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Archive 1←Archive 5Archive 6Archive 7

Re-name Timor Leste

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

The result of the move request was: No consensus.

The guiding policy here is WP:NAMECHANGES, If the reliable sources written after the change is announced routinely use the new name, Wikipedia should follow suit and change relevant titles to match. There was not exactly a "name change" here, but, as with Kiev Kyiv, the endonym "Timor Leste" seems to be gaining traction post-independence in English.

However, I hesitate (and I assume any closer would) to call a sufficient consensus from the below discussion for a page move. Apart from the rather suggestive evidence in favor of the move collected by Austronesier and PyroFloe (User:Austronesier/sandbox/East Leste) and ngrams by buidhe (thanks!), there's little substance to build a consensus on for such a "landmark" rename. Most of the other evidence is anecdotal, and many opposes are in spirit "show us the evidence!". Thus, I don't think it would be productive to relist this RM, since the discussion has been already "spoiled" by back and forth.

As a way forward, I suggest that proponents (as well as opponents) of the rename build a better body of evidence next time. Please take a look at Talk:Kyiv/Archive 7 or Talk:Eswatini#Survey_of_reliable_sources how to prepare a major page move. Notwithstanding that Wikipedia is a volunteer service so it's not anybody's particular duty, WP:ONUS is on the ones who advocate a change. No such user (talk) 15:16, 17 December 2020 (UTC)


East Timor → Timor Leste – See below (CC) Tbhotch™ 20:15, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

I see that there have been several proposals dating to 2005 to change the name of the Wikipedia article to "Timor Leste". In my opinion, compared to 2005, there is greater usage of Timor Leste and less usage of East Timor. Therefore, I believe it is time to reconsider the change. There has not been any reconsideration in more than a year. (originally posted by Vowvo, but somehow I deleted this. (CC) Tbhotch™ 20:18, 9 December 2020 (UTC))

  • Support Change title to Timor Leste. Have East Timor be redirected to Timor Leste. In addition, I call attention to a Wikipedia Featured Article entitled "Timor Leste Defence Force". The featured article is not entitled "East Timor Defence Force". Additionally, I see the webpages of the embassy of foreign countries in Washington DC. Timor Leste/East Timor refers to themselves as Timor Leste on the title of the home page, leading me to support Timor Leste. The Embassy of Myanmar uses "Myanmar" (not Burma) and the Embassy of Germany uses Germany (not Deutschland). So in the case of Myanmar and Germany, Wikipedia conforms with the way the Embassy calls the country, except with Timor Leste/East Timor. I did a random search of 10 other countries and Wikipedia conforms with the way the embassies call their home country, EXCEPT Timor Leste. It's time for Wikipedia to change and get with the program. Vowvo (talk) 18:59, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Support 76.103.46.252 (talk) 18:41, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Do you have any evidence?--Khajidha (talk) 19:46, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
As requested, see http://www.timorlesteembassy.org/ (Embassy of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste), mewashingtondc.org (Myanmar), https://www.germany.info/us-en/embassy-consulates/embassy-washington (Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, not Embassy of Deutschland) So with Germany and Myanmar, both countries use their English name. Wikipedia does so, too. Timor Leste's name in English is Timor Leste but Wikipedia still uses the old literal translation, East Timor. With the People's Republic of China, Wikipedia and their embassy uses the English name of China, not Zhonghua. Vowvo (talk) 19:46, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
If Khajidha is asking about "in my opinion, compared to 2005, there is greater usage of Timor Leste", it is impossible to find an article stating there is the same usage or more usage. However, my own observations is Timor Leste is becoming more common. I do state an objective fact; the Guardian in the UK now calls it Timor Leste but previously called it East Timor. The change was in early 2020. See this 2019 article from the Guardian (East Timor) and this more recent article from the Guardian (Timor Leste) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/29/us-knew-indonesia-intended-to-stop-east-timorese-independence-through-terror-and-violence THEN https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jul/04/timor-leste-court-upholds-australian-government-refusal-to-release-documents-on-indonesias-invasion Vowvo (talk) 19:53, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
1) Embassies are highly specialized usage of little import to the question of common name. Neither Wikipedia nor the public care. 2) You have provided 1 data point. What about the rest of the journalistic world? Let alone books, movies, etc. --Khajidha (talk) 22:20, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment - Language use, including common names of countries, is determined by usage. Not by the wishes or decrees of specific countries or other entities. --Merbabu (talk) 21:12, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
What exists in life is a spectrum. On one end, there are English speaking countries with names universally accepted (example, Australia). On the other end, there are countries where the English name is used, not the name in the language of the country (example, China not Zhonghua or Germany not Deutschland). Timor Leste is in the middle. However, there is extensive use of Timor Leste. Extensive enough that I believe that Timor Leste should be used in Wikipedia. What should be the criteria? Do people say that 51% should be the cutoff? Or should it be at least 40% giving preference to what is used by the most respected sources, like the country, most respected organizations and news agencies? I have rarely heard either name on the TV news but I heard it once and it was "Timor Leste". One thing is certain to me, we should not favor "East Timor" and change it only when there is overwhelming, like 90% of other sources, that say differently. If that is done, then there will be a period of time that Wikipedia is choosing the wrong way. Vowvo (talk) 22:42, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
When I compare the terms "East Timor", "Timor-Leste", and "Timor Leste", the results are heavily in favor of "Timor Leste" worldwide, BUT a breakdown by region shows that "East Timor" is most common in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. Many of the countries that show a preference for "Timor Leste" are Portuguese speaking countries.--Khajidha (talk) 11:45, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
What do you mean? The trend results for the countries you stated yield that "Timor-Leste" is more common than "East Timor". About 33% accounts for East Timor while the combined "Timor-Leste" yields 66% in the countries you stated. PyroFloe (talk) 19:58, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
I don't know what you are seeing, but when I look at the trends for "East Timor" vs "Timor Leste", these are the results I see:

US: 62% East Timor: 38% Timor Leste Canada: 67 % ET: 33% TL UK: 55:45 (from this point I will assume that you understand the order I am giving the data in) Ireland: 65:35 Australia: 71:29 NZ: 63:37 --Khajidha (talk) 20:11, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

  • Oppose per Khajidha's comments.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:50, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose (retracted, now that evidence is being gathered) No compelling evidence for the majority usage has been presented, especially no quantitative evidence (Trends is about searches; many will type "timor" and get "timor leste" as suggestion and will click it). The previous discussions, especially Talk:East Timor/Archive 6, had much more detailed figures. The survey of news sites (the first big table in Talk:East Timor/Archive 6) is very compelling. Don't be misguided by the inflated figures for "Timor Leste" in Wall Street Journal: scroll to the bottom and go to the final page, and you'll get the real (current) figure, which is 282 (from my location). –Austronesier (talk) 19:15, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
The previous figures were used in a previous discussion. We should be concerned about now, not before. Is East Timor usage increasing? How about India? Singapore? South Africa? Papua New Guinea? (English speaking countries India+Singapore+South Africa+PNG has a greater population than USA+UK+Canada+Ireland+UZ+Australia) I am not partisan so I write this without knowing the answer. I seek the best solution. Vowvo (talk) 20:09, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
DATA POINTS I have no idea about Papua New Guinea so I looked up what was a big source and it is The National (of Papua New Guinea) then I did a search. Looks like they use "Timor Leste" See https://www.thenational.com.pg/png-tops-pacific-in-child-abuse/ Vowvo (talk) 20:12, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Being "concerned about now" means we shouldn't keep at least the standard of previous discussions? With this topic, I'd prefer a systematic survey over handpicked individual attestations. –Austronesier (talk) 20:18, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Point taken, but I honestly wanted to take a very, very preliminary survey and randomly chose the biggest names from India, PNG, Singapore and see what it produced. I was actually expecting mixed results, not 100% Timor Leste. Vowvo (talk) 20:22, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

DATA POINT - India. Again, I have no idea what the Indian press looks like so I looked it up just now. I know "The Hindu" is a big newspaper in India. Looking it up, they use "East Timor" in 2015 but in 2020, they use Timor Leste. See https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-fares-poorly-in-hunger-index/article32876195.ece Vowvo (talk) 20:20, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
DATA POINT - Singapore. In the last 2 minutes, I randomly chose a big Singapore newspaper, The Straits Times. Looks like they use "Timor Leste" See https://www.straitstimes.com/business/economy/timor-leste-urges-singapore-to-play-bigger-role-in-its-development-story Vowvo (talk) 20:20, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
CONCLUSION FROM DATA POINTS Looks like a random sample from the largest block of English speaking countries (India + Papua New Guinea + Singapore), Timor Leste is used. The Guardian (UK) seems to have switched from East Timor to Timor Leste. So we have known switches in the Guardian and The Hindu. This might be the trend that should include Wikipedia switching in 2021. Vowvo (talk) 20:20, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Methodology

Austronesier a few lines about suggests some sort of standard. Very good idea. I propose that others look into it. Below, I name some big names from big countries without knowing the results. What does it show???

