Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ireland/Disambiguation task force

New Ireland project

Hi all,
I've started a new Ireland related project which I hope will bridge a gap I feel exists between the two Wiki community's with an interest in Ireland related matters. The project has just started but I hope it will allow us to work together at first on uncontroversial articles such as Sports in Ireland and if successful I hope will allow for a more constructive and friendly approach to the controversial issues Gnevin (talk) 20:26, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Task Force terms of reference

It occurred to me that it would be sensible for the terms of reference of the task force to include the Derry/Londonderry issue. It seems that those arguing for Ireland over Republic of Ireland (on the basis of it being the "official name"), appear not to make the same argument in relation to Londonderry. It also seems that there may be greater scope for compromise between the two opposing camps if the task force remit extended to both, since neither camp is likely to be entirely happy or entirely unhappy with a "Ireland (state)/Londonderry" or "Republic of Ireland/Derry" solution. Mooretwin (talk) 14:21, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree that there's a definite synergy there, and examining both issues at the same time might enable us to reach a sensible compromise sooner. On the other hand, I'm slightly concerned that if we throw too many issues into the mix we'll lose our focus and resolve nothing. I'll be interested to read others' views on the suggestion. waggers (talk) 15:16, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Eh? I'd see "Ireland/Londonderry" and "Republic of Ireland/Derry" as being a pair. Not "Ireland (state)/Londonderry" -- Evertype·✆ 15:55, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I didn't intend this as another place to the continue the argument over terminology. Regardless of your views on "Ireland (state"), what are your views on extending the TOR? Mooretwin (talk) 16:16, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I'd have little confidence in it getting anywhere if we aren't getting anywhere with this dispute. -- Evertype·✆ 18:33, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, it is precisely because we appear to be going nowhere with the task force, that I make this suggestion. Mooretwin (talk) 09:53, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Look. I prefer Ireland = the state, Ireland (island) = the island, and Ireland (disambiguation) = dab. You prefer Ireland = the island, Republic of Ireland or Ireland (state) = the state, and Ireland (disambiguation) = dab. Evidently I cannot have my preference, and you cannot have your preference. There is an actual compromise on offer: Ireland = dab, Ireland (state) = the state, and Ireland (island) = the island. Now, this compromise is neither my preference nor yours. For my part, I am willing to accept this compromise. I am not interested in hearing bluster arguments "proving" that "the description is the name" and so we must accept the status quo. They have convinced no one and we are all pretty intelligent people here: they are unconvincing because the logic does not convince, not because we are thick or obstinate. Good gods, I am sorely sick to my eyeteeth of this endless dispute. I, and others, in good faith, have offered to accept the compromise: Ireland = dab, Ireland (state) the state, and Ireland (island) for the island. Will you, in good faith, accept this compromise? It's time for you to show some good faith now. Let us, for the love of Ireland, move forward. -- Evertype·✆ 13:47, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

You misrepresent the situation in order to make your "compromise" proposal look more favourable. "Ireland (state)" still involves using the name for the whole island for one portion of it, and it is a misrepresentation to say that I favour it. On practical grounds it is also an ugly construction that is unlikely to solve the problem for using the term in the texts of articles. I cannot support anything that will involve having references to "Ireland (state)" or "state of Ireland" (neither of which are common names), simply because of an irrational opposition to the perfectly adequate and common "Republic of Ireland". The only circumstances in which I could countenance supporting "Ireland (state)" as the title of the current "Republic of Ireland" article is if there is agreement that "Republic of Ireland" may be used within the text of articles for disamiguation and clarity. Further, by your own logic, the "Derry" article ought to be renamed "Londonderry", since that is the "official name" (and therefore, apparently, the only choice for the article title. Mooretwin (talk) 20:17, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Accusing me of misrepresentation shows that you are not Assuming Good Faith. I note that you could not resist arguing or commenting in the poll below. Well, fine. Calling people who prefer the constitutional name of this state to a 1948 statutory instrument "irrational" as you have done is uncivil. Declaring what you "cannot support" in the context of this discussion is telling: it suggests that you are not, in fact, willing to compromise in good faith. Ireland (state) is no worse than Georgia (country). Londonderry and Derry is a red herring; this argument is about this and that argument is another argument. (And I don't care what they call that article.) Your ultimatum that you could only accept "Ireland (state)" if we agreed to permit "Republic of Ireland" in articles is just setting the stage for wholesale introduction of "Republic of Ireland" in every article everywhere. I don't think we're that naïve, and I do think that you're not showing good faith. This is regrettable. Please get over it. As I said: let us, for the love of Ireland, move forward. -- Evertype·✆ 21:17, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, I think you have misrepresented my position, and I stand over that. I concede, however, that it may have been unintentional. Regarding your suggestion that I am not willing to compromise in good faith - ironically - does not assume good faith. I have indicated that I may be open to compromises in the form of packages that attempt to deal with a number of related disputes. Ireland and Georgia are red herrings because the two Georgias are completely separate entities, whereas the two Irelands are not. I also stand by my comment that opposition to Republic of Ireland is irrational - there is little by way of rational argument against the term other than the mantra that it's not the "official name". The need for disambiguation is conceded, yet the obvious solution Republic of Ireland is rejected for no reason other than an apparently irrational objection to the term. "Ireland (state)" "Ireland (country)", "republic of Ireland", etc., are not "official names" either, yet they are apparently more acceptable.

Finally, it appears to me that a group of editors has created an organised opposition to the term Republic of Ireland, resulting in edit wars, etc. and then inevitably leading to a deadlock requiring intervention and "compromise". The compromises put forward, however, in reality is not a genuine compromise because it means purging the term Republic of Ireland from Wikipedia (in place of some other term about which the campaigners magnanimously are willing to negotiate): the very objective of the campaign against the term. Mooretwin (talk) 00:28, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

(Deindent) Bringing this back to a "terms of reference" question. I understood that the basic terms of reference of this task force were to create a set of guidelines around:

• when/how/where to refer to the state as "Ireland", and when as "Republic of Ireland"
• when/how/where to refer to the island as "Ireland", and when as "the Island of Ireland"
• (and possibly - recently introduced) when/how/where to refer to any constituent parts of the island by the names preferred by certain communities
• etc

And to do this (for now at least) with the assumption that the filenames would remain as they currently stand. (Given that we've never been able to agree on any moves). If this is the case, then this "taskforce" can succeed. If however the TOR are thrown open to include a framework for block "moves" of articles, then THAT issue doesn't need a taskforce. It needs to follow RM. (Also - frankly - it won't solve any problems. It will make many of them worse. Because - even if "Ireland (state)" or some other Wikipedia only filename is applied - we STILL have the issue of clarity of DAB when referring to Ireland in body text. Because we STILL have the issue of clarifying which entity called "Ireland" is being referred to for the reader. An issue - in my view - which would actually be made worse by adding in parens suffixes which cannot be used in body text. Anyway - my point is this: Either we are looking for a way to address the DAB issue in the text. Or we are squabbling yet again about filenames. If its the latter, and its not done in the context of the former, then move it to RM. Guliolopez (talk) 23:50, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

You make some good points. I'm not sure that the TOR are clear. Certainly the task force discussion has focused almost entirely on the titles of the articles, and not on references in the texts. Mooretwin (talk) 00:28, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

As has been pointed out below, the opening sentence is very clear that the task force's remit includes the titles of articles as well as the usage within them: "The Ireland disambiguation task force is a workgroup of Manual of Style (Ireland-related articles), initiated for the purpose of centralising discussion on issues surrounding the use of the name "Ireland" in article names and within articles." waggers (talk) 15:14, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

To go back to Mooretwin's proposal, I think it's a crazy idea (1) because as far as I'm concerned the "Derry/Londonderry issue" was resolved years ago, and (2) because it relies on the misconception that the Ireland/ROI debate is a nationalist v unionist one. It's not. As many nationalists favour ROI as Ireland, and several British "unionists" favour Ireland over ROI. As far as the opening sentence is concerned, I put it there in September and at the same time asked everybody to edit it until it reflected everybody's views.[1] Since there was only one small edit, I assumed that these were the agreed terms of reference. Any agreement that is reached will in any case involve changing (or agreement to leave) the article names. Scolaire (talk) 18:34, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Compromise proposal

Do you agree to support, even if it is not your first preference', this compromise?

1. Move Ireland (disambiguation) to Ireland

2. Move Ireland to Ireland (island)

3. Move Republic of Ireland to Ireland (state)

Please do not argue or comment. Please simply indicate Agree or Disagree or Abstain. Please. -- Evertype·✆ 13:47, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

• Agree -- Ireland rules (talk) this is fair for all sides —Preceding undated comment was added at 18:28, 13 February 2009 (UTC).

• Agree -- Evertype·✆ 13:47, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
• Agree -- ClemMcGann (talk) 14:59, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
• Disagree -- for reasons stated above - there needs to be a package deal. Mooretwin (talk) 20:17, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
• Agree -- waggers (talk) 20:54, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
• Agree  DDStretch  (talk) 21:07, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
• Agree Sarah777 (talk) 21:24, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
• Agree GoodDay (talk) 22:10, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
• Agree HighKing (talk) 22:30, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
• Disagree: it is not a compromise, it is a very old proposal. Scolaire (talk) 22:48, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
• Agree RashersTierney (talk) 22:52, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
• Disagree - Per Scolaire I fail to see how the term "compromise proposal" can be applied to this. The precise setup that is being proposed (involving an "Ireland (state)" label) was first proposed back in 2005. It has never seen any consensus as a reasonable label for the filename to use for the country article. (Mainly because it is an artificial (Wikipedia only) DAB label. And there already exists a real world, common use and legislatory supported commonname which addresses the DAB issue). Guliolopez (talk) 23:35, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
• Disagree -- Djegan (talk) 23:58, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
• Agree only NPOV way forward --Snowded TALK 05:56, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
• Disagree ww2censor (talk) 04:42, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
• Agree - to me its the most encyclopedic thing to do.Yman88 (talk) 14:39, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
• Agree Bazza (talk) 15:27, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
• Agree Stadt (talk) 17:28, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
• Agree I also agree with this (perhaps it's the simplest of all). --Matt Lewis (talk) 16:22, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
• Disagree Nuclare (talk) 08:27, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
• Disagree See comments passem ad nasuem. It is not a compromise, it is also not rational.Traditional unionist (talk) 12:43, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
• Disagree Things seem better as they are at the moment. Ireland the state is referred to as ROI on a daily basis, I have yet to see it called Ireland (State)! --Cameron* 09:50, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
• Disagree The current situation is better than the clumsy article titles that would result from this.Valenciano (talk) 19:16, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
• Disagree (strongly) - This would lead to Culture of Ireland (island) and Education in Ireland (state), and similar nonsense article titles. Djegan (talk) 14:39, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Very little covers the entire country (they are often weak and biased articles too - due to the fudged meanings we currently have - see my findings linked here from the main page). And why would it be "nonsense"? Actually they wouldn't both need to disambiguate, and in reality they can stay as they are - they would naturally go straight to their articles, so we can use 'Ireland'. You are protecting a situation where there are 3 types of confusion over what Ireland is in the PROSE - that is the nonsense here!!! At least a simple 'Education in Ireland' article link can be followed (without any need for brackets) - its a 3-way gamble now where you turn up now when you click on the word 'Ireland' in prose! --Matt Lewis (talk) 16:51, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
• Disagree --Mais oui! (talk) 09:40, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
• Agree. Regards. Redking7 (talk) 02:21, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
• Agree. Grollum (talk) 23:19, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
• Disagree Parts 1 & 2 are fine... Sorry :-( -- Phoenix (talk) 23:48, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
• Agree. --Red King (talk) 01:02, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Comments

• Comment --- This is not a compromise proposal, it is simply a proposal to purge the term Republic of Ireland from Wikipedia. Mooretwin (talk) 00:31, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Disagree And please AGF. --HighKing (talk) 01:13, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I fail to see how "this is not a compromise proposal" is a sufficient reason for disagreeing with the proposal. Ignore the word compromise - the above is a proposal. Yes, it's been proposed before, but that doesn't matter - it's a proposal that has a good deal of support behind it and making a fuss over whether or not it's a compromise is a disruptive distraction from the main issue. waggers (talk) 08:22, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I've already disagreed with it (see above). It's important to make it clear to others that it is not a compromise, lest they be misled by the title. Mooretwin (talk) 09:51, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Surely it is a compromise between the current article name (RoI) and the name supported by all the references (Ireland). Why is it important whether it is a compromise or not? It is a proposal. Not ideal, but a compromise ClemMcGann (talk) 11:16, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

This proposal will not result in the exact outcome of what many editors argued for, but this is the best solution for meeting the arguments of most of the people. It's why it's referred to as a compromise. Mooretwin sees nothing wrong with the status quo, which explains his disagreement (which is allowed, nothing wrong with disagreeing!). Once a consensus is reached, I'm sure all editors will abide by it, even those disagreeing. --HighKing (talk) 11:31, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

It is not clear that the remit of the Task Force is the title of the articles. See Giulopez above. Apparently the remit is how to refer to the Republic of Ireland in the text of articles. In which case, this proposal is irrelevant. My own view is that the title, references in text, and perhaps Derry/Londonderry ought to be thrown into the mix and a package compromise agreed. Mooretwin (talk) 11:59, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I understand why you are throwing any argument you can lay your tongue on at this proposal. But the remit of the task force is clearly articulated as initiated for the purpose of centralising discussion on issues surrounding the use of the name "Ireland" in article names and within articles. --HighKing (talk) 14:03, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I suggest that you make your comments under Guliolopez' contribution above. He raised the matter, not me. I think a discussion is needed in the interests of clarity.Mooretwin (talk) 14:28, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Bah. Seems like you really don't want a resolution here. Of course the article titles are connected here. What compromise? You've offered nothing but your insistence that the Irish state be called "Republic of Ireland". Week after week after week. Now you want to change to terms of reference so you can drag it out some more. Bah. -- Evertype·✆ 12:34, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Please read Guliolopez' contribution above re. the TOR. I think he raises an important point which requires clarification. As for your claim that I don't want compromise, please read my comments on this page. Mooretwin (talk) 12:47, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

The fact that this issue has been proposed before doesn't include the progress made since then, nor the apparent spirit of compromise that now exists. It's about time that editors realize that there is no one perfect solution, and that the current state of affairs is no longer acceptable. Compromise is needed and required. Rereading your comments as you have suggested does not enlighten me as to your alternative compromise, rather an attempt to further complicate the issue by connecting others issues with this one. --HighKing (talk) 14:03, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm unaware of any progress. There has been endless discussion, but no progress that I can detect. That the "current state of affairs is no longer acceptable" is your opinion. I have suggested that compromise can come only from a package deal on title/text references, and I think throwing in Derry/Londonderry makes such a deal more likely. These are creative suggestions. Please AGF rather than attempting to portray me as someone unwilling to compromise. Mooretwin (talk) 14:28, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

For what it is worth, I do not object to the use of the formal charter name of Londonderry be used as the name of that article. I do object to Mooretwin's attempt to barter this, but :-) in the spirit of compromise I would accept the name change to the Derry article. (What happens internally with articles as regards ambiguity is a separate though related matter. I would however VERY MUCH object to a further delay in the issue of naming the Ireland articles. -- Evertype·✆ 15:45, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

• Comment - is it clear that this task force is going to reach a conclusion as a result of a vote of editors? Or is it for a "neutral" party to weigh up the arguments on their merits and come to a conclusion? (If the latter, any vote should be a multi-option, preferential system, which can better achieve a compromise outcome. Otherwise votes in favour of one general principle can end up being split across similar proposals, meaning that a popular general principle is lost.) Mooretwin (talk) 14:44, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Comment - What's this poll for?

Per my earlier note, I'm entirely unclear as to the purpose of this impromtu "straw poll". I thought we created the taskforce because we needed a model for moving forward that didn't involve repeating the same poll every month. As this proved a waste of everyone's time. Because it didn't solve the fundamental DAB issues. And hence this taskforce was created - to make a stab at the fundamentals. Now I see that the taskforce itself has become a polling booth. With no new context or framework. With nothing new confirmed since the last poll, what can possibly come out of this that is different from the previous 10+ polls? (If anyone is counting, this is at least the 10th such poll since this one in early 2006. And higher if you go back to some of the original discussions in 2005 or before.)

This latest poll seemed to spawn from a discussion about whether the TOR of the taskforce should include the Derry/Londonderry issue. I personally don't understand this "stream of conciousness" progression, so you'll have to excuse my confusion. Regardless of how it spawned however, if the intent of this poll is to prompt discussion on updating/confirming the taskforce TOR to include block naming/renaming articles, then fine. (If this is the case however, I would point out that it should really be addressed on the talk page for the taskforce. The taskforce page itself should, I would have thought, been the place for publishing any resulting guidelines/etc. Not as the forum for formulating them.)

If however this poll has another intent, and is yet another "vote" on the renaming of articles (outside of an RM process), then in itself it is not a means of progressing an RM move/rename. Nor does it help move the rest of the taskforce TOR issues forward. (Which, as noted, would remain unsolved - as we wouldn't have a means of addressing reader clarity on meaning of "Ireland" in body text. And would actually be worse, as it would leave us with labels that could not be included in the text without always relying on complex piping structures.) I would also point out - also for possibly the 10th time - that all this voting/discussion/etc is unlikely to get us very far. Simply because we are trying to change/solve a real world problem armed only with the Wikipedia filenaming system. Namely that (well meaning as we may be) we are unlikely to be able to solve the problem that the Republic of Ireland Act caused. By "act of Wikipedia" alone. Namely that there are at least two entities that are equally referred to as "Ireland" in the realworld. One of which has common use and (though controversial) legally formed alternative. What we should be doing therefore is looking for a means of working within the context of the realworld problems. Instead of trying to solve them. (By agreeing (as above) when to say "he is from Ireland", "he is from the Republic of Ireland", "he is from the island of Ireland", etc, etc. Instead of trying to invent new labels.) Guliolopez (talk) 18:25, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Well you might want to consider (i) no one from the pro ROI group seems to come up with anything other than continuation of ROI (ii) that ROI was removed in the GFA and we need to move on and (iii) that a lot of us are getting really fed up of the perpetuation of old language when a perfectly valid alternative is available (see the proposal (iv) that this is linked with multiple related issues on many pages with at least one ARBCOM set of sanctions. If you and others had accepted the earlier suggest to move away from ROI and debate alternatives that might make a non-vote solution more possible. --Snowded TALK 18:39, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

In other words, the anti-ROI brigade's idea of compromise is: "purge ROI from Wikipedia". A zero-sum victory doesn't really seem like compromise to me! Mooretwin (talk) 09:53, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

@Snowded: Re (i) it was certainly my hope that someone, from either side, would come up with a workable alternative, but nobody from either side has come up with anything new - precisely because we're driven back again and again to voting on "Ireland (island)" and "Ireland (state)", whether or not it's presented as "compromise". Re (ii), as I said in my statement, I have yet to see a single reliable source cited that ROI "was removed in the GFA", or even that anybody in Ireland asked for it to be. The GFA was in the internet age so if this is a known fact there should be plenty of links to where it is spelled out. I won't respond to the other points because "fed up" arguments do nothing for me and "other issues" are not relevant. Scolaire (talk) 10:10, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Although it does appear that a change in consensus has taken place. This poll shows that a lot of editors have agreed that this is a good (maybe the best) compromise. There's so many combinations of alternative, etc, that only a compromise will work - feel free to suggest your idea of a compromise and we can poll on that too, since polls are a legitimate way to test for consensus. --HighKing (talk) 19:46, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I genuinely hate to keep saying "I disagree", but I'm afraid I have to disagree with you on this. All that has happened is that the task force has narrowed back down to almost the same core group that started it - who all agreed with each other to begin with. I can't think of any editor who has actually changed his or her stance in the last two months. The worst thing that could happen IMO is that you would reach a 100% consensus (because your opponents all withdrew from the TF) only to find that you are defeated once again in an RM. But maybe I will suggest something (see below). Scolaire (talk) 20:27, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

A result

The vote is 13 - 10 for this proposal -

1. Move Ireland (disambiguation) to Ireland

2. Move Ireland to Ireland (island)

3. Move Republic of Ireland to Ireland (state)

The disruptive proposal below should be deleted. Sarah777 (talk) 01:39, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Notice of intent

Based on the clear and overwhelming consensus in this vote I will move these articles as per this consensus within 24 hours unless Waggers can explain why he has ignored the manifest consensus expressed here and explain why he has proposed a disruptive alternative proposal. This behaviour is totally unacceptable unless there are reasons for this apparent disruptive action that are not obvious. Sarah777 (talk) 01:47, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Bullying tactics won't work. Mooretwin (talk) 09:57, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Woah, Sarah! Your 15-3 vote is in the task force only. The task force is heavily dominated by people who agreed with you from day 1. It does not reflect consensus on Wikipedia. You cannot move any articles without an RM. Scolaire (talk) 07:14, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I'll ask again (I think this is the third time): what's an RM? Mooretwin (talk) 09:48, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

A requested move. See WP:RM. But Soclaire is incorrect - there is no policy stating that an RM needs to be made before the move - as the page says, "is a place for requesting the retitling of an article, a template, or a page in the Wikipedia namespace". RM is really for moves that require administrators' assistance, such as where page histories need to be merged etc., or for inexeperienced editors to request help with a move from more experienced editors. waggers (talk) 09:56, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

There's nothing disruptive about exploring other avenues in an attempt to secure an even greater consensus. The poll above made it clear that it was a question of support "even if it's not your first choice". Despite Scolare's comments below, the only discussion taking place above was around the name of what's currently the Republic of Ireland article. Based on that, everyone who agreed to the above proposal should be happy with the one below, as there's nothing in it that contradicts the one above, and those whose objection was based purely on the RoI issue get to state whether they support the suggested moves to the other articles. The intention of my new poll was not to ignore the RoI issue, but to show that we can actually make some progress on areas where we agree and then focus our attention fully on the RoI issue, without the island/disambiguation sideshow. waggers (talk) 08:49, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

As I have noted before, if the purpose of the "straw poll" is to focus discussion on the remits of the taskforce - or even to help move consensus forward, then that's grand. If however, as Sarah seems to be suggesting, it's a "trigger" to block move 3 (and ultimately dozens) of pages, then that's totally inappropriate. Polls are NOT an indicator of consensus. There is a reason we have templates like {{Not a ballot}} and policies like WP:!VOTE. Because "voting" is flawed. So please Sarah don't start a "move war" by preempting a more completely formed (and CON) solution with a move that addresses only your "Wikipedia should reflect official name" concerns. (And leaves the other concerns [DAB issues/COMMONNAME conflicts/Historical usage/etc] unresolved.) Guliolopez (talk) 11:53, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree that Sarah should not move, and playing the "deadline" game is not a good idea. This whole debate looks pretty close to a conclusion however and I would have concerns that it being dragged out to prevent change. Maybe an admin or two should act together to finalise this? --Snowded TALK 11:58, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

When, Snowded, can we have an end to this? I think that the consensus (even if not unanimous) to move these three articles is clear. It doesn't satisfy everyone, but the status quo is unacceptable. We've got to move on! -- Evertype·✆ 13:59, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

and do you think I disagree with that? I just think Sarah should not just go and do it cause she wants to issuing deadlines. Lets some admins get involved. --Snowded TALK 14:54, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

No, I don't think you disagree. -- Evertype·✆ 09:41, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) "if the purpose of the "straw poll" is to focus discussion on the remits of the taskforce - or even to help move consensus forward, then that's grand." - and that's exactly why I started the next poll - to see where consensus was regarding the first two moves, regardless of people's position on move 3. Unfortunately people aren't actually reading what it says below and are voting as if it suggests leaving Republic of Ireland where it is (as opposed to continuing the discussion on what to do with that article after resolving the first two moves, which can be done independently of moving Republic of Ireland). waggers (talk) 14:04, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Yet another proposal

The main objections that have been raised above are around the naming of the state; nobody has objected to moving the disambiguation or island page; can we therefore see how people feel about this combination:

1. move Ireland to Ireland (island)
2. move Ireland (disambiguation) to Ireland
3. (leave Republic of Ireland where it is for now; a vote for this is not necessarily an endorsement of the current name)

Again, please keep it simple with a straightforward "agree", "disagree" or "abstain", with comments in a separate section. waggers (talk) 15:30, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

• Agree as proposer - waggers (talk) 15:32, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
• Agree  DDStretch  (talk) 15:39, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
• Abstain Guliolopez (talk) 15:58, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
• Agree with poll I haven't caught up on the latest debate, but I have to say that is a good thing to poll, IMO. Perhaps some kind of Ireland (pre-1922) might fit next to Republic of Ireland? The main thing is that we can all use 'Ireland' as a text link. Keeping ROI with using that, may be the closest to a compromise we ever get. My own main wish was always to separate state from island, so there is no awkward mixing of use. Changing ROI to 'Ireland (state)' can be another issue, as waggers says. I haven't put a full "agree" as I haven't read a lot of the above. --Matt Lewis (talk) 16:13, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
• Disagree: Wrong again! My whole objection is with the move of "Ireland" to "Ireland (island)". Scolaire (talk) 17:59, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
• Disagree, earlier compromise is better --Snowded TALK 18:05, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
• Disagree: My objection is with "Republic of Ireland" instead of "Ireland (state)". Previous poll is my preference and since these 3 topics are linked, a solution which ignores one of the issues is not a good idea. --HighKing (talk) 19:41, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
• Disagree - no changes, no tinkering! Djegan (talk) 00:05, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
• Disagree - nothing that leaves Ireland labeled as "Republic of Ireland" is sustainable. The solution above -

1. Move Ireland (disambiguation) to Ireland

2. Move Ireland to Ireland (island)

3. Move Republic of Ireland to Ireland (state)

• Disagree - completely ignores the Irish Constitution Grollum (talk) 23:35, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

- appears to have clear consensus; so why this daft proposal? Is it an attempt to sabotage the consensus for change? It is totally unacceptable to launch a diversionary proposal while there is apparent consensus around the active one. Sarah777 (talk) 01:28, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

