I apologize for the delay; I should have better analyzed your arguments to be able to better answer them sooner. Red Slash 17:52, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, the decision by the ISG was certainly a major step towards Kosovo gaining full sovereignty, but it is not clear that this was a conclusive step. Kosovo Force, EULEX and UNMIK didn't pull out of the country. See for example some of these quotes from articles you linked:

• "Kosovo has taken another step toward sovereignty as an international monitoring group officially ended its mission on Monday"
• "But, in reality, very little will be different for the Balkan nation after the parliamentary ceremony celebrating the change. NATO-led peacekeepers will stay in charge of security and an EU mission will still have a final say in legal matters." and "Serbia, with the help of its allies, primarily Russia, has managed to block Kosovo from achieving full sovereignty"
• "Kosovo can only survive with immense economic aid. Of course that limits its sovereignty, and this formal acquisition of sovereignty doesn't have all that much meaning." and "There's not absolute sovereignty yet. Kosovo needs support from KFOR and NATO to provide security and integrity"
• "The supervised independence does not end just because Pieter Feith goes home. All countries that were part of this steering group are present in Kosovo and they will continue to supervise Kosovo"

Statements by the ISG or the Republic of Kosovo claiming that they are now fully sovereign are not particularly convincing of this fact. What we really need is secondary sources which asses Kosovo's status, rather than sources which merely report the ISG's pronouncements. Such sources may exist, but I haven't been able to find any. I'm not trying to argue that they aren't fully sovereign, just that until we can find sources that say that they are, we should hold off on claiming that Kosovo is fully sovereign. TDL (talk) 20:43, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

• UNMIK transferred most of it's power to Kosovo's Government in 2008 [30] Most of UNMIK's remaining powers were transferred to EULEX in 2008. [31]
• EULEX is a policing and civilian mission who's aim is to "ASSIST (key word) Kosovo authorities, judicial authorities and law enforcement agencies in their progress toward sustainability, accountability, multi-ethnicity, freedom from political interference, and compliance with internationally recognised standards and European best practices." It's role has been changed recently to deal more with War Crimes, also EULEX requires the Kosovo Assembly's approval to have it's mandate extended. The current mandate is set to expire in 2016 unless the Kosovo Assembly chooses to once again extend the mission [32] as it has done once before. [33]
• KFOR is a NATO-led UN Peace Keeping Mission. UN Peace keeping missions have been in many different countries over the years, it doesn't affect sovereignty.

Sovereignty is the quality of having an independent authority over a geographic area. Kosovo's authority isn't subject to UNMIK, EULEX or KFOR. IJA (talk) 22:42, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

"Sovereignty is the quality of having an independent authority over a geographic area" - precisely, but the emphasized word is the key. It could be argued (as it is in the sources I cited above) that Kosovo doesn't have independent authority over the region. They need others (EULEX/KFOR) to enforce their authority since they lack the capability to do so independently. If KFOR decided to pull out or enforce their own will, the Republic of Kosovo would have no power to enforce their authority. It could be argued that in such a situation they are not "possessing supreme or ultimate power". But again, there is no sense in us arguing over our personal opinions on the matter. The important point is: are there any sources which state that the Republic of Kosovo has sovereign control? None have yet been produced, and unless and until such sources are produced we should not claim without qualification that they do. TDL (talk) 00:02, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Can we cut it short? Whoever wants to claim that RoK is sovereign need to post sources stating that. WP is not the place to make OR. Silvio1973 (talk) 07:33, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

1RR relaxation

Per this AN discussion, and effective immediately, this article's sanctions have been reduced from 1RR/week to 1RR/day, in light of the merge effort going on. However, the original 1RR/week should be restored if this seems to be problematic. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 12:33, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Move to 'Republic of Kosovo'

In the opening section it says that this country is called (in bold) The Republic of Kosovo. So, since the Kosovo region is not what is being discussed, and Kosovo (region) has an entry of its own, IMHO it should be moved to 'The Republic of Kosovo'. The Kosovo page should IMHO lead to this page, and then the neutral disambiguation will be clear. A very small change will be needed to the opening sentences of the article, which are currently totally unclear.

I take no side in current politics there, and have nothing to do with the region, besides learning of the fate of my fellow Jews there in WWI and WWII, and the leftover tiny community there today. פשוט pashute ♫ (talk) 11:27, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

What you suggest was the status some months ago, but it was changed after extensive discussion, as you can see on this talkpage above and the latest archive page. The thing is that Kosovo (region) in fact no longer has an entry of its own; it was merged back here a few weeks ago.r Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:34, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Flag

As WP:INFOBOXFLAG uses this article as an example of where the infobox should not have a flag, I've removed it. Obviously it should not be replaced without an agreed change to our guidance. Dougweller (talk) 09:34, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

I think the guideline may be a bit out of step with the state of the article here. It is of course correct in saying use of flags can be problematic when it produces too much disagreement, and in fact there was a lot of disagreement over it some years ago, but since the recent moves and reshufflings of the article I don't think there have been any objections to it, and as long as the intro text is uncontentious the way it is now – quite explicitly equating the territory with the republic representing it –, and as long as the infobox is clearly marked as being about the republic, I don't see how the use of the flag of that republic in it could be contentious. You might also say that the recent political developments of the Brussels Agreement (2013) have changed the situation significantly. Since even Serbia itself now recognizes the existence of the Kosovan administration as the legitimate administrative representation of the territory (though not its full sovereignty as an independent state), it can't have objections against the use of that administration's flag in representing it either.

Incidentally, it is of course not very useful to remove the flag but leave the identical coat of arms in. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:53, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

It's out of step with Abkhazia too, where specific discussions have been had on the infobox, and the two are now inconsistent with every other country article we have. Was there a discussion to add those caveats in, or was it just something User:Dr. Blofeld boldly added? CMD (talk) 10:14, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

There was a big lot of discussion about the guideline back in mid-2012, around the time when the addition was made [34] (now in archive 11 of the talkpage), but I can't find either "Kosovo" nor "Abkhasia" mentioned there. In any case, I think it was quite sound advice at the time, given the amount of chaos over infoboxes we had seen here previously. The reference ot "human geography articles" in the guideline probably also meant its author was thinking of the separate "region" article, withe the "republic" article split out, as was then the case. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:26, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

This isn't a solely a "human geography article" anymore, this article is also about a political entity which governs Kosovo. I fail to see why this article should suffer in encyclopedic quality because Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Icons is out of date. It seems a very stupid, irrational and illogical reason to remove the flag, I'm going to be WP:BOLD and restore the flag and let common sense prevail.

