Draft talk:List of countries and areas by functional jurisdiction

Collaboration Request

Hi everyone,
Any ideas and suggestions about the betterment of the article are more than welcome. Thank you very much in advance. --Universal Life (talk) 20:50, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Have a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries, maybe? Selfstudier (talk) 11:39, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Palestine

The State of Palestine, which the article lead says is a state, claims the territory of the West Bank and Gaza. The UN, the ICC and a majority of UN states consider it to be a state.

This article says, unsourced, that Gaza is a de facto proto state and says it is "in the State of Palestine". But then it says in another place that "states within a state are sometimes confused with a proto-state and are also excluded." So is it excluded or included?

The other part of the State of Palestine, the West Bank, is not mentioned at all, even though Palestinians have control over parts of it (as well as Gaza).

Frankly this all seems like original research (apart from being just nonsensical). Selfstudier (talk) 14:56, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Hi Selfstudier. First of all, as I mentioned before, the list is yet incomplete and I didn't have time to add enough notes and references. Please assume good faith.

Gaza is actually considered in many references as a de facto proto-state. It is legally part and parcel of the State of Palestine, which obviously West Bank is also an integral part. The reference to "states within a state" is about deep states as clearly mentioned in that passage. That has nothing to do with the situation of Palestine. Therefore, yes, Gaza is included in the list for being a de facto self-governing body.

The entry Palestine was actually referring to the West Bank as per de facto control. I wasn't sure whether to call it West Bank or Palestine. I know Palestine legally encompasses both, but the State of Palestine as recognised by the UN have only control over parts of West Bank and not Gaza, that's why they're separate. Anyway, I was going (and still am going to) add through the efn template to both Gaza and West Bank, the necessary annotations, as well as add citations.

So, just because an article is in its infancy, doesn't mean it's non-sensical. --Universal Life (talk) 18:06, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Maybe you should have created the article first in draft space rather than creating an article so incomplete that a reviewer added multiple tags to it.

And I haven't changed my mind, I still think its just nonsense, wholly artificial distinctions created out of nothing. Still, I will wait to see what others think about it. Selfstudier (talk) 18:37, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Maybe. But, these different categories or names of entities are not created out of nothing. They are actually used both here in the WP (in many articles listing them as such) as well as in other references. See: List of sovereign states and dependent territories by continent, Dependent territory, Autonomous administrative division & List of autonomous areas by country. The difference here is that (1) the article lists sovereign states together with autonomous areas and (2) the inclusion critera that asks it to be de facto and inhabited. The categories help the sortability of the list. --Universal Life (talk) 19:09, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Please do not remove Arbpia (related content) templates. If you believe it is inappropriate here, request an administrator to remove them. I do not see how the Palestine issue discussed above is not relevant and I have similarly added this template to other country lists when the issue has become a subject of dispute. Selfstudier (talk) 12:57, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

There was no discussion about Palestine. All I see above is communication about how to make this article a better one. I agreed with you on West Bank. I just didn't go through the list yet. It still has tons of things to be added.

The only part that we didn't agree (as far as I understand) was the categorisation (or perhaps their names), which is not related to Isr/Pal in any way.

About Arbpia, I searched WP to find any guidelines for where to insert it and where not. I couldn't find any. Could you please gently direct me to any guideline or essay that says anything about when and when not to have arbitration templates on talk pages, if it exists. Thank you --Universal Life (talk) 13:13, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Improved lead

Dear Moxy, you tagged the article as confusing or unclear (vagueness). I did some efforts to better the language and changed the lead paragraphs. I'm still working on the included list area. Do you find it easier to read and has the vagueness been removed? Otherwise, is there any parts that you would like to specify as still unclear or vague? If so, please do. And if you think it is clearer, can we remove the "confusing tag"?

Cheerfully,

PS. I've a lot of references that I've bookmarked and need to add to the article. I've some more relevant references that I need to read. I've like another 15 entities (which I've been reading & preparing) that I need to add to the list. Also trying to better the language of the article. And real life too. So, sorry for the lack of speed that I would like to have for making it a much better article. --Universal Life (talk) 18:43, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Btw, have you seen this? --Universal Life (talk) 18:44, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Odd I did not see that post I am from the country's project. Wondering why this list is needed when we have multiple other lists.. this seems to combine two concepts that are covered by separate articles already as listed above. Do we have any academic publications that put these two variations together..... as in are they often combined or compared? Moxy- 02:38, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Dear Moxy, how do I explain this? While we have List of inhabited islands of Croatia, why don't we have a List of inhabited areas of the world or List of inhabited locations of the world? Basically, that's the idea behind this list. The categorisation is just a way to make the list more user friendly, or more sortable; by using conventional terminology.