• Abstain - it's not clear to me what the function of this proposal is. Is it a final solution, or merely a staging post? I'm content with it as a final solution, but see no purpose in making such a proposal if it's not intended as a final solution. Mooretwin (talk) 09:46, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean, a staging post? This is about moving three articles. What is it that you fear we are trying to do? -- Evertype·✆ 13:38, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

By staging post, I mean an interim measure, pending a change in the name of Republic of Ireland. Mooretwin (talk) 13:58, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

• Disagree - I accepted the previous proposal and prefer Ireland (state) to Republic of Ireland. -- Evertype·✆ 13:39, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
• Disagree. Just like Scolaire, the whole of my objection is to the Ireland to Ireland (island) move. Currently, there are no fewer than 5 links in the top areas of the Ireland page to the state--the Ireland page already acts as a disambig. page! And it has the advantage of going directly to content, giving one maps, images, etc. to help one understand which Ireland (or specifically Northern Ireland) to read more about or link to. Nuclare (talk) 05:37, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
• Disagree It is self obvious that ireland is an island, it is the state that requires a Dab, and we have one already.Traditional unionist (talk) 12:45, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
• Agree with moving Ireland (disambiguation) to Ireland. No opinion re where to move the article now titled Ireland. --Una Smith (talk) 03:24, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
• Abstain - see comment below. --WickerWiki (talk) 13:11, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
• Disagree. Regards. Redking7 (talk) 02:23, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
• Agree This one makes sense to me. -- Phoenix (talk) 23:32, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Comments

• Comment I've abstained for two reasons. (1) I'm not sure what problem is solved by the move. All it really does is redirects the subset of users who land on "Ireland" (looking for the country) who aren't already redirected by the DAB hatnote or first sentence. Though maybe a babystep here is better than none. (2) As stated before, unless these "polls" occur within the context of the broader labelling guidelines under the main taskforce TOR, then this stuff should really be discussed under an RM. Or at least linked from the talkpage of the pages concerned. Guliolopez (talk) 15:58, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

• Comment. This is why I am against polls. I took the trouble to make a statement where I spelled out why I believe "Ireland" must be for the whole island of Ireland. Along comes Waggers and says "nobody has objected to moving the...island page." How can we have dialogue if people aren't even bothering to read it? Scolaire (talk) 17:59, 20 November 2008 (UTC)]

I admit I haven't read through the latest stuff.. sorry. I'll give it all a read - I suppose I should get up to scratch now I've voted on these latest proposals. I assume there have been other new approches suggested? Or major factual hurdles, besides. I will accept anything that solves the 2 huge problems I have personally encountered while editing now: One is the state/island mishmash inside 'Ireland', the other is editors' unhappiness using the full "Republic of Ireland" wording within articles. I don't hugely mind either way about the second one, personally - but people have to be happy, and I've been stuck by the fact that they are not.--Matt Lewis (talk) 18:54, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Your arguments on this are pretty cogent.--Peter cohen (talk) 19:09, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Whose? Mine or Matt's? Scolaire (talk) 19:16, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Yours. --Peter cohen (talk) 19:31, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. 20:05, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

• Comment. I've removed my opinon from this Taskforce. A trouble maker or possible Schizophrenic like myself, has nothing to contribute to it. PS- good luck in finding a solution, folks. GoodDay (talk) 19:38, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
• Comment. I am persuaded by the arguments made here, both for and against moving Ireland (disambiguation) to Ireland, that the disambiguation page should be titled Ireland. At present, Ireland is a mash-up of articles about the island, disambiguation, and misplaced text about the state. Has anyone examined the incoming links to Ireland? Are they also a mash-up, in need of disambiguation? That chore is much easier if the page that accumulates ambiguous links is purely a disambiguation page. That way, an editor can periodically visit "what links here" and see at a glance what articles need links fixed. --Una Smith (talk) 03:24, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
• Comment - normally I would say that in cases of words with mutliple uses the default page should be the disambig page. In Ireland's case I think there is a case that the country Ireland is the root source and primary use of the name. 99% of the other uses of the name are derived from the orginal country i.e. the other people and places are named after the "original" Ireland. --WickerWiki (talk) 13:11, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
• Comment - if people can't agree on Republic of Ireland or Ireland (state) what about Ireland (Republic of). Personally speaking as a native (born,reared and still living here) I think argument over use of the "Republic" is a lot of hot air. The only time I hear people in RL talk about "Republic of Ireland" is when we are playing football and commentators are not Irish. We don't refer to ourselves as the Republic but I could see how it could clear confusion if articles were maybe Ireland (Republic of) but I'd be cool with Ireland (State). The only people you might ever hear talk about a "Republic" would be Sinn Feiners.

Jaqian (talk) 10:53, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Scolaire's proposal

It seems to me that nearly all of the discussion here focuses on the fact that a number of editors object to (or don't want, or are prepared to ditch) "Republic of Ireland". What's being consistently missed is that an equal number of editors (wiki-wide, which is not always reflected in the task force) don't want "Ireland (island)" or "Ireland (state)". What I am proposing is, just for an exercise, that we agree not to use either "Republic of Ireland" or "Ireland (island)" and "Ireland (state)". Now, can anybody suggest a workable alternative? Scolaire (talk) 20:42, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I seem to see consensus around a workable solution above. No need for new proposals; there is a solution and there is consensus. Sarah777 (talk) 08:52, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

If I may add, I'm not sure that many people object (on it's own merits) to the current Ireland article remaining where it is. It's just that these topics are linked, which is why we're trying to create a compromise on both articles. But leaving the current Ireland article where it is just leaves us trying to rename the RoI article, which has been a continuous stalemat for years resulting in the article remaining at RoI for year (and if the truth be told, a consensus does not exist for this name any longer, but a consensus for a particular choice of name change can't be found). This is the first time, I believe, where we have seen an appetite to move RoI albeit in conjunction with the Ireland article (from what I can see, in the interests of consistency across articles).

But, seeing as how you've asked for alternatives... (btw, don't cross any out but feel free to add to these choices if you think of anything)

The choices for an article at Ireland are:

• Leave as is
• A Dab Page
• An article on the state

The choices for an article about Ireland the island are (excluding above):

• Ireland (island)
• Ireland (European island)
• Ireland (British Isles)

And the choices for an article about Ireland the state are (excluding above):

• Ireland (state)
• Ireland (country)
• Ireland (republic)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by HighKing (talk • contribs) 22:40, 20 November 2008

Er, you've left out Republic of Ireland in your list of choices for Ireland the state! Mooretwin (talk) 09:49, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, then, if ROI is really the only bone of contention, how about:

• Ireland - leave as is
• ROI -> Ireland (state)
• Ireland (disambiguation) - leave as is

If that were agreed in principle, we could discuss how Ireland (state) should be dealt with in articles, so that it would satisfy both the "Ireland" purists and the "unionist" objectors. The page moves would be done after we had agreement on that. Scolaire (talk) 07:45, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Lest we forget:

The vote is 13 - 5 for this proposal -

1. Move Ireland (disambiguation) to Ireland

2. Move Ireland to Ireland (island)

3. Move Republic of Ireland to Ireland (state)

A better solution by far would be

1. Move Ireland to Ireland (island)

2. Move Republic of Ireland to Ireland

But I'll go with the consensus.

Sarah777 (talk) 01:39, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

The vote is currently 12 - 7 i.e. less than 2:1, and falling. Never count your chickens... Scolaire (talk) 17:55, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Nope. There's no clear agreement that the word Ireland is used to refer to the island more than the state or vice versa. Therefore the disambiguation page should be at Ireland, per WP:D. waggers (talk) 09:00, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

What if we forgot about "should" (never mind "nope"!) and actually try discussing things? Scolaire (talk) 17:55, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Sarah here, but.. Scolaire's idea;proposal here is like my original kick-off proposal (archived on the main page), but having (in this case)

• Ireland as the island, and having hatnotes like;

• For the country called Ireland (*also called Republic of Ireland), see Ireland (state) (*optional)
• For the the country called Northern Ireland, see Northern Ireland

Why have the disam page? I personally would accept it as a third choice - providing that Ireland is indeed 'non-forking' (ie only the geographical island - so people will be encouraged to follow the links).

As editors would be using "Ireland" as to mean the state, it would have to be very clear in the opening paragraphs what the situation with Ireland is, ie it would say something like "Ireland is the name of an island comprising of two countries..." Ireland was clearly split into two equal (if not in size) countries as far as I'm concerned, so maybe that needs ironing out (some people seem to half accept it, though I dont see the benefit of really arguing it - it seem not productive to me). --Matt Lewis (talk) 09:20, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Matt; I cannot imagine that anyone who is interested in looking specifically for NI would need help; maybe that hat-note should be on the UK page, or the Ulster page? Anyone looking for NI as distinct from Ireland or the island would go somewhere else first; "Ulster", "UK" or "NI" all being more likely.Sarah777 (talk) 20:25, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I think there has for some months been a growing consensus that the way forward is to remove the controversial ROI label, but to respect the concern that Ireland (the island) should not be confused with Ireland (the state or whatever). Whenever this comes up we get all the normal arguments and multiple proposals and discussions threads in effect creates a filibuster. I think we should keep this really simple - namely a disambiguation page and two new names for the island and the state. If someone can come up with an alternative to (state) I am more than open. However I think that is the only real debate left. Other than that I think this one is ready to go. --Snowded TALK 09:27, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you~re right. Of course, the above would actually work with "(also called the Rebulic of Ireland)" removed from it, if it~s a compromise too far. Perhaps it could be come back to, if it~s needed. --Matt Lewis (talk) 09:55, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Snow, I think what we have had for at least two years amounts to one long filibuster. That's why I proposed cutting this short and implementing the obvious consensus in favour of WP:COMMONNAME. But, as you can see I have stayed my hand. For now. Re "counting chickens" the verdict is in - RoI is not consistent with policy; only the details remain - 2 days or another 2 years - only a detail. Sarah777 (talk) 20:31, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

"Will this ever end ...

... and is this the place to decide a move for either of these two articles? I think not."

Discuss with reference to WP policy and guidelines. --89.19.65.105 (talk) 21:42, 20 November 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.101.221.42 (talk)

Policy, guidelines, consensus...

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was move Ireland to Ireland (island), Republic of Ireland to Ireland (state), and Ireland (disambiguation) to Ireland. -- tariqabjotu 15:46, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Ok, let's start from first principles: Wikipedia's naming policy. It's called Wikipedia:Naming conventions but it is policy (as distinct from a guideline) as you'll see when you visit the page. As such, it should normally be followed by all editors. Yes, that includes you. It says to use the most recognised name. For both the island of Ireland and the state of Ireland, that name is Ireland. The policy says quite clearly, "Do not write or put an article on a page with an ambiguously named title as though that title had no other meanings." "Ireland" is ambiguous, therefore Ireland should be a disambiguation page. The policy tells us how to handle disambiguation by pointing to the WP:D guidelines, which of course concord with the policy: Ireland should be a disambiguation page.

DDstretch pointed all this out three weeks ago, yet for some reason we continued discussions as though we, as a group of editors, had a need to ignore the official policy of Wikipedia and go our own way. Over the last few days a poll was conducted, which included the notion of making Ireland a disambiguation page, and it achieved wide support. Naturally there were a few who disagreed but there is a fairly clear consensus. So with the policy, guidelines and our own poll all saying the same thing, it seems there is absolutely no reason why the disambiguation page cannot be moved to Ireland. It's what the policy says, it's what the guidelines say, we've discussed it to death and still come up with the same conclusion. So that's done and dusted.

All that remains is to agree on the naming of the island and state articles. Because the island article currently resides where the disambiguation page should go, I would suggest that that's the most pressing concern, but I've no objection to looking at alternative names for the current Republic of Ireland article at the same time as there seems to be some reluctance in discussions above for this task force to concentrate on one issue at a time. So let's do it. In the sections below, please add:

* '''Your preferred article title''' [optional SHORT comment] ~~~~

and remember that Ireland is not an option as that's where the disambiguation page is going to go! Come on, let's make some progress here. waggers (talk) 09:35, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Obviously, I concur entirely with this summary.  DDStretch  (talk) 18:28, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Yep. Good summary even if from my perspective it is merely a statement of the "bleedin' obvious" to quote Basil. I'd argue that current usage suggests that the primacy of Ireland to refer to the political country is now so widespread as to make it sufficient that "The island of Ireland" be a hat-note; but that is for future consideration. In the happy event that the good folk of NI decide to unite with the country of Ireland than there will be no further need for disambiguation. Sarah777 (talk) 20:41, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Preferred name of the island article

• Ireland (island) - no strong view, just seems logical and accords with the guidelines. waggers (talk) 09:35, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
• Ireland - I don't see how this cannot be the primary meaning of the word Ireland. The Southern Irish state has only existed for less than a century, yet the island has existed for millennia, and continues to exist today. The island continues today not merely as a geographic entity, but as a cultural and sporting entity. Mooretwin (talk) 09:53, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Did you know that the terms "Southern Ireland" and "Southern Irish state" really annoy people who live here? -- Evertype·✆ 14:03, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't propose using either in WP. You, on the other hand, propose using "Ireland" to mean the 26-county state, which really annoys people living in the other part of Ireland. Mooretwin (talk) 14:08, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Can I just chip in with my two cents? Whether a term annoys someone is irrelevant. That is POV. If something is factually correct and verifiable then it should be used.Yman88 (talk) 14:14, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Except when disambiguation is necessary. Mooretwin (talk) 14:39, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but from my understanding disambiguation won't be needed that often. I think it was you who mentioned somewhere that the Constitution of Ireland needed disambiguation! It clearly doesn't islands have nothing to do governements. The same applies to many other cases where there's no reason why it would be the island thats being talked about so Ireland clearly means the state. Anyway all I wanted to do was give my opinion; there are other editors here better than me at sorting problems out.Yman88 (talk) 14:49, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

So you accept that the "official name" should not be used where disambiguation is necessary. You merely dispute the frequency of the need for disambiguation. Mooretwin (talk) 14:58, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

In a way yes. Imo Roi would be needed only just in NI articles where Ireland had already established to mean the island. ie a very small number of articles. The rest should conform to the internationally accepted and NPOV "official name" if you want to put it like that.Yman88 (talk) 15:09, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Then we are not too far apart. Any articles relating to Northern Ireland, or the island as a whole require disambiguation, and ROI is a perfectly reasonable disambiguator (indeed, it is the obvious one). We'll agree to disagree on Constitution of Ireland, since it is not safe to assume that the reader knows that "Ireland" (the state) and Ireland (the island) are different. Mooretwin (talk) 15:13, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

• Ireland but prepared to compromise if ti's the only way to put this to an end.--Peter cohen (talk) 10:25, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
• Ireland (island) probably of the two - but it hardly matters in my own view. The main thing is having a non-mixed island article, and a state article where can people can agree on its name/what term directs to it. I'll go for any of above 3 proprosals (Evertype/waggers/Scolaire). IMO, it is clear that the status quo has to change, but few compromises are coming from those who wan't to keep it. Is it beholden on those who want change, to keep carrying on seeking compromise? Having had so much debate now, it seems to me that we either have to move with the Evertype proposal in some way (maybe move it as it stands to somewhere new, and advertise it with a closing date), or seriously look at Scolaire's compromise, which seems to me the biggest compromise. If Scolaire's is backed enough, they could even be re-polled as a choice, side by side. It they are polled with the status quo (with no multiple voting allowed), we would all of us have to accept the outcome. It would be up to people to back Scolaire's proposal though, as the Evertype proposal is clearly strong enough to not be disbanded this time (and we just drop them forever). --Matt Lewis (talk) 11:42, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
• Ireland (island) without question. It is unambiguous. -- Evertype·✆ 14:03, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
• Ireland (island) as it is the most correct choice. --HighKing (talk) 17:22, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
• Ireland (island) in line with the most obvious advice given in WP:DISAM.  DDStretch  (talk) 18:22, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
• Ireland (island) easiest ClemMcGann (talk) 18:54, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
• Ireland (island)Yman88 (talk) 19:06, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
• Ireland (island) --Snowded TALK 19:08, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
• Ireland, and I deeply resent the continued imposition of polls in lieu of discussion, and even more the implication that it's a matter of law enforcement. --Scolaire (talk) 09:05, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I could have missed something over the last year, but discussion does not seem to have been absent --Snowded TALK 09:26, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

No shortage of invective, certainly, but rational discussion? Heaven forbid! I had a proposal on the table, but instead of kicking it around we've launched straight into another poll, to allow everybody express their old prejudices yet again! Scolaire (talk) 09:47, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

*Ireland for "Island + State". Northern Ireland for what is a small breakaway territory. Purple_A (talk) 16:50, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

• Ireland, for the island & the history of the island. Ireland(state) for sovereign Ireland since 1922. Purple_A (talk) 17:56, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
• Ireland (island) is the best option. Sarah777 (talk) 20:46, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
• Ireland - The island existed long before any state of that name! :) --Cameron* 09:57, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
• Ireland (island) or Ireland (landform). --Una Smith (talk) 14:18, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
• Ireland (island) RashersTierney (talk) 14:27, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
• Ireland (island) - logically correct. Bazza (talk) 14:43, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
• Ireland (island) with Ireland being a redirect to Ireland (country). Except for those few who are not not anarchists, the country is more important than the island. Throw GB out of Northern Ireland and end this confusion by making the island the same as the country. 199.125.109.102 (talk) 00:26, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
• Ireland (island). Regards. Redking7 (talk) 02:25, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Preferred name of the state article

• Ireland (state)- no strong view, just seems logical and consistent, and accords with the guidelines. waggers (talk) 09:35, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
• Republic of Ireland - the obvious alternative to Ireland, which is a misnomer. Prepared to accept Ireland (state) in return for Republic of Ireland remaining as the disambiguator in article texts where a disambiguator is necessary. Mooretwin (talk) 09:51, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

As far as I can see disambiguation will rarely be necessary, if it is then a pipelink is the obvious way to make the point. If that really doesn't work then the Irish republic might work better. --Snowded TALK 09:59, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Of course it will be necessary, unless you are going to use "Ireland (state)" in the middle of prose. You propose "Irish republic" instead of "Republic of Ireland" - why? This determination to purge a perfectly reasonable, legitimate and statutory term is getting out of hand. I've offered a compromise but you won't accept anything that doesn't involve a complete purge of the term. Mooretwin (talk) 10:04, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Mooretwin please calm down. Most of the time if we use Ireland it will be very clear if it is the island or the state. A pipelink is the best way to clear up any doubt. You are in effect proposing that we change the name of the article, but then use your preferred name every time it is referenced! You are also fully aware of the arguments that ROI is not a legitimate name so I am not going to repeat them. --Snowded TALK 10:09, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I think it is optimistic to suggest that "most of the time" it will be clear whether "Ireland" means the island or the state. But, even if so, disambiguation will still be required for those minority of times when it is not clear. I am not proposing that we use Republic of Ireland every time it is referenced - only those times when "a disambiguator is necessary", e.g. in articles relating to the whole island or to Northern Ireland. I am, indeed, aware of the arguments that ROI is not legitimate. Those arguments, however, are very weak - I would say verging on irrational. Mooretwin (talk) 10:35, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

• Irish republic It avoids implication that "Republic of Ireland" is an official name - as article names begin with upper case letters, we can't have "republic of Ireland". Next choice Republic of Ireland - as it can be used in text. Next choice Ireland (state). No to simple "Ireland" because the island, is the main usage whetehr talking about geography or history or culture.--Peter cohen (talk) 10:30, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
• Ireland (state) because "Republic of Ireland" has been contentious and will remain so. "Ireland (state)" is unambigious. -- Evertype·✆ 14:05, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
• Ireland (state): RoI just *has* to go, although I would also accept "Ireland (Republic)". --HighKing (talk) 17:24, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
• Ireland (state) first, or Ireland (state), or Republic of Ireland, or any other variant depending on the route taken. (see below..)--Matt Lewis (talk) 17:36, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
• Ireland (state) in line with obvious recommendations given in WP:DISAM and paying attention to people's preferences of "state" over "country" in this context.  DDStretch  (talk) 18:24, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
• Ireland (state) now let there be peace ClemMcGann (talk) 18:55, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
• Ireland (state)Yman88 (talk) 19:07, 21 November 2008 (UTC) This account is a confirmed sock puppet of Wikipéire (see here.)
• Ireland (state) --Snowded TALK 19:09, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
• Ireland (state) (Ireland republic and Irish Republic far too ambiguous). RashersTierney (talk) 21:38, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Ambiguous?? Mooretwin (talk) 21:52, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Whats the question? RashersTierney (talk) 22:56, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

• Abstain, and see my comment above about the imposition of polls in lieu of discussion. Scolaire (talk) 09:08, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
• Republic of Ireland - the alternative of Ireland (state) is a disaster. Djegan (talk) 11:23, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Disaster? Naah, you just don't prefer it. Georgia (country) isn't a "disaster". -- Evertype·✆ 21:22, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Only a disaster for those who have invested their Wiki-heart and soul in maintaining the current POV version of the title of the article about Ireland! And who confidently predicted that any attempt to establish WP:NPOV would fail. Sarah777 (talk) 00:12, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Ah. Time to move on then. -- Evertype·✆ 00:18, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

*Ireland for "Island + State". Northern Ireland for what is a small breakaway territory. Purple_A (talk) 17:05, 22 November 2008 (UTC)Change, see below. Purple_A (talk) 17:52, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

• Ireland (state) as Ireland (country) rightly includes nearly half the population in NI and isn't, sadly, coordinate with the state - at least yet. Sarah777 (talk) 20:51, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Can we keep the politics out of this? You are talking about subjugating a people in an area that has been British and protestant for over 200 years. They may only be a 60% majority in Northern Ireland, but half of them go as far as to say they feel "not at all Irish", and in the face of all the island, the are a minority who clearly feel threatened. If we allowed everyone in the world revenge for that length of time, half of the world's countries would vanish. All it does is wind up many of the poeple who are worried about losing the status quo on Ireland - and I can't blame them for getting pissed off by it.-Matt Lewis (talk) 21:57, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry Matt? I'm not talking about subjugating anyone! Where have I suggested that? Are you saying that the happy day when NI people vote democratically to become part of Ireland would be "subjugation"? And then I'd guess you'd claim the current situation isn't subjugation? Sarah777 (talk) 22:04, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

After that length of time? And with the NI assembly? No I do not think Northern Ireland is Ireland under British control. It is British, and I've shared my taxes with it. There were certainly problems in areas where Catholics did suffer prejudice (mainly because of the Protestant fear I aluded to above, and it happens all over the world) - but they there is a power-shared national assembly now. There was always going to be some residual fighting (and no animosity or prejudice vanishes over night) - but none of what flares up now is publically supported, like it was in the late 20c. The IRA have disarmed - and the public support for it was nothing for anyone to be proud of. As NI gets prosperous again (as it should be), there is no reason to say that the protestants won't increase in population as much as the Catholics have done. --Matt Lewis (talk) 23:16, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Your point is? Sarah777 (talk) 00:06, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

• Republic of Ireland - If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Wikipolitics need't come in the way of a perfectly good name. ROI is far more than Ireland (state), both by the media and politicians. --Cameron* 10:00, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Dude, it's broke. -- Evertype·✆ 10:23, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

• Republic of Ireland - I believe the status quo to be the best available (if imperfect) compromise solution. For the same 4 reasons I have repeated oft before:

1. Subset v whole While I (and everyone else) fully accept that the term "Ireland" would possibly be a preferred label for the state, this term conflicts with the use of "Ireland" to describe the island - and the combined cultural and historical unity this encompasses. Including several historical entities going back several hundreds of years which are also described as "Ireland" (Ireland 1801–1922, etc). And more besides. The presumption that "Ireland" when used to refer to the modern state - which is in essence a subset of "Ireland" (the entirety) - should supercede other uses, therefore doesn't sit well. (EG: A phrase like "I am Irish" shouldn't demand a suffix/parens qualifier.)
2. Commonname Again, while I fully recognise the assertion that "Ireland" is an official and commonname for the state, the commonname guidelines expect that we "use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things." My reading of this is that, because "Ireland" DOES conflict with the name of other entities (quite substantially), we should therefore be using a commonname which DOESN'T conflict with other uses. The term "Republic of Ireland" is a perfectly formed, real world, common use, statutorily defined common name for the state. Which meets this commonname guideline expectation, and is a "common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things."
3. Disambiguation Further, while I appreciate that we are proposing the use of the "(state)" suffix to address some of the disambiguation problems laid out above, I find it a less complete DAB method than the existing label. Firstly because it is a "Wikipedia only" term. IE: While "Ireland" may be a commonname of the state, "Ireland (state)" is an artificially contrived construct. That is awkward: "Ireland-openbracket-state-closebracket" is not a common use name. Nor is it immediately recognisable to the reader. EG: Is a reader gonna be left to interpret "state" for themselves? Based on their own understanding/experience? If a reader asks "What does state mean?", is he likely to land on "state = country"? Or "state = subdivision of country"? Like in the American sense? "The state of Ireland"? Are we leaving ourselves open to - for example - the possibility of some readers making some presumptions (based on their understanding of the term "state") to assume that "Ireland (state)" is a subset of some other whole? A "state" of the UK? A "state" of the United States of Europe? Etc?).
4. Ease of use/readability. The "state (suffix)" filename solution cannot be used unmolested in body text in all cases. ("He is from Ireland (state)" would require a pipe in almost all cases. Because leaving "(state)" in the text is awkward and confusing.) Where it is absolutely required however, the "Republic of Ireland" label can be used in this way without molestation. Also - and equally importantly - the (brackets) solution isn't well suited to use in other article titles. Which will invariably need to be moved for consistency. EG: Titles such as "Parliamentary constituencies in Ireland (state)", "Education in Ireland (state)", are not readily recognisable, are not easily understood "at a glance", and are also awkward to construct and manage.

