Talk:List of sovereign states/Archive 9

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Governments in exile?

The footnote claims that the descriptions list "any governments in exile recognised by at least one state". Is this needed? Do we, in fact, list these? Nightw 04:33, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

We list the Republic of China, but they control some territory. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

The footnote claims that information on such is included. Besides some of the 10others (that are listed both as separate rows and inside the extent column) currently there are no other GiEs recognised by at least one state. The footnote is the describing the general guideline for the extent column - and basically it says, that if a situation similar to WWII and Cold War recognized exiled governments emerges, then they will be mentioned. Alinor (talk) 07:46, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Tibet comes to mind, but it is currently unrecognized. --Taivo (talk) 08:02, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Since there are none, then, would anyone object to removing it? ... Nightw 11:04, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes. It's put there with a valid reason. A momentary lack of exactly this type of cases, doesn't mean that the principle doesn't apply. Alinor (talk) 11:38, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

...Anyone besides you. Nightw 12:55, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

The next time, maybe you should put a list of persons allowed/not allowed to state their opinion. Alinor (talk) 13:10, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Keep it; if I recall there were multiple reasons behind this one, although I don't think it relates to SMOM some might. Also related to the Somalia situation in 2006-2007, now they have ground before not really. And people brought up the historical example of governments in exile during WWII. Not sure how much of this applies today, and my memory on this is vague. Outback the koala (talk) 16:22, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

The problem with the category "government in exile" is that it is highly POV. It implies that we have made a judgment that the government on the ground is not the legitimate government. Unless the government in exile exhibits the Montevideo measurements of sovereignty, we should not list it here because it is not a sovereign state (it doesn't control its own borders, for example). --Taivo (talk) 18:21, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

It does not imply that Wikipedia has made a judgment on legitimacy. We report what others have judged as legitimate. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

But if one of the criteria we are using to judge statehood is "controls its own borders", then no government-in-exile can ever qualify. The only government that this list can ever list is whatever government is on the ground at the time. A "government-in-exile" implies a long period of time, during which someone else controls its borders. --Taivo (talk) 20:15, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Would you have removed Kuwait from the list during the first Persian Gulf War? SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Did Kuwait exist from August 1990-February 1991? Did it control its own borders? While the King was still alive and most of the members of his government were still alive, did Kuwait really exist based on the definition we've established here? --Taivo (talk) 21:53, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

It's a shortcoming of definition. The GiE didn't control the territory, but controlled the assets, had support of citizens, and was recognized by a majority of other states and the UN as legitimate. Based on that, if it were to happen again, I would be against removing it from this list. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

This isn't to do with the inclusion criteria. This is a note requiring the mention, in the description column of states that are already included, of any competing governments in exile recognised by another state. I'm actually confused as to whether it's not superfluous, since, were one recognised by another state, wouldn't it have it's own separate entry, a la Palestine? So, for example, if the Taliban were still recognised as the legitimate government of Afghanistan by Saudi Arabia, would it have it's own entry, or just be mentioned in the Afghanistan entry's notes? Nightw 06:16, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

It would just be mentioned, not have a separate entry. --Taivo (talk) 08:09, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

So then if the ROC didn't control any territory, but it were still recognised by who it is, would it have it's own entry, or just be mentioned? Nightw 05:39, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

That's why Tibet isn't mentioned here--it doesn't control any territory. Yes, if ROC was just an organization in Japan or Los Angeles, it should not be mentioned here. --Taivo (talk) 07:00, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

And also, it isn't recognized AFAIK. Alinor (talk) 09:03, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Night w. The footnote explains what is mentioned in the "information" column. This is unrelated to inclusion criteria. Examples:

• if inclusion criteria are the current "control over permanently populated territory", during WWII, "Nazi pupet regimes" would get included and the "GiE recognized by Allied powers" would get mentioned in the "information" column of the "Nazi pupet regime" state.
• if inclusion criteria are "control over permanently populated territory OR recognized by at least 1 state", during WWII, both "Nazi pupet regime" and the "GiE recognized by Allied powers" would get included in separate rows, and both will get mentioned in each others "information" column. Alinor (talk) 09:03, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Territorial disputes

Do we include all of them? Do we include some per a certain criteria? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:40, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I added "major" to the footnote just then. I don't think all of them warrant a mention. Nightw 14:44, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

So, is this recently added example major or minor dispute? I'm asking because if we don't clarify what is to be included and what isn't we will end up duplicating the "list of territorial disputes" article. Alinor (talk) 08:24, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

head of state arrangements mention in footnote

Above I proposed to add one bullet to the "information" column footnote with one of these variants (or another similar):