Especially in the studies of case numbers of COVID-19, since 2020, many organisations, such as the WHO and reliable websites have been publishing daily, the total number of COVID-19 pandemic by country and territory. They have been listing all the places under one list, just like the list in here. They have called it Situation by Country, Territory and Area OR Country and Other OR Situation by Region, Country, Territory & Area etc. They noted that the list has included all entities that reported independently cases of COVID-19. Just google covid-19 cases around the world and you'll see many similar lists by reliable sources.

This template used to use the same method (since Jan 2020), collect all first-hand reports of cases and add the numbers to the template. Now, for some reason, it has been automated and changed significantly. But, if you look at this version, and click on the arrow to alphabetise locations, you'll see that it includes all entities that are autonomous enough to report by themselves, without being included under another entity.

I've seen many other websites (I know websites aren't academic articles) that list all de facto independent areas of the world together. Some included micronations and some not. There are also a lot of sociological or linguistic studies that use these kinds of lists that combine areas that come under different categories.

Perhaps my mistake here is that I might have unwittingly used political terminology while trying to create a non-political article, which could have caused misunderstings or confusion in the clarity of meaning. I'm really open to collaboration and to pondering over how to make this article a better one. I'm also open to changing its title, because imho I feel like the idea is really good and exciting and perhaps how I presented the idea was confounding.

Cheerfully --Universal Life (talk) 13:31, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Your lead says "The following is a list of de facto sovereign states".

De Facto States in the 21st Century is a recent scholarly article on the subject of de facto states.

It speaks about the difficulties and lack of scholarly consensus in defining a de facto state and then says "Perhaps the most straightforward way to describe them is to say that a de facto state is a territorial entity that has the broad qualities of a state and maintains some sort of at least quasi-independent existence, but is not a member of the United Nations (UN)."

On the basis of that definition, you can remove all the UN member states from the list. Which definition are you using? Selfstudier (talk) 14:35, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

"The following is a list of de facto sovereign states and inhabited autonomous regions of the world." is the exact quote.

De facto is practical and actual rather theoratical reality. It "describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms". All the UN member states are therefore, also de facto countries.

By extension, some writers use the word de facto to mean "de facto but not de jure". While normally it means "actual", they narrow the meaning to say "actual but not legal". This narrower usage is not the definition used in the article. --Universal Life (talk) 16:15, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

In other words, it's OR. Selfstudier (talk) 16:18, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

What are you talking about? I just said that I've use the word (de facto) in its original meaning (just as it's used in many WP articles). And that usage of de facto is nothing original or new here. I've noticed until now that you come to conclusions very fast. I don't know if you've noticed but I've been doing some tremendous changes to both the lede and the definition sections for a while, especially for clarity of meaning as well for reliable sources. So, please have a look at the article, with fresh eyes, after I've finished renovating it. Then, you might have another opinion.--Universal Life (talk) 16:33, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

If your definition is unsourced (WP is not a reliable source), then its OR and both your replies just serve to confirm that. Selfstudier (talk) 16:37, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

It's not my definition, just google the word for God's sake. Check any dictionary. It's latin for in fact, actual, in reality. [1]. And, even if I was wrong in its usage, it wouldn't mean OR, it would only mean the definition I wrote wasn't explicit enough, that the subject was poorly defined. --Universal Life (talk) 16:58, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

I know what defacto means, I am not asking for a definition of that, I am asking for a definition of de facto sovereign state (all UN member states are automatically de jure and de facto so it is an inappropriate description for them).

The WP:ONUS is on you to supply a definition not for me to google one. A definition written by yourself, unsourced, is exactly what OR is. Selfstudier (talk) 17:04, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Hmmm, I see what you mean now. However, nowhere in the article have I defined what "de facto sovereign state" means, thus no OR. So if, as you say, the description is inappropriate, then that should be bettered. Then perhaps the lede is just described not well enough, not explicit enough. Nothing more, nothing less. --Universal Life (talk) 17:19, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

I have provided you with a sourced definition above. According to it, sovereign states that are UN members should not be in the list.