Anyway, to summarise: Yes, the current setup is not ideal. But it is better than the alternative. And, as stated dozens of times before, this task force is better served addressing the KEY problems (DAB/readability/etc as laid out above) that ALSO exist with the current label, rather than MOVING the problem to another space. And inheriting yet more (but different) issues. (Or, to put it another way, instead of fighting over "filenames" - coz that's all this is - can we please work on improving the readability/DAB/etc of actual article content. The stuff that actually MATTERS to readers. Sometimes I think we get so blinkered by this stuff that we forget what the project is for. Namely: Helping the reader to understand the issues/history/etc surrounding a concept. And I firmly believe that - where it matters in the body text - the "state" suffix construct would hinder rather than aid this intent.) Guliolopez (talk) 13:26, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Excellent contribution, which articulates my views more eloquently than I could articulate (or have articulated) them myself. Mooretwin (talk) 14:20, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

• Ireland (state) - logically correct. Bazza (talk) 14:44, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

• Ireland, then Ireland (state) - to be really honest - like most of us (..from above)! In reply to Guliolopez above - The arguement with the disam/(state)/(island) poll is that the 'Ireland' disam page will remove the need for any pipe-linking most of the time, and disambiguation pages are how Wikipedia deals with these problems too. At the times when it is not clear which Ireland is meant, then writing the words 'Ireland (state)' and 'Ireland (island)' would most likely suite the article anyway. The redirect island of Ireland is avialable too. The main thing with the proposal is that the state article can cover all the periods of Ireland, not just 50 years (or whatever it was), like the Republic of Ireland does. For this reason, 'Ireland' is the best name for the top heading of the article (as it covers all of its history, inc when it wasn't a state), followed by 'Ireland (state)' - ROI is poor here. (I've put a new section below on 'Ireland' as the country article - Ireland (state) isn't the only other option.)--Matt Lewis (talk) 15:28, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
• Ireland for the "island", & the "history of the island". Ireland(state), for the sovereign state of Ireland. Northern Ireland for the UK part of Ireland. This proposal is probably the most logical, and simplest of solutions, and it only takes a simple move from "ROI" to "Ireland(state)". There could also be an "Ireland(disambiguation)" page added. Purple_A (talk) 17:52, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
• Ireland (state) to move the article from a title which gives the impression of being offical Gnevin (talk) 12:52, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
• Ireland (country) - from where I come from, "state" does not refer to a nation-state, (even though Texas and a few others used to have that status), but to a major subdivision of a country - there being 50 of those making up the United States. I do not know how other countries work, but if I saw Ireland (state), it would make me think of a subdivision of say the United Kingdom, and not indicate that Ireland was a country. 199.125.109.102 (talk) 00:20, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. 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.

• Ireland (state) ["Ireland", "Ireland (country)" would be ok too but my preference for "state" is that to my mind it is a fair compromise.] Regards. Redking7 (talk) 02:29, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

What is a task force

I've been attempting to find out how it is intended that the task force will complete its work and arrive at a solution, but my questions keep being ignored. Hence I'm starting this separate discussion. The term "RM" keeps being mentioned - what is this?

Could someone please explain - is voting the method of reaching a conclusion, or is the task force supposed to result in some kind of third-party objective intervention, where the merits of the arguments will be weighed up, rather than a simple headcount? Mooretwin (talk) 10:01, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Please see WP:RM (I've also explained it it more detail above) and WP:Taskforce. I'm sure they'll raise more questions, but they should be enough to get you started with the basics. waggers (talk) 10:09, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Waggers. The Task Force page doesn’t really explain how it comes to any conclusions. Perhaps it is not the best way to deal with a contentious issues such as this, where consensus is not likely to be achieved. Mooretwin (talk) 10:51, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Yep - to be honest, I don't think this really is a task force in the Wikipedia sense. It's more a centralised discussion, as the scope is wider than the talk page of any one article. waggers (talk) 11:21, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

As I said above, any voting on this should not be straight yes or no, but by preference. Mooretwin (talk) 11:40, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, if we're to get anywhere, eventually we need to narrow things down to one winning option - but as you've seen above, I've started a "by preference" vote (in which you chose the one preference that goes against policy and consensus, despite the briefing at the top making things absolutely crystal clear, but hey, you can lead a horse to water...) waggers (talk) 11:58, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Voting by preference (1, 2, 3) results in a winning option just like voting by yes/no. Mooretwin (talk) 12:08, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Stuff

I've moved the comments I posted here to the non-talk Page. My opening comment "the discussion seems to have drifted inexorably back to the names of the two main articles" applies to the ensuing comments as much as it did to the preceding ones; exxcept that Matt Lewis's initial response below in part addresses "How to refer to the 2 Irelands within other articles"; specifically 'Is "Republic of Ireland" acceptable for references which include time prior to Republic of Ireland Act in force in 1949?' and 'Is "Ireland"/"Republic of Ireland" acceptable for references which include the time of the Irish Free State?' jnestorius^(talk) 12:44, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I'd recommend following the link to read it - it's a good summary (as it the one at the top of the main page). --Matt Lewis (talk) 13:48, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

It's certainly true that either 'Ireland' or 'Ireland (state)' can better cover all the names it has been called (for whatever reason) - Ireland, Southern Ireland, Irish Free State, Republic of Ireland, Eire etc. Republic of Ireland (actually named in 1949, although 'Ireland' has been written back in again since - which is another thing to put in the mix) is obviously less ideal. Having said that, I'm sure there are examples on Wikipedia where the equivalent of ROI happens - However, we simply have to have an island article that makes it as clear as it possibly can that it is not a state article. That's the rub, and ROI has been more of a way of patching up that problem than the ideal name for the state article (and many people I have discussed it with have pretty much said that - esp admin who have voted for the status quo in the 6-monthly polls). We need to sort it all out. --Matt Lewis (talk) 20:39, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Indeed we do. Because the "RoI" name is totally contrary to WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NPOV and WP:COMMON and has only been sustained by the weight of British POV (in my opinion). Try as I might to WP:AGF my patience is being stretched by this interminable filibuster. Time to call a halt. Sarah777 (talk) 22:31, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I think that the compromise proposal above (Ireland dab, Ireland (state), Ireland (island)) has majority enough to be workable. It doesn't make everyone happy, but it gets rid of ROI which does make people unhappy (so that they have had sustained opposition to it). "Ireland (state)" can ONLY mean one thing; "Ireland (island)" can ONLY mean one thing; dab for "Ireland" makes sense. Now, every time this has been put forward, Scolaire has said "but wait, let's discuss it some more". That's filibuster. Let's move on and improve the articles. -- Evertype·✆ 09:51, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

You are blaming this on Scolaire when he made a proposal that would, in fact, get rid of ROI? How is he possibly to blame for your unhappiness about ROI? Nuclare (talk) 16:18, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

My unhappiness has to do with the endlessness of this debate. Same as the "British Isles" debate. I am perfectly happy to change Republic of Ireland to Ireland (state) (although my preference is to support the Constitutional name of the state and to move Republic of Ireland to Ireland. So there, I compromise. I have given up something that I prefer in order to have something which is unambigious. Now, at the same time, because it is my preference that Ireland should point to the state, if it cannot, then the current content at Ireland should also move to Ireland (island) which is also unambiguous. Then Ireland (disambiguation) would move to Ireland, and since "Ireland" is ambiguous, that's the most sensible solution. But Scolaire refuses this. He does not wish to compromise. He wants only one side to compromise. And he does so by filibustering. I object to that. I really do. -- Evertype·✆ 19:24, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Scolaire is out of here! You can "compromise" all you like. Goodnight and God Bless. Scolaire (talk) 22:39, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

There's no way to make a "cast iron case" here. The only way forward is a solution which makes everyone equally unhappy. I've said this three times! I like Ireland = the State, and I don't like Republic of Ireland for that. You like Ireland = the island, and don't like Ireland (island) for that. There's NO WAY to resolve the ambiguity and the differences of opinions by lawyering (wikilawyering or otherwise) and "proving" with a "cast iron" case. The case you made was valiant. It did not convince. Had I tried to make such a case, valiant and "cast iron" as I might try to make it, I doubt I'd have convinced you. The only way forward in negotiations like this (and in my Unicode work I have negotiated much more difficult issues with people from much more different cultures than ours) is to choose a solution that nobody is exactly happy with but which, at least does not offend. Did I want to try to make an "iron clad" case therefore? No. I wanted to get to "solution". That's the better negotiation tactic. Best regards, -- Evertype·✆ 23:13, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Is this an example of triangulation? Mooretwin (talk) 14:12, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

In fairness to Scolaire, he has debated an awful lot (including a great deal on my own talk page when this was in limbo) - more than the others favouring ROI, even Mooretwin. He got this going taskforce again (with HighKing), and he recently suggested a workable proposal too (in another world it could have wound up the compromise we went for, IMO). Any filibusters are in the past with this topic, this is where we are all entitled talk, and to sort it out. Scolaire didn't get much support at all, so at times he was facing a crowd on his own. We are clearly focused on a sensible choice now though, and Scolaire has graciously stepped aside. I'm sure he'll be looking at what happens. --Matt Lewis (talk) 12:25, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

That's a very interesting choice of words, there, Evertype, as it actually makes the compromise sound quite unfair: The compromise, according to you, gets rid of what you dislike and asks the other editor to embrace what he dislikes. The other editor is being asked to get rid of two things he likes, ROI and Ireland = island. All you compromise is on the word 'state'. As the editor you keep singling out had already made a proposal that would have also gotten rid of the only term I've ever heard any of you say you dislike--ROI--your attack on him is deeply unfair, imho. Nuclare (talk) 12:16, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Polling our chosen poll

This link is to the live 'compromise proposal' poll

The disam (state)/(island) poll has a decent majority (though not huge, I would say) - what shall we do with it? I personally think it needs arbcom acceptance, so page 'moves' back won't happen, and any future polls should have the same arbcom acceptance too. In time, I'm sure the benefits of this to all Ireland's and NI's articles will outweigh any desire to change it back. We could move the poll down to the bottom and inform people of the importance of the vote (ie it as a finally settled-on single yes/no poll for a chosen change, in the absence of an alternative), and give it an end date too - but perhaps it's wisest to actually poll it again (with all the above being straw polls anyway). I don't think that would necessarily be unfair (it may even poll less votes for change) - but it would be a lot neater.

Perhaps arbcom can vote on having an x-day arbcom-endorsed poll on the IMOS talk page. This traskforce was more for discussion than actual polling. Certainly I am worried about pushing something through - remember that a number of admin accepted the status quo, albeit very often as the most suitable workaround available. Who's for arbcom? The proposal makes a lot of sense - so I think it will get the 2/3s(?) it needs to pass. --Matt Lewis (talk) 10:43, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't think this is a case for arbcom, we all seem to be getting along far to well for that. "The Arbitration Committee is a panel of experienced users that exists to impose binding solutions to Wikipedia disputes that neither communal discussion, administrators, nor mediation have been able to resolve" - I don't think communal discussion has failed yet, but I'm happy to post a message at WP:AN asking for an uninvolved admin to look at the polls here and make a binding decision on whether or not we have achieved consensus. Failing that, we should go to mediation before we even think about touching arbcom. waggers (talk) 10:50, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

OK I'd support that - lets see what he/she says. --Matt Lewis (talk) 11:24, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, an uninvolved admin would be the best route. The one I would have normally thought would be good (they did a good job on Talk:Wales) is effectively not editing anymore, but I think a non-UK, non-Irish admin would be best.  DDStretch  (talk) 11:46, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

What are we going to do about dating the poll? It's still getting votes (it's 8-12 at the moment - exactly 2/3 - though people have been counting GoodDay I notice - 8-13 in that case). We need to set a date, clearly! The outcome could change while the admin is reading it at this rate! Perhaps the admin can approve the poll (ie conclude it was decided by consensus and the only backed option), and set a date for completion? --Matt Lewis (talk) 12:11, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

There are some interesting differences between the various polls for complete solutions and for different names. There is also a second debate to come on pipelinks etc. I think that there is an agreement to move away from ROI to (probably) Irish state but not to use the name of Ireland for the state. If we just get that compromise in place its good news. It needs an admin with some authority who has some knowledge of the issues. I am thinking of the couple of people who have been involved in the disputes over the troubles etc. as possible candidates. What it doesn't need is a well meaning person who has none of the political context, or lacks experience in handling debates with long histories both within and without the Wikipedia. --Snowded TALK 12:40, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

As a PS given some of the latest contributions, the sooner a neutral admin is brought in the better. We now have the same arguments trottering out again. Interesting while the Ireland should be used for the state group have agreed to change there seems to be a small die hard group who are insisting on ROI at all costs, and they are prepared to fight because they think that they are right. I think this makes the case for an admin who already has irish scars on their editing soul --Snowded TALK 14:28, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Triangulation is going on here in an attempt to disguise the "purge Republic of Ireland" proposal as a compromise. They put forward two means of achieving their aim ("Ireland" for the state) and ("Ireland (state)" for the state), and then attempt to portray their elimination of one of those means in favour of the other as "compromise". Mooretwin (talk) 14:37, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

You know Mooretwin, that type of conspiracy theory and the harping back to old language represents everything which is bad about these pages in WIkipedia. Reminds me of the 70s and 80s in Belfast/Derry not the current century. Move on --Snowded TALK 14:42, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

??? Mooretwin (talk) 16:02, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Comments here please

The main thing with the proposal is that the state article can cover all the periods of Ireland, not just 50 years (or whatever it was), like the Republic of Ireland technically does (1948-1998 within Ireland). For this reason, 'Ireland' is the best name for the top heading of the article (as it covers all of its history, inc when it wasn't a state), followed by 'Ireland (state)' - ROI is poor here.

My opening proposal was actually 'Ireland' for the country's article, with a hatnote to Ireland (island) - it got mixed votes. When I think back to it, I still think it could be the best option. The island was always an island, that much no one can deny (since it split from the mainland anyway). Really it all depends on how often disambiguation is used. I've always believed that the country is referenced more than the island by a factor of about 10 to 1, and I would argue that using Ireland for the state/country is the best, and that can hatnote to Ireland (island). Ireland (island) without the forked material in it, will be a lot smaller. A hatnote is effectively a disam facility anyway. With the island of Ireland redirect there should be little untidy prose with this option.

Remember that we have an Ireland diambiguaton problem as things stand anyway. How many Wikipedia broweser actually realise that there is the option of 'Republic of Ireland' when they just see the word 'Ireland'? In my view, 9 time out fo 10 browsers would expect to see the Irish state, not the island. The ROI link has been pipe-linked like mad to 'Ireland' too - so some will get the island when clicking on 'Ireland' and some won't! They actually could get any of three options, as Ireland is often straight-linked to its 'supposed' island article, when it clearly means the state - and this happens all over Wikipedia in the smaller articles. Over all, it could well be 40% Ireland (getting island, but meaning state), 25% ROI, 35% piped Ireland/ROI. A lot of people seem to like the pipe, though many clearly don't. Hardly an ideal situation, guys.

• Anyway:- a country called Ireland / a hatnoted Ireland (island) / an optional redirect island of Ireland.

What do people actually think of that? Hatnotes are the disam lines at the top of the page. Comments please --Matt Lewis (talk) 15:41, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Having Ireland = state, Ireland (island) = island and Ireland (disambiguation) = dab is my first preference, but I understand that many people do not like this, which is why I have accepted Ireland (state), Ireland (island) and Ireland = dab. -- Evertype·✆ 18:57, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned, Wikipedia policy overrides personal preferences. Unless there's a really good reason to make an exception under WP:IAR, Ireland should be a disambiguation page. waggers (talk) 19:53, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

It would accept the disam/(state)/(island) poll, my own old hatnote proposal above, or Scolaire's island hatnote idea (which has 'Ireland' as the island article, and an Ireland (state) hatnote (along with a Northern Ireland hatnote of course). Any of those 3 will do me, although with Scolaire's idea, 'Ireland (state)' would have to be used in prose quite a lot. I'm just interested in what people think of the hatnote ideas?

I understand (and have got to really believe in) dismabiguation pages - but if ever there was a place where 'Ignore all rules' could be a life saver it has to be here! I certainly support the live disam proposal, but it maybe that the poll is too close and we'll need to carry on working. One thing about my own Ireland hatnote poll above is that I have one ready-made in deep freeze - if I defrost it, it has about 10 votes 6/4 to its name. It's something I feel I'm entitled to do (and I made sure I had the right at the time), although people of course can simply remove their votes! --Matt Lewis (talk) 20:15, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Proposal by Gnevin

It seems to me that a lot of people in the above discussions are voting along the same lines they always have and dare I say always will and thus ignoring the statement made . To me this make the task force little more than a WP:RM by a different name . However I believe this can be fixed by agreeing to find several outside and totally uninvolved admin's too consider the statements made by the users. The only WP:Poll we would then need is to agree when the time for giving statements has elapsed Gnevin (talk) 17:21, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Finding uninvolved people has been tried a few times (and waggers is looking for an admin now) - if you think you can do achieve it, please go ahead! I've put the note out, so have others. I don't understatand the conclusion here though - where will it take us? Do you want the admin themselves to make a decision based on what they read?

The truth here I think is that some people won't admit what they will allow until the 11th hour - this is a huge game of cards. When the admin waggers finds comes, he/she can put a date on the disam/(state)/(island) poll - which at least will take us somewhere. If it is close, but with no winner - then we simply try other routes. Any 2/3 landslide either way, and it surely needs to be a result. Just like elections, but for 4 months instead of 4 or 5 years (for the status quo to try for a reverse (if they choose to), and those into change to re-poll).--Matt Lewis (talk) 18:17, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

The trouble is all the polls here in the past have all been so close that it just leads to a other poll down the road. The fact is that wiki is not a democracy and WP:Polling is not helping . This shouldn't be a numbers game . 5/6 outside admins should come here and weigh up all the facts, statement etc. made by the interested parties and make a decision. Gnevin (talk) 20:05, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Outside view by Una Smith

Matt Lewis asked me to contribute here. I am an outsider here and as far as I know I have nothing at stake re Ireland (my name notwithstanding), but I do have a strong opinion about disambiguation pages. In a similar proposal to move Yonsei (disambiguation) to Yonsei, my opinion persuaded the strongest opponent to the proposal to switch. Here is my opinion, adapted for this discussion:

Support moving Ireland (disambiguation) to Ireland. An ambiguous title such as Ireland should be a disambiguation page, because it is Ireland that will accumulate incoming links needing disambiguation and the task of disambiguating them is made vastly more difficult if Ireland also has "correct" incoming links that refer to one topic by that name.

That said, I must add that there are over 10,000 incoming links to Ireland (I stopped counting). This may seem daunting, but please read on. Given the issues here, the incoming links must include at least a few thousand that do not relate to Ireland the island. No matter what you decide, those links need to be fixed (disambiguated). Leaving any topic page at Ireland "fixes" some part of those links, but makes it not practical to fix the rest, which seems to be the fundamental premise of the Wikipedia:Disambiguation guideline. If you move Ireland (disambiguation) to Ireland, you will then be able to fix all current links needing disambiguation (ie, all links in mainspace), and not bother with them again. Also, you can get help: Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links. Possibly there are not over 10,000 linking pages; over 100 templates link to Ireland and the incoming link list includes all links to those templates. So, the first thing you would do, after moving the dab page to Ireland, is disambiguate all the templates. Then wait for the indexing to catch up. Then begin disambiguating the remaining links. I hope this helps. --Una Smith (talk) 20:44, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Agree. This is excellent reasoning. -- Evertype·✆ 21:10, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. RashersTierney (talk) 22:48, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Good additional and persuasive reasons for making Ireland a disambiguation page, I think. Thanks for commenting, Una.  DDStretch  (talk) 23:05, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Agree. Good stuff here - I would add that the majority of the 10,000-plus links of 'Ireland' refer to the country/state - while currently it the Ireland article is supposed to be for the island! The would make having a disam page even more of a cach-all. My initial obeservations on the mess Ireland articles are currenly in are in thsse usage tables. Having said this, if one of the 'hatnote' solutions is the only one with consensus, then no amount of link-work should stop us going for it. Most Ireland articles need dealing with anyway - sometimes just to create a separate Northern Ireland one. --Matt Lewis (talk) 11:11, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

"Given the issues here, the incoming links must include at least a few thousand that do not relate to Ireland the island." What issues? Do you have evidience that "at least a few thousand" link to the wrong article? "This is excellent reasoning." No, it isn't. --89.101.221.42 (talk) 19:28, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

The evidence is crystal clear when you go through the articles. It is obvious when you are prepared to think about it too, and the tables made back it up. The clear majority of the 'Ireland's in use that straight-link to Ireland (not the pipe-linked Republic of Ireland') clearly refer to a country/state (modern or old) - and comparatively rarely the geographical landform. This is clearly why the supposedly island-only article of Ireland has gradually become a second "country/state" article – as an alternative to the Republic of Ireland. It is so clear in fact, that to deny it is pure stonewalling, and just makes you look extremely churlish.

People say a comprehensive Ireland article is better than using Republic of Ireland for history, but why all the material on Northern Ireland? There are incidences where 'Ireland' is used for a contemporary setting, and it is unlcear whether the text means to include Northern Ireland or not - but Northern Ireland date is presented, which suggests it does. On a both a political and accuracy level, that is intolerable.

Republic of Ireland gets linked to for BOTH the historical and modern cases of Ireland, and has all the material you would expect. ROI is listed on all the great many Wikipedia lists and tables that require a country - never Ireland, which is continually linked to as the modern state. It is especially linked this way on all the countless minor article, which don't get checked by the 'ROI replacers'. "Ireland" is the natural commonly-used name - and since 1998 official name - for the Irish state after all. It is a natural thing for an editor to do. To deny it as you do is pretty much trolling. --Matt Lewis (talk) 18:52, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

I've asked this a few times before, but somebody always seems to change the subject: Where is the source for Ireland being "since 1998 the official name"? 1998 was in the internet age, so if that is so there must be countless web sources that spell out "the Republic of Ireland has been officially named as 'Ireland'." Scolaire (talk) 20:19, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

I believe 1998 refers to the Good Friday Agreement, and it was the first time that the UK officially acknowledged and referred to that state by it's proper name - Ireland. Up till that date, the UK used their official term - Republic of Ireland. Since the signing of the GFA, the UK legislation in question (1949 Act) has not been amended. I'm amused that some editors also refer to 1998 as the date when Ireland became the official name as it implies that it only became official after the UK used the term in an official capacity. But that's a different discussion... --HighKing (talk) 12:10, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

That's fine, but my question is still the same: Where is the source for it being the first time that the UK officially acknowledged and referred to that state by it's proper name - Ireland. There must, as I say, be countless web sources that say in so many words, "in the Good Friday Agreement the UK officially acknowledged and referred to Ireland by that name." Can you link to some of them for me? Scolaire (talk) 12:22, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about "the first time". The text of the Good Friday does not contain the word "Republic", however, and Her Majesty's Government was signatory. I think your request for links is a bit disingenuous though. In the Real World there isn't so much discussion about these issues. -- Evertype·✆ 13:22, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

A compromise solution

Unless this move is prudently thought out there will be much dissatisfaction amongst many editors. Ireland is no more ambiguous than Wales or England are really. or even Virginia and West Virginia, or Africa and West Africa. Another example could be Yorkshire and West Yorkshire, no disambiguation here. There are many more examples. The Ireland page can very easily stay as it is, and move ROI to Ireland (state), then all would have their proper titles here on Wikipedia. It's a very easy solution to implement. Purple_A (talk) 01:28, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Virginia has a different name to West Virginia. Africa and West Africa are different names. As are Yorkshire and West Yorkshire. Ireland (the state) and Ireland (the island) both have exactly the same name, and therefore the term is ambiguous - more so than the examples you gave. waggers (talk) 08:46, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, as Waggers said, the examples given by Purple Arrow are not so good. Far better would be America and Macedonia, which contain ambiguities much closer to the ones we are concerned with here. Unfortunately for some, the means of resolving these cases is the method wich is being proposed here of making, in this case, Ireland a disambiguation page, in line with wikipedia guidelines and policies, and the outside view.  DDStretch  (talk) 08:54, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

China and Korea are better examples and they do not go the disambig. route. I've always thought they were better models of how the Ireland page should be treated, rather than it just being rendered a physical 'island' article. Nuclare (talk) 12:34, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, China and Korea both offer appropriate models for Ireland. Mooretwin (talk) 12:47, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

By analogy with China, the hatnote on Ireland would be something like this?:

This article is about the island. For political states on this island see Ireland (Republic of Ireland) and Northern Ireland. For other uses see Ireland (disambiguation).

That would leave the issue of disambiguating links to Ireland. Would anyone here care to look through the links and assess what percentage (and how many) would need to be fixed? Matt Lewis addresses this issue here. --Una Smith (talk) 15:56, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Archive bot?