Also WP:INFOBOXFLAG as about flagicons in infoboxes, it isn't about flags. The Flagicon for Kosovo is {{flagicon|Kosovo}} which is not included in the infobox, nor is any flagicon template. IJA (talk) 10:52, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

It is specifically about flags: "For the purposes of this section of the guideline icons refers to flags and similar images unless otherwise stated". Now I'm sorry if in following the guideline I've upset people, but can we please fix the guideline then? Dougweller (talk) 11:41, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I've just removed it from the MOS page, citing this discussion. The preceding sentence says that consensus of editors at that article will determine whether flag use in the infobox is preferred or not, so the rest was pretty much redundant. I understand the rationale, and maybe it was a sensible thing to do, but it simply ended up at odds with the practice. No such user (talk) 11:45, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

That's fine, thanks. Dougweller (talk) 11:52, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

The "human geography" phrase may be related to my frustration that so many articles on rivers and ravines and other pieces of natural geography get covered with a layer of modern nationalist fetishes. So, you could blame me for that wording. The last time I climbed a mountain in the real world, it didn't have a national flagicon and stub template at the summit; the mountain had been there for 180 million years, but that country's flag was only drawn twenty years ago. bobrayner (talk) 18:13, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Tourism?

I would like to know why there is no tourism subheading.I have gathered pictures of many places around Kosovo attracting tourists and have information regarding them,and there is no availability to edit that section.I acknowledge the fact that people could write inappropriate things,but some who are trusted should have the chance to enhance the article. --Nixious6 (talk) 19:36, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

There's an entire article dedicated to the topic, which is completely open to editing. CMD (talk) 20:33, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Communist Yugoslavia?

Surely you mean either Socialist or Soviet? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.130.163.10 (talk) 09:27, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

No, we mean Communist. As in "ruled by the Communist Party". Yes, technically, no society has ever actually reached the status of communist society, but that was the term used to refer to the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, etc. Oh, and "soviet" would be even more wrong than you are trying to coyly insinuate that communist is, as no portion of Yugoslavia was ever part of the Soviet Union. --Khajidha (talk) 18:06, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Chronology

I wouldn't know enough about the country and its history to fix this, nor do I have the time, but the chronology in the "history" section keeps jumping back and forth in time, making it really hard to understand. If someone can fix this, please do.Albertoeda (talk) 17:50, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed

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Religion

The article does not mention the religious distribution of the population. A source for that needs to be found and included.--Michael (talk) 20:32, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 November 2014

The following is a closed discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should do so in a new section. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not done per the discussion below. IJA (talk) 18:11, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

The national hymn of kosovo should direct reader to this page: http://kosova.org/post/Himni-i-Ri-Shteteror-i-Republikes-se-Kosoves instead of b92 which is a serbian radical newspaper. Regarding the declaration of independecy reader should be directed to this page: http://kosovothanksyou.com/ You can read stats that Kosovo is known by more then half of the world. The Capital Name should be changed to Prishtina. Pristina is just a latin change from Priština, since you dont have the letter š in latin. But š is pronounced as SH in albanian Prishtina. Therefor you should have Prishtina or Pristhinë/Priština.

You keep referreing to B92 wich is not acceptable since it only transmit Serbian view on a state with a albanian mayority. You write that Nato ended the war but you should write that Miloševic/Miloshevic started it by killing and chasing away albanian inhabitants.

Under the time of Tito, Kosovo and Vojvodina was de facto Rebublic with the same power as Croatia or Slovenia in the Federal Yugosllavia. You can also mention that Serbian minority have minimum of 8% percent of the Parlament in Kosovo no matter how many votes they get, 8% other percent goes to the other minorities in Kosovo. If any group get more then 8% of the votes, the minority will then have more then 16% combined votes in parlamanet. The albanian parties can never get more then 74% of the votes no matter how many votes they get in the election. They will also have to get over the 5% block to get in to the parlament, something that does not apply to the minority due to them being a minority and not being able to reach more then 5 % combined.

Nothing in the constitution can be changed without 66% of the minorities votes, so to change anything in the constitution you will need both the albanian parties, serbian parties and the other minorities.

In 1912 the albians declared themself independet from the turkish empire, those borders of the albanian state included Kosovo, from Sandzak, to Presevo, through out albanian parts in Macedonia including Skopje and northern Greece, also albanian parts in Montenegro. But being a weak state and not having a real army to deffend itself the albanian got devided. Albania itself only got to exist since Italy didnt want to have it as a part of it own nation but sent a ruling King to Albania. So techincally no albanian people had the power to rule over themself. Until today where you have free election in Albania, and free election in Kosovo. The first time ever where albanian rule over themself.

You can also mention that Kosovo have been fully entered in the International Olypmic Organisation and as a result it is being entered in other federation that are members of IOC. It will have its own telephone code next year and while you can travel where you want from Serbia or Albania without visas, you can not do it from Kosovo. Even if you posses Serbian passport in Kosovo. Kosovo is also re-applying for Fifa/Uefa membership and is in everyway a independet country. If any of you travel down there you will see this. So this page should upgraded to fully to read Kosovo as a State, in all ways except as a member of UN. But not even Switzerland was a part of UN until very late due to neutral status.

Best Regards to all of you Ruotria (talk) 15:40, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

first of all, it is pretty clear you are Kosovo Albanian and that you want Kosovo Albanian POV to be expressed in the article. It is OK, that is not a problem, but calling B92 a Serbian pro-Western news agency "Serbian radical newspaper" just shows how much out of neutrality you are (I guess anything Serbian for you is "radical"). Next point, it seems that you don't understand how Wikipedia works. We are encouraged to use secondary sources. What you are proposing is using Kosovo Albanan primary sources. Next, the Pristina issue has long been discussed, Pristina was choosed as it is the common name in English language and a neutral one between Prishtina-Priština. If you want to change Pristina to any other name or type of spelling, you should propose a request for move at Pristina talk page. Then, how the conflict started is far from being as simple as you put it, there was a reason why Serbian troops and police had to intervene in Kosovo you know? I guess you want to ignore totally the UCK and their pre-NATO intervention activities. Then, Kosovo and Vojvodina were NOT Yugoslav Republics as much as I guess you would like them to have been. Their status is quite well explained in all articles. The rest of things you mention are just issues that are fairly mentioned in the corresponding articles, and no, we will not be a crystal ball and guess what will happened next year and if Kosovo is going to be, or not, a member of several international organisations. When it becomes member, it will be properly added to the article.That is my 5 cents. Best regards, FkpCascais (talk) 15:55, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

 Not done - Too many request with no consensus. B92 is a perfectly acceptable source to reference. "Pristina" is the WP:CommonName in the English language. Also please see WP:NOTAFORUM for the rest of your rant. Regards IJA (talk) 16:01, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Alternative Sources.

If you like to have alternatives sources instead of Kosovo States one. You could use Kosovo based newspaper as telegrafi.com instead of Serbian state ones, as B92. Reason for this is Serbian newspaper try to rise tension between ethnic people on balkan and you are welcome to read the serbian section with google translate.

But as long as you only base the page on Serbian information Wikipedia can not be called a free Encyclopedia but a Propaganda Machine by those who have been in a ruling state longer, which is the case with the serbian people and serbian politican on balkan.