USA: Wall Street Journal, New York Times
UK: BBC, The Guardian
Canada: CBC
India: The Hindu (just looked it up above)
Singapore: Straits Times (just look it up above)
Papua New Guinea: The National
International: United Nations
Criteria to disqualify: If any of the above uses "Deutchland" only instead of "Germany", they should be discarded Vowvo (talk) 20:27, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

MAJOR OBJECTION Someone put a Requested Move box at the top. Though presumably done in good faith, it highlights a wrong process. The most used name should be used, not overwhelming consensus. The definition of "most used" can and should be discussed. For example, what criteria? WSJ? BBC? Google Maps? But if there has to be 80% consensus or one side is favored, that is not fair. If that were to be the case, Donald Trump would be President until there is an 80% consensus to change him. Instead, the consensus for most cases of Wikipedia is good but for the name of the article, the criteria should be some sort of combination between the reasons given by Wikipedia users, the usage worldwide particularly from respected sources, etc. Vowvo (talk) 20:35, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

I think you are misunderstanding the notice. What we are looking for is whether we have consensus that the name "Timor-Leste" matches the criteria for use as the page name here. To be frank, I'm not sure that your command of the English language is sufficient to be engaging in debates over what is or is not proper English usage. --Khajidha (talk) 20:51, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Kamro vanti lo varum ton nadam. Boogo poopo la tanisha! You may be correct or maybe not! Seriously, the question here should be "what should we name the article?" and not "unless there is overwhelming consensus to change it, we keep the title. If it there is 40% support, we keep it because only an overwhelming consensus is sufficient for it to be 'Timor Leste' ". Vowvo (talk) 21:53, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
@Vowvo: I do not have an a priori opinion about this matter. Clearly, some others do. But handpicked examples won't help you to produce a convincing case. Above, you have said that The Guardian has switched from "East Timor" to "Timor Leste" this year, based on exhibits from 29 Aug 2019 ("East Timor") and 04 Jul 2020 ("Timor Leste"). However, in this article from 20 Nov 2020, we find "East Timor" again. Obviously, usage depends on the individual preferences of the writer, and not on a styleguide (well, technically, The Guardian and "styleguide" are antonyms). We still need quantitative evidence, carefully filtered for using sources in English only (the last point was the major flaw in the preceding move discussion, which otherwise was well-argued). –Austronesier (talk) 10:21, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Khajidha's comments. The Australian media (eg the ABC, The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald) overwhelmingly uses the expression "East Timor", except when referring specifically to the government of the country, or its elections, etc, in relation to which it sometimes (but not mostly) uses "Timor Leste". I think most Australian readers would be confused by "Timor Leste", which they might think refers to "Timor West", ie Indonesian West Timor. The English Wikipedia article "East Timor" already specifically refers to "Timor Leste", and also to the official expression "Democratic Republic of Timor Leste", and I think that that's enough. In that respect, the article is relevantly the same as the article "Ivory Coast", about the country officially known as Republic of Côte d'Ivoire. The mere fact that a government of a country prefers that its official name be only partially translated into English is not binding on Wikipedia or its readers. Bahnfrend (talk) 05:58, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
The article "Eswatini" was changed a few years ago yet it states in the article itself that "Swaziland" is still widely used in English and probably internationally. I think the standard is very conflicting, on the one hand we have the case of the Ivory Coast which uses the English version, while on the other hand we have the case of Eswatini which uses its official name rather than the more used one, I think the change to "Timor-Leste" will greatly impact the future's naming of the country, just like how Zimbabwe was for a time less widely used than the term Rhodesia but now it's flipped. PyroFloe (talk) 19:08, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
Where does the Eswatini article say that Swaziland is more prevalent in English? Because I see nothing in that page that says that. --Khajidha (talk) 19:20, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
Oh wait sorry, I misinterpreted the lede section as saying that Swaziland was more prevalent, nevermind. Instead I was saying that it is still widely used. Although, a quick google trends search reveals that "Timor-Leste is more prevalent than "East Timor".PyroFloe (talk) 19:29, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
In English? Because the Google Trends results I saw showed East Timor as more common in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. --Khajidha (talk) 19:55, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
Are you sure you looked at it right? It shows up in the Google trends that "Timor-Leste" is more common than "East Timor" from the past 12 months, and also from 2004-present. PyroFloe (talk) 20:01, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
As I said, I looked at each individual country. Not "worldwide". We are talking about English language usage, so why would we look at searches from Brazil, Russia, Saudi Arabia, etc? --Khajidha (talk) 20:04, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
From the countries you stated Timor-Leste is more common. I looked at each country and it's all blue (Timor-Leste) with ~66% rather than red (East Timor) with ~33%. PyroFloe (talk) 20:06, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
I don't know what you are seeing, but when I look at the trends for "East Timor" vs "Timor Leste", these are the results I see:
US: 62% East Timor: 38% Timor Leste
Canada: 67 % ET: 33% TL
UK: 55:45 (from this point I will assume that you understand the order I am giving the data in)
Ireland: 65:35
Australia: 71:29
NZ: 63:37
If you can see that as supporting usage of Timor Leste in English, there is something seriously wrong with your reasoning. --Khajidha (talk) 20:15, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
If only I can send you screenshots right now that proves that Timor-Leste is more prevalent than East Timor in Google trends. Is it okay if I send a link with the folder of the screenshots? PyroFloe (talk) 20:23, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment I don't believe that "Eswatini" is similar to East Timor. The government of the former country officially changed its name, but the government of the latter country has not done so. The true similarity is Ivory Coast - the governments of both that country and East Timor choose, for a political reason, to use only a partial translation of the name into English. In the former case, the political reason is a desire to demonstrate an affinity with France and the French language, and in the latter case, there is a corresponding desire to demonstrate an affinity with Portugal and the Portuguese language. Where individual media outlets such as The Guardian choose to use "Timor Leste" in preference to "East Timor", the reason is similarly political, namely a 'progressive' desire to follow the practice of the government of a developing country. Wikipedia and its readers are not bound by such politics. Bahnfrend (talk) 07:04, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose pending evidence that common English usage has changed. I accept that there is some usage of Timor-Leste, but the OP does not provide evidence of a change that meets Wikipedia's standard. I note with interest for example, the claim I did a random search of 10 other countries and Wikipedia conforms with the way the embassies call their home country, EXCEPT Timor Leste. This is not an argument to change, as it demonstrates only that the user's ten selected countries did not include any of the other cases where we do not just copy the name the country's embassy uses. Kahastok talk 17:39, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
Is there any evidence that East Timor is the predominant usage? I agree with "I did a random search of 10..." is not definitive proof but my random search was persuasive enough to me to start to form an opinion. This is, in part, because I can say my random sample was truly random, not some secret searching then cherry picking results and lying that the search was random. Can we devise a list of sources and characterize what they use all the time and what they use some of the time? Vowvo (talk) 19:47, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
How about the nearly 2:1 ratio of usage seen in this ngram? https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=East+Timor%2C+Timor-Leste&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2CEast%20Timor%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CTimor%20-%20Leste%3B%2Cc0#t1%3B%2CEast%20Timor%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CTimor%20-%20Leste%3B%2Cc0 --Khajidha (talk) 19:59, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
As you can see from that Ngram, the use of "East Timor" has dramatically decreased over the years (probably because it was a new country back then), but if you look at "Timor-Leste", the use is increasing and will probably surpass it in the near future. PyroFloe (talk) 20:55, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
We don't go by projections, we go by what is. --Khajidha (talk) 20:57, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
WP:CRYSTALBALL. –Austronesier (talk) 20:59, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment The reason for the "dramatic decrease" in the use of "East Timor" since 1999 is simply that East Timor has become a land of peace, and therefore far less newsworthy. The notable point about the ngram is that "Timor Leste" has flatlined well below "East Timor". Bahnfrend (talk) 07:04, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Strong Support The United Nations officially lists 0the member state country as Timor-Leste rather than East Timor [[1]]. It's the same case with Eswatini back then. I think Timor-Leste captures the country more especially since it is searched more then "East Timor". And also, the Google Trends result might be different from each one of us. Mine shows that Timor-Leste is more common than East Timor. PyroFloe (talk) 18:55, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
East Timor Timor(-)Leste
2010 – 2015 2762 (67%) 1354 (33%) (= 466 "Timor Leste" + 888 "Timor-Leste")
2016 – 2020 5102 (43%) 6685 (57%) (= 1994 "Timor Leste" + 4691 "Timor-Leste")
2018 – 2020 3047 (41%) 4400 (59%) (= 1070 "Timor Leste" + 3330 "Timor-Leste")
I take this as good evidence for a move, but will not change my !vote to support before hearing Khajidha whose evidence-based deconstruction of uncritically gathered data has been most valuable here. –Austronesier (talk) 10:00, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
Probably not because Indonesia occupied East Timor, the common name in the 1970's. We don't say the German Olympic Team of 1976 when we mean the East German Team Vowvo (talk) 19:10, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
 Comment: The main reason the present-day government of East Timor prefers to use the expression "Timor Leste" to refer to itself is that it wants to differentiate itself from the East Timor that was a province of Indonesia between 1975 and 2002. But in a physical sense those two places are the same place, and only the expression "East Timor" applies to both of them. Bahnfrend (talk) 01:26, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
That makes no sense. That would be a reason to avoid the name Timor Timur, not East Timor. --Khajidha (talk) 13:58, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Post-closure discussion