In WP, sovereign states that are not UN member states can be found at List of states with limited recognition Selfstudier (talk) 17:28, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

I'll try to better the description in the lede and use better wording. --Universal Life (talk) 17:32, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Improper template

{{In creation}} template is being used. "Its intended use is for editors who have made an article and will be adding content within a matter of minutes or hours." which is not the case here.

Please consider using {{under construction}} template instead. Selfstudier (talk) 17:01, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Done, thank you --Universal Life (talk) 17:29, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

The lede

Guys, which one is a better description? The current lede says: The following is a list of de facto sovereign states and inhabited autonomous regions of the world, providing an overview of populated areas differing in degree of autonomy. It endeavours to comprehensively list all entities with any amount of self-governance and a permanent population.

Here are some options for a better lede sentence:

• The following is a list of all entities of the world with any amount of self-rule, having a de facto control over a territory and a permanent population.
• The following is a list of all inhabited areas of the world possessing any amount of self-rule.
• The following is a list of all sovereign states recognised as having de facto control over a territory, as well as, inhabited autonomous regions of the world.

You can suggest an alternative as well. Thank you in advance for your input. --Universal Life (talk) 17:57, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps,

• The following is a list of all inhabited territories of the world by type of self-governance.

We could also say degree of instead of type of. Any ideas? --Universal Life (talk) 09:59, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

I went ahead and changed the lede. --Universal Life (talk) 22:15, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

What is confusing?

@Selfstudier:, can you please elaborate what you find confusing in the article? Drive-by-tagging is highly discouraged. The article was drive-by-tagged, still I did my best to clarify all the passeges that seem ambigous in meaning. If you can please tell which sentences seem unclear to you, I could improve their ambiguity. This is collaboration, the spirit of WP. If you or anybody else don't give me any further explanation, I would go ahead and remove the tag. Cheerfully --Universal Life (talk) 13:01, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Drive-by-tagging, are you serious? Moxy is an experienced editor of 15 years standing, come to think of it, I am not far short of that myself.

You have changed the title to "List of countries and inhabited areas" but the content is about something else entirely and the idea of the "orphan tag" is to suggest that other articles do not "meaningfully" link to this one, it was not a suggestion that you go around adding "see also" to random country related lists.

The thing that needs to be focused on here is actually finishing this article (asap) so that other editors will come here and comment. Selfstudier (talk) 13:17, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

I said drive-by-tagging, because there was no explanation. I honestly didn't mean to accuse or offend anybody. But happy to come to know that Moxy and you are long time standing experienced editors :))

How is it, that the content is "about something else entirely" than what the title indicates? It is a list of all countries and inhabited areas of the world. At least that's what I'm trying to achieve in the most neutral and factual way possible. I rewrote most of the lede, started restructuring the included entities list. I get lost between whether to keep bettering the descriptions or add content and notations to the list.

May be there's sentence I wrote that expresses something else then what I actually mean. If you could please indicate any sentence that's confusing in terms of meaning, I would be very glad. --Universal Life (talk) 13:38, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

I am busy with other things atm, as I said, the best thing is to produce a finished article and remove the under construction tag. Then you should begin to get feedback. I think I have expressed my concerns well enough already. Selfstudier (talk) 13:48, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Remaining things to do for improving the article

A note to myself (& those interested), as a list of remaining improvements of the article:

1. Rewrite the Autonomous Regions section.
   • A small introduction with references
   • A clearer distinction between a dependent territory and autonomous area.
     • The general conventions
     • Especially how it relates to ISO 3166-1.
     • Also to United Nations list of non-self-governing territories
     • And to United Nations geoscheme
   • Also add the alternatively used names autonomous and semi-autonomus and how it relates.
2. Add Excluded Entities
   • Sovereign Military Order of Malta, Ethnic autonomous territories such as Indian reservations, Micronations and others
3. Rewrite the Special Territories section.
   • Better definition and examples (also mention condominia)
4. Add the remaining special territories
   • De facto rebel groups that have created a unit with a defined population for a significant amount of time, and where no stable proto-state has emerged. Use polgeonow.com. Those include territories in countries especially high up in the Fragile States Index, such as Yemen and Somalia.
   • Check also Ongoing civil wars.
   • List of rebel groups that control territory
   • Finish going through List of territorial disputes (for being thorough & not missing out any)
5. References
   • Add the references you've collected (bookmarks & others) in the right places
   • Try to add a ref for each proto-state and special territory
6. Notes (Continue adding important points with efn template to the list.)
   • Remaining sovereignty and recognition issues of UN member states
   • Informative consice note on Palestine (West Bank and Gaza) and the present situation
   • Check if there are any other dispute issues that needs annotation
7. Improve the Proto-states section's definition
8. Add an informative section about the table (list)??
   • Practical + Technical info
9. The List
   • Should I change the alphabetically listed numbers with the UN M49 number system?
     • But it doesn't include most de facto states and proto-states. Is there a fix around it?
   • Is there any other way to list together different categories?
   • How to improve readability of the table on different screens?

This is all off the top of my head, I hope I'm not missing any --Universal Life (talk) 02:45, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Sealand?

Sealand is a inhabited area, and is mostly if not fully autonomous. Should we add it? As far as I can tell it is the only micronation both inhabited and autonomous. 2007Gtbot (talk) 22:32, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Myanmar (and other civil wars)

Coming from the deletion discussion- What would be the best way to input de-facto areas that shift rapidly due to ongoing wars? I can list some of the major long-running proto-states, but does this list include the PDF zones in Sagaing/Magway? There are significant sections of rural Sagaing/Magway under their control but they do not really provide any services or other state-like services. Additionally, these territories rapidly shift every week based on back and forth skirmishes with the Tatmadaw.

Let me list some more long-standing areas for Myanmar; Wa is far the the only proto-state. Again, this excludes the dozens of smaller ones that change control/are unclear.

• Arakan Army territory has chekcpoints and other functions of a proto-state.
• Kachin Independence Organisation territories have their own school, different trade relations with china.
• Kokang is arguably re-independent after MNDAA and Tatmadaw renewed fighting in Dec 2022
• Chinland under the Chin National Defence Force controlled 80% of Chin State in 2022. Not sure about now, assume it's at least some territory still; need source check
• Kawthoolei or at least the areas that are still administered by the Karen National Union with the KNU having some territory continuously since 1945 in the area. Complicated if you want to break it down with Democratic Karen Buddhist Army or Brigade 5's separate control.
• Karenni Nationalities Defence Force areas in Kayah State. They control a lot of land, however, they apparently work under the National Unity Government of Myanmar- which is the central government according to some.
• Mong La appears a lot on "de facto world map" type lists for its rampant illegal activities but im not sure if it counts.

Pinging @2007Gtbot for thoughts on criteria because you asked on deletion thread EmeraldRange (talk/contribs) 15:59, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Well I would just add them to the list (I would also just delete the order and category rows as they are Wikipedia:ORG, and this would make adding new things to the list a lot easier) 2007Gtbot (talk) 17:30, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

As for Myanmar in perticular if they control land I think they should be added to the list 2007Gtbot (talk) 17:31, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

The main problem with this list is not this or that addition but the premise. The WP:SCOPE needs to be determined and then foundational sources for that scope. The need is to avoid WP:OR and creation of unnecessary WP:FORKS. Selfstudier (talk) 17:44, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes, to reiterate, I brought up the question mostly to ask about scope. The seven places I mention seem to me like they are part of the scope, but present some issues still.

• Does the territory require a desire to be independent. i.e. If Wa State or Kokang pre-2022 is happy to be an independently run part of Myanmar, does that count?
• What should the list call the territory of ephemeral groups? The PDF territories in Sagaing have not been referred to as anything other than somethign like "PDF areas in Sagaing" by secondary sources in my experience.
• What should the list call territory without a good distinct name. For example, KNDF in Kayah State who just call it Kayah State/Karenni State. How is KNDF-controlled Kayah State differentiated from Tatmadaw-controlled Kayah State.

Sorry to bring in these specific Myanmar-related questions, but these are more to demonstrate the issue with this article's scope right now. EmeraldRange (talk/contribs) 19:38, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Based on some other things on this list: No, it dose not need a desire to be independent as long as it acts/governes as if it was or de facto has the powers to do what ever it wants. And unless there is an offical name (in which case use that), I don't see why we can't use the common name.