And Pristina is not a neutral choice between Prishtina/Priština because Prishtina is the neutral choice between Prishtinë/Priština.

But good luck basing Kosovo pages based on serbian information. I will not be a part of a serbian-western propaganda machine.

@Ruotria: - You've provided no evidence as to why we shouldn't use B92. Pristina is the neutral name because it is the common name used in the English Language. Prishtina/ Prishtinë is the Albanian Language name for the city and should be used on Albanian Wikipedia, Priština is the Serbo-Croatian Language name for the city and should be used on the various Serbo-Croatian Language Wikipedias. Please see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Kosovo-related articles and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Kosovo-related articles/Prishtina-Pristina-Priština for further information. Also, please sign your comments using ~~~~. Regards IJA (talk) 17:41, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 November 2014

Irongosts (talk) 08:47, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

 Not done We're not psychics - you need to specify what change you want made. Bazonka (talk) 09:42, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

the prime minister of kosovo has changed

the prime minister of kosovo is no longer hashim thaci but now is isa mustafa and i saw this half an hour ago and i'm albanian in kosovo so i'm 100% sure of this — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ksguy (talk • contribs) 12:23, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Partially recognised

Can I please get a consensus on what is the reasoning behind listing a country as partially recognised in the preamble of the article, cause either it does not belong there, or it is missing from other articles like those of the Peoples Republic of China and North and South Korea which are also not recognised by every UN state. What is the number of states needed for a state to be considered a recognised state, for if it is all UN members then the statement must start off those articles as well, otherwise who decides how many states are needed?--DSBennie (talk) 19:09, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Kosovo is very different from China and the Koreas. Almost all other countries recognise them, with just a couple that don't. Is it significant to mention these dissenters in the lead? Probably not. On the other hand, Kosovo's recognition is 56% for and 44% against — very significant and certainly worth mentioning. Bazonka (talk) 19:26, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

It isn't perfect but it is the best NPOV way of describing Kosovo. Also Kosovo is different to the two Chinas and the two Koreas. Both Koreas and both Chinas claim to be the sole legitimate China/ Korea. No-one disputes that China is a country or not, different countries recognise different countries governments (PRC & ROC) who are based in different locations. With the Koreas, countries initially recognised the North or the South based on their political alignments; however the two governments were simultaneously accepted to the UN and countries began to establish relations with both thus recognising the de facto partition as two different countries. Kosovo's scenario is very different to China and Korea. IJA (talk) 21:07, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

My question is what is the cuttoff, 10% (22) of the UN member states do not recognise the people's republic as an existing state, who determines what percentage of UN state recognition is required for a state to exist as a recognised state? This is not a debate about if the country exists or not, it is a debate on what constitutes a partially recognised country and who decides how many states recognition constitutes the loss of the partial recognition statement, Cypress is not recognised by Turkey, North Korea by South Korea and Japan, Armenia is not recognised by Pakistan, Israel is not recognised by 32 states. --DSBennie (talk) 12:21, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

There is no simple answer, since the assumptions on which the question is based are wrong. To put it shortly: nobody says there is a cuttoff percentage. It's only a matter of putting it as much neutral as possible. For example some argue that Kosovo is not a souvereign state at all. We have to please all of those points of view, so the current consensus is to phrase it like it is now. --biblbroks (talk) 15:44, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Actually, I don't think we've ever had a situation on WP (or in recent history of the world) where a state's sovereignity is recognized by roughly a half of the international community. So, when we are going to change it is anybody's guess. No such user (talk) 16:34, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

I think this discussion should be taking place on Talk:China where there is more reason to question the inclusion or non-inclusion of such a statement. Here, it seems to be a no-brainer. Bazonka (talk) 17:12, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree that it currently makes sense, I just want to a) establish what conditions should be met for it to be removed, and b) consider how it affects other pages, the reason I have started this on this talk page is as this is the only state page I have found that proceeds to do this so this is the page that sets the precedent. Before we can take it to the Talk:China page, we need to set out all the criteria on why it is on this page, what requirements lets it be stated on this page and what requirements must be met to have it removed. That way a standard can be applied to other state pages --DSBennie (talk) 20:18, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

In an ideal world, maybe everything could be standardized. But then again, it would be dull if one could set some standard on whatever one could imagine. Anyway, I'm quite certain that the issue can be taken to Talk:China without meeting all of those conditions. It is because I'm not sure that someone is able to point a finger to an exact criteria for the wording being here, on this page. --biblbroks (talk) 20:45, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Official Digital Diplomacy Efforts

http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-12-11/kosovo-cant-get-recognition-un-it-can-get-it-facebook Maybe info that should be inserted in the Recognition section or elsewhere? Pretty unique and very modern diplomacy effort "Kosovo is turning to digital diplomacy instead, led by Petrit Selimi. He’s Kosovo’s deputy minister of foreign affairs and the author of a forthcoming book on digital diplomacy" Legacypac (talk) 04:10, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

It is about facebook and a brewery in Pristina, I don't think we can do much with it to be fair. Maybe at a push it could be included on the article "Foreign relations of Kosovo" but that is an article on geopolitics so I'm not sure it'd be appropriate there either. Also remember to sign your comments with ~~~~ please. Regards IJA (talk) 01:21, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for raising this article because the audio on it mentions an issue I had with a user on the article Kosovan passport, please view its history. IJA (talk) 01:32, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

The pub in Kosovo part is just human interest - it looks like the pub owner is also Kosovo’s deputy minister of foreign affairs - the point is an official govt effort to gain digital recognition. Legacypac (talk) 04:10, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Northern border

I hate convoluted definitions, and I find this one: Kosovo's remaining border to the north and east is seen by supporters of Kosovo's independence as a state border with Serbia whilst opponents of Kosovo's independence see it as a provincial border with Central Serbia. absurdly complex. What is wrong or non-neutral with simple Kosovo borders Central Serbia.? It is a simple geographic reference which states that the two territories are adjacent. Readers already know that Serbia disputes Kosovo independence, so it's only natural that Kosovo used to be a part of Serbia, ergo it borders the rest of it somehow. The verb "borders" does not state whether this border is internal or international, and Central Serbia is a well-defined territory, and the term does not even have a political connotation. No such user (talk) 12:43, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

I very much agree the current wording is absurdly distracting and convoluted. The only function the whole sentence has, in that context, is to explain the bare facts of Kosovo's location in space, and the sentence suddenly wrenches the reader's attention away from that and into yet another long-winded and completely unnecessary restatement of the sovereignty issue – and that for no other reason than that some editors here lacked the necessary imagination to come up with a way of referring to "Serbia minus Kosovo" in a way that doesn't hurt any of the ideological obsessions and hypersensitivities among some of the regulars here. IJA, in their revert, claimed there was "consensus" for this version, but I very much doubt there ever was – if there was, please show us where it was formed. (I seem to remember some discussion about it some time ago but can't find it right now).