This talk page is getting long. Any objections to me setting up a bot to do a spot of archiving? If not, what time period shall we go for? I suggest we start at 4 weeks. waggers (talk) 08:58, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not over-keen on them, to be honest. Can you just archive some early sections? It is easily undone if need be. --Matt Lewis (talk) 11:01, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Time for action

Looking at the polls and the discussions that have been put forward, I'm drawn yet again to the same conclusion - that we seem to have broad agreement on the Ireland -> Ireland (island) and Ireland (disambiguation) -> Ireland moves, while the Republic of Ireland/Ireland (state)/other discussion probably needs to continue. I therefore suggest we get WP:RM discussions underway on the first two talk pages. Any objections before I do that? waggers (talk) 09:03, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes. We need a package agreement on everything, rather than making changes by stealth. Mooretwin (talk) 09:10, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Were you planning to agree on anything? Honestly, Mooretwin, this is the second time you've accused people with whom you disagree of malfeasance and bad faith. Here, it is "stealth", and above, it is "triangulation" as though anyone were intending to harm the Wikipedia. Or you. Or anything. Sheesh! -- Evertype·✆ 09:22, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I've suggested package compromises. I appear to be the only one who has done so. Mooretwin (talk) 09:31, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

"A package agreement on everything" - if we waited for that before doing anything on Wikipedia, nothing would be done at all. The idea that we're going to ever find something all-encompassing that everyone agrees 100% with is ridiculous, and the idea that we should wait forever for that to happen goes against WP:BB - not to mention (again) the fact that the existing policies and guidelines already support the suggested move. Objection overruled, quite literally. waggers (talk) 10:01, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I never suggested that we would find something all-encompassing with which everyone agrees 100%. On the contrary, I explicitly referred to a compromise. Please do not misrepresent me. And you have no authority to "overrule" me or anyone else. Mooretwin (talk) 10:14, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

No, the Wikipedia guidelines do that for me - hence the "quite literally" - you've been overruled by the rules themselves. And since just about every proposal has been referred to as a compromise, you've referred explicitly to nothing. Care to give us a diff to the suggestion you're talking about? waggers (talk) 10:39, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

⬅ Personally I think the support for Ireland (state) is also strong enough to support the move, but I am happy if its done in two stages. --Snowded TALK 11:04, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

The above comment referring to staged moves supports my assessment that this is an attempt by a group of editors to achieve "victory" by stealth. Mooretwin (talk) 12:23, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I think it's a bit early still, to be honest. One problem here is how to approach the Ireland (island) article, which currenly (as Ireland) forks a lot of state info. It could be easy enough to just remove the political info, perhaps. I do think this could be an option if other proposals really break down though.. --Matt Lewis (talk) 11:26, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, accepting Ireland (state) as opposed to the more conventional use of Ireland for the political unit is a part of this. The section on names for the state is 11-6 in favour of Ireland or Ireland (state) over ROI which is more or less 2:1 --Snowded TALK 11:34, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I've been encouraged to get on with it, so have done. Any compelling objections to ignore policy have had plenty of time to surface, and have not done so yet. waggers (talk) 11:45, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Objection to this arbitrary act contrary to the task force approach

This is an outrageous act, showing contempt for the task force approach. The task force is supposed to be looking at the whole area of how to disambiguate Ireland, not pick off particular elements and deal with them separately. The only way to achieve compromise is to deal with this issue in the round. The tactics of the anti-ROI brigade appear to be to compartmentalise each element and force a majority view on each one separately. This is unacceptable. Mooretwin (talk) 12:20, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Please stop making such extreme accusations. The discussion has been ongoing, you know full well that a 100% agreement cannot be reached. Arguing for it is in effect a filibuster for the status quo. --Snowded TALK 12:23, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Please do not misrepresent me. I have never once claimed that 100% agreement could be reached. On the contrary, I have argued the opposite - that compromise over the whole issue is the only way forward. Resorting to misrepresenting the views of those with whom you disagree indicates to me that my assessment of the motivation behind this arbitrary move is correct. These tactics are against the spirit of Wikipedia. Mooretwin (talk) 12:25, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Mooretwin, lets call a spade a spade. Every time this discussion moves towards any sort of conclusion we get multiple arguments, confusing statements claims for the need to compromise when no meaningful compromise is offered. Basically and fundamentally you will do all in your power to keep the ROI label in place. Admit it, its a position, you can argue it, but don't try and pretend that everyone else is an evil conspirator, or that anyone who finds your claims of seeking a compromise unjustified by the facts is misrepresenting you. I judge you by your actions not your intentions and the most appropriate word is filibuster. --Snowded TALK 13:44, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Snowded, let's call a spade a spade. Every time someone makes a meaningful or considered contribution on the need for overall agreement, we get sudden demands to close down discussion and move toward voting on separate, narrow questions. Basically and fundamentally you will do all in your power to purge Wikipedia of the ROI label. Admit it, it's a position, you can argue it, but don't try and pretend that everyone else is opposed to compromise, or that anyone who disagrees with your tactics is filibustering. I judge you by your actions not your intentions and the most appropriate description is attempting to force your will by avoiding discussion on the issue as a whole, and moving to separate votes on narrow proposals. Mooretwin (talk) 14:38, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Pleased to see that you signed this version yourself Moortwin. Yes I freely admit it, the ROI label is wrong, inappropriate etc. etc. Using it is not a compromise. Yes I think the current article should be called Ireland, not Ireland (state) but I am prepared to compromise on that. Otherwise I find the use of the word "sudden" amusing and I think I would run of pipelinks with references to the many and extensive discussions that have been attempted. --Snowded TALK 15:10, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, you admit it at least - your aim is to remove ROI. Your "compromise" is a false one as your aim is achieved by either of the two options, and therefore supporting one over the other has the same effect, i.e. to achieve your aim. Then you move on to the next issue, and so on, until your will has been imposed across the whole encyclopaedia. Mooretwin (talk) 16:59, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with Mooretwin, this half-sided approach will cause more problems than it will settle. We're going to end up with an extra dozen articles for starters, and it won't stop there. The whole naming discussion must come to an accepted conclusion, all at the one time, or it cannot work. (talk) 12:30, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

If you agree with me, please register your opposition to the move on the Ireland Talk page. Mooretwin (talk) 12:47, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Moore distractions. RashersTierney (talk) 14:41, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Voting is the best way to object to the move, certainy. In my opinion, the Ireland Move request has been made now, and we can only go with what happens. If people feel confident enough to take something on, they can't really be stopped, after all. If it is supported then we then need to move on from it. If not, we simply pick up where we left off. --Matt Lewis (talk) 12:53, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

This objection is yet another filibuster. It is so very sad to see, as are Mooretwin's accusations against those who disagree with him. -- Evertype·✆ 15:54, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Mooretwin, why is a package agreement necessary? And what exactly do you propose? --Una Smith (talk) 16:00, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

A package agreement is necessary for two reasons:

1. Because the scope of this task force goes beyond the narrow topic of title pages and disambiguation pages, etc. to which discussion has been focused in recent days. The task force scope includes the question of how to refer to the "26-counties" in Wikipedia articles.
2. Because there is major division among editors and agreement and consensus are more likely to be achieved by an overall agreement that encompasses both article titles and references in article texts. Those who wish to retain the term "Republic of Ireland" in Wikipedia are more likely to agree to 1, if there is a sensible agreement on 2.

It appears that those who wish to purge the term "ROI" from Wikipedia have assessed that they now form a slight majority and will therefore be able to impose their will by breaking down the topic into smaller chunks and forcing votes which they believe they will win. This might end up with changes supported by a small majority (say 60/40), rather than a compromise which is supported by a large majority (say 90/10). I think the latter is more desirable, and more within the spirit of Wikipedia.

Finally, I might add that my understanding is that issues such as this should be resolved, not by majority voting, but on the merits of the argument. Several editors, such as Scolaire, jnestorius and Giulopez, have made seriously-considered, valuable contributions on the task force, but their contributions have largely been ignored by the anti-ROI editors whom, I think, fear that their arguments for removing ROI completely from Wikipedia are not particularly meritorious, and therefore they are keen to secure changes by voting. Mooretwin (talk) 17:10, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

And what I have proposed is that the pro-ROI editors agree to the change of name of the Republic of Ireland article in return for an agreement about how to refer to the Republic in texts where disambiguation is necessary, and which does not involve a complete purge of the term. Mooretwin (talk) 17:13, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I gather that Mooretwin among others wants to keep the title Republic of Ireland whereas others want to move that article to the title Ireland. I sense suspicion about a possible "title grab": that if the article about the island is moved from the title Ireland and the disambiguation page is put in its place, a campaign will soon begin to displace the dab page with the article about Ireland (Republic of Ireland). This suspicion may be founded in part on the idea that a disambiguation page is a weaker target than the article about the island. As an outsider, to the question of which topic has a stronger claim to the title Ireland, the island or the state, I would have to reply neither. Furthermore, such a question can be revisited over and over again, with the outcome flip-flopping. If the title Ireland is a disambiguation page, I would expect far more stability because other outsiders like me would agree that the disambiguation page has practical advantages and to some extent settles the island vs state question. --Una Smith (talk) 16:22, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

The real issue is the title of the Republic of Ireland article - those opposed to that title wish to change it (to what is a secondary matter). Once this change is achieved, the next target will be to remove references to Republic of Ireland in texts of articles throughout Wikipedia - using the title page as their argument for doing so. Mooretwin (talk) 17:10, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

The real real issue is how many articles even use ROI ,from my experience it very small percentage Gnevin (talk) 17:24, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

(Replying to Mooretwin.) Yes, I see that, and I think know your concern is justified. However, I would recommend fighting that battle when it comes. Here you are fighting it by proxy, by hitching it to other issues that to me seem rather peripheral. I think the tactic is likely to backfire. --Una Smith (talk) 17:32, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. The anti-ROI-brigade will tick this one off as a victory, and then move on to the next stage. As they win each stage, the scope for wider agreement reduces and the position of the less-doctrinaire editors weakens each time. I believe this is the tactic. Mooretwin (talk) 19:31, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Come on - you can't really believe that. Only a couple of people in here are particularly funny about the name, surely. The main issue surely is the total mess over disambiguating (and I do feel that everyone creating 'labels' and 'groups' is distracting from that). The central issue for me is the Ireland island article - what it contains, and how that article is wrongly linked to when the meaning of the word is the state (asuming we see it as the only an island article - and not a dual-purpose thing) - and all of this when the state article has 3 ways to link to it itself! My aim is a genuinely better Wikipedia, with better Irish articles. The end to edit wars would be nice too. Just changing the ROI name is neither here nor there. I awaiting some new proposals here, anyway (from the usual 'no' people that is). They don't have to be polls - I just want to see some suggestions - not snippets, or bones, but properly spelled out suggestions.

Mooretwin - why not state exactly how you want the Irish state to be named within text? --Matt Lewis (talk) 19:57, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Matt Lewis, Mooretwin can and as far as I can tell does believe this. Mooretwin, a Google search for "Republic of Ireland" returns 5.5 million hits. The title Republic of Ireland is both unambiguous and accepted usage (at least by some). I would not support moving that article to another title such as Ireland (state). The only title with a stronger justification than RoI is Ireland, but the need for Ireland to be a disambiguation page is stronger still. --Una Smith (talk) 17:22, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

It's clear, I think, that I believe Republic of Ireland to be the obvious term to use when disambiguation is necessary. I'll support any sensible page moves if that can be secured. Mooretwin (talk) 23:10, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Would you want Republic of Ireland to be fully linked (ie as a live redirect page?). How about half linked (ie Republic of Ireland)? What do you think of Britannica's solution, "republic of Ireland"? And which page Moves would you accept (ie what would you accept the Ireland article being about)? --Matt Lewis (talk) 00:57, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

"Republic of Ireland" and "republic of Ireland" are stupid, implying somehow that there is something wrong with Republic of Ireland. Republic of Ireland is a formal term that should be used. The Irish act provides it as a capitalised name: Republic of Ireland. If the article is changed to "Ireland (state)" (which would be a very inelegant disambiguator in text), then links would have to be "Ireland (state) | Republic of Ireland". We would need some kind of guidance as to when to disambiguate, e.g. in articles about Northern Ireland, or about the island as a whole. Mooretwin (talk) 09:58, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Use of redirects makes such piped links unnecessary. I expect some links to Ireland that need disambiguation will require research or in depth knowledge to resolve. --Una Smith (talk) 17:22, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Exactly who is this "anti-ROI brigade" you keep on about, Mooretwin? I for one am certainly not a member of such a thing, and have nothing at all against the term "Republic of Ireland" or its use on Wikipedia. waggers (talk) 21:04, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm reassured to read that, but almost all the editors supporting moves are strongly anti-ROI - their objection to the term, and campaign to disguise "Republic of Ireland" with "Ireland" pipelinks is what created the "controversy" by which they are seeking to engineer various moves. Mooretwin (talk) 23:10, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

There are a few people who really don't like it - but it's a distraction to the issues involved that actually effect Wikipedia articles, IMO (content matters - not edit wars over piping). Too few people here actually care about Irish articles as a collective mass if you ask me - they just want what they want for their favourite articles.--Matt Lewis (talk) 22:25, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand how the ROI issue can be downplayed as a component of these debates. Without question, it has been the single most battled over issue on these Ireland pages. (Whether it should be or not is a different question.) It is the ONLY issue for a number of people. In fact, I did a double take reading Matt's and Waggers's posts here where there seem to be suggestions that the ROI issue is a minor sideshow?? I'm not against ROI, although I also have no objection to it being moved to Ireland (state), but how can we underestimate the role that the absolute anti-ROI stand of some editors has played in bringing us here? I'm not judging the wisdom of their position, but it's just that it feels a bit Twilight Zone to hear people shrugging their shoulders and denying the importance of the ROI issue to all this. I do think Mooretwin goes a bit over the top sometimes in defining too many Irelands in too many places as needing to be disambiguated with ROI, but I'm also not unsympathetic to him in theory, and I think he may well be right about ROI becoming a pyriah term around Wiki if the ROI page is moved. Nuclare (talk) 00:43, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the ROI issue is being downplayed at all. We have general agreement here, supported by policy, for the other moves. So let's get those out of the way so we can concentrate on the ROI issue. waggers (talk) 10:09, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure about that - the majority is currently opposed to the latest proposal. Mooretwin (talk) 10:16, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I am sure that, as I said, we have general agreement here. waggers (talk) 10:33, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I think it's most likely the other way around. I think you have more support for the ROI move than for anything else. Whether it would succeed in the full, open Wiki world, I don't know, but an ROI change is what I see as gaining ground. At the very least, that move has picked up my support, where I used to be on the fence. Scolaire was a supporter of ROI and he put forward an Ireland (state) proposal (although I guess he's dropped out of this taskforce). Even Mooretwin (who is *very* pro-ROI) said he'd accept Ireland (state), albeit with assurances about ROI text usage. So, I don't know, maybe I'm missing some people, but why do you think the Ireland move has more support than the ROI move? There's too many polls here at the moment and I think a number of people didn't bother to vote in all of them. So it's hard to say precisely where it stands here on each individual move. Nuclare (talk) 15:22, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

(outdent)For entirely different reasons than Mooretwin, I'm concerned that the move requests have pre-empted the results of this task-force which clearly discussed all three pages together. I'm not at all sure that the agreements reached here can be taken to mean that 2 pages can be moved and the other page left to a later request or discussion. I for one have more objections with RoI than with Ireland remaining as the island article, but I fear that the current move requests may result in the RoI discussion grinding to a halt, perhaps to appease some editors or to look like a compromise has been achieved. Comments? --HighKing (talk) 23:31, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, I agree. This change is being rushed. I participated in the belief that all instances of Ireland were to be addressed together. And the driving force behind this move has said this [2]. Once the Ireland article is disposed of, it appears to be 'feet up', and a job well done. I don't agree with what's going on, and one of the proponents of the change is quite obviously throlling other editors who disagree with this move. PurpleA (talk) 23:42, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree the move was rushed, but if it succeeds, someone only has to poll something re ROI in here, and people will soon come to vote. This is the beauty of the taskforce guys!! Only when everyone is happy will we be free of polls! If the Move fails, it's a lesson learnt for all of us, and it's back to where we left off. We can't make decisions in here, but we can certainly forge consensus. --Matt Lewis (talk) 23:59, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I share the same concerns as HighKing, but I think the filibuster is all about constant confusion of the issue, so breaking it down and dealing with them one by one may be best. If not, then we come back to the general discussion and the idea of bringing in a small team of administrators (or even Arbcom) to resolve this. --Snowded TALK 00:03, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Ireland must be a dab page as the state has primacy if anything has, in common usage and search history. The country of Ireland can no longer be relegated to a description contrary to every Wiki-rule in the book, and contrary to consensus. Talk of "rushing" this is ludicrous given it has been debated for years. The task force has gone as far as it will ever go and has gone on far too long; no new argument has been added in the past month. Time to grasp the nettle and move, now. Sarah777 (talk) 01:16, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Exactly right. We've discussed it here, we've reached a consensus here, what's the point of this task force if we don't act upon that? Wikipedia is not a discussion forum; if the aim of this task force is to discuss forever and never do anything then it violates Wikipedia policy. waggers (talk) 10:38, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Discussion venue fork

On Wikipedia:Requested moves, someone has changed the "Discuss" links from here to Talk:Ireland. --Una Smith (talk) 18:05, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I've changed it back and given some reasoning. waggers (talk) 21:00, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguation term for state named Ireland

The original reason to name the article on the state as RoI was to disambiguate the term in articles where disambiguation is required, and not to somehow create the idea that RoI is the real and correct term. (It is not - that is a fact that cannot be argued with). But WP appears to have created an alternative reality whereby some editors appear to now believe that the state has two interchangable names - resulting in many editors not knowing which term to use and reverting to using a disambiguation term where it is not required. This must be fixed and from discussions on this page, it appears a strong consensus has formed to address this. This discussion has recently moved on to what is the most appropriate term to disambiguate. Many editors here have now accepted that both RoI and the actual name of the state - "Ireland" - are not appropriate. If we can accept that both RoI and Ireland are not appropriate, the job if this task force is greatly simplified and can be summarized as "What is an appropriate alternative name for the state of "Ireland" that we agree to use to disambiguate from the island and from the North of Ireland." Perhaps the polls above weren't clear... --HighKing (talk) 01:06, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

The polls are extremely clear. If the simple term "Ireland" isn't to be the name of the state then it must be a disambiguation page. No confusion; only filibuster - or a lack of clear reasoning. Sarah777 (talk) 01:21, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Edits-only solution for Ireland only

If nothing is happening here (or we get a 4-month moratorium after a failed final poll) - there IS one thing I will be doing, and to 3RR as well. Ireland is 2/3 forked material. Look and Great Britain and compare. Does GB have Sport, Culture, Cities, Economy, Modern architecture, places of interest...!! A huge History section that is found in two other articles too (three if included NI)? Of course it doesn't - it's about the geographical Island, and it isn't used to double as the UK article, and con the readers. And if Great Britain did have the cultural/political stuff - would it have a bias to England the way Ireland clearly has one towards the Irish state?

This bullshit has GOT to stop.

• I could remove over half that article in one edit, without a single thing done in here.

• I could VASTLY improve the hardly noticeable hatnote currently saying "This article is about the island. For the country of the same name, see Republic of Ireland. For other uses, see Ireland (disambiguation)." The improved hatnote would be an effective disambiguator for a number of cases where Ireland meant the state - although not for places where it is ambiguous in the text, of course. Mooretwin is right - a textual disambiguator is needed for that.

Notice I said "I" and not we? This is something I'm entitled to do. I can see it is wrong, so I can change it. Maybe someone will even back me up. Readers shouldn't have to wait on us, should they? The current Ireland begins "This article is about the island" and is simply against policy.

Other people can argue if 'Republic of Ireland' should be changed to 'Ireland (state)' or not, and how it is linked to in text. It's not my argument. It did once completely stop me moving in the British Isles taskforce (it completely halted the taskforce in fact), but now this taskforce is up and running I'm willing to wait for a final result. I just cannot stand the fact that Wikipedia is bullshitting the world on the Ireland article - either it is a geographical island article or it isn't.

THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE IRISH STATE ARTICLE!

Thousands of Irelands link to one Irish state article, and thousands of Republic of Irelands (pipe-linked or not) link to the other Irish state article. It's caused a huge identity crisis across all the various Irish articles and their titles, who can't decide whether they are part of the ROI, Ireland, or a combined Ireland with Northern Ireland tagged on. The net effect has been a comparatively weak set of articles, with many in real neglect. I can't put it any simpler than that.

I can't tell you how tempted I am just to go ahead! But I'll see what happens around here first. --Matt Lewis (talk) 02:26, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

If you do that I will most certainly back you up; if the filibustering group believe that the geography of the rock takes precedence over the people, their polity, their culture, their economy - then I will contest that until the error is corrected. But in the interim if they want the name attached to the rock then by God! let's make sure the article is about the rock and only about the rock. Sarah777 (talk) 02:35, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

If only a few people were willing to back each other up on this, and some usual suspects revert every change, an admin would be faced with having to protect the article. Which edit would the admin protect? They always insist they don't favour the status quo (though most of them do of course, as much as anything it the easiest for them). Will they be forced here into protecting via policy? It's the easiest of all for the admin, as nobody has a real way to complain. --Matt Lewis (talk)

You've my support too. --HighKing (talk) 11:47, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

It is true there is too much duplication between the ROI article and the island article; but removing all the human element out of the island article into the ROI and NI articles will result in a fair amount of duplication between those two. A more considered and co-ordinated approach is needed to minimise all duplication between all three articles, while also clearly signposting links to material in one of the others. Great Britain is a poor paradigm, since clearly the human overlap between UK and GB is almost total; NI can be considered as an aside. I think a better analogy for the Ireland-island article would be New Guinea. jnestorius^(talk) 03:08, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree with jnestorius. As I've said elsewhere, Ireland exists as a social/cultural entity separate from either of the two states, therefore the Ireland article needs to reflect this and should be more than a simple geographical article. I also think it is appropriate to have a history section on it, given that the two separate states have only existed for less than a century. The history section could simply summarise History of Ireland as is the case on other articles. Mooretwin (talk) 09:55, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Of the 2/3 I would expect to remove about half, I guess (as I think I accepted above - I haven't fully worked it out, but it's bothered me since I got involved with all this). New Guinea is better, but I wouldn't be able to use the England example. --Matt Lewis (talk) 03:15, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Maybe in the face of mass fillibustering it might be a way to provoke arbcom into action. With reluctance I am starting to get to a similar place to Matt. --Snowded TALK 04:08, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Matt is quite correct here: if the page moves fail, and Ireland remains as the island article, then it has to be about the island and not some confusing mish-mash. I wouldn't edit it myself, nor would I protect the article in the face of any edit-war that might (or "would") break out, as I think the active involvement of other admins would be needed. In fact, I think under those circumstances, the quicker it goes to formal mediation, by-passing disruptive edit-warring which might (or would) break out, then probably the better. From my own point of view, the solution which makes Ireland a dismabiguation page is the one that really should be adopted, and that is the most important component of the greater wrangles about the names of the three kinds of articles: Ireland the island, Ireland the state, and any disambiguation page.  DDStretch  (talk) 07:38, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I have problems with some of the content of the current Ireland article. But I do not have location of the article problems with it. Just because Ireland happens to be an island does not mean either that 1) it has to be the same as the articles of all other islands or 2) it has to have only physical geography or even *just* geography on it. Things like "Economy" I'd be happy to see go from the page (since it's something that's very jurisdictionally/politically defined), but I see no problem with having sport, culture, cities or places of interest sections. This is not an endorsement of the precise current content of any given section; just that there is nothing wrong with such sections. And I'd certainly back you up if you have Northern Ireland content to add to the page to deal with the bias you see there. I'd be curious if any NI people here agree with Matt's assesment of the Ireland article--that it's 'b.s.' and biased, etc. Nuclare (talk) 04:26, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I also agree with Matt and Sarah and Snowded. And I am thinking of asking Wales to look in on this mess. -- Evertype·✆ 08:37, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Now that is a seriously good idea. waggers (talk) 10:14, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, in so far as he is a fairly senior person within Wikipedia whose opinion, despite what may be sometimes said, does carry weight. And the issue is fast needing some heavy-weight person or body to mediate or instruct here.  DDStretch  (talk) 10:39, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Does this mean we're finished with dealing with trying to resolve this matter by looking at the 3 articles together as single related move? I believe the poll above showed a clear consensus for the 3 articles to be considered/moved together, despite the recent attempt to question the remit of the taskforce and well intended split of 2 of these articles. The earlier polls were making progress and going somewhere, why all of a sudden are we ignoring them and trying different tactics? Let's return to the early poll where a consensus formed to move the 3 articles together. --HighKing (talk) 11:47, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Ultimately any discussion here has to turn into a formal move request, with notice on the article talk page, for it to happen. If you'd like to do the necessary at Talk:Republic of Ireland then be my guest. Personally, I don't think we should bite off more than we can chew. Big change comes in small steps. (Insert equally patronising cliché here!) waggers (talk) 11:50, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps I have the wrong idea of the remit of the Task Force, but my understanding was that the Task Force was to gather together the discussions into one place (to avoid having the same discussion on 20 different article Talk pages), and to form a consensus and reach an agreement on these terms. This agreement could then be applied to all appropriate places, without having to re-discuss and re-argue each and every time. Sure, an article move would need to still be done, but the move request should simply point to the findings and agreement and consensus of a Wikipedia-wide Task force to carry significant weight. And it's not just about article names, this Task Force is discussing how Wikipedia should refer to the island of Ireland, and the Irish state. Let's focus on one thing at a time and not get too far ahead of where we're really at. --HighKing (talk) 12:06, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

My idea of the taskforce is a single place to actually forge consensus. After that is truly found, the procedures for change - done elsewhere - should be relatively easy. By 'consensus' ideally I mean a compromise everyone is happy with - but failing that (and such is life) it can also be a very significant numbers majority.

Whatever is said either way, the truth, as I see it, is that no 'side' here has ever had a truly significant numbers majority. And wisdom alone dictates that if you need 2/3 in an open vote, you ought to really poll with at least 3/4 in the straw! 3/4 support is potentially possibly for a few options I believe, but with so little new blood around, and so little understanding of the currently polled issues (like at this Ireland RM - and it has got to be a mess of options now - to fresh voters, at least) - no side has so far ever garnered that kind of support to really securely move forward on. --Matt Lewis (talk) 13:01, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Edits-only solution for Ireland and ROI

Sarah777 has suggested an approach which involves dealing with the Ireland problem by making a 'bona fide' state/country article out of it - ie forking all of Republic of Ireland, and not just most of it (which is currently the case). We can then simply redirect the almost-empty ROI article to it (if decided upon).

This has come out of the current 'Ireland to Ireland (island)' Requested Move at Ireland talk - clearly a lot of people voting simply want 'Ireland' to be the state/country article, and so refuse to change it whatever the issues are. IMO, this was foolishly argued at times, as having two state articles hasn't helped Irish articles in the slightest, but some of the voters are just simply fixed on having it. Like the de-forking suggestion above, the beauty of this 'complete-suction from ROI' option, is that it too can be done without polling for Moves etc, and is also per policy, as it prevents two state articles from co-existing (although it is perhaps a little less easy to see through in full).