Please explain NGRAMS. Books only? Vowvo (talk) 18:41, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

@Vowvo: See Google Ngram Viewer. –Austronesier (talk) 18:55, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
Last time I checked, nGrams only worked with the corpus up to 2008, which rendered them unusable for assessing recent trends; I thought the whole project was discontinued, so I find it reassuring that they refreshed the corpora.
That being said, the one provided by buidhe [3] aligns with your evidence: Timor(-)Leste is getting ahead but probably still not there; but yeah, Books will lag behind News for a year or two so that evidence may not be the breaking point (and it's questionable when 2020 corpus will be available in ngrams). No such user (talk) 08:51, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
@No such user: Apart from the update, nGrams apparently also has fixed some unfortunate EL bias which was present in the earlier corpus, as you can see here: 2012 corpus[4] vs. 2019 corpus[5] where "Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino" was completely ignored in the old corpus. My trust in nGrams is restored. –Austronesier (talk) 13:39, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Why no article about the 1975 civil war?

Why is there no article in English about the civil war in 1975? There seems to be a reasonably well built-up article on the civil war in German, de:Bürgerkrieg in Osttimor 1975, so such an article should be possible. Perhaps someone who knows about the country and reads German (I'm in neither category) could adapt the German article into English? --Presearch (talk) 07:00, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Hi Presearch. Thanks for your post. There are literally thousands of German Wikipedia articles about East Timor. Most of them were created by User:J. Patrick Fischer (de:Benutzer:J. Patrick Fischer) (commons:User:J. Patrick Fischer). I speak German and am occasionally in communication with Patrick. I have already translated many of his creations into English. But it's a slow process, and Patrick creates so many East Timor articles that English Wikipedia is now further behind German Wikipedia than it was when I started my translating more than two years ago.
Recently, at Patrick's suggestion, I made some changes to this article (East Timor). I agree that de:Bürgerkrieg in Osttimor 1975 should be translated into English. So too should, eg, de:Ende der portugiesischen Herrschaft auf Timor. At the moment, I am concentrating on articles about post-2002 East Timorese politicians, and I intend my next focus to be on upgrading articles about East Timorese towns and municipalities. Although the 1970s history of East Timor is important, there is already significant coverage of that topic on English Wikipedia, and if I were to concentrate now on translating further German Wikipedia articles about that topic, I think that that would increase what is already an undue emphasis on the topic when so much other work (eg translation of de:Architektur Osttimors) needs to be done on English Wikipedia coverage of East Timor. Bahnfrend (talk) 12:43, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

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name of article

Just came here. Am shocked. The country calls itself Timor-Leste in English, the article provides a whole list. East Timor in English would be the eastern part of the island of Timor where today the country of Timor-Leste is. Naming this article 'East Timor' is as arrogant as the article about the USA called 'United States', while Mexico, which is also called "United States" doesn't get to use its own title. --142.163.195.187 (talk) 17:28, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

If you look near the top of this page, you will see that this issue has been discussed multiple times, most recently in December 2020. None of them have resulted in a consensus to move the article to a new title. There are links to the past discussions up there, you can review the arguments that people made there. Ultimately, the article's name will only be changed if there is consensus amongst editors to change it. GirthSummit (blether) 17:38, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
The "eastern part of the island of Timor" would be "eastern Timor". Just like the difference between "West Virginia" and "western Virginia".--Khajidha (talk) 19:29, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
You're contradicting yourself when you say East Timor in English would be the eastern part of the island of Timor where today the country of Timor-Leste is. It makes as much sense as saying that Timor-Leste is wrong because Timor-Leste em português seria a parte oriental da ilha de Timor onde fica hoje o país de Timor-Leste ("Timor-Leste in Portuguese would be the eastern part of the island of Timor where today the country of Timor-Leste is"). Because, in case you didn't know, "leste" is Portuguese for "east".
Also, "United States" is not the full name of the United States of America. But, on the other hand, the short form "United States" was in use for some time before there was a United States of Mexico. Largoplazo (talk) 23:53, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
The best English translation of the long-form name of Mexico is "United Mexican States" not "United States of Mexico". Regardless, should we go over to the Spanish Wikipedia and demand that they move their article from "Estados Unidos" to "United States"? Rreagan007 (talk) 02:53, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Timor Leste

The article seems to insist the English pronunciation of 'Leste' in 'Timor Leste' is "Lesh-tay," but I've never heard it that way? It's always been pronounced "Lest" or rarely "Les-tay." To clarify, this is from an Australian pronunciation perspective. I've never heard 'Leste' with a 'sh' sound. KesshouRyuu (talk) 03:04, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

I agree with you. The English pronunciation would be "les-tay". It definitely shouldn't be anything like "lesh". Rreagan007 (talk) 19:50, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
Pronunciation should be like “lest”, this is the most proximate to the Portuguese pronunciation (not to mention the most used pronunciation by Angolophone people who actually have gone to Timor). Cristiano Tomás (talk) 21:09, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
English speakers generally treat Portuguese vowel letters as they do the same vowels in Spanish. For example, English speakers pronounce Portuguese names ending in -o with /oʊ/ rather than /uː/ on the end. We'd pronounce your first name the same whether we thought you were from a Spanish- or Portuguese-speaking country. Largoplazo (talk) 23:42, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

GA Review

GA toolbox
Reviewing
This review is transcluded from Talk:East Timor/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Ovinus (talk · contribs) 05:54, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

I'll review this one; excited to learn something new! Given the exceptionally high readership and importance, I want to be careful, so this may take a while to review. I'll make copy edits as I go through; I won't feel strongly about them, so revert as you please. Ovinus (talk) 05:54, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments and edits, a slower review is not a problem. Will think about the comments already given and reply when I have fuller time. CMD (talk) 07:26, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
Hi Ovinus, this has actually caught me at a busy time, so I haven't had as much time yet as I need. I have had some time though to look into some of your history questions, and I am having difficulty finding answers. There is very little information about the early History of the island, even during the early Portuguese era. Even where information does exist, I have found on occasion contradictory dates in different reliable sources. I suspect this is why many sources keep their information quite general for this period. CMD (talk) 18:16, 11 December 2022 (UTC)
Do take your time; I actually have finals next week, so I'll be busy too. That's interesting that information is scant; I think the more important part is defining terms like "sacred house", "dyadic", etc. or using simpler terms. That shouldn't be too hard. Ovinus (talk) 19:10, 11 December 2022 (UTC)
Those will certainly be done. Frankly, in the long term Sacred house needs its own article. CMD (talk) 01:32, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Content

Nominator has written the vast majority of the prose, which is good to see. I'll be referencing Canada, a well-maintained FA about an admittedly bigger country, but with good ideas on organization.