My own preference would be maybe not for "Central Serbia", because the relevance of that concept might also not be immediately obvious to the outside reader. My suggestion would be "bordered by X, Y, Z, and the remaining territory of Serbia in the north-east." This has the advantage of being deliberately and artfully ambiguous: those who see Kosovo as an independent state can read it as "Serbia in its remaining form after Kosovo split off from it"; those who prefer to see Kosovo as part of Serbia can read it as "the other parts of Serbia"; either way it's correct and simple to understand. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:13, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Oh heck, we're having this discussion AGAIN. This seems to come up several times a year. If it aint broken don't fix it. I admit that the 'consensus' isn't as strong as I remember. It can be found here [35]. The intro has been changed a lot since then too. Yes it might be a bit complex but the situation is complex. It is POV to say that "Kosovo borders Serbia" as Serbia claims Kosovo and it is POV to say that "Kosovo borders Central Serbia" as that implies that it is a provincial border. The current wording takes into account both view points. If you can come up with a simpler easier way to word what is already there, please lets see your suggestions.

I am very opposed to: "bordered by X, Y, Z, and the remaining territory of Serbia in the north-east" because remaining territory of Serbia implies that Kosovo is also territory of Serbia and I'm sure you already know that is disputed. And if you're going to mention me on a talk page, please ping me so that I can be made aware. IJA (talk) 16:20, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Huh? I see not even the beginnings of a discussion of the issue in question under the link you gave, let alone a "consensus" about anything. And "If it aint broken don't fix it"? Two people just explained to you in considerable detail why they think it in fact is broken; if you disgree with that, be so kind and respond to the arguments raised. And the suggestion I made "implies that Kosovo is also a territory of Serbia"? I just explained to you in considerable detail why I think it doesn't imply that; if you think I'm wrong then respond to the freaking argument, will you. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:31, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I missed that discussion, and that wording was buried within a wall of text; obviously, I think that it is broken, because we present quite simple concepts to innocent readers in a needlessly convoluted manner. But how does "Kosovo borders Central Serbia" imply that it's a province of Serbia, any more than would e.g. "Taiwan lies across the mainland China"? An alternative name (and a redirect) for it is Serbia proper, but that would IMO have more of such an implication (that Kosovo is Serbia, but "improper"). No such user (talk) 16:38, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

@Future Perfect at Sunrise: - I don't think I like your rude tone/ manner, it is very unhelpful. An editor has disagreed with you, get over it, it happens all the time on Wikipedia. I have already acknowledged that it wasn't a strong consensus and has been altered since, basically I was saying I know it doesn't hold much weight but it did end a dispute. You've told me that you don't like it because it's too complex and distracting, I get that and I offered you to come up with a better suggestion. I have come up with one myself actually: "to the north and east lies the uncontested territory of Serbia"' or something along them lines. You told me why you thought it was neutral and I told why I thought it wasn't neutral, I did respond to the freaking argument. As you didn't understand me last time, let me try again and I apologise if it didn't make it clear enough previously. The term "Central Serbia" refers to the territory of Serbia outside of Kosovo and Vojvodina collectively therefore it implies that Kosovo is part of Serbia which is POV. This has been voiced by several users in the past. I'm unaware of any usage of the term 'Central Serbia' in reference to only Vojvodina, as far as I'm aware the term is only used to refer to territory of Serbia outside of Vojvodina and Kosovo collectively. @No such user: compared it to Taiwan and Mainland China. Neither PRChina or ROChina would disagree that the island of Taiwan lies across from mainland China, both governments claim all of China which includes the island of Taiwan. I also agree with No such user re usage of the term Serbia proper. IJA (talk) 17:43, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

I think that "...border to the north and east is with Central Serbia" would work well. It's succinct and accurate. I don't think that it's POV at all; it doesn't imply that it's a provincial border. For example "Alaska borders Yukon" would not imply that Canada is part of the USA. Bazonka (talk) 20:42, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

But like I said, the term Central Serbia is only used to refer to territory of Serbia outside of Vojvodina and Kosovo collectively (never Vojvodina on its own), thus implying that Kosovo is a province. Anyway, what do you think to "...border to the north and east is the uncontested territory of Serbia"? This is succinct, accurate, factual, neutral and simple. IJA (talk) 21:00, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

You could use "Serbia proper" instead of Central Serbia. The "uncontested territory" wording also works. Bazonka (talk) 22:01, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, but that is a pretty... loaded reading. It's the territory of Serbia outside of Vojvodina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Taiwan and Easter Island. Oh, and Japan, too. You know, discounting anything that isn't in it. Historical core of modern Serbia. Your formulation is a certain improvement over the current monster, but still a bit complicated. I guess I could live with it. No such user (talk) 22:04, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

"Serbia proper", "uncontested territory" and "remaining territory" all work for me, and I'd somewhat prefer either of the three over "Central Serbia" (but still prefer any of these four to the contorted thing we have now). Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:07, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

"Serbia proper" sounds like the best option to me, since it has the lowest burden of implications about things that we already waste far too much time on. bobrayner (talk) 22:31, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

For reasons above, 'Serbia proper' is unacceptable as it implies that Kosovo is 'Serbia improper' (and it redirects to Serbia). Of course one can very loosely apply the term 'Central Serbia' as being the Serbian territory outside of every other territory in the Solar System, just like Northern England is British territory outside of the rest of England, Wales, Scotland, Germany, Australia ect and the rest of every other territory in the Solar System. But my point is that the term 'Central Serbia' is exclusively used to refer to Serbia outside of Vojvodina and Kosovo collectively. Japan, Macedonia, Taiwan and Easter Island are not (claimed) Serbian territory.

If we all find uncontested territory of Serbia acceptable and a lot more understandable than the current complex wording (which is the main issue of this discussion), then can we put this to bed and go with it please?

I think it is fair to say that this is a little bit complex but then again the situation is very complex. This isn't Simple English Wikepedia, this is English Wikipedia. We can fairly assume that our readers will understand what they're reading from what they've previously read in the introduction. If they require further details, they can read the rest of the article; after all that what is an introduction is, it introduces our readers to the article. IJA (talk) 22:49, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

If you lot really wanted, I would reluctantly accept uncontested Serbia, that is just one adjective to explain the situation but I feel our readers need that little bit extra to define it. IJA (talk) 22:58, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