As far as I can tell, the scope of the artical is "any area that goverens it self as the top level" and "any place with no goverment but with a poulation", were a govemnet just needs to be some people who are in charge. The page needs to be changed to make this more clear. 2007Gtbot (talk) 15:34, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

By that definition, practically everything should be removed except possibly the UN. After all, all UN member states and all parts of UN member states are required to follow resolutions of the UN Security Council, which is clearly a government by your definition.

Although it's worth noting that that's not the same as the definition you put in the lead - an overview of countries and inhabited areas of the world that have self-governance (or that uniquely have no goverment) . It incorporates all entities with any amount of de facto autonomy and a permanent population. This reasonably includes every municipal authority of any form on the planet. And that's before we start asking questions about residents' committees in blocks of flats, and parents' authority over their children. Kahastok talk 18:09, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Saying that the person/people at the top of the UN govern the world is a streach. And as for your second point, if you were to put New York State and USA on the list, you would be counting an area twice, clearly not the correct thing to do. 2007Gtbot (talk) 23:39, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

You said, governs itself at the top level. The top level of governance is the UN. The UN's legal influence on national affairs is limited, sure, but non-zero.

You now say you would be counting an area twice, clearly not the correct thing to do. Well the list includes the Aosta Valley and Italy, it includes Büsingen-am-Hochrhein and Germany, it includes the Azores and Portugal, it includes Scotland and the United Kingdom, it includes Easter Island and Chile and it includes Karakalpakstan and Uzbekistan. These are all examples of areas counted twice and there are dozens more in this list. If the fact that an area is counted twice means it doesn't belong, you should be removing everything not already on the List of sovereign states. Kahastok talk 18:29, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

The UN is just a strawman argument.

Asumming a place like Easter Island does infact govern itself (meaning it is not fully gorvened by Chile), then it is not counted twice by the listing of Chile as the listing is for the land governed by Goverment of Chile NOT the land de jure part of nation of Chile. This is not a list of nation. 2007Gtbot (talk) 14:19, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

No, you said the top level. The top level is the UN, whether you like it or not.

If New York State is "governed" by the Government of the United States then Easter Island is "governed" by the Government of Chile, unless you are using the word "governed" to mean something other than "governed". The same applies to every one of the six cases I listed.

However, in the real world, there is basically nowhere that has exactly one level of governance that handles all their affairs. Even ignoring binding international laws, almost everywhere will have tiers of national and local governance that will vary in their powers and scope. By trying to claim that you can define a single entity that governs every piece of ground in the world, to the exclusion of all others, you massively oversimplify the real world to the point where you list is basically meaningless. Kahastok talk 19:01, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

The UN dose not effect the autonomy (self-gorvementness) of the United States. This is unlike the state of New York who's autonomy is clearly effected by that of the United States. While I do not know the situation in any of these places, if they are de facto fully autonomous then they should be on the list.

I don't see how anything you are agruing is more than just a strawman, as the point of the list is kinda clear. Sure it can be better, but there are way bigger problems with the page. If you have a better in mind then share your idea.

This is a list of places with the higest level of goverment. This is a list of all autonomous areas. (Since this list is de facto, they pretty much mean the same thing) 2007Gtbot (talk) 23:55, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

This is a list of places with the higest level of goverment. This is a list of all autonomous areas. (Since this list is de facto, they pretty much mean the same thing)

This response and the discussion above simply confirms what I said in AdD, this list is unsalvageable Selfstudier (talk) 07:57, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

All you said in the AfD is that there a problems with the list. That's nothing we can't fix. I also don't see how what you said in the AfD is related to this conversation. 2007Gtbot (talk) 20:04, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

I said it was unsalvageable in the AfD. It's not been even approximately fixed here and attempts so far are good evidence for that. It is noteworthy that the page creator is not attempting a fix. Not being able to see this is not something I can help with, sorry about that. Selfstudier (talk) 20:20, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

I will fix the page (if no one does it first) but I'm looking for agreement on how to fix it 2007Gtbot (talk) 13:40, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Order and Category

These two rows are just [[Wikipedia:Original research]], right? If so should we just remove them and all the text about them from the page? 2007Gtbot (talk) 22:53, 20 March 2023 (UTC)