The Ireland (island) page already exists as a Redirect page, so we simply have to put all the 'island-related' information into that (leaving back a fork of whatever is appropriate). The vast majority of articles link to Ireland meaning the state/country (which we can prove now) - so they are pretty much taken care of. The existing Republic of Ireland links will redirect to Ireland as if they were pipe-linked - which many of them are, of course. And we can hatnote Ireland (island) (and the disam page) properly - so there is no ambiguity at all to those who read it.

As eventually making a redirect-page of Republic of Ireland is a little more dramatic than the Ireland de-forking option I suggested above, I think it needs some discussing first. If it is done in the right order, it would be hard to argue the redirect at ROI:

1) Remove "This article is about the island. For the country of the same name, see Republic of Ireland." from Ireland (per any anti-b/s policy).

2) Flesh-out the Ireland article, transferring anything it doesn't already have from ROI, and remove the NI stuff.

3) Fill-up Ireland (island) with the 'island' stuff from Ireland,

4) Redirect Republic of Ireland to Ireland, as ROI is now a complete fork of Ireland.

(An alternative is to keep ROI as a brief article on its 50-year history. A Redirect would be far better, though - as all the links to it would redirect along with it. Keeping ROI simple, and Ireland full, would make ROI almost untenable as a place to carry on linking to as the Irish country/state. Nearly all the links to ROI would need to be re-worded eventually, of course, but there are considerably less of them than there are to 'Ireland'.)

One more point - the redirect-page "island of Ireland" should be offered with "Ireland (state)" as a useful alternative when writing prose. This would offer:

• Ireland - the state/country article

• Ireland (island) - the geographical/island article

• "on the island of Ireland, dinosaurs" - an optional textual redirect

On a side note, I do think articles like History of Ireland should be pipe-linked to more, even to the relevant era section. I've found the argument at the RM that 'Republic of Ireland' cannot cover Irish history anoying - people can simply make better use of pipe-links. But that is by the by, and perhaps a niche thing.

By the way - I'd personally be happy with this solution, the variation directly above it, the disam-page Move currently being polled, and changing ROI to Ireland (state) too. I drew up a complete multi-option poll here (a kind of early draft for a 'poll of polls'). But I have a huch that what Sarah suggested here may well get the most support of all.--Matt Lewis (talk) 05:33, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Notice of not giving a crap anymore

This is going no where and fast. I am off to do some real work. Gnevin (talk) 22:03, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

You gotta take the longterm view, GN. Sarah777 (talk) 00:36, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

This has been rattling on since 2004 . The only fair way to solve this in my opinion is my statement above and too stop voting . Gnevin (talk) 01:03, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

It's less of a !vote and more of a discussion. Think of it as establishing consensus. :) --Cameron* 20:49, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm a bit cheesed off you created this under my "Edits-only" proposal - a comment, fine - but a section heading? Some might say we need more action, and less statements, you know. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to complain about too much polling after an 'edits-only' proposal, and people coming from the RM and seeing this would hardly be impressed by us, too.--Matt Lewis (talk) 05:55, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

A parallel example: Panama

Panama and Panama (disambiguation) provide an example of a similar situation. In that case, the title Panama is given to an article about the Republic of Panama rather than the Isthmus of Panama. Other governments often refer to the Republic of Panama simply as Panama, because in the context of international politics there is little or no ambiguity about what "Panama" refers to: the Republic of Panama. Nonetheless, the incoming links to Panama are a mess in need of disambiguation. The situation with "Ireland" is far more complicated and hence the Wikipedia article title Ireland is far more ambiguous. --Una Smith (talk) 17:43, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Island of Ireland would probably be clearer in this case, but it would lead to some chunky article titles. "History of the Island of Ireland" or "Sport on the Island of Ireland" anyone? No didn't think so. Valenciano (talk) 20:24, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

This nonsensical idea that the various article's names (like History of Ireland) would ever have to change in such a way is flagrant scare mongering. Whatever the brackets may or may not be on the state&island article names - Ireland (or Republic of Ireland if stuck with) is all that is needed for the various article titles. The article can explain the reality.

And it is hypocrasy too, as the current situation is a huge mess of "X in the Republic of Ireland"s and "X in Ireland"s (with the two separate approaches) and "X in Northern Ireland" and "Irish X" too (Irish cuisine links Ireland (ie the island) for the country(?) (as so many articles do), and links to Ulster Fry too (presumably a not-untypical anomily). Isn't it easier to have one format we can all follow?). Matt Lewis.

By the way I was the one who merged a whole lot of those meal articles including Ulster Fry into Full breakfast and tried to reorganize it so that it wasn't offensive. One complained that it was the wrong thing to do. But prior to that action on my part there was a whole lot of the same kind of talk we have here, about how they had "Objections to Full Breakfast". (See Talk:Full_breakfast and the archived arguments about Ulster Fry. And it was the same tired rhetoric... Una, above, is quite right. -- Evertype·✆ 21:57, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

RfC: controversial multi-page move

An RfC on the recent multi-page move has been opened at Talk:Ireland#RfC: controversial multi-page move. --89.101.221.42 (talk) 10:38, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Request for sources

All totally irrelevent, surely? We deal with common names, not legal ones. We have famous writers under nom de plume. I've no idea why people fight so often over that aspect. Edited to add: Note, I'm not arguing for RoI there, or for Ireland (State). --Narson ~ Talk • 12:08, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea why people fight, either. Nevertheless, these are the very reasons we are being given why the article(s) "have to" be moved! Hence my request for sources. Scolaire (talk) 12:14, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

@T*85: Thanks. This is great! Certainly it's the first time I've seen this thing put into any sort of context. Scolaire (talk) 08:03, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

It has been referenced before but it got lost in the morass of postings that normally surrounds these issues. the agreement to cease using ROI was a key part of the Good Friday Agreement. Its why many of us think the desire to continue to use it is in effect a desire to perpetuate the sectarianism which preceded that agreement. Of course many editors are not aware of that aspect and are probably making a "why disturb" things decision, but at its heart this is a substantive issue. --Snowded TALK 08:09, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Hardly "a key part of the Good Friday Agreement", when it isn't even included within the Agreement! The UK government had referred to "Government of Ireland" before, anyway.

Isn't it totally irrellevent what the politicians think though? Surely we go on Common Name. Not to argue for either way, but the only interesting part of that is that it speaks to only the UK using RoI, indicating Ireland might be more common. --Narson ~ Talk • 08:29, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

It's not really surprising that other countries used "Ireland", given that other countries aren't affected by the ambiguity of the name. The UK, however, is affected, given that the name implies that part of its territory is under another state's jurisdiction. Most importantly, the people of NI are affected - both unionist and nationalist - and it is they who object most strongly to the name. Mooretwin (talk) 08:58, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

If you want common name most people say "The South" or "Dublin" or possibly if they are older "the republic". No one has ever presented any evidence on common name and even my statement here is anecdotal, although I tested it on four audiences in Belfast and Derry over the last month. Its also not irrellevent when after decades of conflict in which the names of things literally got people killed from time to time to ask Wikipedians to respect an agreement reached between all parties to that conflict.--Snowded TALK 08:36, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

People in NI, of all persuasions, use "Republic of Ireland" without any controversy whatsoever. Sure, they refer to "the South", etc., informally, but for any formal references "Republic of Ireland" is considered to be the most appropriate and "neutral" term. Mooretwin (talk) 09:00, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Citation please Mooretwin. I asked four large audiences, comprising government and industry what name they would use and ROI did not feature. Now I don't quote that as an authority, although I am tempted to do some citable research. In 1998 the British Government agreed to cease using ROI (that is citable as you know). --Snowded TALK 09:13, 5 December 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.70.252.34 (talk)

Simply don't believe that "government and industry" don't use ROI because ... they do. Mooretwin (talk) 10:12, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I have my doubts that Ireland is known around the world as 'The South' ;). For a start, south to me is London. Also for most of the world Ireland is north and either east or west ;) --Narson ~ Talk • 09:39, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Appeal for an all-encompassing solution

Recent events have, in my view, reinforced my conviction that picking off certain aspects of this dispute, and trying to force through changes in the absence of an overall compromise settlement, is a futile and counter-productive exercise. Therefore I propose an overall compromise solution, which I have hinted at before and which – to me – seems obvious. It also seems to me that this is what was intended by the establishment of the task force.

I perceive that the primary cause of this dispute has been the objection by a group of editors, mostly from the Republic of Ireland, to the term “Republic of Ireland”. This objection has validity, but the uncompromising and doctrinaire nature of some of its adherents, who wish to purge the term entirely from the whole encyclopaedia, has predictably provoked similarly uncompromising and doctrinaire opposition.

On the face of it, the stated reason for this objection – that “Ireland” is the official name and the “Republic of Ireland” is not – is sound. It fails, however, to take into account the ambiguous nature of the name, its history as a name deliberately chosen to articulate an Irish-nationalist POV and territorial claim, and the fact that “Republic of Ireland” is the “official description”, provided for in statute by the Republic’s own parliament, and used commonly in the real world as a disambiguator. The wholesale objection to the term appears to be a visceral one that goes beyond reason.

It is noteworthy, however, that there appears to be no dispute about the need for disambiguation.

I think it is not unreasonable to argue that the current Republic of Ireland article be changed to Ireland (state) and that the article makes clear that “Ireland” is the “official name”. I am therefore prepared to accept this as part of an overall agreement.

On the other hand, I think it is unreasonable for there to be a wholesale objection to the use of the term “Republic of Ireland” as a disambiguator. The term is valid, legal, “neutral” and obvious. “Ireland (state)”, as well as being an ugly term to use in prose, is not actually a term that is ever used. To use “state of Ireland” and “republic of Ireland” is just silly when “Republic of Ireland” is out there as the obvious choice.

Therefore, part of the agreement to move “Republic of Ireland” to “Ireland (state)” has to be a corresponding agreement to accept that the term “Republic of Ireland” may be used in the prose of articles where there is potential for ambiguity. Most obviously, these are articles relating to the whole island of Ireland, and those relating to Northern Ireland, and more generally to the UK. In articles about, say, international bodies, or which relate solely to the Irish state, I am prepared to accept that “Ireland” is appropriate.

Secondary disputes revolve around whether the current Ireland article should stay where it is, or move to Ireland (island). Objections to the proposed move come from those who consider the primary meaning of Ireland – both historically and currently – clearly to be the island; but also from those who feel that Ireland (the island) is also Ireland (the country); and those who think it would be unhelpful to WP users to be linked regularly to a disambiguation page. I think, therefore, that there is a strong case for no change here.

A tertiary dispute connected to this is over the content of the Ireland article, with accusations that it includes “forked” material which should be in the “Republic of Ireland”/“Ireland (state)” article.

My proposal is that Ireland remains as the article – not just about the geographic island, but about the historical political unit, and the historical and current social and cultural unit (e.g. relating to sport, religion, etc.) It should contain brief information about “Ireland (state)” and “Northern Ireland”, linking to each article.

Proposal

1. Move Republic of Ireland to Ireland (state)
2. “Republic of Ireland” to remain as the primary disambiguator for “Ireland (state)” in the text of articles where disambiguation is necessary desirable, i.e. articles about or relating to all of Ireland, to Northern Ireland, to the UK and to the British Isles.
3. “Ireland” to be acceptable usage for Ireland (state) in the text of articles not requiring disambiguation, i.e. articles relating solely to the state, articles relating to the state in wider international contexts, e.g. EU or UN.
4. The Ireland article to be rewritten to focus on all-Ireland geography, history, culture, etc.

Mooretwin (talk) 10:10, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• Support Mooretwin (talk) 10:25, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support MickMacNee (talk) 10:32, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose as an all-encompassing solution although items 1, 2, and 3 may be part of an appropriate solution Support only 1, 2, and 3. With the addition of "or "the Irish state" to point 3, this disposition of the Republic of Ireland problem would be practicable. Point 4 does not deal with the intrinsic ambiguity of the word "Ireland" however. The problem is going to be one of piping. We do need [[Ireland]] to be correctly piped to [[Ireland (state)]] or [[Ireland (island)]] depending on what is meant in the context. Una Smith is right: if we did have two separate places to pipe to (and it will be a big project to sort that out, but well worth doing) then new references to [[Ireland]] could be watched for and correctly piped. (No, we don't want things pointing to the dab page. I think we're all agreed on that.) -- Evertype·✆ 13:03, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support  Roadnote  ♫  13:19, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support with caveat that move request goes to the proper article page Having a disambig on one page to disambiguate between two just means that rather than the link be incorrect 50% of the time the link is incorrect 100% of the time. Just hatnote the top of Ireland with the usual 'For the blah see hoobles' wording means that at least the link is right some of the time. Really though, this is a pretty obscure part of wikipedia to discuss page moves, it should be done on those articles. Consensus can develop on these pages but must be tested on the article pages. --Narson ~ Talk • 13:27, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

This concern is why Evertype, I, and others want a disambiguation page at Ireland; by editing the linking articles to make each link to the dab page go where it should, there will be no incorrect links. See Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links. --Una Smith (talk) 14:46, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• Strong Support and close further discussion. This is getting childish and needs to be resolved. Message from XENU^{complaints? leave me a message!} 13:30, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support I think the inclusion of the banner "This article is about the island. For the sovereign state, see Republic of Ireland etc" acts as its own disambiguation in a way. Sillyfolkboy (talk) 15:53, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support This compromise is acceptable. GoodDay (talk) 15:55, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
• Conditional Support The condition being that item 2. also applies as a naming convention relating to articles about the Republic: "Courts of the Republic of Ireland", "Politics of the Republic of Ireland" etc... Blue-Haired Lawyer 16:13, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

That would scupper it for me. -- Evertype·✆ 16:40, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Would it not be "Courts of Ireland (state)"?--T*85 (talk) 16:44, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe so, because the only other article it would contrast would be with "Courts of Northern Ireland". -- Evertype·✆ 17:03, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

This has always been the core issue to me. Once we migrate away from "Politics of the Republic of Ireland" to "Politics of Ireland" every article need a disambig headtop about not being about Northern Ireland, and consequently every article starts being more about the naming dispute and less about its own subject matter. This is why I suggested lowercase: "Politics of the republic of Ireland". Blue-Haired Lawyer 17:25, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• Strong support A wonderful compromise for both sides! ;) --Cameron* 17:00, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support: This is essentially the same as my proposal of two weeks ago[3], which got rather a rude response. Scolaire (talk) 17:03, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support. Disagree with point one, and entirely agree with BHL, but thats compromise.Traditional unionist (talk) 17:51, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose Its trying to be everything, to everyone. No need for all this disambiguation nonsense. Djegan (talk) 18:12, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support - this is a very good attempt at a compromise; there is no perfect solution here - but the current arrangement is less perfect than most. If there is no need for "disambiguation nonsense" nonsense then why not simply move RoI to Ireland? Of course we need a dab that respects the desire of NI people (editors from both communities seem almost equally concerned, as we can see from the debates) to feel encompassed by "Ireland" which also respects the "countryhood" of the 26 county state. Sarah777 (talk) 19:14, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
• Comment - I am highly reluctant to get involved in this, being aware of the horrendous history of these Irish/NI disputes, however I just want to say that I stand in awe of the support that Mooretwin has garnered thus far. I gave the proposal a quick glance (nothing more), and I'll give it my weak provisional support. Good luck anyway (you'll need it) :) --Mais oui! (talk) 19:23, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose I don't mind Ireland (state) but there should also be Ireland (island) and Ireland should be disambiguation page. --T*85 (talk) 20:00, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support I haven't thought it through completely yet, but one thing I know: there has to be compromise. Hohenloh ⁺ 20:25, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. I see no need to change the name of the Republic of Ireland article. IDONTLIKEIT is not a good enough reason - Republic of Ireland is a fair and acceptable disambiguator, as provided by that state, and is a common name for that state. The current article on Ireland should be (and I thought it had been) about the historical country and geographical island. As it shares common history and culture with both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and in a wider scope with the British Isles as a whole, the article should make brief mentions of those, in context. --Setanta 22:06, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support 1, 3 and 4, Oppose 2 - pending clarifications to questions posed below with examples to clarify. --HighKing (talk) 22:53, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
• I'll support all four although so long as Ireland refers to the whole island I don't care what the modern political entity, capital Dublin, is called. The page view statistics make it obvious that there is no real ambiguity here. The ratio of views is 5:2in favour of the Ireland article. People aren't arriving there then clicking through to another page when they find that they wanted the other Ireland. The readers - you may remember them, they're quite important, even though they rarely chip in in these sorts of discussions - vote by not reading Republic of Ireland anything like as often as they read Ireland. You can appeal to badly written guidelines all you want, or to imaginary consensuses here or somewhere else, but it's the encyclopedia that matters. Unless those who want by-the-book disambiguation can come up with a convincing explanation of why sending a huge number of readers to a dab page is a good idea, their argument will fail on any reasonable consideration of what's best for the project and the readers. Angus McLellan (Talk) 00:20, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support Nuclare (talk) 00:54, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
• Conditional Support. It is a compromise, and a 'second best' solution at best. ROI must not be used for disambiguation, as it is not the name of any state, and "Ireland" is both the constitutional & common name. My true preference is for sovereign Ireland to be at [[Ireland]] page. Failing that, this is better than the present arrangement. PurpleA (talk) 01:01, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support. I think this is a reasonable proposal and there appears to be some (for a want of a better phrase, and pun most definitely intended) across-the-isle support for it. Therefore it deserves support from those of that value consensus, compromise - and a slim chance of stability for these articles - more than any, single particular solution. If the "Republic Of Ireland" disambiguator is a sticking point, I think it is worth considering small r, "republic of Ireland," in the pipe instead. That was we have a disambiguation that is an accurate description using a common noun, while identifying the "official" name with the proper noun. Rockpocket 03:00, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
• Comment. I don't like the voting going on here, since it may confuse another admin into making a move without a formal move request. Whatever gets decided here, it has to go through WP:RM and article talk pages to be finalised. I support (=have no problem with) proposals 2 and 3 (I have never been a part of that debate). Proposal 4 seems too obvious to be needed: what else would the article be about if it is not to be a disambiguation page, which I believed it should not ever be (I'd sooner it be the republic). Proposal 1, however, I don't understand. What's wrong with the current title Republic of Ireland? I think it's aesthetically superior to the proposed destination (I don't like parentheses in titles when we can avoid them) and I don't think "state" is a great disambiguator. Srnec (talk) 04:12, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment - a lot of "WP:IDONTLIKEIT" there. Ironically from proponents of "RoI" as a name who brand the overwhelmingly good reasons to remove "RoI" as WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Let's be clear here; the fallback situation is "Ireland" as a dab page; the page stats "prove" nothing whatsoever about reader preference - I appreciate that some folk seem to have difficulty in understanding that. it may confuse another admin into making a move without a formal move request - this obviously refers to Deacon's move as the first move followed due process. Were another Admin to reverse Deacon's move they would be doing the Community a favour; far from being confused. (Admins please note - normally on this issue I'd not be a fan of !votes but 16 - 3 is clear consensus and of course this time the weight of votes isn't suggesting a continued ignoring of WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NPOV in relation to the namimng of the country. Sarah777 (talk) 05:21, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment This is not an all-encompassing solution—because "Ireland (state)" with "Ireland" being the island will simply lead to more forking, since "Ireland" is ambiguous. Kindly do not pretend otherwise. -- Evertype·✆ 08:29, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
• STRONG suport So if I understand correctly:

1. 1. Ireland will be the primary topic.
   2. Republic of Ireland → Ireland (state)
   3. [[Ireland (state)|Ireland]] will be used when referring to the state in articles e.g. "Ireland is a member of the EU."
   4. [[Ireland (state)|Republic of Ireland]] will be used when referring to the state in articles where clarification is needed e.g. "Recent currency changes have shifted the balance of trade on Ireland from the Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland"

That sounds perfect. It reflects common and uncontroversial usage, policy and guidelines and is in line with current practice and the WP:IMOS. --89.101.221.42 (talk) 10:33, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

• • Nope. It's not an acceptable "package deal" because the name of the "primary" topic is ambiguous and in fact the question as to whether the state or the island is "primary" is unresolved. -- Evertype·✆ 10:58, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose 1,4; Conditional Support 2,3 - I'm having trouble trying to fingure out which way would be the best. From the sounds of things, I seem to be part of the minority that believes that the article about the country should be located at Ireland, since from my editing and reading, that's what most Irish-based links around the WP seem to want to link to. But, seeming as the majority of people seem to agree with keeping Ireland as the article about the whole island, then I guess there's not going to be much of a chance to get their minds changed. However, I will not under any circumstances accept 1. If the article about the country is not going to be moved to Ireland, then leave it as it is. Ireland (state) is more confusing than Republic of Ireland, which is somewhat used around the world to refer to the country. I seriously think that particular renaming needs to be rethought. TheChrisD ^{Rants•Edits} 19:40, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment I happen to believe that it would make sense for the state to be at Ireland but I know that that choice cannot attract consensus. I also believe that having an article Ireland alongside Ireland (state) is just going to lead to two half-identical articles, and that throughout the Wikipedia articles which ought to link to Ireland (state) will link to the wrong article, which is why Ireland should be the disambiguation page. -- Evertype·✆ 19:47, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose, in a perfect world yes i would prefer to see that country article in just the simply named Ireland name, however due to the limitations and other factors, that is pretty much unrealistic. With that being said i have yet to see a good reason or convincing reason to rename any of the articles involved and see the current proposals and not being any improvement to what the status-quo has been for quite some time, or for as long as i have been involved in this site. Also i don't see any of these proposals resolving any issues that have some up and if anything would lead the the creation of further issues in regards to what article names are to be as it regards to the institutions of the republic and such. In all forms this is just a continuation of an argument that should have been settled a while ago and that will not be settled in any time. --Boothy443 | trácht ar 08:19, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. Kittybrewster ☎ 20:41, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support, its not ideal, but it will result in some calm, ClemMcGann (talk) 00:25, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support. From what I have heard some Users say, this sounds like it could work well. Regards. Redking7 (talk) 02:33, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
• Partial support This seems like a workable compromise. While I still have some issues with the use of "Ireland (state)" as an article title (clarity, "officialness", wikipedia only, etc) I think it's about time for some kind of leeway here. So long as: Ireland remains an article about the 32 county entity, its shared history/culture/etc (IE: what in my belief is the "primary use" of the term). And so long as we have some agreement/CON around when to pipe as [[Ireland (state)|Ireland]] and when to pipe as [[Ireland (state)|Republic of Ireland]]. And so long as we don't start putting "Ireland (state)" in maps and images and such (where this DAB pipe linking device can't be used). And so long as "Republic of Ireland" is highlighted in the "Ireland (state)" article intro. Then I can see this working. But the "so long as we have consistency/consensus around when/how to pipe" is a big caveat. (IE: We need a defined set of guidelines BEFORE a move. Otherwise we'll have chaos). Guliolopez (talk) 19:13, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

We need a defined set of guidelines BEFORE a move. Otherwise we'll have chaos - agreed. Mooretwin (talk) 19:15, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I think there's general agreement on that now. Gulio, would you like to look at some of the examples of piping in the last three sections of this page and see if they're consistent with your philosophy? Scolaire (talk) 19:22, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose 1, support 2,3,4 RoI is an official description of the state, as set out in law by the state itself[4] and is used where disambiguity is required on the government's own web site, and is used by other government departments (e.g. Births, deaths and Marriages of the Republic of Ireland [5] (aka hatch'em, match'em and dispatch'em :) Thus, we have a ready made, widely known, unambiguous, officially used term, so it makes no sense to me to change this to a unwieldy wikipedia-only construct which will only cause more inconsistency within article naming and/or require excessive hat note disambiguation. Compare the game commonly known as Pool, which, as that title is also unavailable due to ambiguity, is at Pocket billiards, not Pool (game), for similar reasons, even though pool may be its "common name". Regards, MartinRe (talk) 22:14, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Note

any votes made above this note will be visible in the Requested Move underway at Republic of Ireland, here.

Moving on

OK, we appear to have achieved a surprising degree of consensus on the basis for a compromise solution. At what point do we conclude that agreement has been reached - in principle - to move forward with this proposal? My view is that we can be confident enough now to move forward, and my view is that the next step is for someone sensible and thoughtful to work up a guideline on parts 2 and 3 of the proposal. I think Giuliopez or Scolaire or jnestorius would be good choices. I also think someone needs to work something up on the "Politics of the Republic of Ireland"-type articles. My wife is expecting a baby in the next 2-3 weeks so I'm not going to have much time for WP, hence I won't be able to devote as much time to this as I might otherwise have liked. Mooretwin (talk) 20:54, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Comments (on Mooretwin's proposal)

Very much along the lines of what I would imagine, when you have two articles, disambiguating via a disambig page doesn't save anyone any clicks. However, any move proposal should go to the RoI page for that article. --Narson ~ Talk • 10:23, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Would it be possible to articulate in a bit more detail the reasons why Ireland should not just be a disambiguation page again? That way, if we can dispense with the unhelpful aspects of rhetoric and insinuations about motives and so on from all editors from all the different viewpoints in making comments, it may be possible to reach a better evaluation of your proposal against the one which argues that Ireland should be a disambiguation page. It might help almost entirely to address the specific recommendations given in WP:DISAM in any of these justifications. Let's all of us try to maintain civility, assumptions of good faith, and restraint in making personal comments about individuals and perceived "groups" in this.  DDStretch  (talk) 10:48, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm impressed Mooretwin and withdraw some earlier comments. In respect of point 2, I think we should try and find something else, although possibly a small r might do it (need to think). I can't really see why you think that an issue, as the small r would make it clear that it is a distinction. Otherwise I think I could live with that and a hatnote on [Ireland]. --Snowded TALK 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Why use a small r, when the description has a capital R?? Mooretwin (talk) 11:44, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I often pondered why we don't use 'Irish state' where appropiate. --Narson ~ Talk • 11:04, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, there's more than one Irish state - the Republic and NI (or the UK, if you prefer). There's only one Republic, though. Mooretwin (talk) 11:44, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

This proposal has certainly got my attention. Will think on it a little, but so far I like the ideas put forward (good and bad elements, but as an overall package pretty good asp. in relation to Article title). RashersTierney (talk) 12:04, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

The UK is not an Irish state. Northern Ireland is not a state. Scotland is not a state. Wales is not a state. England is not a state. Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England are constituent countries of a state. There is only one Irish state. Two states have jurisdiction on the island of Ireland, but only one is an Irish state -- Evertype·✆ 12:55, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

AskOxford.com def: 1 the condition of someone or something at a particular time. 2 a nation or territory considered as an organized political community under one government. 3 a community or area forming part of a federal republic. 4 (the States) the United States of America. 5 the civil government of a country. 6 pomp and ceremony associated with monarchy or government. 7 (a state) informal an agitated, disorderly, or dirty condition.