"Proper" is an established geopolitical term; it doesn't imply impropriety at all. "uncontested Serbia", on the other hand, would worsen the very problem that I think you're trying to avoid - it tells readers that Kosovo is, deep down, just a contested bit of Serbia. bobrayner (talk) 23:13, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Serbia proper used to redirect to Central Serbia, but an IP changed the target back in March [36]. I reverted it and added it to my watchlist. It works for me personally, but I can see that it might be interpreted wrongly (and it's a politically loaded term within Serbia itself).
To try to break the stalemate, I'll boldly change the wording to "uncontested territory" as the least bad solution, but I won't call it consensus yet. No such user (talk) 08:21, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Here's an entirely different take on it that we might consider: "North of Kosovo are the regions of Šumadija and Western Serbia and Southern and Eastern Serbia." Jonathunder (talk) 16:51, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Those are so obscure that pretty much nobody in Serbia knows about those, let alone elsewhere. They are recent inventions for purely statistical purposes. And for Wikipedia categories, sadly. No such user (talk) 18:17, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Obscure, boring, and noncontroversial. We could do worse. 20:24, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Both those target articles - about obscure statistical entities - treat Kosovo simply as a province of Serbia. That's not helping. Ditto for the "Central Serbia" article, which presents the rather sad fantasy that "Central Serbia ... is the part of Serbia lying outside of the provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo (AP Kosovo and Metohija)". I fear that anybody trying to bring that into the 21st century would be swiftly reverted. bobrayner (talk) 21:49, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Better now [37]? No such user (talk) 08:25, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Kosovo is part of Serbia since the formation of the Serbian state. After the Balkan wars of Kosovo again becomes an integral part of Serbia. After the First World War, Kosovo is part of Serbia, but did not have the status of provinces. The Yugoslav communists formed the province of Kosovo. Kosovo has never been albansko.Albanija was formed as a state after the First World War.--Dima73 (talk) 22:09, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
The northern border of Kosovo is extended session after the Yugoslav Communists in 1974. The entire north and Kosovo was part of the so-called Central Serbia.--Dima73 (talk) 22:15, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
If you read Felix Philipp Kanitz -Srbija country and people -, you will see that from the border with the remnants of the Ottoman Empire coincides with part of liberated Serbia. The limit is established at the Congress of Berlin. Then the boundaries drawn by the river basins. At that time, the Albanians fought on the side of the Turks and nobody cared about their national identity.--Dima73 (talk) 22:26, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
Kosovo and Metohia is the real name of the area .Albanci not use this name, because Metohija means church land.--Dima73 (talk) 22:39, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
See any geographic map of Yugoslavia from 1970-1980, and you will see that it says Kosovo and Metohija--Dima73 (talk) 22:45, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Stop with your spamming. Also please read WP:NOTAFORUM. IJA (talk) 23:43, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

What's up with the Weasel wording? "Uncontested territory". Nobody disputes the independence of Serbia, it is a sovereign state and everyone should respect that. But when people say "uncontested territory" they are blatantly steering into the past-fantasy that Kosovo still somehow belongs to Serbia. The country has been recognized by the vast majority of world states and has been 100% sovereign since 2012. Bottom line, Kosovo borders Serbia. Does the government of Serbia control a single spec of Kosovo? Does Kosovo use the dinar? Do they drive with Serb number plates in Kosovo? Do they learn Serbian in the schools of Ferizaj, Peja or Gjilan? And what's more, when did a reliable media source ever call the border "Kosovo-Serb uncontested territory". The plainly call it the "Kosovo-Serbian border" and that is it, it's really quite simple. @Dima73, this is not 1970-1080 any more. It is 2015 and Kosovo has been independent since 2008, learn your present facts, leave the fantasy of the past, pull your head in and move on. --Let's keep it neutral (talk) 13:45, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Whether you like it or not, and whether it reflects the facts on the ground or not, Kosovo is still considered as de jure part of Serbia by a significant number of international actors, so there's no way around the fact that Wikipedia will have to remain neutral about this in its wording, as a matter of principle. This is not going to change any time soon, unless a firm new editorial consensus were to emerge some day that the anti-independence view has been reduced to an insignificant WP:FRINGE position out in the real world (which I can't see happening for the time being). If you can't accept this as the basic consensus governing how to edit this page, then I strongly recommend you make no further attempts at editing here at all, or you'll end up topic-banned pretty quickly. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:05, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Why don't we just remove the entire sentence? People can look at a map if they want and draw their own conclusions about what Kosovo is next to. Bazonka (talk) 20:46, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't think that would be a good idea. "X borders on Y" sentences are pretty standard in our country articles, for good reason – they provide an easily understandable geographic reference frame for readers unfamiliar with the region (and speaking of maps, the one we are currently showing at the top of the infobox is so small you can hardly see Kosovo anyway, let alone what other countries it borders on). I dislike the idea of sacrificing a piece of plain, uncontroversially useful factual information for our readers just because some entrenched Wikipedia editors keep reading non-existing and quite unrelated POV issues into one bit of wording. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:09, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Violation

User tryed to remove source from this article, but its restored back. with neutral words. --Ąnαșταη (ταlκ) 22:56, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Your sentence is wrong and thus not neutral. The 1913 Treaty of London didn't legitimise border changes in the Balkans apart from the borders of new established Albania (which they weren't happy with), the treaty agreed to de facto accept the military conquests from the First Balkan War. Most of the newly gained territories from the first Balkan Wars remained disputed territory and nothing was de jure until after WW1. With the Treaty of London, nothing was de jure/ final though, Bulgaria disputed the division of Macedonia for example. Also Kosovo wasn't incorporated into Serbia/ Yugoslavia until 1918, prior to that is was just conquered territory, also Metohija/ Western Kosovo became a conquered territory of Montenegro not Serbia. IJA (talk) 23:56, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Serbia had its borders recognized by the Treaty of London (1913) and further confirmed by the Treaty of Bucharest (1913). Kosovo became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes because it was internationally recognized as territory of the Kingdom of Serbia, and entered into SCS (Yugoslavia) as such. So Kosovo can by no means be considered "occupied territory" if it was internationally recognized as within the borders of Serbia. It is like nowadays, whoever recognized Kosovo independence, it automatically stopped considering that it was occupied territory, and considers it an independent country. Besides Noel Malcolm and his many exceptional claims (many of them quite funny actually and clearly a twister of reality and common sense), who else and why makes this polemics now? I mean, what is in question here? FkpCascais (talk) 03:26, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Where in the Treaty of London (1913) Peace Treaty does it say that Serbia had its borders recognised? The Peace Treaty states "His Majesty the Emperor of the Ottomans cedes to their Majesties the Allied Sovereigns all the territories of his Empire on the continent of Europe to the west of a line drawn from Enos on the Aegean Sea to Midia on the Black Sea, with the exception of Albania"' "TREATY OF LONDON" It says nothing about ceding sovereignty, unlike with Crete. And like I said previously, Montenegro took control of Western Kosovo. You can say what you like about Noel Malcolm, but everything he says is in line with the primary sources of the time; perhaps that is why he is unpopular with some people?. IJA (talk) 08:20, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Right. But in the Treaty of Bucharest (1913), "The territory thus obtained embraced central Macedonia, including Ochrida, Monastir, Kossovo, Istib, and Kotchana, and the eastern half of the sanjak of Novi-Bazar. By this arrangement Serbia increased her territory from 18,650 to 33,891 square miles and her population by more than 1,500,000. " [38] [emphasis mine]. Maybe the Serbian gain in the article was associated to a wrong treaty, but Malcolm's conclusion that " Legally, Kosovo was occupied territory from 1912 until some time after 1918," certainly does not follow. No such user (talk) 09:16, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, Serbia obtained territory which included part of Kosovo, no one disputes that; but the source says nothing about legal status or sovereignty. I'd use that source you provided to support Malcolm's article. IJA (talk) 10:32, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