1. head of state shared with another sovereign state
2. special head of state arrangement, if applicable
3. head of state arrangement involving foreign states, if applicable
4. head of state arrangement involving foreign head of states in personal or official capacity, where applicable,

The first three where objected for Night w (with objections like "Commonwealth realms don't share, it's personal union" or "Andorra title is held by virtue of holding another offices - these of Urgell bishop and French president"). He didn't propose any wording himself and that's why when he stopped responding I added the fourth one, but then he reverted it with "undue: there is only one such arrangement" - when the article has 16 instances of Commonwealth realm and 1 instance of co-principality. What do you think? Alinor (talk) 05:35, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

1 is simply wrong, 2 and 3 are completely unspecific. 4 also seems wrong. Perhaps something such as

• Where the persona is the Head of State of more than one country. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 08:09, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

OK, I agree. Alinor (talk) 08:27, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

That sounds fine. Nightw 11:24, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's more accurate, but "persona" should be "person". --Taivo (talk) 14:51, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done Inserted, with a slight change in wording to match the others. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 13:16, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Hungarian on Romania

There seems to have been a flurry of activity surrounding this addition this afternoon. My initial edits were related to a series of edits by User:Valekaa in which he/she added Hungarian names for a whole variety of Eastern European countries. I reverted those, including the Romania case, on the grounds that we have to have some kind of consistency and allowing very minority languages will lead to a ballooning of names on the list (which, even if you agree with that, should be discussed here and applied consistently across all countries).

User:Taivo has since re-added the Hungatian language name for Romania specifically on the grounds that there is a significant minority Hungarian population (actually around 7% according to the Romania article) which is sufficient to cause a fresh deviation from the UNGEGN list. So there are two issues here: (1) should Hungarian be listed under Romania, given that it never has been in the past and is not on the UNGEGN list, and (2) where on earth are the citations? the note about language names clearly states that any entries not taken from UNGEGN are separately cited. Thanks all  — Amakuru (talk) 15:10, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually, you are wrong, Amakuru. Hungarian has been listed in the past on Romania. It has been there and remained there--I didn't notice when it was deleted or else I would have replaced it at the time. I also placed a reference for the Hungarian name. Hungarian has historical significance in Romania since about a third of the country was a part of Hungary into the last century and there still is a significant minority there (I don't know that I would trust Romanian authorities for the number). We do, indeed, note "historically significant" languages in this list and always have, such as Spanish for the Philippines. We have had this discussion before here and that has always been the conclusion--to not be overly rigid on which languages to include as long as there were good reasons given. Since you wanted a citation, I have added a citation to Hungary's Ministry of Foreign Affairs to show the Hungarian spelling of the name. --Taivo (talk) 15:25, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough, and thanks for your reply and for adding the ref. I just wanted to confirm that this is the case, as it had not been there at least in the months leading up to today's change. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 17:05, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Sometimes changes get made to watchlisted articles on days when I'm not watching so closely. This appears to be the case here. Cheers. --Taivo (talk) 17:10, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

extant note

I recently added "membership in supranational union." to the footnote describing the extants. Chipmunkdavis then changed it to "membership in politically powerful supranational unions." with the explanation "Not all supranational unions mentioned, if someone finds a better way to descrie it then insert" [1]. I find two problems with this rewording - a) it implies a random judgment on who is "politically powerful" and who isn't; b) "not all supranational unions mentioned" is not correct - currently the EU is the only supranational union. Other organizations maybe will transform into such in the future, but they still operate trough intergovernmentalism (like regular intergovernmental organizations) instead of supranationalism. Anyway, if another organization reaches supranational union stage, then we have to mention it too and not exclude it based on its "political power".