I shifted them into Etymology, as well as the references, let me know if that looks cleaner. CMD (talk) 11:55, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
Me likey, thanks

Etymology

  • "in Indonesian, Timor Timur" I'd put this as a separate sentence, and same with the fragment in the next sentence. No need to be too "elegant" when we're just listing translations, and I find this currently very hard to read Ovinus (talk) 06:16, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
    Spread it out a bit
  • Any information on who actually first called it Timor, perhaps in Portuguese? Ovinus (talk) 06:16, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
    I've looked for this and haven't found an answer. My OR is that presumably the Portuguese started using the name while controlling Malacca, as at that time they did receive trade from Timor. Whether the name was a mistaken translation of a Malay direction, or traders really did call the island East, or the name had split from East already within Malay during some earlier period of thalassocratic empire, I am not sure. I certainly will add it if I ever find it. CMD (talk) 12:04, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
  • Anything sourceable/important on usage differences between East Timor and Timor-Leste? From the current text it seems Timor-Leste is preferred by the international community? Ovinus (talk) 22:23, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
    Timor-Leste is preferred by the Timorese Government, and formal diplomatic use flows from that. East Timor was the ubiquitous name prior to independence, and has remained in use despite the official preference. Some writers use "East Timor" to refer to pre-independence and "Timor-Leste" to refer to the independent country, but this is not a universal practice. Oddly hard to find a good source on, although I don't think there is much more to say than the name officially being Timor-Leste in English. CMD (talk) 17:40, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

History

  • "The first is described by anthropologists as people of the Veddo-Australoid type" – Is this a controversial enough description for the hedge of "described by anthropologists"? Also, the linked article claims that this racial classification is outdated; is that true?
    I've tweaked, the ways that linked page describe the classification as outdated are unfortunately unhelpful to the topic of migratory waves, as they relate to present populations.
  • "sacred house" What is a sacred house? A little sacred dwelling, a bloodline, ...?
    I'm having trouble rewording this, as it's literally a house that is sacred. The sources note it is a community and religious centre with a lot of symbolic importance as well, but it is actually a building.
  • "dyadic" "temporal" Please dumb it down for me – this should be broadly understandable
    Edited
  • "source of tribute" What kind of tribute?
    The source notes it was just on a list of tributaries, it might not be known what various items were given at various points.
  • What made sandalwood attractive to Europeans and other traders?
    Added earlier in the paragraph.
  • "Early Portuguese presence on Timor was very limited" When did the first Portuguese land? Indeed, who was the first European to set sights on the island, let alone land? This information appears to be omitted
    Presumably traders landed in what is now Oecusse in the 1510s; different reliable sources give different dates, so I assume there is a significant lack of documentation.
  • "before that was lost to the Dutch in 1652" What is "that"? Kupang, or the west, or?
    Kupang, tweaked.
  • "Effective European occupation in the east of the island only began in 1769" What did the Europeans impose? Were traditional ways of life still tolerated?
    To the extent they could, the Portuguese imposed taxes. They entirely lacked the capacity to do much more at this time, even if they wanted to, and they were stuck in Dili. There is a bit more detail in Portuguese Timor, particularly how control began to expand following the 1861 revolt and subsequent military campaigns, and the 1895 military campaigns which along with other issues culminated in the East Timorese rebellion of 1911–1912, which the Portuguese defeated. This is alluded to in the "until the late nineteenth century" sentences, let me know if more is needed.
  • "drove the last of the Australian and Allied forces out" When did the war start and end?
    Added.
  • "Portuguese, Indonesian and Catholic Church data estimated 200,000 deaths" Were these data compiled as a joint effort between these groups, or did each of them estimate 200,000 on their own?
    Great question, per the source, it is an estimate generated from all that data combined. The source does stress the uncertainty of the numbers, so I have added that caveat.
  • "improvements in infrastructure and services" What improvements? Were there any?
    Primarily health and education services, which I have added. There were economic changes too, but these mostly benefited Indonesians, and disappeared after 1999.
  • "The 1991 Dili Massacre" Who killed whom and how many
  • Added; a sad topic.
  • "Fretilin resisted the invasion, initially as an army, holding territory until November 1978, and then as a guerrilla resistance." Maybe this should go a couple sentences earlier, before the elaboration on living standards?
  • Moved it right to the start.
  • "The following year, Gusmão declined to run for another term." Did his resignation follow from the unrest and violence, or were they unrelated?
    I'm sure it was related, but I'm not sure how that might be expressed. The period included political infighting between Gusmão and the PM at the time (Mari Alkatiri). Alkatiri resigned, and was replaced by Ramos-Horta, who as noted in the next sentence then become President. Gusmão then ran for PM, and managed to win after some coalition building which I feel is too detailed for inclusion here, although I added his party name there instead of later.
  • "an attempted assassination" Maybe "assassination and coup attempt"?
    I am unsure if it is accepted as a coup attempt.
  • "AMP" is introduced as an initialism before it is defined
    I've edited that paragraph quite a bit to clean it up and smooth its flow, and removed the coalition names. Hopefully it can eventually be rewritten to be a more general history rather than purely political.
  • "Jose Maria de Vasconcelos, known as Taur Matan Ruak" How relevant is his real name? (What do English-language sources tend to use, unqualified? Do they usually introduce him under both names?)
    Cut to just the common name. Both are used, but I would say the de Vasconcelos name is always qualified with the note he is usually called Taur Matan Ruak. CMD (talk) 14:34, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Politics

  • "in practice the executive has maintained control of the legislature, under all political parties" This definitely deserves elaboration. Have there been any efforts to fix this imbalance?
    The source states that this is "a pattern typical of emerging democracies" (which sounds accurate to me), and later says "Once the pattern of executive dominance

has been established, it is difficult for the legislature to later assert its independent powers." I have not read anything on changes to this balance, but I have added that this imbalance reflects the dominance of individuals leaders (tying in to later text on political parties).

  • "Despite political rhetoric, the constitution and democratic institutions are almost universally respected" By whom? This seems redundant with the last sentence of this paragraph
  • The first sentence refers specifically to politicians, whereas the last is for the public. I have tweaked the first and added context from the source.
  • "and turnout is high" Average numbers would be nice
  • Not in the existing sources, so I added a range from [6].
  • The two consecutive paragraphs (one starting "Formally", the next starting "The head of state") appear to largely overlap. Certainly the second is a better way to introduce the role of the president. Maybe they could be merged
    Great idea, merged.
  • "Political parties or political coalitions must receive at least 4% of the total votes to enter parliament" 4% or 3%, as stated earlier?
    Well, given those sources disagree, perhaps I am missing some nuance in the 4% one. Going with 3% per this primary legislation.
  • "Most parties are based on personality, rather than policy" This seems like far too broad and controversial a statement. Maybe add some more sources and elaboration. (Similar problem as the "maintained control of the legislature under all political parties" part I mentioned)
    I have shuffled the text to hopefully link this statement more clearly with the discussions of the old guard who are the major personalities. I also added more context about CNRT together with a focused source on Xanana Gusmão as an example. CMD (talk) 18:12, 17 December 2022 (UTC)


Administrative divisions

  • The municipalities are: Aileu, Ainaro, Atauro, Baucau, Bobonaro, Cova Lima, Dili, Ermera, Lautém, Liquiçá, Manatuto, Manufahi, Oecusse, and Viqueque.[citation needed]
    Done.
  • "customary units" what does this mean (compare customary units)
    Took a stab at an explanation.
  • "a structure that was only put in place in 2016" – is "only" necessary here? I see it as mild editorializing
    Reworded. CMD (talk) 00:40, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Foreign relations and military

  • "seen as mutually exclusive" by whom?
    By Ramos-Horta at the time. The source notes this was expressed as an Indonesian position at the time, presumably Ramos-Horta had specific insider diplomatic info. I have tried to reword it without going into undue detail. CMD (talk) 03:21, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Spotchecks

Relative to Special:Diff/1130484202

  • [7]: Good
  • [15]: Good. Interestingly, the source uses the name "Oecussi"—do you know what that's about?
  • [16]: Good
  • [17]: Source claims four waves rather than three as stated in the text.
    I'm having to think about this one. The current source notes 3 clear wave, and a fourth potential wave. This all hinges not only on who arrived, but how a wave is defined. The peopling of the region is an active area of research, so at the moment I'm leaning towards going more general and just noting the arrival of multiple waves. CMD (talk) 10:28, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
    Fully replaced and re-written. CMD (talk) 10:53, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Just noting I haven't forgot about this; sorry for the delay. I'll have more comments soon. Ovinus (talk) 23:46, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

No issue on my end, hope 2023 is working out so far. CMD (talk) 01:41, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
I won't be able to complete the review so I will mark this for a second opinion. Ovinus (talk) 09:33, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Second opinion

I'm starting where Ovinus left. Not going to double-check the above review.