Merriam-Webster def: 5 a: a politically organized body of people usually occupying a definite territory; especially: one that is sovereign b: the political organization of such a body of people c: a government or politically organized society having a particular character <a police state> <the welfare state>6: the operations or concerns of the government of a country 7 a: one of the constituent units of a nation having a federal government <the fifty states> plural capitalized : The United States of America 8: the territory of a state]

Dictionary.com def: 7. a politically unified people occupying a definite territory; nation. 8. the territory, or one of the territories, of a government. 9. (sometimes initial capital letter) any of the bodies politic which together make up a federal union, as in the United States of America. 10. the body politic as organized for civil rule and government (distinguished from church ). 11. the operations or activities of a central civil government: affairs of state. 12. (initial capital letter) Also called State Department. Informal. the Department of State. 13. Printing. a set of copies of an edition of a publication which differ from others of the same printing because of additions, corrections, or transpositions made during printing or at any time before publication. 14. the States, Informal. the United States (usually used outside its borders): After a year's study in Spain, he returned to the States.
–adjective 15. of or pertaining to the central civil government or authority. 16. made, maintained, or chartered by or under the authority of one of the commonwealths that make up a federal union: a state highway; a state bank.
–verb (used with object) 19. to declare definitely or specifically: She stated her position on the case. 23. to fix or settle, as by authority.

Northern Ireland is a state. It is an Irish state. I have no idea why you (Evertype) might object to this fact, but that is your own problem, and your own opinion - one that is contrary to several dictionary definitions. --Setanta 22:25, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Erm, well, no. At the UN, England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland do not have seats beside Ireland and Germany and Russia. They are constituent countries of the State known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That is the level of abstraction which applies here. I say again, Ireland (the state with Dublin as its capital) is the only referent for "the Irish state"; that phrase simply cannot apply to the UK, or to Northern Ireland, one of the UK's constituent countries. -- Evertype·✆ 00:03, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

What the UN does or doesn't include, or provide seats for, is irrelevant. As far as I'm aware, members of the UN are sovereign nations. That doesn't change the fact that Northern Ireland is a state and that it is an Irish state (one of two). --Setanta 05:07, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Those are your views. My view is that NI is a state and that the UK is an Irish state, as well as being an English, Scottish and Welsh state. Mooretwin (talk) 14:00, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

In fairness, Mooretwin, I believe the burden of proof is on you to provide reverences to show that the term "the Irish state" means anything but (the Republic of) Ireland. And to provide references indicating that the UK is considered to be "an Irish state". Or indeed "a Welsh state". -- Evertype·✆ 16:57, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm trying to remain focused on the proposal per se rather than too much on personal rationalising which may unintentionally muddy the waters. RashersTierney (talk) 12:57, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate that, but see my comment above about point 3, which modifies the proposal per se. -- Evertype·✆ 13:06, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Fair point. RashersTierney (talk) 13:12, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I think this is a definite basis for compromise but need to be fleshed out a bit. What about the titles of other articles. Should it be "Courts of Ireland", "Courts of Ireland (republic)", "Courts of the Republic of Ireland", "Courts of the republic of Ireland" or something else?

I tried to use lower-case republic on articles but was just told I was being "silly". Actually I think it makes a lot of sense as Ireland is a republic but the official name is just "Ireland". Also owing to Wikipedia's software linking [[republic of Ireland]] goes to Republic of Ireland without a redirect or a pipe. Blue-Haired Lawyer 13:04, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)A good compromise and proposal. I'm happy to abide by it if there's consensus, however, it would still strike me as odd as to why Ireland is not a disamibuation page, when it simply is ambiguous. The issue of "republic/Republic" needs some attention though IMPOV, as this will come back and bite us if we don't codify it asap. --Jza84 |  Talk  13:05, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

As I said this does dispose of the RoI problem, but that is only one part of the suite of problems we enjoy. -- Evertype·✆ 13:06, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

This seems to be a well considered and responsible approach (in comparison to the "unpleasantness") to the situation. The ROIrish constitution calls the country Ireland [sic], it seems reasonable that the title of the page should reflect this in some way. However, Irish history, politics and geography goes far beyond that of two < 100 year old states, neither of which can/should claim superiority. Well done.  Roadnote  ♫  13:19, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

(e/c) About the (r|R)epublic of Ireland issue: I think if we can grasp that Republic of Ireland is a (or even the) official description of the state, then I think using it with an upper-case R would more likely be the better choice when it is being used as a disambiguator. As I mentioend above, I'd still like to see an almost point-by-point rebuttal of why Ireland shouldn't be used as a disambiguator, as in that way, we can better see which one of the two could be chosen. I, for one, am inclined to give the proposal here some serious consideration, but it does need to address the matter of its main contender (IMHO), which is that Ireland should be a disambiguation page. It needs to be restated in cool, calm, and impersonal language here, I think, because the previous discussions got too obscured by unhelpful rhetoric used in the discussions. Also, there may well be fresh editors reading this who would be quite put off by some of the previous discussion.  DDStretch  (talk) 13:23, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the point about the typography of "Republic of Ireland". The formulation "republic of Ireland" is not correct and does look "silly". -- Evertype·✆ 13:26, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

A lowercase r is used by Encyclopedia Britannica. Blue-Haired Lawyer 14:30, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Nevertheless I think that the Wikipedia Manual of style should not use a lowercase r in that phrase. -- Evertype·✆ 15:48, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

On disambig, well, we have two things to disambiguate between here really. Ireland the island and Ireland the country. If people go to Ireland the island wanting Ireland the state, they will find some information on the state there. If they went to Ireland the state wanting stuff on Ireland the island, they'd be pretty much SOL. Now, when disambiguating between two articles if you put a disambig page at the term, all links to that page will not get the person where they want to be. If you don't and say the split is even, 50% of the people will get where they want to go in one click, 50% will have to click on the hat note. I'd rather 50% of eople got 1 click vs 100% needing 2. --Narson ~ Talk • 13:37, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Just like Georgia and Georgia (country) and Georgia (US state). -- Evertype·✆ 13:49, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Except Georgia has more to disambiguate I think. Battleships, for example. --Narson ~ Talk • 14:06, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

There are 44 lines of text at Georgia and 62 lines at Ireland (disambiguation). We've got RMS_Empress of Ireland though. -- Evertype·✆ 14:18, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Georgia is a total red herring. You can be 100% certain that readers want one or ther other. You cannot say anything of the sort for Ireland (assuming Ireland realy does have two uses - Irish history for example). MickMacNee (talk) 18:08, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

⬅ I will admit to a sudden thought that this is an attempt to prevent arbcom intervention. It will take a lot to persuade me to ROI in any form to be honest, given that it was agreed by all parties not to use that term in the GFA. As someone said above Ireland (state) can be a disambiguation. Otherwise I think allowing Ireland to be the country article is a reasonable compromise. --Snowded TALK 13:33, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I am not withdrawing the Request for Arbitration. -- Evertype·✆ 13:47, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Huh? Ireland is the article on the island which should go into the history of the island of Ireland including those states that have existed upon it, but it is, ultimatly, an article on the island..... --Narson ~ Talk • 13:37, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

That's why the article should be named Ireland (island) and why Ireland should be the disambiguation page. -- Evertype·✆ 13:47, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguation pages should be last resort, imo. My preference is for sovereign Ireland article to be named [[Ireland]], and the island article to be named [[Ireland (island)]]. My view is that Ireland is a very old nation, invaded, subjugated for a while, and then won back her freedom in 1922, but still the "very same Ireland". In other words, Ireland is not a new state, no more than Wales or England or Scotland are a new countries. Northern Ireland demurred from the new independence that Ireland regained, and stayed with the UK, and is arguably the "the new entity". Northern Ireland, judicially speaking, although being Irish, is still part of a British state, and therefore is not an Irish state. Anyway I see Mooretwin's proposal a compromise, but would have to demur about calling sovereign Ireland the "Republic of Ireland" again, because that's not the name of any country. PurpleA (talk) 14:40, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, some want Ireland to be the state and the other article to be Ireland (island), and some want Ireland to be the island and the other article to be Ireland (state). That's why Una and I and others think that the dab should be Ireland with both Ireland (state) and Ireland (island). I can't see any other compromise being stable. Regarding your final comment, I think it is fair to say that there are contexts in which using the description the Republic of Ireland and the term the Irish state are legitimate and useful. I bet you that on any given RTÉ news broadcast one or both of those terms might crop up during the course of the show. We don't fling our teacups at the TV when Brian Dobson says "Republic of Ireland". I'm sure we don't. (I do sometimes want to fling my cup when he says "differculty". Listen for it. Once you hear it, it will annoy you always.) -- Evertype·✆ 15:54, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

This proposal would be ok if it included making [Ireland] a disambiguation page. There is evidence to suggest that when people refer to (or search for) "Ireland" it's usually the state, not the island, that they're interested in. On that basis, if either of the articles is to sit at [Ireland], it should be the state article. The best option is to have [Ireland] being the disambiguation page, then there's no argument about which usage of the term is more popular and the choice is left, as it should be, to the reader. As a rather pessimistic aside, given that we had already established consensus on this page and that wasn't followed through on the article talk page, I have strong doubts that any solution the task force agrees upon will be ratified on the article talk pages, despite the policies on Wikipedia being a meritocracy not a democracy and the existing disambiguation guidelines. waggers (talk) 16:07, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

As an admin, I have to assume you know what the disambiguation policy says. Therefore, how can we reconcile your assertion without evidence that Ireland (modern state) is the usual target for searches for/links to Ireland? If you mean noticeable or notable majority, then by definition it does not require disambiguation with anything, especially not when there is only one other candidate in play - that situation is dealt with by dab-hats on the primary article. The only justification for a dab page is when there is not a clear majority for any use (this is assuming the flawed idea that users must be looking for an island/must be looking for a state idea is even correct). Your wording, "usually the state" is a rather vague term anyway, define "usual" in this context - 60% ? 80% ?. And how would you collect evidence of intent? I would think examining the origin article of a link to Ireland would be meaningless. e.g. Origin of link to Ireland:Sport in Ireland. Intended target?. You would literally have to perform a statistical anaysis of the actual prose context of each and every link, sampling enough links for this evidence to have any credibility. MickMacNee (talk) 18:03, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I can only support Ireland as a disambiguation page, and Ireland (state) & Ireland (island). That solution above only solves half the problem.--T*85 (talk) 16:17, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I tend to agree with you, though we have made some progress on the RoI problem. -- Evertype·✆ 17:01, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Maybe, but the more I think about it I don't think so. The opposite side is making it seem like they are compromising something allowing Ireland (state) to be used. They are not compromising anything, they are agreeing to allow the official name to be used with a (state) next to it. A compromise is that Ireland is a ambiguous term and it requires a disambiguation page. I don't know, this whole thing is full of bias. It should be all neutral (non Irish, British, people with beliefs on either side,..) deciding this. --T*85 (talk) 17:15, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I think it's fascinating the way the goalposts keep changing. A very short time ago the "only issue" was the "need" to give the article its "constitutionally correct" name and stop using the "POV" ROI title. Now that there's a real danger of approaching consensus "disambiguation" has emerged as the real issue. The Good Friday Agreement has been frequently mentioned in this debate. The constant throwing up of new obstacles reminds me of the ten years following the GFA in so many ways. Anyway, what's to stop us accepting this proposal and then continuing disussion on the dab issue? Unlike previous proposals, it does not preclude progressing any other issue. Scolaire (talk) 17:03, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

This is progress of sorts, and fair dues to Mooretwin for getting it this far. Unfortunately I can't support it, based on my assumption that this appears to be an attempt to legitimize the use of "Republic of Ireland". While Mooretwin argues above the case why "Republic of Ireland" would make a good choice as a disambiguator, he ignores the reasons why it doesn't. I've made the point many times and I'll make it again. The "Republic of Ireland" would have been a fine and uncontroversial disambiguating term, were it not for the fact the the UK government decided to make it their legal name for the Irish state. That's why it's still, to this day, an unacceptable term - it is *still* the *name* that has legal status in the UK. So it just seems that Wikipedia is using the official British name, and refuses to use the legitimate name. --HighKing (talk) 17:10, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

It appears in the The Republic of Ireland Act, 1948 so it's at lead partly Irish! ;) --Cameron* 17:36, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not arguing with you. I agree a Dab term is needed. Just don't agree to this one for the reasons stated above. --HighKing (talk) 17:41, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

HighKing, please see Request for sources on the project page. The only source that has been put forward so far does not support the argument that the UK government "decided to make it their legal name for the Irish state" or that "it's still, to this day, an unacceptable term". What happened over a period of fifty years or so was that the British Government used the Irish description of "Republic of Ireland" for political reasons involving sovereignty, and I have still not seen any evidence that there was any significant section of opinion that found it unacceptable then, or finds it unacceptable now. If you have reliable secondary sources to back up what you say, can you provide them, please? Scolaire (talk) 17:56, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi Scolaire, not sure what you're looking for. Are you looking for a reference for the fact that the legal name for Ireland is "Republic of Ireland" under UK law? Check out Ireland Act 1949 - Article 1.3 of the Act states The part of Ireland referred to in subsection (1) of this section is hereafter in this Act referred to, and may in any Act, enactment or instrument passed or made after the passing of this Act be referred to, by the name attributed thereto by the law thereof, that is to say, as the Republic of Ireland.. Still in force today too. Doesn't say anything about political reasons for selecting that name - not that it actually matters as it wouldn't change the facts. Or are you saying that you don't believe that anyone finds people using the term unacceptable? That's my fault for not being clear - let me try to clarify. It's not unacceptable in general - but it is unacceptable to use it as a name, and since it *is* a name (legally under UK law), it is confusingly used all over WP to the point that many people use it as a name, and believe it has official status as a name. It's confusing because it does have legal status (as a name) - in the UK - but nowhere else. There's been several comments in the past few weeks from editors saying things like "What's the problem with using Republic of Ireland - it's the full and proper name". It's not. This problem can be easily addressed if we simply chose a different Dab term. Hope that helps to clarify. --HighKing (talk) 19:13, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

No, HighKing. What I asked for were secondary sources; I'm already familiar with the primary sources and your interpretation of them. T*85's summary of the journal article below is a useful contribution, but there's no way you could summarise it as "the UK government decided to make it their legal name for the Irish state." Secondly, "it is unacceptable" does not mean "I am not accepting it." If the Taoiseach can say he is not proceeding with plans to organise in the North because he is concentrating "our own organisation within the Republic" then I would conclude that it is acceptable to everybody from the head of government down, and I would like to see reliable secondary sources to the contrary. Scolaire (talk) 08:37, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/508399

• 1922: Irish Free State is used and Britain/Ireland have limited problems with the name.
• 1937: Constitution changes the name to "Éire" with the English translation of Ireland (article 4) and also includes "Ireland is a sovereign, independent, democratic state" (article 5). Britain had no problem using "Éire" except that they used "Eire" instead and this annoyed the Irish. In 1940's both sides started to fight about the name, Irish started using Ireland whenever possible and British went to length to prevent international organizations from using Ireland. Meanwhile Northern Ireland government did not even like the use of "Éire".
• 1949: Ireland became a republic and in section 2 of the act declared “that the description of the State shall be the Republic of Ireland." Taoiseach Costello said that this was not an attempt to change the constitution. 10 years later former Attorney General Ó Caoimh indicated that Republic of Ireland had been a feature of the bill for some time. There were questions as to legality of this at the time. Ó Caoimh concluded that “what it (the Act) really attempted to do was not to attach a description to the State, but to alter the name of the State,” and he went on to note that the act was “unconstitutional in so far as under the guise of declaring it a description … it attempted to change the name of the State from Ireland to the Republic of Ireland.” A group appointed by the UK cabinent concluded “some debating advantage from the point of view of argument on Partition, in describing the south as ‘the Republic of Ireland' or ‘the Irish Republic' reserving ‘Ireland' as a geographical description of the island as a whole; and dropping the term Eire.” Northern Ireland government also did not like Republic of Ireland.
• 1951:"June 1951, the appointment of a new British ambassador was imminent, and de Valera instructed Frederick Boland to ask the Commonwealth Relations Office (CRO) whether the British government could consider describing the country as “Ireland” instead of “the Republic of Ireland”" The CRO informed Boland that they could see no way of meeting de Valera's wishes “without appearing to admit by implication the claim, embodied in Article 2 of the Constitution of the Irish Republic.”
• 1953: "Government Information Bureau issued a directive, which began by noting that Article 4 of the 1937 Constitution gave the name as “Éire” or, in the English language, “Ireland”; whenever the name of the state was mentioned in an English language document, Ireland should be used."
• 1953-54:"Fianna Fáil government was insistent that all credentials (with the possible exception of the British ambassador) should be addressed to the President of Ireland. Australia would only agree to letters giving accreditation to the Republic of Ireland or Dublin. This position was adopted on the advice of the British government, who emphasized that any reference to “Ireland” or the “President of Ireland” would be embarrassing to the British government and to Her Majesty." Britain tried to persuade Canada to adopt a similar position without success. The only compromise to British wishes that Canada was prepared to make was to give the president's title in Irish. So in *1955 the incoming Canadian ambassador presented letters of credence addressed to “His Excellency Sean T. O'Ceallaigh Uachtaran na h'Eireann [President of Ireland].”
• 1964:"shortly after Eoin MacWhite had presented his credentials as Irish ambassador to Australia, a circular was issued to all Australian government departments instructing them to use the word “Ireland” rather than “the Irish Republic.” In 1965 Hugh Stevenson Roberton became the first Australian ambassador to Ireland."
• 1960's:"Britain was the only country not to refer to the state as Ireland."
• 1998: Belfast agreement
• 1999:"Up to and including the year 1999, the Diplomatic List issued by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office referred to the Republic of Ireland. Since 2000 it has referred to Ireland, and the credentials presented by the British ambassador, Stewart Eldon, in 2003, were addressed to the President of Ireland." --T*85 (talk) 19:36, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

The article Name_of_Ireland could also be referenced. PurpleA (talk) 20:44, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

No, it couldn't. Another Wikipedia article is not a reliable secondary source. Scolaire (talk) 08:46, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment - In principle, "On the other hand, I think it is unreasonable for there to be a wholesale objection to the use of the term “Republic of Ireland” as a disambiguator. The term is valid, legal, “neutral” and obvious. “Ireland (state)”, as well as being an ugly term to use in prose, is not actually a term that is ever used. To use “state of Ireland” and “republic of Ireland” is just silly when “Republic of Ireland” is out there as the obvious choice." does not seem too objectionable. In truth, I am just suspicious. I have seen so many unreasonable opinions expressed on this point. Recent examples included insisting on the Irish nationality article that Irish citizens be called "citizens of the RoI", even when in the very next sentence it stated the law applied "extra-teritorially" in "Northern Ireland"...etc...The list could go on and on. If there was genuine room for confusion, I would not object to RoI. But, I would not like to support the proposal and then not live up to the other end of the bargain (the part I am unclear on)... Essentially, I am not sure how widely the above would be interpreted. I appreciate Mooretwin making the proposal...I guess as this is teased out I will see what is really intended. Good luck with this discussion. Regards. Redking7 (talk) 22:56, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

That's essentially the same questions I'm asking. Hopefully someone will try to clarify. --HighKing (talk) 23:12, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

HK, we must accept compromise on the "half a loaf" principle. The "RoI" merchants have now fallen back on things like links logistics as their next line of defence. This solution will leave that resembling the Maginot Line after the blitz! Sarah777 (talk) 04:49, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I do agree with both kings - Redking7 and HighKing - that the circumstances and the way in which "Republic of Ireland" is used within articles would have to be agreed, and set down in a form that could be made part of IMOS and not leave loopholes for contentious editing. Ideally that would be discussed in a separate section kept free of other issues, but would be finalised or at least substantially concluded before an RM. Scolaire (talk) 08:46, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

As soon as I clicked "send" I saw there already is a separate section. D'oh! Scolaire (talk) 08:49, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Supplementary comments by Mooretwin

Scolaire has asked me to comment on some of the comments so far, in order to clarify what I envisaged with my proposal. The first observation that I make is that part of this compromise proposal is that Ireland remains as is, but with a re-write – moving Ireland to a dab page is not part of the proposal, so those for whom having Ireland as a dab page is something they’re not prepared to compromise on (that’ll be Evertype), would need to vote “no”.

The other area about which I wish to comment is on part 2 of the proposal. A small number of doctrinaire ROI-phobic editors seem to be desperately trying to interpret part 2 in such a way as to expunge the term Republic of Ireland from as much of Wikipedia as possible (even so far as to be proposing prose as unhelpful as “Derry is near the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland”). Let me be clear that my proposal is not intended to usher in such phraseology. To make it clear I have amended part 2 to read “where disambiguation is desirable” rather than “necessary”, in order to reduce the scope for doctrinaire interpretation. Part of the quid pro quo for the “Republic of Ireland” article being renamed is the acceptance that the term is perfectly legitimate, sensible, “neutral” (vis-à-vis unionists and nationalists) and obvious. It is not “offensive” or “POV”, and to push this line – without secondary sources to back up the insinuation, as called for by Scolaire – is unhelpful. Much as Snowded, HighKing et al may wish it, agreement to this proposal should not result in a mass purge of “Republic of Irelands” from articles where the term has existed in stable format for years.

Another area of doubt is over articles such as “Courts of the Republic of Ireland”. My personal preference would be to retain these, but – in the spirit of compromise, and because we appear to be tantalisingly close to a possible solution – I would be prepared to accept retitling these on the condition that EITHER a hatnote is inserted to state, e.g. that “this article is about the courts of the Republic of Ireland: for the courts of Northern Ireland go to Courts of Northern Ireland, OR the new title is “Courts of Ireland (state)”. I also think that, even in articles such as Constitution of Ireland, the opening paragraph somehow needs to make it clear that the “Ireland” referred to does not equate to 32 counties. If that can be done elegantly without uttering the phrase that evokes so much paranoia (“Republic of Ireland”), I’ll accept it.

As for “Politics of the Republic of Ireland”, however, I think there are strong grounds for retaining this title, since it is quite possible for “Politics of Ireland” to refer to the whole island. There is, after all, some political continuity and contiguity across the island.

It may be that – IF this proposal can be considered to have achieved consensus support in principle – somebody “neutral” (with the confidence of all camps) can be tasked to identify all these articles and recommend how they should be titled, based on the principles agreed in parts 2 and 3 of the proposal. Mooretwin (talk) 10:42, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Mooretwin, could you comment specifically on this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this? Are these all good examples of the kind of disambiguation you are looking for, and if so are you in agreement with the solutions being proposed? Scolaire (talk) 12:39, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Will try to look at those when I have time. Mooretwin (talk) 15:57, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Mooretwin, while I respect your movement on this subject please calm the language down a bit as we are close to a solution. Its also bad form to change a proposition after its been in place for some time, even using a strike out and you would do yourself and the process of reconciliation a lot of good if you reversed that. Yes, some of us do object to the use of ROI (on factual not ideological grounds although I accept you think that statement should be reversed). Discussions have taken place around the use of "the Republic" and Scolaire has demonstrated a range of solutions that would allow progress. Sarah has indicated acceptance in some circumstances of ROI. In the Derry case I think something along the lines of "Derry is situated in Ireland on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic' would make perfect sense. I responded favourably to those on the Northern Ireland article (see below), it would be useful if you responded specifically rather than with sweeping statements about other editors desires, motivations etc. --Snowded TALK 13:37, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I can't win. I was asked for clarification, and I've given it. I won't revert the change from "necessary" to "desirable" as it seems to me from comments posted that yourself and a couple of other eager editors would seek to interpret the word "necessary" in such narrow terms as to undermine the compromise being proposed. Mooretwin (talk) 15:57, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm also baffled as to why "Republic of Ireland" creates such offence, yet "the Republic" does not. Mooretwin (talk) 15:57, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I don;t think it has to be a win/lose. You could have clarified in the commentary not by changing the text which was my point. OK you are baffled by ROI, I am equally baffled by the insistence on using it. Lets accept that is a difference and the arguments on both sides have been advanced ad nasiam so its not going to change. I am not wild about "the Republic", as far as I am concerned its another compromise but at least its in common use. Please go through the examples that Scolaire is assembling and come back with specifics. Then we may, just may be able to resolve this. --Snowded TALK 17:38, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

⬅ I would also like to suggest that, if we do reach agreement on this, then there is a parallel agreement not to engage in mass editing of different pages. I suggest we create an workgroup for all bar the essential link changes, where the protocols and precedents are worked out. I no wandering around pages replacing ROI with I or R, but a list of changes in one place which are actioned after agreement in accordance with the rules we are developing by example here. The last thing we want is multiple edit wars breaking out all over the place and people feeling betrayed. --Snowded TALK 13:41, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

How can it be "all-encompassing" if it ignores a major unresolved issue?