By that token, the same could be said about all the Ottoman territories west of Maritsa ceded to the Balkan states in the London Treaty, and that's quite a chunk of territory? By my quick reading of those treaties, Turkey really gave them away, but you say that nobody formally "took"/incorporated them until 1918? And what does it mean to "formally incorporate" a territory? (I'm honestly asking). Anyway, we seem to need an authoritative secondary source that would explain their legal status during that period (however, in the turmoil of WWI such a legal definition would be rather moot).
Anyway, I and other editors have issues with the loaded term "occupied" being used: it implies that it legally belonged to someone else (it didn't, it was just ceded before that), and no sovereign state claimed them (Principality of Albania apparently renounced them on its formation in February 1914). How about "was not legally incorporated" or like? No such user (talk) 10:57, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Turkey didn't give them away, they were part of the Ottoman Empire and the Balkan League conquered them (regardless of whether you see it as occupied or liberated), then a peace treaty was signed. I'm not bothered if the term "occupied" isn't used, I've never proposed that we should use the word. I have a solution though, how about we have something along the lines of "After the First Balkan War, the 1913 Treaty of London peace treaty was signed with Western Kosovo (Metohija) ceded to the Kingdom of Montenegro and Eastern Kosovo ceded to the Kingdom of Serbia." That is neutral, that is factual and it is what happened. Any objections to something along them lines? Also both sources/ references would support this sentence. IJA (talk) 11:20, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

That wording is much better and neutral IJA. FkpCascais (talk) 12:03, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

No objections on neutrality of that, but I'm not 100% sure about factuality: which "peace treaty" it refers to ? You are right that all that Treaty of London did was to cede western Ottoman territories, except Albania, to the Balkan League. It did not its regulate inter-league division at all, so it does not follow that any particular part of Kosovo was ceded to Montenegro or Serbia. Unless I'm missing some other treaty? No such user (talk)

Isn't this entire discussion mixing up two rather different topics? The one is since when Serbia's acquisition of Kosovo was internationally recognized by the other powers; the other is since when Serbia internally treated Kosovo as a regular part of its own territory according to its own constitutional order. These two questions are entirely independent of each other. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:41, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

We have conflicting sources which say different things, my proposal gets around that by stating something neutral and factual which isn't disputed regardless of Kosovo not being incorporated into an administrated part of the Serbian state until after WW1. IJA (talk) 11:54, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Noel Malcolm's publications are not so much in tune to primary sources but largely plagiarise (in the case of Kosovo) historians such as Rexhep Qosja and others with conceptually flawed views on the issue of the region. Three out of the four Balkan League states had planned to share the entire western Balkan amongst themselves. They overran the entire region less Vlora while an Albanian assembly in turn declared independence in their own name of four vilayets, so Vlora is what they originally secured and from where they originally administered. The Treaty of London made the provisions for an Albanian Kingdom concurrent with its present shape in return for Greece, Serbia and Montenegro taking their spoils from what remained outside. Either way, Albania itself did not from that point see remaining Epirus or Kosovo as within its territory. The Ottoman Empire in turn was pushed back to East Thrace. Now for Greek and Montenegrin spoils I cannot be too certain but the territory it lost to Serbia (most of Kosovo province) was recognised by the Ottomans in 1914 so the suggestion that Kosovo continued to be "occupied" after this implies the continuation of Ottoman rule which the Sultan himself did not recognise. Then to add ridicule, if Kosovo was occupied then so too would have been the spoils of the Balkan League (all of Rumelia except East Thrace) and all of Albania outside Vlora would too have been occupied (or all of it including Vlora just rebel-held). If the Malcolm/Qosja sources are to be trusted then there is the jigsaw peace for "when did Kosovo join Serbia?" to which Qosja's response (and subsequently Malcolm) is in the mid 1920s with the adoption of the constitution for the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. By that time, the Ottoman Empire was no more and the Turkish republic had sealed its European border. So I doubt the pro-occupation after 1913 argument is even strong enough for WP:FRINGE. --Oranges Juicy (talk) 12:28, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

@Oranges Juicy: - No one is proposing to state that it is an "occupation" so what's your point? Malcolm is saying it is occupied territory because Serbia didn't get round to the lengthy process of centrally incorporating into the Serbia state because five minutes after Serbia conquered it from the Ottoman Empire, World War One began (Bulgaria annexed Kosovo in this period) and got in the way of the process. So by the time Serbia was able to incorporate it properly, it was actually Yugoslavia/ Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes not Serbia. But none of this is the issue here. Lets not get side tracked. IJA (talk) 13:17, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

No problem. I confess to having looked at the top of this section, the first three/four posts and the source of the dispute and then looked at a handful of other notes but did not see just how long this thread actually is or that it had evolved into the immediate topics above mine. Sorry to have caused confusion. --Oranges Juicy (talk) 13:22, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

@Oranges Juicy: - No problem mate. What's your opinion of my proposed sentence? "After the First Balkan War, the 1913 Treaty of London peace treaty was signed with Western Kosovo (Metohija) ceded to the Kingdom of Montenegro and Eastern Kosovo ceded to the Kingdom of Serbia." Regards IJA (talk) 13:35, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for asking. I have read more of the thread now. The proposal is largely fine. Montenegro took the area that Slavic nations call Metohija and what in Albanian is Rrafshi i Dukagjinit, so that is Prizren, Peć/Peja, etc.. The question here (that I cannot answer since I have just joined the talk) is whether we are talking about the territory of present-day Kosovo or whether we refer to the former vilayet. If it is the former then that is all Montenegro took (west) and Serbia got central and east. If we are talking about the vilayet then it is slightly more complicated because of how big it had become when being expanded after 1881. Kosovo was something "misshapen" so to speak at that time and Montenegro also took one strip of the Sandžak territory which narrowly linked Kosovo to Bosnia and Herzegovina (i.e. Pljevlja, Berane, Bijelo Polje, Rožaje, all of which remains today in Montenegro as a result of the Ottoman ouster). Serbia's gain on the other hand stretched deep into Macedonia (ie. Štip, Skopje the Kosovan capital). It is hard to find actual maps of the Kosovo vilayet but according to what other editors have written on the articles, it seems even Albania may be left with a chunk of what was pre-1912 Kosovo (though I am not sure which settlements). So east/west may be a good simplifier, I don't know if it would be best served with more detail on the geographical territory. FTR I won't oppose your proposal if everyone else is happy with it. --Oranges Juicy (talk) 13:58, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