Geography

  • East Timor shares the island with Indonesia, which separates the main part of the country from the Oecusse exclave -> I find this sentence difficult to understand. It's mentioned more clearly earlier on in the article, so you may want to omit the second half of the sentence.
  • The capital, largest city, and main port is Dili, and the second-largest city is the eastern town of Baucau. citation?
  • I've made a small edit to the climate change sentence, but I'm not sure if you could describe a 0.8C raise as a small increase. It's slightly under the global average, but that level of warming can still have a significant effect in a tropical climate (which usually see more stable climates, and hence less resilience to warming).
  • The northern coast is characterised by a number of coral reef systems that have been determined to be at risk. -> 2010 source is quite old. Coral reef has been changing rapidly over the last 13 years. Still at risk?
  • If you're planning to go for FA, you may want to limit WP:PLUSING: Example: There are around 41,000 terrestrial plant species in the country, with around 35% of the land being forested in the mid 2010s. Slightly ambiguous, as forested can mean the act of planting forests or being occupied by forests. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 11:29, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Economy

  • "The economy of East Timor is a market economy, which used to depend upon exports of a few commodities such as coffee, marble, petroleum, and sandalwood." When I see "used to", I expect as the next sentence how that has changed.
  • Of those of working age, around 23% are in the cash economy, 21% are students, and 27% are subsistence farmers and fishers -> wikilink or explain cash economy. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 11:29, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Demographics

  • I would relink Fretilin here; as it's a long article, and people usually don't read every section.
  • "Ethnic background and linguistic group do not clearly define Timorese communities, with many communities within these broad groupings and many areas with overlaps and hybridisation between ethnic and linguistic groups" can you write more clearly, had to reread a few times
  • East Timor's adult literacy rate in 2010 was 58.3%, up from 37.6% in 2001. I usually expect the most recent numbers in the first sentence. Later the article names the 2016 numbers. Do we need all three? —Femke 🐦 (talk) 11:29, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Culture

  • Ancestry was an important component of leadership, with ancestors being an important part of cultural practices -> could be simplified to "Ancestry was an important part of cultural practices and leadership"?
  • Impressively written. Those sections I always find exceedingly difficult to write. It looks a bit underlinked. example: internal migration. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 11:48, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
  • "A strong oral history is highlighted in individuals able to recite long stories or poetry. This history, or Lia nain, passed down traditional knowledge" Link oral history. Consistent tense (either both past, or both present) would make sense here. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 11:48, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Images

Article Name

I know this discussion has had before, but I want to open a new option Considering its official English name as stated in the article, and seen here http://timor-leste.gov.tl/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Constitution_RDTL_ENG.pdf

I think that the most reasonable option is to change the name of the article to East Timor (Timor-Leste), such has been done similarly to Myanmar where the article is named Burma (Myanmar) https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/User:EmilePersaud 21:42, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

No, it's named Myanmar. (CC) Tbhotch™ 21:44, 29 May 2021 (UTC)
There is no such thing as an "official English name", as there is no regulatory body with the power to set standards for the English language. If you mean the "English form preferred by the government of the country", we don't give a shit. Never have. Never will. The only reasonable option is what we are already doing, using the form most commonly used in English. If you can show that East Timor is not the most commonly used form in English, do so. Unless and until this is shown, the article stays where it is. --Khajidha (talk) 19:05, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
Usage counts, nothing else. Based on what we have found in Ngram ("East Timor" still dominating as of 2019) and the "News on the web"-corpus ("Timor(-)Leste" dominating since 2016), it will be worth digging into this again in 2023 or 2024. For this year and 2022, it's a waste of time and energy. @Khajidha: Talking about so-called official names, have you been aware of this one? –Austronesier (talk) 19:56, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
Note that this also affects the Wikidata part, to which on their d:Talk:Q574, @UWashPrincipalCataloger: told us a lot of sources say "Timor Leste". --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 10:17, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
I am not sure article names here have much affect there. Wikidata is a separate project, it may have different naming criteria. CMD (talk) 12:03, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

I came here from a separate page (ISO codes) but admit my surprise, having not heard of this country being called anything except "Timor-Leste" for many years. I would suggest that it is being held back because some fear that agreeing to change now would imply they were wrong to argue against the name change in the past (they probably had a point in 2005, but now?). We have changed a number of country titles since Timor-Leste became the official title - North Macedonia, Eswatini, maybe Myanmar (don't know when that was switched) - so why is this particular one being held back? Who still calls it by its old name? 110.33.28.251 (talk) 10:22, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

In one of the yellow boxes at the top (you have to click "About the page" in mobile view), there is a pointer to the last discussion in Dec 2020. Who still calls it by its old name? Answer: many[7] (although this search might contain some false positives which actually refer to the province during Indonesian occupation). While I'm absolutely in favor of renaming the page, corpus evidence is only slowly building up to get a stronger point than in 2020 (the elephant in the room is Google Ngram which only includes sources until 2019). And as you can see from the many non-arguments in the move discussion, even corpus evidence will quickly be dismissed unless it is overwhelmingly in favor of the new target. –Austronesier (talk) 11:33, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Racist name

The current name of this article is racist and inaccurate. The moderators who are upholding this are themselves engaging in systemic racism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.140.192.45 (talk) 04:29, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't think it's racist but Timor-Leste > East Timor ngl Judeinator9001 (talk) 16:12, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Edit: I see that this article is written in British English. Timor Leste is not and will never be a British (or Australian) colony, but this article is being written for the benefit of those people, not the world. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.140.192.45 (talk) 04:33, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Regardless of any issues with the title (which have been discussed about 1 trillion times already - go and peruse the Talk page archives), the fact this article uses British English has no significance regarding colonisation. The variety of English used on an article is almost always just the native variant used by its original author, with subsequent edits being required to maintain consistency per sitewide policy. Timor Leste, being a Tetum- and Portuguese-speaking country and having no distinct variety of English of its own (as far as I'm aware), has no strong national ties that would give reason to favour it over AmE or any other. LetterC (talk) 15:20, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
This accusation of racism is ridiculous. We don't have to follow what the government of a country decides. OTherwise we should call Italy "Italia" and Greece "Hellas", oh and Croatia "Hrvtska". But besides this, what kind of craziness makes you think this is racist??????--190.80.244.132 (talk) 23:24, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
This is English Wikipedia. So articles are written in English. Germany isn't written in German, for example, and its title isn't "Deutschland". Is that racist? As for the variety of English, well, Germany isn't written in the German variety of English because there is no German variety of English. Is it racist, therefore, that that article isn't written in a non-existent variety? What language and what variety of it, exactly, are the non-racist ones you think this article should be written in? Largoplazo (talk) 17:45, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
Is it racist that the title of the article about the United States on Tetum Wikipedia is tet:Estadu Naklibur Sira Amérika Nian and not tet:United States or tet:United States of America? Largoplazo (talk) 17:52, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 6 January 2023

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

The result of the move request was: no consensus. Both sides presented arguments and evidence to support their positions. However, as noted by several, a more depth look/analysis on mordern usage of either term may be needed, but is lacking here, to support either term as the dominant common name. (closed by non-admin page mover) – robertsky (talk) 15:31, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