Above I wrote: It's not an acceptable "package deal" because the name of the "primary" topic is ambiguous and in fact the question as to whether the state or the island is "primary" is unresolved. Sillyfolkboy put the following on my Talk page; I have moved it here with his permission.

I think you got to the crux of the matter with that one. I agree that yes, the primary topic as it stands (Ireland) is ambiguous given the current naming of the Irish State and the historical "all"-Ireland. However, I would argue that when considering an article called Ireland we must incorporate the entirety of Irish history and culture, describing both states as pieces of the Ireland puzzle. I think a good quality article of this kind, with concise summaries of the various aspects of the whole of Ireland, from history and culture to geography and politics, would do the most justice to the topic.

The fact is the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland separated but "Ireland", the idea and geographical area, never did. It contains two entities that have a wealth of shared culture and history — this is the true essence of Ireland and pretending that one of these entities, without the other, represents this essence will only serve to undermine efforts to reconcile the division. I think Ireland is an emotional issue, making consensus difficult. However, there are other ways in which we can move on from the issues and start improving what we have here. What do you think? Take care. Sillyfolkboy (talk) 15:02, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I think that it is false to say that if we only have an Ireland (state) article and an Ireland article, the problem will somehow be solved. The latter will accrete as much duplication as we already have, and links intended for the former will mistakenly lead to the latter. That's just what we have now! I think that is no solution. It's one thing to have an article about the state labelled Ireland (state) but it makes no sense that the other article, which is supposed to be all-island, is not labelled Ireland (island), especially when the State's formal name is Ireland. Mooretwin's "all-encompassing" proposal helps us deal with the problem of the name Republic of Ireland but the solution is not, beyond that, complete. What do I think? I think if we do not have Ireland (state) and Ireland (island) and Ireland as a disambiguation page, we aren't ever going to have an actual "all-encompassing" solution. -- Evertype·✆ 17:32, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

1) It may not be "all-encompassing" but it encompasses far more than any of the previous proposals, which were pure "move the pages and pretend all the other shit isn't there" proposals. Look at the following section and you might notice people who were irreconcilable a couple of days ago discussing nitty-gritty issues and actually agreeing!

2) Sillyfolkboy has it spot on. The article called Ireland must incorporate the entirety of Irish history and culture, describing both states as pieces of the Ireland puzzle. The dab page should be a dab page. This is also the view of a majority in the recent RM, in case you missed it.

3) I can't see where Sillyfolkboy says "that if we only have an Ireland (state) article and an Ireland article, the latter will accrete as much duplication as we already have, and links intended for the former will mistakenly lead to the latter." I don't even understand that sentence. Why misquote him? Scolaire (talk) 16:49, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

(1) I was never for "move the pages and that fixes everything" and you know it. I have said that it will take work to make sure things pipe to the right place, etc. Note that I have indicated that Mooretwin's proposal goes a good way to disposing with the Republic of Ireland problem. But it is false to say that this is "all-encompassing" because "Ireland" is ambiguous and will remain so.

(2) There must be such an article, but he does not say that the name of that article should be Ireland (rather than. say, Ireland (island). He asked me what I thought, and I've tried to clarify.

(3) I was not trying to quote him, but the revised paragraph should be clearer now. -- Evertype·✆ 17:32, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

He said "an article called Ireland". The name of an article called Ireland must be "Ireland", unless we're into advanced metaphysics here. Scolaire (talk) 17:55, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Requested move initated on Republic of Ireland

Based on the initial support for this proposal, I have initiated a proper move request at Republic of Ireland, as the actionable part of this proposal, to prevent discussion of this particular proposal going stale and/or being diverted down the usual routes and nothing in the way of admin determined consensus coming of it either way. I have transcluded the polling section from here to there, so anybody who voted already, you don't need to vote at the move request, it is visible there. Any additional votes made here above the note I added, will also be visible there. (new votes registered in the requested move over there will not be visible here though). MickMacNee (talk) 22:38, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I formally object to the transclusion. THIS was a Poll, not a RM. It is inappropriate for you to transclude that discussion. Including my own vote. This is procedurally unacceptable. Rescind or I will certainly bring it up on Arbcom. -- Evertype·✆ 00:10, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not seeing the difference between the last move by Tariq and this one. Both were the result of polling of proposals in this page. What exactly is the difference? If anything, this has more legitimacy, as we can now be certain the closing admin will read all of the debate before closing this time. MickMacNee (talk) 02:00, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

No you wouldn't, but then you have claimed, falsely, that yours is an "all-encompassing" solution. Want to revert to Tariq's moves? I'll be very pleased to accept that compromise. This however is railroading, and is not "legitimate" simply because you claim that it is. -- Evertype·✆ 09:01, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Mine? MickMacNee (talk) 11:11, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid, Mike, that I object to this RM initiative. Nothing can happen until EVERYTHING is agreed. If my compromise proposal is agreed, then ALL elements have to happen together. That includes agreeing the details of 2, 3 and 4. Mooretwin (talk) 17:49, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Who are you to make such a demand, Mooretwin? (Just putting a little perspective on it.) I do happen to agree that all elements should happen together, or this doesn't work. I remain convinced that Ireland (state), Ireland (island), and Ireland (=dab) is the only truly all-encompassing proposal that could solve the problems we face. -- Evertype·✆ 17:55, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

hang on, lets not over react. I think Moortwin is right to object to the RM as a discussion is emerging here which has some possibilities. There are some issues on that - the disambiguation page and the use of ROI/R etc depending on context. However this is closest we have been for a long time and allowing Ireland to be the island with a clear hat note is acceptable as a compromise. Mooretwin is not making a demand per se, he is objecting to an action by Mick which seems likely (if it does anything) to derail a possible compromise. --Snowded TALK 17:59, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Well Mooretwin (and Snowded et al), I haven't a clue what you think is going to be proper process to achieve this proposal as a package other than the closure of an RM. If you know, please inform everybody else, because the only actionable element to this proposal was the move request. Everything else just looks like more discussion without an end point, open to the same endless diversion and derailment. It was perfectly possible for the RM closing admin to also pronounce the prevailing consensus on the rest of the proposal (which was the intention), to be respected/defended/rejected as happens with anything else. This was not an isolated RM. But as it is your proposal, and in light of your opposition, I am withdrawing and archiving it. MickMacNee (talk) 18:44, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

In my view, we need to agree some kind of guidance/policy on 2 and 3, before we can move on 1. All need to happen together. If we get agreement in principle to the compromise, I think we move on to the guidance on 2 and 3. Mooretwin (talk) 23:40, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Got here too late! - but I didn't see much wrong with the move. I'm not sure that everything must be agreed before anything can be agreed. Should we link a resolution of the British Isles (ugh!) problem to this one??! Sarah777 (talk) 18:59, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

To my mind, the proper closure of the move request would have included a judgement on all the parts of the proposal. This was not appreciated/agreed with, especially by the proposer, so the rationale for the move is now invalid, and so withdrawn. A move on its own without subsequent actions is/was clearly not part of the request (but how these parts are now to be mandated, I have no clue). MickMacNee (talk) 19:14, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Dabbing the state within articles

Some people seem concerned at the proposal - “Republic of Ireland” to remain as the primary disambiguator for “Ireland (state)” in the text of articles where disambiguation is necessary, i.e. articles about or relating to all of Ireland, to Northern Ireland, to the UK and to the (ugh!) British Isles. Ireland (state) is fine for a title but is hardly smooth prose. I been tweaking some articles since the (original) move of RoI to Ireland (state) and I think RoI is fine as a dab where that is needed (the phrase "the Republic", or the one increasingly seen in the media "Irish Republic" are also fine in context - I don't think either pretend to deny the legitimacy of the state being named simply "Ireland". Sarah777 (talk) 19:30, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I might just comment that I'd prefer Ireland (country) to Ireland (state) but I accept that that seems especially problematic to my nationalist collegues in NI. Sarah777 (talk) 19:42, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd be much happier to the point of supporting Mooretwin's proposal (and I'm only a hairsbreadth away) if perhaps this question could be anwered - would there would be an objection if somewhere within the article that requires disambiguation, it could be noted that the term "Republic of Ireland" is being used to disambiguate but that "Ireland" is the official name? --HighKing (talk) 20:00, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Also, for example, take a look at the current Republic of Ireland article, and look at the image on the right which positions the state within Europe. This use of the Dab term in this context is incorrect and confusing, because it appears to name the state as "Republic of Ireland". Similarly, there are other images of the island, and the state is named "Republic of Ireland". On the other hand, I have no objection to the text of the Ireland article as it clarifies with a note at the top that RoI is being used to disambiguate. --HighKing (talk) 20:07, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• Maybe editors should be objecting to the name "Northern Ireland", because Donegal is in the northern part of Ireland, and the UK has no right to infer that they rule that northern part. I'm afraid that is the measure of the objections to sovereign Ireland having the "Ireland" title here on Wikipesia. Readers are a pretty learned bunch, and the need for disambiguation is really labouring the point. The fact that Ireland covers 85% of the island of Ireland, and Northern Ireland covers the remaining 15% is really very easy to understand, and is not rocket science. I would still demur from the ROI being used to disambiguate, as any decent writer can easily word a topic to dispense with such a need. And readers are intelligent, and should not be underestimated. PurpleA (talk) 21:01, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
  • This idea that there should be an 'objection' to the name Northern Ireland is a real straw man argument. The fact is that the parliaments were simply referred to as the northern ans southern parliaments - the one in the north being more northerly than the one in the south; the one in the south being more southerly than the one in the north.
  • You claim that Wikipedia readers are a "pretty learned bunch". However, while I'm certain many of them are probably 'learned', I disagree. I personally know of many people who do not understand the difference you have described above with regard to the states of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.. in terms of percentage of land coverage of the island, or anything else. Most (of these) take a simplistic viewpoint that "Ireland" is a state which covers the whole of the island... which was the whole intention of naming the Republic of Ireland as "Ireland" in the Constitution etc (and the claiming of foreign territory a la articles 2 & 3 of that Constitution).
  • So no - the objections are not quite the same. Note that nobody has claimed that the article Northern Ireland should be renamed as Ireland, though it really has no more or less valid claim to that title in reality than the southern state. --Setanta 22:41, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

So why wasn't that part of the Belfast Agreement? The Irish government was sending people to the polls anyway, would have been easy just to add a change of article 4 to the ballot. What would be your view if the name of Northern Ireland had been changed to Ulster. Which article would get to stay under the name Ulster, the one about the province that has been around for thousands of years or the one about the country?--T*85 (talk) 23:18, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

T*85, that's an interesting question, but not exactly parallel. The fact is that the Republic of Ireland act of that state provided for an alternative and unambiguous name for the state: Republic of Ireland. As no such renaming of Northern Ireland actually occurred, and we have no equivalent act which provided for an alternative disambiguation, we can only speculate. My own feeling is that "(state)" and "(province)" might be tacked on to the end of each of the articles. However, if an act were made which provided for an alternative name for the state Ulster, then it would be logical to use that name as the title of the state's article and "Ulster" as the title of the province's article.

You might be aware that there had been discussion in the past, in 'official' circles, in regard to renaming Northern Ireland as "Ulster". You might also be aware that the borders of the thousands-year-old province of Ulster varied quite considerably throughout the two thousand or so years of its existence. --Setanta 05:24, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

T85, it wasn't part of the agreement because it would have led to the GFA being rejected in the South! But yet again we have all these historical, political, pov reasons why "Ireland" cannot be simply called Ireland - even Setanta concedes that the uneducated masses commonly mistake "Ireland" to mean an all-island state centered on Dublin. So per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NPOV we should go with that - it isn't Wiki's job to peddle the GFA or the constitutional situation. I find it amusing that many of the same editors who insist on including all of Ireland in the political phrase "British Isles", on the basis that widespread usage trumps all other considerations, do a complete u-turn when the same common users fail to understand that Dublin isn't the capital of all-Ireland! Sarah777 (talk) 05:04, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

On an incidental point (some of the above being pretty silly), there was official consideration given to changing the name of Northern Ireland to Ulster. See Alternative names for Northern Ireland. Regards. Redking7 (talk) 01:19, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Please let's get away from red herrings and down to specifics. If there is an article name change in line with Mooretwin's proposal, where should "Republic of Ireland" be used and where should it not? Example 1:

• Derry City lies on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. (from Free Derry)

In my opinion, to change that to anything else would look awful. Is this acceptable use? Scolaire (talk) 08:59, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd see nothing wrong with that. Reads better than the alternatives, IMO. Mind you, the two do appear together sometimes. Ironically one frequent use relates to the area that has the only major official use of RoI; you'll often read in the Southern media of matches between "Ireland and Northern Ireland". Sarah777 (talk) 09:55, 6 December 2008 (UTC) Sarah777 (talk) 09:52, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Just as you'll read "United and Newcastle United." Scolaire (talk) 11:32, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but that's because everyone knows "United" = Man U and Ireland = RoI! Sarah777 (talk) 14:43, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

That surely is a case where Ireland could be used, adjacent to Northern Ireland there is no ambiguity. --Snowded TALK 09:13, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

"...between Northern Ireland and Ireland"? Please! Scolaire (talk) 09:15, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

and thank you, those are the two official names for the state, and the country involved. --Snowded TALK 09:19, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

That sort of silliness, and not any political POV, is why sensible people have resisted change all these years. We're trying to write an encyclopædia that people can read! Scolaire (talk) 09:23, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

You see that sort of language in government and other documents Scolaire so I am in good company if I am being "silly". You need to come to terms with the fact that the state is called Ireland and acknowledged as such by all international bodies. In practice you might want to find a way around that particular case. Derry was historically the centre for the north-west of the old pre-partition Ulster given its geographical position and something along those lines would work. By the way, given that I am using official citable terms and you are proposing a term no longer used by the UK Government I suggest you look to your own views as an example of POV. Also "sensible" people have moved on from the old language, I suggest you attempt to do the same. --Snowded TALK 09:35, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Sticking to the examples and not the discussions around them and whether the laws are "silly" etc.: On Example 1 "border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland." - that would seem reasonable to me. Broadly, my understanding is that on NI articles and articles that primarily relate to NI, RoI would be used without objection. Here is another Example 2 for discussion - I tried last year to move Foreign relations of the Republic of Ireland to Foreign relations of Ireland - My reasons were set out ad nauseum on Talk: Foreign relations of the Republic of Ireland and I will not under any circumstances repeat the arguments here. Lets stick to the discussion only. I want to know if proponents of RoI under the new deal would support my proposal? (User: Mooretwin - I would not like to support your good faith compromise and then not live up to my end of the bargain - if a deal is done, I would hope it would be well understood by all and would be final - no more wasting time on the RoI/IRL issue...). Regards. Redking7 (talk) 10:33, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

"Foreign relations of Ireland" is perfectly reasonable. The island of Ireland does not have the capacity to have foreign relations, nor would anybody expect to see foreign realtions of Northern Ireland under that heading. No ambiguity, therefore no disambiguation required. Scolaire (talk) 11:15, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

The the Olympic Council of Ireland currently reads: "The Olympic Council of Ireland or OCI ... is the National Olympic Committee for the country of Ireland". This is IMHO a rather ugly disambig and doesn't work very as both the island and the state can in different circumstances be considered a country. Possible alternatives include: "Irish Republic", "Republic of Ireland", "Irish state". Blue-Haired Lawyer 14:29, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

In the case above were I the IOC I'd suggest "Irish Republic" fits best. Could this not be handled like a simple style issue? Different variants will be best in different situations. Sarah777 (talk) 14:36, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

If we must have rules to avoid warring etc then they need to be flexible enough allow the prose to flow. Maybe a table of examples? Sarah777 (talk) 14:45, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree but I've been reverted using this in the past on the basis that the "Irish Republic" (apparently) ceased to exist in 1922. Semantics at it's worse if you ask me. Blue-Haired Lawyer 15:13, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Semantics at its least worst if you ask me - if "Republic of Ireland" is supposedly no longer in use "Irish Republic" is totally archaic. But why not say "The Olympic Council of Ireland or OCI ... is the National Olympic Committee for Ireland. Although it has its headquarters in the Republic of Ireland, many athletes from Northern Ireland also compete for the team, since sports organised on an all-Ireland basis are affiliated to the OCI"? First reference, must refer to the state, no ambiguity; second reference, mention of Northern Ireland, need to disambiguate. Scolaire (talk) 15:45, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

It's semantical because it's like saying that "His wife's brother" and "the brother of his wife" are different people. Blue-Haired Lawyer 17:36, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I never said it wasn't semantics. Scolaire (talk) 18:16, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I thought people chose which team to participate in based on their identity and not which sport they happen to participate in. The problem is that the X can be the national team of Ireland and Y can be the national team of Ireland, but you can't tell the difference between X and Y unless you click on the link. Blue-Haired Lawyer 17:36, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

We're talking about article text here. Does my wording (or would an alternative edit) make clear that the Council is ROI-based but can select team members from NI? If so, what's the problem? Scolaire (talk) 18:03, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Re: The the Olympic Council of Ireland currently reads: "The Olympic Council of Ireland or OCI ... is the National Olympic Committee for the country of Ireland". This is IMHO a rather ugly disambig... Agreed as to ugliness. But disagree on the solution...There is no need for a dab. Why would an island have an Olympic Council? Ireland in this context (as in so many) could only be the Irish state. Regards. Redking7 (talk) 18:13, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Why not? It has a rugby, cricket and and an international rules team. Ireland is not just a island. It has common institutions for a reason! Blue-Haired Lawyer 19:36, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I think the preferred term should always be a piped Ireland for the state, unless there is room for any ambiguity in to what that Ireland could mean. Foreign relations of Ireland is a great example as there is currently no all-Ireland body for foreign affairs. At the risk of opening a can of minefields (if I may poorly mix my metaphors), perhaps too much emphasis is placed upon not using Republic of Ireland as an unambiguous term. Indeed the Irish State seems to have zero worries about doing this in the most prominent link on the government website! Sillyfolkboy (talk) 18:16, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I refer you to my team X and Y point about. Blue-Haired Lawyer 19:36, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Mooretwin's proposal, however well intentioned, is "Republic of Ireland" through the 'back door' again, and I'm afraid this is going to lead to more and more 'edit warring' into the near and distant future, with disruptive behaviour by editors with a pov to push. When we are talking about sovereign states, there is one, and only one, named Ireland. So if Derry/Londonderry lies on the border of Northern Ireland and Ireland, that's perfectly okay and there is no need for disambiguation, because there is only one soverign power named Ireland. Readers can perfectly understand well written language, and when Ireland is mentioned in a political sense there should be no more confusion than if Wales or England are mentioned in a political sense. I'm afraid the proposal, if passed will be troublesome. PurpleA (talk) 18:36, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

or you could engage in the discussion here and prevent edit-warring in the future. Scolaire (talk) 18:42, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I have said before that IMO, sovereign Ireland should be at [[Ireland]], and that would solve all the doubts about piping and disambiguation. That's how Wikipedia deals with other state articles, and Ireland too covers covers most of the island. PurpleA (talk) 18:51, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

But that's not going to happen, so your options are help or whine. Scolaire (talk) 19:06, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Woo hoo! Whoopee! We have some people who want "sovereign Ireland" to be at Ireland and we have some people who want "the idea and the geographical Ireland" to be at Ireland. When is the penny gonna drop, folks? NO ONE CAN BE WRONG HERE BECAUSE BOTH SIDES ARE RIGHT. Negotiation means COMPROMISE, people! The compromise that stops all this is Ireland is the dab page and we as a community do the right thing with links. Sheesh. -- Evertype·✆ 19:40, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Evertype, get a grip! You're the only one left who's not willing to compromise. The rest of us have moved on. Everyone is right and everyone's a winner. Scolaire (talk) 20:37, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

This is some strange new meaning of the word compromise is it Scolaire? While this thread might have some hope exploring the detail is proving problematic and the balance of probabilities is that it will of the way of other discussions. Another argument for formal involvement in the process by Arbcom to structure the debate. In the last few paragraphs alone you have told one editor that if he doesn't go along with you his only option is to whine. Now you are into "get a grip". Not really the language of compromise you know. --Snowded TALK 20:46, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

It's the language I had to put up with when I urged people to talk instead of trying to railroad through page moves. I guess maybe I'm getting some of it out of my system. Yes, I have gone from supporting "Republic of Ireland" to voting for a proposal to move to "Ireland (state)"; Mooretwin had gone from supporting "Republic of Ireland" to making a proposal for "Ireland (state)"; Sarah has gone from wanting to expunge "Republic of Ireland" to saying this or that use is reasonable; ditto Redking7. That is my idea of compromise. Evertype's and yours, apparently, is yelling that your six-year-old proposal is a compromise and anybody who doesn't support it is evil. Let's see who the majority agree with. Scolaire (talk) 21:01, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

⬅ It may have escaped your attention in your desire to create a stereotype or two but I welcomed Mooretwin's proposal with one question (and the discussion on that detail continues). My point above was that you were not helping by using pejorative language. I think that concern has been reinforced by your response above. --Snowded TALK 21:09, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Scolaire, my thanks for deleting me from your criticism above. While that is appreciated what I was really hoping is that would delete more and abide my your own sound advice here which made a lot of sense and with which I am in complete agreement.

Yes, you're quite right. I got emotionally involved again and that doesn't make for effective dialogue. I'm going to take a step back again and see what comes of the current dialogue. Scolaire (talk) 19:52, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

To those dab supporters who are questioning my support for this proposal: A major problem is that while every sensible person now realizes that Ireland the state cannot remain at RoI there are two conflicting solutions: some want either the state to get undisputed primacy or to make "Ireland" a dab page. (The latter would now be my favoured solution). But, not only Northern Unionists and some British editors but also most Northern nationalists have problems with "the Free State" claiming the title. This clearly goes against WP:COMMONNAME and normal Wiki naming conventions but we simply cannot get consensus to shift RoI from it's current roost at the top of the Ireland (state) article. So either Arbcom wades in and over-rules the approx two-thirds of the Ireland-related editors who are getting it wrong or they wade in and support them. Or toss the issue back here. If Arbcom decides to weigh in I'd not put much money on them over-ruling a majority which includes several very senior Admins. So while the island taking precedence is wrong, and against policy (IMO) I will go with Mooretwin as a compromise on the rather pragmatic grounds that this is the only way Ireland will be freed from suffocating grip of the RoI title. Sarah777 (talk) 21:26, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

• I can broadly support Mooretwin's proposal only as a compromise solution, but this "3 Ireland to be acceptable usage for Ireland (state) in the text of articles not requiring disambiguation, i.e. articles relating solely to the state, articles relating to the state in wider international contexts, e.g. EU or UN" “Republic of Ireland” to remain as the primary disambiguator for “Ireland (state)” in the text of articles where disambiguation is necessary, i.e. articles about or relating to all of Ireland, to Northern Ireland, to the UK and to the British Isles. will almost certainly be problematic again. Some editors say lots of disambiguation is necessary, and that's where I disagree. If the encyclopaedia is attempting to inform the reader, then it should use the correct titles, otherwise Wikipedia is dispensing incorrect information. Mooretwin's proposal is a compromise that could be agreeable, but allowing usage of ROI won't end the disputes. IMO, "ROI" has to go, and only to be used in its proper and correct context. Otherwise it will not be an advance on the present situation. PurpleA (talk) 22:14, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we are anticipating a problem where none may exist? I've been merrily piping RoI to "Ireland" on roads and geographical articles; but not piping in articles such as Roads in Ireland where the need for dabbing is clear and RoI fits. To be fair, while I'm guessing there are several editors watching me like hawks they have never reversed a pipe I made. I think it is possible to identify where dab is really needed and where not. Maybe I'm too sanguine; but let's not predict disaster that is only a possibility at this stage. Sarah777 (talk) 22:28, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Apologies, I had to correct my last edit as above. It's the ROI part I see problems with, and some editors will read it as a carte blanch to change piping etc. PurpleA (talk) 22:39, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Sarah is correct, I think. If we pipe using good judgment and a genuine aim of disambiguating, rather than any ideological motive, then 99.9% of these can be resolved without major issue. Its not rocket science to determine which pipe is most appropriate and informative given the context in the article. There will always be some where opinion will differ, but I think those will be surprisingly few, and that could easily be resolved by asking a few uninvolved, international, neutral editors to offer an opinion. Rockpocket 20:07, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea to keep working on the examples for a few days more. Those who've contributed so far seem to agree very closely on what is good practice, but I'd like to see a few more people give their views - especially Mooretwin, since it's his proposal - and see if we're as close to consensus as we appear to be. Scolaire (talk) 20:55, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I see Scolaire has struck out his comments about me above, but I think that something should be said. there are many people who think that Ireland should point to the state. There are many people who think that Ireland should point to the island. These views are irreconcilable. I would prefer Ireland= state and Ireland (island) = island. I understand that many people don't like this. You I believe would prefer Ireland = island and Ireland (state) = state. These views are incompatible. These views involve "winners" and "losers". These views do not allow for genuine compromise. Both Ireland (state) and Ireland (island) with Ireland = dab involves compromise on all sides. -- Evertype·✆ 09:54, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I respect Scolaire for that striking out and for his Northern Ireland example before. I think there are incompatible views (ie there is no solution which will gain agreement from all). I personally would prefer Ireland to be a disambiguation page and then two articles, state and island. I can also see the argument for (and would support) Ireland being the state as this links closest to other WIkipedia practice. However I think by far the greater offence is using ROI for the state. So in the spirit of compromise, let Ireland be the name for the island with a suitable introduction and move ROI to Ireland (state). It is the nearest thing we have to a neutral proposal. At the same time, the use of terms within content (potentially the most difficult aspect) seems to be approaching something that might work (see the discussion below). What matters now is that we all keep calm heads, assume good faith and just try and sort out the detail of in-content links. Then I think we have something to present. I think this is also a response to MooreTwin who made a major gesture with this proposal and those of us on the "other side" should respond accordingly. --Snowded TALK 10:46, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I think there is growing consensus that Republic of Ireland --> Ireland (state), and that's fine. But it's not a solution. We've just had a bot make the following changes:

(diff) (hist) . . mb Ireland‎; 10:39:27 . . (-90) . . JAnDbot (Talk | contribs) (robot Removing: bn:আয়ারল্যান্ড, es:Isla de Irlanda, sv:Irlands geografi)

That's deleting "Island of Ireland" from the Spanish Wikipedia, "Ireland's Geography" from the Swedish Wikipedia. And—get this: The page in Bengali is called Ireland and is a disambiguation page linking to Ireland (island) and Republic of Ireland. This is actually affecting the Wikipedia as a whole. I am happy to respond positively to Mooretwin's "major gesture" as you put it. I can accept Republic of Ireland being moved to Ireland (state). What this does not do, however, is protect us against forking, which only moving Ireland to a dab page and using Ireland (island) for the other article can do. -- Evertype·✆ 13:22, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

• IMO, much of the premise of the ongoing discussion is unsound, and because of that, there will be no worthy conclusion to the issues involved. The argument starts out with the assumption that Ireland is ambiguous, and therefore needs to be corrected. Ireland is no more ambiguous than "Africa V South Africa", "Wales V South Wales", "Yorkshire V North Yorkshire", "Plymouth V Plymouth automobile". The only real solution is to make Ireland the title of the article for sovereign Ireland, it the proverbial "elephant in the room" that editors don't want to face. It will be very brave of ArbCom to make this move, but it's the only real solution. Some editors will go ballistic, but it will solve all problems that are arising in this area. It has to be faced, and now is a better time than any to do that. PurpleA (talk) 17:22, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I guarantee you that Arbcom will not make that sort of decision, just look at the commentary and pushing for it will just end up with the status quo. Lets work on something which moves the subject forward. --Snowded TALK 17:34, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Whichever way I see the compromise, it always comes back to something like the Russian title, Russia (country), so we get Ireland (country). Republic is not liked at all, no more than one would like living in the 'Monarchy of GB', or the 'Democracy of the USA'. Putting political labels on countries, devalues that country to its mere 'political structure', and 'republic' sounds like those "coup de state" republics that came and went so often before, republic in 'nothing', but name. So Ireland, like USA, France etc, even though it has a republic system of government, should not be donned with the title 'republic'. That's not disambiguation, as it gives false information to the reader, and is not the WP:COMMON. PurpleA (talk) 18:44, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Baffling comments, given that the Irish state has given itself the official description of Republic of Ireland. Mooretwin (talk) 20:49, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Even more baffling that it spent the last 50 years persuading all international bodies to call it Ireland, and got the last government (the UK) to stop using ROI and use Ireland instead. That was in 1998 by the way MooreTwin, we are not in the 1940s anymore. --Snowded TALK 20:55, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

An example of in-article dabbing

The Roads in Ireland lead is interesting actually. It says:

Ireland, both north and south of the border, has an extensive network of roads. Northern Ireland has had motorways since 1962, and has well developed primary routes. With the advent of the Celtic Tiger and European Union funding, most national roads in the Republic continue to be upgraded. In the 1990s the Republic went from having only a few short stretches of motorway in the country, to partly expanding the motorways on most major routes. This is part of a National Development Plan. Road construction in Northern Ireland has proceeded at a slower pace in recent years, although a number of important bypasses and upgrades to dual carriageway have recently been completed or are about to begin. Signposts in Northern Ireland denote distances in miles, while all signposts placed in the Republic since the 1970s use kilometres. Currently miles per hour speed limits are used north of the border. Those in the Republic use kilometres per hour(km/h) introduced on 20 January 2005. This involved the provision of 58,000 new metric speed limit signs, replacing 35,000 imperial signs. The Republic's road signs are bilingual, using both of the state's official languages,Irish and English.