This article primarily deals with the land which is currently known as Kosovo, as like with most places which aren't islands, borders change over time for various reasons but this article deals with its current boarders primarily. So present day Kosovo was split between Mont and Serbia in 1913. IJA (talk) 16:38, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree with IJA. Whatever we do, we have to change the status quo, because the source simply doesn't support the claim and Anastan's edit summary is, quite simply, a lie. Sources do suggest that Serbia took control of the area, but not that it became an organic part of Serbia at that time. (To do so would have required a constitutional agreement which simply never happened). The distinction seems very important to some people. There is robust evidence that Kosovo became an organic part of Yugoslavia, of course. bobrayner (talk) 22:19, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

"then it was incorporated into Yugoslavia" That the sentence you removed, with other one, talking about Serbia. The distinction is indeed very important. Welcome to this discussion, after ignoring it for 5 days. --Ąnαșταη (ταlκ) 22:41, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Bobrainer, I notice a lot of edits of yours where you propagate Kosovo independence with an edit summary of "Welcome to 2014" (now 2015)... So, you advocate Kosovo independence disregarding the complexity of the issue for yeas now. However, you disregard Kosovo being part of Serbia already prior WWI with some obscure minor argument about the lack of an internal Serbian constitutional ammendement (important only to hard-line Albanian revisionists), but with entire world recognizing Serbian new borders including Kosovo? See the irony here? ... Could I say: "Welcome to 1914?" FkpCascais (talk) 22:52, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

What on earth are you talking about?

Anastan restored content which is simply not supported by the source. You leapt in to agree with Anastan. Your ridiculous responses show, quite clearly, why I avoided the thread. I assume that both of you are sufficiently literate to know that the source neither mentions Kosovo nor discusses its constitutional arrangements; and yet you pretend otherwise. This is a sad reality of working on any article that touches on Serb nationalism. Other editors were doing just fine developing better content. bobrayner (talk) 00:41, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Kosovo and Vardar Macedonia became part of Serbia. Even Albania stoped claiming Kosovo. Who cares about the constitutional arrangements besides you and obscure historical revisionists? Deal with with it and stop vandalizing articles with your POV-pushing against Serbs constantly. I will not care to respond to your distortions. This and other articles were just fine until you got here with your illusions how Kosovo was never part of Serbia. Also, stop victimizing yourself with the Serb nationalists excuse, who is Serbian nationalist here? FkpCascais (talk) 01:05, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for proving my point.

Does anybody else have any suggestions on how to improve the article? bobrayner (talk) 12:13, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

As there wasn't any objections to my proposal, I went ahead and made the edits. IJA (talk) 19:03, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

IJA, I'm back for a short while. In light of the disputes and the fact that we are talking about the current borders, I consider the change objective in that it doesn't suggest one thing over another. --Oranges Juicy (talk) 11:09, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

To everyone else, I am finding it difficult to believe we are still discussing whether or not Kosovo became part of the Kingdom of Serbia, and I see this argument being driven by its absence from the short source on the London Treaty. To establish what was and what was not stated in the treaty, one needs the actual full text. But if it is minor citations from reliable sources people want then there is an acknowledgement here of the Treaty of London 1913. Even so, the proper place to discuss these things is in the article. Furthermore, claiming that the territory was occupied on the strength of the Kingdom of Serbia's constitution is insanely weak. All statutes are ceremonial, so much so that a number of countries do not even have constitutions. The question is one of recognition. By sealing both the Ottoman Empire's new borders and establishing Albania where it remains (and don't forget, Ottoman Empire and Serbia were both signatory to the treaty), the only outstanding dispute was the bulk of the Macedonia region. Note that this did not include Skopje or Tetovo as these were part of Serbia's gain from the Kosovan annexation, but it did include important cities such as Bitola, Thessaloniki and Blagoevgrad. The new war placed Greece and Serbia against Bulgaria and the treaty of Bucharest divided the region three ways. So this moves us forward a few years to Yugoslavia. For any editor here to suggest that there is evidence of Kosovo having been incorporated into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes but not the previous Serbian kingdom, I suggest he or she establish the facts on the creation of Yugoslavia: first Serbia absorbed Montenegro's kingdom, then after World War I it took the Vojvodina region over a period of days, then it formally united with the previously unrecnognised first incarnation of Yugoslavia, the State of Croats, Serbs and Slovenes all by the end of 1918. Therefore, if Kosovo had been occupied territory in the first place, then it wasn't Serbia's to take with it into the new state. History only records the expanded Serbian kingdom merging with the State of CSS. Plus, back to the constitution argument, if Skopje was occupied, so too would Bitola and Prilep have been since these were part of the Second Balkan War gains, and subsequently Serbia would have entered into a new state with its entire south from Novi Pazar to Gevgelija subject to "occupation" with nobody in the world laying claim to those lands, not even Bulgaria. It is a conspiracy theory with far-reaching implications (people don't always realise how vast Kosovo was and how Macedonia tumbled onto it within months) and I highly recommend we drop it. In the meantime, this is a one-revert page which means behaviour here is monitored and sensitive. Can I ask the rest of you stop picking holes into each other, and accusations of "nationalism" are never a healthy thing. Stick to content! Thanks! Regards to all. --Oranges Juicy (talk) 11:09, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

The BBC source you used says "1912 - Balkan Wars: Serbia regains control of Kosovo from the Turks, recognised by 1913 Treaty of London" then it says "1918 - Kosovo becomes part of the kingdom of Serbia.". Just because a country has control over a piece of land doesn't necessarily mean it is an integrated part of the sovereign state. For example, the US bought Alaska from Russia in 1867 but Alaska wasn't incorporated into the US until 1884. Like I said before, Serbia didn't get chance to integrate Kosovo into a centralised part of the Kingdom of Serbia because WW1 got in the way. Anyway, this doesn't matter too much as I think my edit is fine. It says that Eastern Kosovo was ceded to Serbia in 1913, that's what our readers need to know. IJA (talk) 13:43, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm not disputing the content as it stands. I did see the 1918 caption but to be honest, I wasn't implying using that source as a counter-argument. I was merely providing something which acknowledged the Treaty of London. I thought the 1918 part meant that Kosovo rejoined Serbia in the sense of Serbia restoring de facto control after the war. To be honest, this whole topic of integration is a shady area as there really is very little published on the subject. The two important factors are firstly that all maps published for the region after 1913 whether in history atlases or school textbooks show Skopje, Prizren and Novi Pazar in Serbia (as well as Prilep taken after the Bucharest treaty though no doubt subject to same technicalities), and secondly that after 1913 nobody else was laying claim to these towns (compared to the Golan Heights which Israel occupied but continues to be claimed by Syria, regardless of recognition). Do I take it we have drawn a line under this subject or does anyone else believe we have missed something out? --Oranges Juicy (talk) 12:37, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

I rephrased it somwehat, introducing a few wikilinks to relevant articles. Now, on retrospect, I think I was a bit too anal, and there was nothing wrong with IJA's formulation (except for "became apart"). :D So, revert if you wish. No such user (talk) 08:19, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I just added the word "the" to it a few times. IJA (talk) 09:12, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, I hoped I have become better with the's, but I'm still struggling with it when proper nouns are involved. No such user (talk) 09:52, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