East Timor → Timor-Leste – Firstly, it's the official name used by the country as a short English form in pretty much every context. There were a handful of past discussions that got relatively strong support for a move. Secondly, it anecdotally seems to be used a lot by sources from outside the country with close connections to the country, such as https://www.oxfam.org/en/what-we-do/countries/timor-leste-east-timor. Finally, Google Trends is all over the place but seems to show there to be roughly equivalent amounts of both names, meaning that this isn't some place where an officially correct usage is contradicted by common practice (https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%203-m&geo=US&q=timor-leste,east%20timor,timor%20leste). Also, if it is upheld, all other articles referencing East Timor should be moved. Mcavoybickford (talk) 02:34, 6 January 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. – robertsky (talk) 03:52, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Comment: Going by a look at Google News for the past week, [8] [9] (excluding one site, eturbonews.com, that comes up repeatedly, but only because it displays links for all the countries of the world on the right side of the browser, not because the country is mentioned in the text), the two names get forty-something hits each. If other meaningful indicators that people bring here are similarly neck-and-neck, I'm gonna support the move. Largoplazo (talk) 03:24, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Question The previous RM (Talk:East Timor/Archive 7#Re-name_Timor_Leste) was closed suggesting that a new move request be made alongside the presentation of good body of evidence, has this body of evidence been collected? What has changed since the last RM? CMD (talk) 03:42, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
    Here's some additional evidence:
    - GLOWBE, a major corpus of English on the web from December 2012, so a little out of date, gives 2525 hits for East Timor and 1308 hits for Timor Leste or Timor-Leste. This data would let us explore further regional variation if it seemed like it was warranted.
    - NOW, another web corpus that isn't broken down by country but contains more recent hits, gives 10460 hits for Timor-Leste or Timor Leste and 9750 for East Timor. Throwing in East-Timor doesn't really affect the data.
    - Since the last discussion of moving it (17 Dec 2020), Timor-Leste with the hyphen has slightly more hits on the NOW corpus than East Timor (1950 to 1915), while Timor Leste has 499 hits.
    - Since this article is supposedly written in British English, I pulled out the UK and Australian numbers from GLOWBE. The UK has 47 hits for Timor-Leste, 20 for Timor Leste, and 228 hits for East Timor. Australia has 412 hits for Timor-Leste, 154 for Timor Leste, and 1174 for East Timor. So for both of these it's a little more slanted towards East Timor, but not enough to justify overruling what the country actually calls itself.
    - The English-language citations and bibliography for this article show a mix of East Timor and Timor-Leste (plus the occasional Timor Leste). If I counted right, there are 69 hits for Timor-Leste, 6 for Timor Leste and 57 hits for East Timor, although this does include a few non-English sources, includes word forms of all of the above such as East Timorese, and doesn't take into account that some individual sources say the name of the country multiple times in the title.
    But all in all, the biggest features prompting this are that the article is being nominated for good article status and that there's been some time since the last review and Timor-Leste clearly has not lost ground.
    In my opinion the other question is what to do with articles with "East Timorese" in the title that refer to the country of Timor-Leste, rather than the region before independence. I can't quite figure out what the typical usage is in Timor-Leste, or, for that matter, anywhere else. Maybe some Wikipedian from Timor-Leste knows? My best guess is to use Timor-Leste in contexts similar to United States, for example 2016 United States presidential election but where countries with clearer demonyms would get the demonym, and use Timorese or maybe East Timorese elsewhere. Mcavoybickford (talk) 12:36, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
    Re ... but not enough to justify overruling what the country actually calls itself: The criterion is what a majority of applicable sources are using, not a majority of applicable sources minus an arbitrary margin to reflect what the country calls itself. We aren't overruling anything, as that implies that what the country calls itself is a factor at all. It isn't. Common usage is what we're tallying. If you want to characterize common usage as "overruling" what the country calls itself, that's fine, but common usage is, nevertheless, what we're going by. Largoplazo (talk) 13:11, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Support per nom, NAMECHANGES, Kyiv, etc.--Ortizesp (talk) 17:06, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose The English Wikipedia article has always been called "East Timor". That name is consistent with Wikipedia's "use English" policy. East Timor is a small, relatively insignificant country and its own use of the Portuguese version of its name is mainly for internal political reasons that are of little interest or relevance to English speaking readers of an English language encyclopedia. Over nearly 20 years (ie almost the entire life of the present day country), numerous attempts have been made to change the name of the English Wikipedia article, and none has succeeded. Various Wikipedia articles in other major western European languages (eg Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish) are not named "Timor-Leste". There has been no significant change in the statistics since the last attempted name change of the English Wikipedia article only 2 years ago. This latest attempt should be speedily closed. Bahnfrend (talk) 04:03, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose Language, including common names, is determined by usage. It is not determined by one government's decree. I don't see the common usage situation changing since the previous move suggestions. --Merbabu (talk) 04:07, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:UE and WP:OFFICIALNAMES. —  AjaxSmack  04:09, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose per the general trend of the proposal(s) not taken from September 2005 (as listed at the top of this page) and the comments from User:Bahnfrend JarrahTree 04:57, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:USEENGLISH. The most common name for this country in English is the current title. Whenever RMs like this come up, I can't help but wonder if the French Wikipedia gets repeated requests to change the title of this article from Timor oriental, or if the German Wikipedia gets them to change from Osttimor. But perhaps the nominator can answer that question, as it appears that he can understand both French and German. Rreagan007 (talk) 05:41, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
  • I'll break the suspense: Once for the French article (in 2009), and never for the German article. In comparison, the French article has had two people (both over ten years ago) request that the country be relocated to Oceania, whereas I've seen that here only once. Largoplazo (talk) 11:38, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
"- Since this article is supposedly written in British English, I pulled out the UK and Australian numbers from GLOWBE. The UK has 47 hits for Timor-Leste, 20 for Timor Leste, and 228 hits for East Timor. Australia has 412 hits for Timor-Leste, 154 for Timor Leste, and 1174 for East Timor. So for both of these it's a little more slanted towards East Timor, but not enough to justify overruling what the country actually calls itself." So, actual English usage in actual English speaking countries is in favor of East Timor by a factor of 2 or 3 to 1 and you think that is evidence for changing to Timor-Leste? How does that make a lick of sense? --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:07, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose as a perennial request with no change in the underlying facts since last time. Srnec (talk) 21:34, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Support per nom. ...Also, mentioned in one of the previous Requested moves, here are a whole bunch of credible sources referring to the nation as "Timor-Leste":
etc. Here's my thought process: if usage is evenly split between the two names, why not go with the official one? Paintspot Infez (talk) 23:12, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
Comment: - except as has been shown, usage (ie, common usage) is not evenly split. It clearly favours East Timor. --Merbabu (talk) 23:16, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
If these sources didn't suffice before, why would they suffice now? To be clear about it, the criterion isn't the existence of a lot of sources, and certainly not the repetition of previously mentioned sources, but a preponderance of sources. While I did find them neck-and-neck with my search mentioned above from Google News, that's not what others are finding elsewhere, as the discussion shows. Largoplazo (talk) 00:33, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Support. Many ask: "what has changed since the previous move discussions?" It's simple: common usage. In the last discussion, I presented the following table based on the NOW-corpus which clearly illustrates the swing:
East Timor Timor(-)Leste
2010 – 2015 2762 (67%) 1354 (33%) (= 466 "Timor Leste" + 888 "Timor-Leste")
2016 – 2020 5102 (43%) 6685 (57%) (= 1994 "Timor Leste" + 4691 "Timor-Leste")
2018 – 2020 3047 (41%) 4400 (59%) (= 1070 "Timor Leste" + 3330 "Timor-Leste")
This trend has been stable in the following years:
East Timor Timor(-)Leste
2021 714 (41%) 1027 (59%) (= 466 "Timor Leste" + 844 "Timor-Leste")
2022 1187 (46%) 1387 (54%) (= 312 "Timor Leste" + 1075 "Timor-Leste")
The change in usage is also observed in academia. Google Scholar searches will yield similar results. Note also that searches for "East Timor" can also contain false positive referring to the Portuguese colony or the Indonesian province, which inflates figures for "East Timor". It is thus even more significant that "Timor(-)Leste" consistently has outweighed "East Timor" over the last years. –Austronesier (talk) 13:43, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
Add. And here's a bit from Google Scholar:
Google Scholar
"of East Timor" "of Timor Leste"
2015 882 (53%) 785 (47%)
2016 836 (51%) 794 (49%)
2017 845 (51%) 813 (49%)
2018 885 (50%) 873 (50%)
2019 857 (46%) 1010 (54%)
2020 779 (45%) 945 (55%)
2021 712 (41%) 1020 (59%)
2022 583 (39%) 921 (61%)
I've used the phrases "of East Timor" and "of Timor Leste" in order to ensure that the text appears in an English text and also to get more handy figures that allow for a quick look at all hits without introducing a bias for either of them (using East Timor" and "Timor Leste" as subject of "is" and "has" is another nice search "method"). Pinging for comments @Merbabu, JarrahTree, Srnec, and Rreagan007: who have explicitly opined that common usage hasn't changed without citing data, plus @Khajidha: who has dissected GLOWBE data in detail, data which unfortunately ends at 2012—the perfect corpus to get "Kiev" and "Swaziland" back :) –Austronesier (talk) 17:32, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
Response: The figures for "East Timor" and "Timor Leste" indicate that the trend is currently towards "East Timor", and may also include pages in Portuguese. The figures for "of East Timor" and "of Timor Leste" are not figures for the present and proposed new names, but for phrases that may yield significantly different results, and that are in any event in Google scholar, which focuses on academic rather than general usage. Bahnfrend (talk) 04:49, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
The NOW corpus does not include pages in Portuguese. Upward gradients were rejected in previous discussions per WP:CRYSTALBALL, and only absolute figures seen as relevant. The same obviously holds for downward gradients that do no affect the numerical dominance of the proposed page title. Note also that the Google Scholar results for "East Timor" (whether by itself or in a phrase) have a higher potential of false positives, since historical articles actually might discuss the Indonesian province. A cursory glance at the 2022 results[10] immediately shows this. When pruned, the figures will lean even heavier towards "Timor(-)Leste". –Austronesier (talk) 11:30, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
Response What, so you're saying that an upward or downward trend should be ignored, but that what you describe as a "stable" trend is somehow important, and supports a change in name, even though such a change was not made only about two years ago? Bahnfrend (talk) 14:57, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