Now, if we took "Ireland" to be sufficient dab in context this might read:

Ireland, both north and south of the border, has an extensive network of roads. Northern Ireland has had motorways since 1962, and has well developed primary routes. With the advent of the Celtic Tiger and European Union funding, most national roads in Ireland continue to be upgraded. In the 1990s Ireland went from having only a few short stretches of motorway in the country, to partly expanding the motorways on most major routes. This is part of a National Development Plan. Road construction in Northern Ireland has proceeded at a slower pace in recent years, although a number of important bypasses and upgrades to dual carriageway have recently been completed or are about to begin. Signposts in Northern Ireland denote distances in miles, while all signposts placed in Ireland since the 1970s use kilometres. Currently miles per hour speed limits are used north of the border. Those in Ireland use kilometres per hour (km/h) introduced on 20 January 2005. This involved the provision of 58,000 new metric speed limit signs, replacing 35,000 imperial signs. Ireland's road signs are bilingual, using both of the state's official languages, Irish and English.

• Sarah777 (talk) 22:49, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

References

Sarah, are you suggesting that the disambiguation, where it is needed would be to the Republic. So to go back to an earlier example, Derry would be located on the border between Republic and Northern Ireland? That would to a degree correspond to common usage, would remove the controversial "Republic or Ireland" and might offer a way forward. From the example above I think you may not be, but your earlier comments on the use of Republic mean that I a weary of making any assumptions. --Snowded TALK 09:00, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I would wholeheartedly support this usage. --HighKing (talk) 11:30, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I think it's a bad idea because it would just end up encouraging links to Republic (click it and see). -- Evertype·✆ 11:31, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

If that's the only objection, I'm *still* happy to support it, in the right context in articles (such as the example given). --HighKing (talk) 12:10, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I see your point; if this usage was one option amongst others it should be fine. -- Evertype·✆ 17:52, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Context would be king here, in the Derry case above its clear that the two countries are involved and the pipelink would deal with it. If this new approach is going to work we need a set of examples so that we can all be confident people have brought into a sustainable solution with some rules. Hence my probing question to Sarah. --Snowded TALK 12:17, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

It presuppose that the reader understands cue words such as "the Republic". Will we also be using phrases like "the North", "26 counties" etc.? This is an international encyclopedia and we cannot assume that a reader has local knowledge or understands local euphemisms. --89.101.221.42 (talk) 12:26, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

But the euphemisms "north" and "south" are linked to the state articles in this example. Though a better version might say "the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland" in the first occurrence and use the euphemisms later (though they aren't all just euphemisms, eg 'north' and 'south'). I personally don't have a problem with RoI as a dab or description within articles so long as it isn't the sole option and there isn't an implication that "Ireland" isn't really the legitimate and common name of the state as the insistence on it not being used in article titles clearly implies. I'd say that we could list acceptable alternatives; the south, Irish Republic, RoI would all qualify in context. I'd suggest 6 counties or 26 counties are too colloquial as would be "Failed Entity" or "Free State". Surely this isn't rocket science? Sarah777 (talk) 18:47, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Although for other articles I'd be just as happy if there was a note at the beginning of an article that states "the name of the state is Ireland, the term "Republic of Ireland" is sometimes used to avoid confusion.". But about articles such as "Courts of X", "Civil Service of X", etc, which are all currently pointing to "Republic of Ireland" - these articles should also point to "Ireland" and have a similar note explaining that "Ireland" refers to the state. With consistent use and guidelines around usage, I've no problem with using "Republic of Ireland" within article texts to disambiguate so long as it is clear that it is not being used as a name. --HighKing (talk)

Unless I'm misreading you HK, I think we are not too far apart on this. Sarah777 (talk) 18:51, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Smidgen beag. --HighKing (talk) 20:24, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't be in favour of "Irish Republic". There is a Wikipedia article, Irish Republic, which deals with Republican institutions during the War of Independence. What we don't need now is more ambiguity. Scolaire (talk) 21:10, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Red King is bang on about Courts of Ireland vs. Courts of Republic of Ireland. Courts are a function of a state and thus "Ireland" cannot (sensibly) be confused with the island in that context. On the other hand "History of Ireland" should refer to whole island, whereas "History of Republic of Ireland" can only refer to the 26 counties 1949-present (or 1922, if people agree not to be so pedantic). ("Irish Republic" should only be used to refer to the War of Independence era entity.) --89.101.221.42 (talk) 22:35, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

"The Irish state" could be used sensibly instead of the term, "the Republic", where a 'tinge' of disambiguation might seem apt. I still have a lot of faith in readers digesting the written word, and most readers know the difference between Ireland and Northern Ireland, and are indeed looking for specific, or more detailed information. If the articles are presented properly, then there should be no problem. PurpleA (talk) 02:47, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Another dabbing example

Here is an instance of wholesale changes being made to the Northern Ireland article in August, and here is an attempt at a compromise edit by me. By and large, my edit seems to have stuck. Leaving the flag issue aside for the moment, which of the changes I made would anybody disagree with, and why? Scolaire (talk) 07:56, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Good ideas this, allows understanding to be explored. My comments: (i) there is a good example of using other language to make the point in a better way while avoiding issues with the name I am thinking here of the reference to Catholic desire for a United Ireland rather than closer links with the the Republic. (ii) There are some good examples of using "Northern Ireland and the Republic" where the context is clear (iii) there are examples of reinserting ROI when Ireland would have made better sense (in the spirit of the above agreement) that ROI, or in some cases "the Republic" (iv) there is a good example of saying "the state of Ireland" which in that context makes a lot of sense. (v) You use "Irish Government" instead of "government of Ireland" at one point which is a very sensible option and there were other good examples where you used "Irish x" to good effect (vi) I can only see one case where you put ROI back and I think there "the Republic" could have been used.

I think extracting each of those cases as a summary of possible future practice would be helpful at this stage. Good contribution, I start to believe the glass is half full. --Snowded TALK 08:17, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Arbcom

For those who don't have it on watch Arbcom have accepted the request for involvement. The final accept from FT2 has some clear messages for all of us involved in this --Snowded TALK 01:46, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that User Snowded....but could you translate for the less well informed (me)....FT2 etc and where are Arbcoms' messages....Thanks. Regards. Redking7 (talk) 02:54, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I would advise reading FT2's three point comment as part of his acceptance, it indicates the sort of behaviours and actions we need to engage in. What is going to matter is attention to fact/citation, non ideological statements and no personal attacks. If you look at some of the rulings in relations to the Troubles (and some of the constraints already imposed on editors to these pages) you will see what I mean. --Snowded TALK 06:33, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

See the Requests for arbitration/Ireland article names for the three-point comment by FT2 to which Snowded refers. Actual evidence is to be given at Requests for arbitration/Ireland article names/Evidence. PLEASE NOTE: This is not the free-for-all comment-on-other-people's comments that we have "enjoyed" over here. If you have evidence to present, you're supposed to put it in a section of your own. You're not supposed to insert comments in other people's sections. There is a talk page. I'm not quite sure what it's for. -- Evertype·✆ 08:06, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I had a thought. Don't know where to put it so I'll put it here. We're not naming Ireland. We're naming some encyclopaedia articles. Maybe I'll say this over on the Arbcom page. -- Evertype·✆ 08:18, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

We're not naming Ireland. We're naming some encyclopaedia articles. You do realize that's an argument that's been frequently used to justify the 'Republic of Ireland' article title. Nuclare (talk) 12:38, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Meh. That state already has a name. It's just that some people don't like it. I stand by my position: Ireland should be the disambiguation page. -- Evertype·✆ 15:37, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

dab tag

For what it's worth, the only precedent we have on such a tag is Georgia (country), so if the article for the entity south of the border must be called simply "Ireland", for the sake of consistency that option should be "Ireland (country)" rather than "Ireland (state)". I have no opinion either way on the larger issue of "Ireland" vs "Republic of Ireland". 217.33.218.200 (talk) 14:26, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't work as many people consider the whole island of Ireland to be a country (or the country of Ireland to be the whole island - whichever way you want to look at it). Mooretwin (talk) 20:50, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

China Example

I brought this to the arbitration page but I thought that I'd mention it here also. I have stayed out of this debate, but I wish to make a suggestion. China currently leads to a very good page that is essentially an expanded disambiguation page. We do not link to the WP:COMMONNAME for the country, that honour goes to the Peoples Republic of China. So I suggest :

• Ireland - a dab page containing references like China
• Ireland (Island) - an article about the island as a whole.
• Republic of Ireland - Used to distinguish the sovereign state like currently done with China.

Also the Republic of Ireland page was created with the name currently used and the first major edit was the same, So wouldn't that be covered by WP:MOS#National varieties of English?

I know it is not much, but I wish to be brief and not get drawn too much into this debate :-) -- Phoenix (talk) 22:58, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

A perfectly sensible solution, of more benefit to the reader than a two option dab page that tries to treat the intertwined meanings of Ireland in the same way as the obvious and unrelated ambiguity of the two Georgias. MickMacNee (talk) 20:30, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, that's acceptable. Afterall, the People's Republic of China is more commonly know around the world as China. GoodDay (talk) 20:34, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

In case any genuine non-POV users might get confused and consider China some sort of acceptable example to follow:

• PRC (Peoples Republic of China) is the official name of the most widely recognised China. The large majority of countries recognise the PRC as the only Chinese State;
• ROC (Republic of China) is the official name of the much less recognised China - more commonly know as Taiwan (which is where the non-Communists established themselves after the Chinese Civil War and where the Communists have never ruled). A minority of countries, for example, the Vatican City recognise only the ROC (Taiwan) as the Chinese State;

That is broadly the reason for the way the China, the Peoples Republic of China and the Republic of China have the article names they do.

In contrast:

• RoI (Republic of Ireland) is not the official name of the Irish State;
• "Ireland" is the name by which the Irish State is recognised by every country in the world (including even UK of GB and NI!);

In short, there is no comparison between the Chinese and Irish article names! Regards. Redking7 (talk) 22:56, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

From an editor's perspective, yes. But from a reader's perspective? No. As a reader, I want to know about the historical/cultural/land mass of China, I type in China. I want to know about the communist state, I type in China. I want to know about the historical/cultural/land mass of Ireland, I type in Ireland. I want to know about the modern state, I type in Ireland. I want to know about Georgia? I type in Georgia. And then realise my world view is not big enough. It's a fundemental concept, we write for reader's, not for editor's. People giving the China example are (imo) not even meaning the confusion between the communist state and ROC, they mean as with Ireland, the name of a land mass and an overlapping state. You simply cannot tell readers they were wrong for typing in Ireland expecting one or the other. You can also not attempt to shape their world view by forcing them to believe that Ireland has two separate and unrelated meanings (by offering them a two option dab like Georgia). MickMacNee (talk) 01:57, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

This is why Ireland should be the disambiguation page. -- Evertype·✆ 10:10, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I think you missed my point, aand Phoenix's. MickMacNee (talk) 13:33, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, not only are the situations not analogous but even for China the solution is wrong. WP:COMMONNAME would dictate that China should primarily refer to the PRC; that's what 90% of readers typing in "China" are looking for. In fact the Wiki-solution to the China nomenclature is a rather good example of Anglo-American POV that infests Wiki. Certainly not an example to mimic. Sarah777 (talk) 21:26, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I would disagree with your statement as it being an Anglo-American POV. Yet when I type in America it does not take me to the United States of America which most people would think it would it takes you to a simple disamb. (not nearly as nice as the China page) that links you to the options available... One being a Landmass another being a Sovereign State. -- Phoenix (talk) 06:08, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

If most people who type in "America" mean the USA then that should be the primary article; but I suspect that widespread general knowledge that the US isn't actually called "America" and that the "US", "United States" and "USA" are common alternatives means that we need a dab whereas the vast majority typing in "China" refer to the mainland state. (Similar to Ireland actually). Sarah777 (talk) 01:36, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd wager to guess that almost everyone who searches for America just like China are looking for the states that are commonly called that name. But in both cases the article is aware that there can be confusion and they are guided on their way... And in the case of China its very nicely done... Really I think that disam. page is great! Probably the best I've seen in wiki. -- Phoenix (talk) 06:21, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Ireland article names

An Arbitration case has been opened, and is located here. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Ireland article names/Evidence. Please submit your evidence within one week, if possible. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Ireland article names/Workshop. -- Evertype·✆ 09:56, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

An amendment to Mooretwin's proposal

There was some progress being made on Mooretwin's proposal, but I feel that certain aspects of it still caused problems, and Mooretwin himself has not been eager to join in the discussion, which may have left us a little unsure whether we all understood the proposal. I am proposing an amendment that makes some small changes: (1) "primary disambiguator" in point 2 is replaced, by "disambiguator", and the emphasis is placed on agreement, (2) point 3 consequently becomes more general, and (3) there is no absolute ban on a change of name for "Ireland" - although I myself don't foresee it happening, in the light of the most recent RM - and the emphasis instead is on the need to focus on all-Ireland geography, history, culture, etc. i.e. not just a "lump of rock". If people wouldn't mind voting once again, I would be interested to see if we're moving in the right direction. Scolaire (talk) 00:10, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Amended proposal

1. That "Republic of Ireland" be moved to "Ireland (state)".
2. That a protocol be agreed, and included in IMOS by agreement, on the use of "Republic of Ireland" and/or "the Republic" as disambiguators within articles.
3. That "Ireland" is an acceptable disambiguator within articles in all cases where (2) does not apply.
4. That the "island" article, howsoever named, focus on all-Ireland geography, history, culture, etc.

• Support, as proposer. Scolaire (talk) 00:22, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support proposal amendment. GoodDay (talk) 00:25, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. We must move the article about the nation/state/country of Ireland off the RoI handle; this proposal leaves that open - Mooretwin's perfectly clear proposal doesn't. It also appears thar Mooretwins proposal has consensus - so why this vote? And this is also being discussed at Arbcom! This is proposal is obstruction by obfuscation. Sarah777 (talk) 01:28, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose, I do not know what the proposal would mean in practice. I think the proposal is, in any event, a little ahead of its time...the change has not occured yet. Regards. Redking7 (talk) 02:36, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose Not in favor of article 1 and isn't this proposal counter to the effort going on at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Ireland article names? -- Phoenix (talk) 06:16, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Definitely not. FT2, in accepting the case, said: "Voting to accept, and advising the parties to start on reviewing past major consensus-seeking exercises on other topics now, and getting going on something similar, because that's likely where you'll end up in 1 - 2 months anyway and evidence of trying will stand well at Arbitration."

Withdrawing proposal in the light of comments above and below. I apologise for any offence caused. Scolaire (talk) 13:58, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't offended, no prob. GoodDay (talk) 15:34, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

• Question - how does this differ from what I have suggested at "Moving on" above - and which appears to have been completely ignored? Mooretwin (talk) 12:05, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

You're quite right! I had missed that suggestion, which led me to think we had reached an impasse. I agree with you that it appears to have been ignored - possibly because it was so far up the page? Scolaire (talk) 13:58, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Maintaining progress

I am reproducing Mooretwin's "moving on" post below. I think it would be a shame if we lost momentum just when we appeared to have a large measure of agreement, espeially if it led to ArbCom moving things in a different direction that was seen as a defeat for one side. I would like to see how far we can take this, and maybe have a workable solution that we can bring to ArbCom as a model for consensus. Scolaire (talk) 14:09, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

OK, we appear to have achieved a surprising degree of consensus on the basis for a compromise solution. At what point do we conclude that agreement has been reached - in principle - to move forward with this proposal? My view is that we can be confident enough now to move forward, and my view is that the next step is for someone sensible and thoughtful to work up a guideline on parts 2 and 3 of the proposal. I think Giuliopez or Scolaire or jnestorius would be good choices. I also think someone needs to work something up on the "Politics of the Republic of Ireland"-type articles. My wife is expecting a baby in the next 2-3 weeks so I'm not going to have much time for WP, hence I won't be able to devote as much time to this as I might otherwise have liked. Mooretwin (talk) 20:54, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I suggested a draft to Snowded on my talk page. Although Snowded felt it would not cover everything, I will offer it here for discussion:

• In Northern Ireland articles or articles that primarily relate to Northern Ireland, and in a context in any article that touches on the relationship between the state and Northern Ireland, or where there is a significant danger of ambiguity between the state and the island: in the first mention, the state is referred to as "the Republic of Ireland"; in subsequent mentions, it is referred to as "the Republic".

Sarah and Snowded have both expressed an interest in drawing up tables of usage from the examples in the "dabbing" sections. I think that might be a worthwhile exercise. Maybe they could work on it together? Scolaire (talk) 14:17, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I have not got the first clue what the current situation is. The "Moving on" post by Mooretwin was 35 pages ago. What exactly is the current proposal? And how is it actually actionable? In short, what is going on, and why should anybody care? MickMacNee (talk) 17:03, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I think there is general agreement that there should be an RM to move Ireland to Ireland (state). However some people felt that rushing into an RM before there was discussion on the other elements was putting the cart before the horse. That's water under the bridge now. The action needed now, as Mooretwin says, is to work up a guideline on the use of "Ireland", "Republic of Ireland" and "the Republic" when piping to Ireland (state) from other articles. If a sizable majority can agree on a guideline, then we will have agreed on everything, and that's why we should care. If you look back at some of the examples in the three "dabbing" sections above, your insight might be valuable in helping to reach that goal. BTW I'm not sure how you measure a page, but Mooretwin's post was only four days ago, and very little has been posted since then, until this morning. Scolaire (talk) 18:29, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

It's how many 'page down' keys needed lol. Like I said, I'd be interested in whether anybody is going to go the final yard and actually put something into Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Ireland-related articles) that doesn't just say 'follow article consensus'. MickMacNee (talk) 20:31, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Please have a read of my suggestion two paragraphs up and see if you can suggest an amendment/alternative. But let's keep it on this page for the moment Scolaire (talk) 08:15, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I think that's quite a good effort, Scolaire. I might suggest a few tweaks-

• In Northern Ireland articles or articles that primarily relate to Northern Ireland or to the whole island of Ireland or the British Isles, and in a context in any article that touches on the relationship between the state and Northern Ireland, or where there is a significant danger of ambiguity between the state and the island: in the first mention, the state is referred to as "the Republic of Ireland"; in subsequent mentions, it is referred to as "the Republic".

As for Sarah and Snowded drawing up tables of usage, I don't think Snowded is a good candidate, judging by his doctrinaire approach, as evidenced by contributions here. Sarah's pragmatism has been surprising and welcome - but perhaps she could be joined by someone from the other "side" or at least a "neutral" - maybe Valenciano, Traditional unionist, jnestorius or Guilopez? Mooretwin (talk) 09:17, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Mooretwin thats another personal attack, plese stop it. If you check the discussion on your proposal you will see flexibility on the whole subject. You're all ready under various warnings for it and its rather amusing to see you making the accusation. The one think I am firm on is not using ROI as the name of the article and minimising its use for disambiguation. Thats a reasonable position and one that has been argued. I'm working on some examples as promised and also some other material related to this. --Snowded TALK 09:24, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

It wasn’t a “personal attack”: it was a relevant observation. I do not think that you are a suitable candidate, given your stated wholesale opposition to the term Republic of Ireland, and I believe that your involvement would reduce the prospect of achieving agreement. Those are perfectly valid and relevant views for me to express. You even admit above that you are “firm” on “minimising its [Republic of Ireland’s] use for disambiguation”. You have made other comments to suggest that you would not be the best candidate:

• "As far as I can see disambiguation will rarely be necessary …" (21 November 2008)
• "… ROI is not a legitimate name …" (21 November 2008)
• "Yes I freely admit it, the ROI label is wrong, inappropriate etc. etc. Using it is not a compromise." (25 November 2008)
• "… many of us think the desire to continue to use [Republic of Ireland] is in effect a desire to perpetuate the sectarianism which preceded that agreement." (5 December 2008)
• "It will take a lot to persuade me to ROI in any form to be honest …" (5 December 2008)
• Proposing that phrases such as "...between Northern Ireland and Ireland" are going to be an acceptable element of this compromise (6 December 2008)

Finally, you accuse me of personal attacks, yet on 25 November at 13.44 you made a personal attack on me, based on a lie. Mooretwin (talk) 10:01, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Happy to stand my all the above quotes Mooretwin (although some are pulled out of context). They represent a valid position. You are welcome to have an opinion as to my candidacy or otherwise for a position which is not in your (or anyone else's for that matter) power of appointment. Calling people doctrinaire however is a personal attack and not helpful when people are trying to move this forward. The diff you mention was an appeal to you to stop accusing everyone else of being unreasonable and acknowledge the position you were maintaining at the time. You might want to note your own talk page: Arbcom rulings and much else if you want examples of personal attacks. At the moment your initial proposal has a good chance of moving forward and I amoungst others supported it with qualification. The issue to resolve will be how to disamiguate in the text and that requires all parties to be involved and working towards some agreement. Calling people doctrinaire when they are in the compromise space simply does not make sense unless you are trying to provoke them. --Snowded TALK 10:19, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

First off, in my view Snowded has engaged more than any other editor in this current phase of the debate. All the above quotes are evidence of positive engagement - they just happen to conflict with my own POV. It is vital that everybody doing this continues to state their own POV. Compromise involves working through differences, not pretending they don't exist. Is there any chance we could just take the NPA stuff as read, and not hold up the discussion by looking for retractions or apologies?

Working up tables is not a question of "candidates"; it's just a question of who would be willing to do it. If two people from the same side were to attempt it, the result would still be presented here for all parties to discuss. The important thing is to get something down on paper magnetic storage first.

I wouldn't be in favour of using the term "British Isles" in any proposed text. The British Isles issue is a whole 'nother can of worms and I don't want it to become part of this debate. How about "...or to the whole island of Ireland or to the islands of Ireland and Britain"? Somehow, I don't think the Manx or the Scottish Islanders will get too worked up about the strict accuracy of such a phrase in an Irish manual of style. Scolaire (talk) 11:31, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Ireland page name dispute

Concerning the Ireland page names dispute, ArbCom has issued a final decision. It has four remedies. Per Remedy #1, please see Talk:Ireland#Content of this page --Una Smith (talk) 18:32, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Ireland naming discussions

Per WP:ARCA#Motion: Ireland article names - Required location of move discussions rescinded, discussions on Ireland article names no longer have to take place at WT:IECOLL. In future, they can take place on article talk pages. Scolaire (talk) 13:20, 3 December 2023 (UTC)