No problem mate, us wikipedians are a team who help each other out. IJA (talk) 14:04, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Official Serbian name

The official Serbian name is Republika Kosova (yes, with "a"). See indisputable primary source. Let's keep it neutral (talk) 11:10, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Hmmm In the Serbian language The Constitution of Kosovo, The President's Office and The Prime Minister's Office all use "Kosovo" (yes, without "a"). I think my indisputable primary sources are a little stronger than your picture of a sign. IJA (talk) 19:26, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

As Anonimski explained when reverting, it is an grammatical issue. Serbian language uses declinations. Thus a name Kosovo can have a forma of Kosova (of Kosovo), Kosovu (to Kosovo), Kosovski (Kosovar), etc. This is such case in the foto, but not by any means that official name in Serbian is Kosova. Let's keep it neutral you need to trust more the editors which know Serbian language and AGF, be sure that none Serbian editors here would be putting a wrong name in Serbian, its obvious. FkpCascais (talk) 20:06, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

And a typo (or laziness to use diacritics) in "Dobro došli" notwithstanding. Looks as if the road sign was drawn in a hurry to get the job done, probably by an Albanian author. No such user (talk) 08:23, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

@Let's keep it neutral. Let's keep it neutral.--Zoupan 21:14, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Lede Clarification

A small portion of the lede seems a bit conflicting. As a novice to the subject I'd appreciate a little more clarity when it comes to describing the ongoing tension. I propose a change from:

Serbia does recognise the Republic's governance of the territory and continues to claim it as its own Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija.

to:

Serbia does recognise the Republic's governance of the territory yet continues to claim it as its own Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija.

or even:

While Serbia does recognise the Republic's governance of the territory it continues to claim it as its own Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija.

Would either of these be a more apt way to describe the current state of the situation? sudopeople 21:00, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. In fact, until yesterday, the passage read "While Serbia does recognise […], it still continues […]". It was changed by somebody who apparently felt the two halves of the sentence didn't form a logical contrast [39], but I quite agree with you that they do and that they should be contrasted with more than just "and". I've reverted to the previous state, for now. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:14, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

@Future Perfect at Sunrise: I just saw your rv. I didn't think to check the history. I also couldn't articulate what was wrong with the sentence as well as you. Thanks! sudopeople 21:17, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

It is hard to clarify anyhow because in all honesty, since the Brussels Agreement, Serbia's own position is very much self-conflicting. The situation bares similarity to Pakistan's position over the Waziristan regions out of its hands. Some years ago, Islamabad announced that it accepted the rebel rule but saw it as integral for Pakistan's security despite knowing the government had no control in the area. The Kosovo situation differs somewhat because Serbia is aiming to balance the scales. I'd say, "Serbia continues to claim sovereignty of Kosovo, however, it wholly accepts Kosovo's local governance and has no aspirations to amend the status quo". It is long, but certainly not controversial. --Vrhunski (talk) 15:53, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm a novice so I don't know how accurate that is or if it's controversial or not, but it sounds really good to me...maybe minus "wholly". If they *wholly* recognized their sovereignty I'd imagine they'd recognize Kosovo as a sovereign state. sudopeople 17:34, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Good point. Looking at "wholly" I suppose it is just verbiage that springs to mind when the fingers type as the mind thinks. So, "Serbia accepts Kosovo's local governance, etc.". Notice "accept" avoids the political implications of "recognise". It might be worth citing the Brussels Agreement between the clauses "continues to claim" and "accepts local governance". I know it is given throughout the article but a simple reference to the agreement removes ambiguity and enables readers who are unfamiliar to click and see what it was. --Vrhunski (talk) 18:57, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Unnecessary Text

Under the section Constitution this line appears: " although (as noted previously) North Kosovo" Should the "as noted previously" be changed? I see no purpose for that section. Hifear267 (talk) 12:55, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. It's outdated too. Fixed. bobrayner (talk) 00:00, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Kosovo's third official language\

Kosovo's third official language is English. On the page only Albanian and Serbian is shown as official language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Memedhe (talk • contribs) 20:09, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Do you have an official source for this? Bazonka (talk) 20:57, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Article 5 of the constitution: "The official languages in the Republic of Kosovo are Albanian and Serbian." bobrayner (talk) 21:11, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

And bullet 2: "2. Turkish, Bosnian and Roma languages have the status of official languages at the municipal level or will be in official use at all levels as provided by law. " Stevetauber (talk) 22:32, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Every document in Kosovo is written all three languages. ID card, Passport, bills etc. Road names, company info is written in all 3 languages, warning signs etc. You can register your company in all three forms Sh.p.k , OLK, LLC etc. all goverment sites are written in three languages etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Memedhe (talk • contribs) 22:19, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

The officialdom of language lies within a constitution or statute. In light of the fact that there is no permanent significant English speaking population in Kosovo there is little chance of it being named, just as it has no local population to serve. From having lived in Greece for 22 years of my life, I recall 99% of road signs and documents being published in Greek and English (including my driving licence since that is where I passed back in 1987) but this is more for international-friendly circumstmaces (Greek on top in yellow, then English in white to avoid all confusion), just as the pilot on the plane speaks in English when telling the cabin crew to take their seats for landing, even if the operator is Montenegro Airlines. In Europe you'll find English is only official in Malta. --Vrhunski (talk) 19:20, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

British Passports are also in French as well as English, it doesn't mean that French is an official language of the UK. English is used in Kosovo at International level and Business level because the English language is an international and business language, not because it is an official language of Kosovo. IJA (talk) 23:08, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 May 2015

Author-editor recommends addition to sources of internationally recognized balanced work with translated essays from all sides.

• Buckley, William Joseph, ed. (2000) Kosovo: Contending Voices on Balkan Interventions Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans.

Tarzan155 (talk) 00:38, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 03:03, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Redundant note

Somebody just tried to add that boilerplate Kosovo-note to the article. People, I'm sure we've discussed this before, that template is obviously only for other articles that deal with Kosovo in passing, not this main article. Everything that note does is already said right at the top of the article lead. Besides, it wasn't even used properly; there was no "status" text anchor that linked to it, so it was technically quite useless too. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:09, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Agreed; it's redundant. However, there are still a few redundant transclusions of that template on other pages, which have been left behind since its biggest fan stopped editing. bobrayner (talk) 21:58, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Kudos

I was doing some research for my job, which included learning more about the history of Kosovo from the breakup of Yugoslavia to present. I found this article to be quite well-written and informative. I just wanted to congratulate those you who have worked hard on the article, including resolving disputes, and to tell you that your sustained efforts are appreciated. Good job! -- Mark D Worthen PsyD 21:06, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

According to CIA Factbook, Population

Ethnic groups: Albanians 92%, other (Serb, Bosniak, Gorani, Roma, Turk, Ashkali, Egyptian) 8% (2008) [40] --12:45, 27 November 2011