Well, I can report that my claim—no change in the underlying facts since last time—is basically correct, since last time was in 2020 and you state that this trend has been stable in the following years, i.e., 2021–2022. So, I reviewed my reasoning in 2020: Current title is of more wide application and thus superior. E.g., will Indonesian occupation of East Timor be moved if this move goes through? Simple nose-counting of online sources will not do for country names. Although I did't spell it out, what I mean is that there is no reason to treat usage as just a snapshot of the present moment. Sources from before 2020 (or 2000, or 1975) aren't going to disappear. They should still get a say, albeit of ever decreasing weighting. I made this same argument in the Kiev discussion at the same time and spelled out my reasoning in greater depth.
I'm not sure I'd regard a reference to the Indonesian province as a "false positive". Surely the Indonesian period is a part of the history of the country, just as much as the Portuguese period? Surely when Noam Chomsky wrote of East Timor he was writing of the country and not of any particular constitution. I have other concerns, as well. What is the correct adjectival form of Timor-Leste? I am genuinely unsure. What happens to articles with "East Timorese" in the title? I have a small personal interest in this, since I thought long and hard about the correct title for East Timorese rebellion of 1911–1912. —Srnec (talk) 00:37, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
Response That is the correct title for that article. The government of East Timor uses the expression "Timor-Leste" in English language publications to refer only to the independent republic that has existed since 2002, and not to the Portuguese (or Indonesian-occupied) territory that existed before 2002. But the subtlety of such a distinction would be lost on most readers of English Wikipedia (which is for general readers, and not just academics or State Department officials and their equivalents), and that is a reason not to make the proposed change to the name of the present article. The better and less confusing approach is to use English, as for the article about Ivory Coast, which, like the present article, has been unsuccessfully proposed for a move on many occasions. As indicated by the various move discussions that have taken place over two decades, the arguments for and against moving the two articles are almost identical, and no move proposal in relation to either article has ever succeeded. The most important considerations are WP:USEENGLISH and WP:COMMONNAME - Wikipedia simply does not use foreign languages for the names of articles about individual countries, even if the government of the country in question prefers or insists upon such use. Bahnfrend (talk) 14:57, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
Strong Support for the reasons laid out above and for the fact that both common and official usage both support usage of Timor Leste. Cristiano Tomás (talk) 16:22, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
Strong Support It's clear that more recent usage favours Timor-Leste and Wikipedia needs to reflect current not historical usage. Andrewdpcotton (talk) 17:28, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Clear common name in English-language sources. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:35, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Support: People in opposition to the move seem to be pointing to WP:UE, which ignores the fact that the discussion is centred on the use of Timor-Leste as a name in English. We don't demand that the article for Spaghetti is at "Little strings" or that Honshu should be at "main province", to use their English translations - WP:UE means that we use the name which is used in English. Contrary to some of the claims, Timor-Leste is used in English, especially by formal reliable sources, and is the best name for this article. Some others have also pointed to the case of Cote d'Ivoire or Ivory Coast with its similar moves, which seems like whataboutism that isn't really beneficial in this case. Which one of those names is the best for that article has no bearing on which name is best for Timor Leste's article. Turnagra (talk) 17:52, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
  • In contrast to "little strings" or "main province", "East Timor" is still heavily used by English speakers when communicating in English. The focus here is on which of the two forms, that or "Timor-Leste", predominates. Largoplazo (talk) 22:51, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
    I completely agree. My point was more to illustrate that we don't avoid names simply because they derive from a language other than English - the crux of this discussion should be whether Timor-Leste has overtaken East Timor in English usage, not whether Timor-Leste is an English name. Several votes in opposition in this discussion are highlighting WP:USEENGLISH, which is completely irrelevant here. We're not proposing to rename the Germany article as Deutschland, we're proposing to rename this article to a name which, though it derives from another language, has significant usage in English. Turnagra (talk) 03:47, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Suprisingly, support! I closed the 2018 move request as no consensus. I did not expect to support this move request, but it appears very obvious from the sources here that usage has shifted in English. I denounce the "it's always been this way" or "yet another move request" arguments as intellectually lazy and invalid; just because you WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT doesn't mean it's wrong, and WP:CONSENSUSCANCHANGE and most of all the world can change. Arguments like "East Timor is a small, relatively insignificant country" are so demeaning as to be insulting; the size or population of a country has nothing to do with what its common name is. Red Slash 23:29, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Comment – further to my “oppose” above – the discussion here is focussing on written contexts. What about verbal? I never hear the TV or radio use Timor Leste, always East Timor. The same for conversations. I doubt many even know what Timor Leste is…yet every knows what East Timor is. Sure, verbal use is harder to document than written use…but it is key to this discussion. Please consider. --Merbabu (talk) 00:45, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
    Conversely, I only ever hear TV and radio use Timor Leste, and haven't heard East Timor for a good number of years. The issue with verbal forms of evidence is that they're generally anecdotal at best, unless someone has the time and inclination to trawl through archives of news articles on youtube - at which point there would generally be a written indication in the description or accompanying article. Turnagra (talk) 03:49, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose: Google news reports similar results for both names over the past year [11][12]. Scholar reports similar results over the last three years [13][14]. Trends clearly shows that the most popular name in English-speaking countries is East Timor, with Timor-Leste only predominating in Portugese-speaking countries [15]. Give the even split between sources we default to the name that most English-speakers know it by, which is East Timor. --Spekkios (talk) 08:33, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
Relisting comment: for a clearer consensus. – robertsky (talk) 03:52, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Default oppose for now. I see several people supporting per the evidence, but most of the evidence I see is either raw WP:HITS or diplomatic usage that always leads common usage in this kind of cases - often by many years, sometimes adopting names that never become common usage. Things like the Google Trends data are so spiky I don't see we can draw any intelligent conclusions at all from it. So I don't see any actual evidence that the WP:COMMONNAME has changed. Can someone perhaps provide some evidence from mainstream non-governmental English-language publications in English-speaking countries, that demonstrate that usage has changed? I'm open to reviewing evidence if it's provided, but I don't see anything here so far that demonstrates any kind of change. Kahastok talk 18:02, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
I have posted the evidence from the NOW (News on the web) corpus above which for more than 5 years gives more counts for "Timor(-)Leste" than "East Timor". Some of the news reports are indeed from sites more prone to use Officialese than common English (e.g. Human Rights Watch, World Bank). And frankly, I haven't filtered the results for such sources in all detail, but browsing through the search results, I don't get the impression that these diplomatic sites make up 500 counts that are needed to give "East Timor" a majority. –Austronesier (talk) 19:38, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
There are also sources, such as The Guardian, which seem to exclusively use Timor-Leste. Turnagra (talk) 19:46, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
A swallow does not a page move make...we need a swarm.–Austronesier (talk) 19:56, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, I know - I didn't have time for a proper review of media and provided that as an indicative example. Turnagra (talk) 20:23, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
I'd add that it would hardly be surprising or out of character for the Guardian to be an outlier on this sort of thing. So, if the only concrete example we have (among mainstream media sources as I described) is the Guardian, it doesn't persuade me of a general change across the board. Kahastok talk 22:32, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
Others include Forbes or The Straits Times, and many less widely read yet mainstream non-governmental media. –Austronesier (talk) 11:41, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
  • OK, but that's the first mention of Forbes and the Straits Times in this RM. I'm going based on what I can see, and the only mainstream media link above is the Guardian.
  • Let me put this like this. Right now, I think the case hasn't been made, but I suspect a better case could be made, and I do not know whether I would be persuaded by the better case if it were made. The problem may be a function of the fact that the opening rationale was poor, giving all the others who support some time pressure to improve the case as editors review what is present and make up their minds. Maybe a good solution would be a no-consensus close at this time, explicitly to allow those supporting to go away and review the sources and see whether a better opening argument can be made at a new RM in a few months' time? Kahastok talk 20:28, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Strong Support. Its the offical name of the country used by the government. The name East Timor was used back in colonial times and when the country was occupied by Indonesia. Its a dated name and a modern internet encyclopedia should utilize the newest possible data which includes naming conventions. I understand that for some english speakers the name 'East Timor' is more appropriate however we shouldn't let a clear minority dectate the name of a palce that already decided on its name. You could say that it's about imperialism but in my opinion it's just pure laziness and reluctance to change. Le b1g W (talk) 03:32, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
    This goes to you and everyone else who wants to drop a "Support"-!vote to this discussion as long it hasn't be closed: please read all arguments presented here and do something in support of this proposal. We are way past the stage of simple saying "I want, I like" or "I don't want, I don't like". We're discussing hard evidence from various corpora. I have provided quantitave evidence that clearly shows higher numbers for "Timor(-)Leste" in online news sites and academic publications, but User:Kahastok has rightfully challenged the data since it might be skewed towards certain types of media that tend to prefer official terms regardless of common usage (e.g. AI now reports about human rights abuses in Türkiye). So the onus is on us to show that the shift in usage actually occurred in mainstream media, and this challenge hasn't been taken up yet (including by myself). –Austronesier (talk) 18:02, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Strong Support. Timor-Leste >>> East Timor. Timor-Leste would be a more appropriate name, because not only do I just hear and see the phrase "Timor-Leste" a lot more often in my experience, but it seems like that is just the more common name for the nation, which would be the ideal article name according to WP:COMMONNAME. As can be seen this link, this isn't just a new/temporary thing either, nor is it just isolated to one area of the world. "Timor-Leste" has consistently been searched more than "East Timor" in all measured regions since at least 2004 and it's not even close; note that the country had only existed for 2 years at the time. Also, the country that searches "East Timor" the most compared "Timor-Leste" is Australia; but even in Australia, only 38% of searches were "East Timor", while 62% were "Timor-Leste". It is clear that the article should be moved East Timor → Timor-Leste, as that is the more common name by far.

Judeinator9001 (talk) 00:50, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Noting that the link you posted is just for the US - but when you change it to worldwide, the gap is even more pronounced in favour of Timor Leste. Turnagra (talk) 01:51, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
Oh yeah I was talking about worldwide I guess I accidentally copied the link before I even checked worldwide Judeinator9001 (talk) 01:58, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
Judeinator9001, your Google Trends results are comparing a search term to the country searches, which includes both East Timor and Timor-Leste. You want to compare one search term to another search term, like this, which clearly shows that East Timor is the prefered search term in English-speaking countries by quite a signifigant margin. In Australia, it's actually 86% of the seaches which are using "East Timor" and only 14% "Timor-Leste". --Spekkios (talk) 02:06, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
Well in the end you are still searching Timor-Leste (🤩), not East Timor (🤮). Judeinator9001 (talk) 02:58, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
That's simply not true according to the Google Trends data - only a few countries have "Timor Leste" as their primary search term. Most are extremely favourable to "East Timor". --Spekkios (talk) 03:07, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
Well I have conducted another search on Google Trends (making sure all of the searches tested were terms and not topics) and Timor-Leste is more common; although this is only the case without the hyphen. While you are right in that "East Timor" is more common of a search term than "Timor-Leste" (with the hyphen), "Timor Leste" (without the hyphen) has clearly been dominating since 2013. This really isn't a surprise either; who is actually going to take the time to put that hyphen in there? This kind of shows how "Timor-Leste" is actually more common - only people aren't typing it in its correct grammatical form. Currently the popularity for each search term sits at:
Timor-Leste: 2
East Timor: 2
Timor Leste: 14
Source: Click Me!
Judeinator9001 (talk) 21:08, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
How are you determining that "Timor Leste" is more common? You can't just count countries, as Brazilian searches are not going to WP:USEENGLISH. Looking at countries which use English it's either clearly "East Timor" or very evenly split. --Spekkios (talk) 21:42, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
I suspect searches in Indonesian - for Timor Leste or Timor Timur - will skew that particular search massively. Kahastok talk 22:07, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
Doesn't matter, some big English-speaking countries like Nigeria are in red. Also, almost no place name featured as an article title on the English Wikipedia actually originates from English. For example, the largest English-speaking population on the planet: the United States of America.
United comes from the Latin word for 1.
State comes from the Latin status, meaning "manner of standing, condition."
America is named after an Italian explorer.
As you can see, all of these are from Latin. Guess what else comes from Latin? That's right: the word "leste!" It is Portuguese for "east". Being a romance language, Portuguese comes from Latin, ergo, your point does not stand. Judeinator9001 (talk) 22:44, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
That's a straw man argument. No one was arguing that Wikipedia has to use words and names that originated in the English language. Languages evolve over time and the language a word originated in doesn't matter if it's now part of the language. "United States of America" is the English name for the country, just like "East Timor" is the English name for that country.
And yes, it does matter what countries are searching for what. If English-speaking countries are searching for one term over another, then that gives an indication of what name they use. --Spekkios (talk) 02:13, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
seems to me that in comparing search terms, one has to discount the number of searches for the new name that people make because they've never heard of it before. For example, if half the searches on the new name were occasioned by someone who knows the subject under the old name encountering the new name for the first time, then those are all people who can be assumed to be using the old name, the opposite of your supposition. Largoplazo (talk) 02:25, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
Even then, after taking away 50% of Timor-Leste’s searches from most time periods, it is still on top; albeit by a much smaller margin. Judeinator9001 (talk) 02:58, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Support. I really do not understand everyone who is arguing for "East Timor" because news articles, stylebooks, and mainstream sources call it that way. Simply put, the media and the news can reinforce racist, colonialist narratives in the choice of names they use, whether intentional or unintentionally. Not to mention the chicken and the egg situation of "waiting" for stylebooks to pick up on the new name- many journalists and internet users knowledge of Timor-Leste begin and end from perusing this article- its not a country that appears in the news or in history classes (outside of Portuguese and Southeast Asian history) often. Wikipedia making the change now will help spur the name being widely used as a whole. HadesTTW (he/him • talk) 02:49, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia does not spur things. Period. Wikipedia follows. Always. There's no exception here. And what in the world is racist about calling a country in Asia something in one European colonial language that means exactly the same thing as what it's being called in another European colonial language? Let's just throw the word "racist" at anything we don't like, why don't we, even when it's crystal clear that it makes no sense? Is it racist that the title of the article about the United States on Tetum Wikipedia is tet:Estadu Naklibur Sira Amérika Nian and not tet:United States or tet:United States of America? Largoplazo (talk) 02:54, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
I completely agree with Largoplazo. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not an advocate for change. It reflects what is, not what some editors or governments would like to be. "In discussing the appropriate title of an article, remember that the choice of title is not dependent on whether a name is "right" in a moral or political sense." (WP:TITLECHANGES) Bahnfrend (talk) 02:11, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Parliamentary or semi presidential

Why east timor a semi presidential country? (sorry joking more semitic than semi presidential) Why the prime minister of east timor can visit other countries unlike the parliamentary prime ministers? I think hope they will understand this writing explanation about this section. Why east timor optly choose to semi presidential over parliamentary? 2404:8000:1027:85F6:38C9:729E:1373:7F3A (talk) 20:15, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

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