I propose that we remove "politically powerful" adjectives. Alinor (talk) 18:27, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Why do you keep using the word "extant"? Nightw 19:24, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I've also added "head of state shared with another sovereign state.", but Night w removed it with the explanation "there are no shared heads of state". I used the word "shared", because that's what I found on Commonwealth realm (shared monarchy). Do you have a better idea how to describe both this and the Andorra case? Alinor (talk) 07:41, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't say that. It says, quite accurately, that there is no agreement between scholars on what terminology accurately describes the Commonwealth. Sharing a monarch is entirely different to sharing a single head of state, which they certainly don't since they're each legally distinct and independent polities. They share the same person as their respective heads of state; the offices are entirely separate. Andorra and France is a personal union where the offices are, again, entirely separate. But there isn't a blanket term that applies to both, since they're essentially very different situations. Andorra's constitution requires its head of state to always be the French president. None of the Commonwealth constitutions require any connection to the British monarch whatsoever; they just happen to all have the same succession laws so the crowns end up with one person. Nightw 14:11, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Whatever. I don't want to argue about that. I asked you - what is your proposal if you don't like "shared head-of-state"? We have to mention in the footnote these over 10 cases. This is one of the main things we enter into the extant notes. What about "Special head of state arrangement, if applicable"? Alinor (talk) 17:59, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I told you - there isn't one. They're not the same. I've no idea what a "special head of state arrangement" is, and I doubt any reader would either. If you're going to lose sleep unless the footnote covers everything mentioned, something like "Status as a Commonwealth realm, if applicable". Alternatively, you could just add "...or personal unions" to the end of the supranational note. There are doubts about using that term to describe the Commonwealth realms, but again, if you're going to lose sleep over it... Nightw 14:37, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Is Andorra a realm/personal union? What is wrong with "Special head of state arrangement, if applicable"? It just shows that one of the main items the extant should mention. Alinor (talk) 16:54, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Is that first question a relevant one? How are the two situations so related that they would fall under one description? "Special head of state arrangement" is ridiculous, since nobody knows what that means besides Alinor, and could refer to anything. San Marino has two heads of state, but there's nothing mentioned about it... There's nothing mentioned about the Queen of the United Kingdom either, and why would there be? What's so special about that office? How is it different to any other? Nightw 14:19, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

The special thing is that the head-of-state title/office is involved with foreign state (whether a personal union with multiple states as realms and the same person holding their crowns, or another arrangement of foreign officials serving as head-of-state, etc.) I propose something like "head of state arrangement involving foreign states, if applicable" - if you don't like this please propose something else. Alinor (talk) 14:32, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Wrong. The head of state of the United Kingdom is not "involved" with Australia. Elizabeth is, but not in her capacity as anything but the Queen of Australia. I'm sorry, but what you're suggesting shows complete ignorance about the Commonwealth realms and their relationship with each other. Perhaps you should get to know your subject before you start commenting on them. I'm not proposing anything. This footnote isn't supposed to be a summary of absolutely-everything-on-the-page-no-matter-what. Nightw 16:09, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

The head-of-state of any Commonwealth realm is involved with all other Commonwealth realms head-of-states - the same person holds all these crowns, that's the involvement. Have I said anything about the UK? No.

The footnote is a summary of the main things included in the extents - and head-of-states-with-foreign-involvement are one of these. If you think it's unimportant, should it got deleted from the extents? I think not.

We need to find some way of mentioning this in the footnote. You don't like "shared", "special arrangement", "involved". You don't want to propose anything else. In your opinion - what is the reason that we include information on Andorra and Commonwealth realms head of states in the extents? Alinor (talk) 19:33, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Because [insisted on it] when hardly anybody else did! So yes, I do think it should be deleted, since there was never a need for it in the first place. There are nuances to every government's system. But all that information is best described in the proper article. This isn't a list where you cram as much trivia in as possible, and there's certainly no need to then list said trivia items one by one in a footnote. As you can see, we've had this "head of state" conversation before. You clearly haven't educated yourself on the subject since then, so I'm not going to continue trying from this end. There are no similarities between the Commonwealth realms and Andorra, and there cetainly isn't a word you can make up that connects them. My proposal? Delete the trivia from Andorra. Nightw 12:48, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

And delete the trivial for Commonwealth realms? Just because of your stubbornness to oppose all of my proposals? The common thing in both cases is that the head-of-state is related with a foreign states - regardless if in official capacity, as personal/crown union, etc. And such link with foreign states is unlike any other "nuance in government system", because it concerns foreign states. That's the reason these things ("trivia" as you say) are mentioned. Do you have another explanation? (if you have we should put it in the footnote instead of my proposals). Alinor (talk) 20:29, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Also, some extants are not ordered as per the footnote - they mention recognitions not in the beginning with/instead UN membership, but later in the note text. I suggest that we re-order the sentences to match the column description footnote order (additional text not matching any footnote category to be added last - such as political situation descriptions for some of the "other states", etc.) Alinor (talk) 08:25, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I think they're ordered fine. Nightw 14:11, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

See for example Israel - its extant mentions recognitions last, but according to our footnote these should be mentioned together with/right after UN membership. Alinor (talk) 17:59, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

According to what? The footnote just lists items of information presented. It's not meant to dictate how we arrange those items in each entry. If that's something you want to propose, feel free. Nightw 14:37, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I'm proposing - to either re-arrange the extants or re-arrange the footnote. Alinor (talk) 16:54, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Oh, then no. As before, I think they're ordered fine. Someone else might have an opinion though. Nightw 14:19, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

If we are not going to re-arrange the extants, then do you object to re-arrange the footnote, so that it matches the extants? Alinor (talk) 14:41, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Nope. Nightw 16:09, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Night w removed politically powerful and replaced the note with "membership in the European Union, where applicable," with explanation "there's only one, so let's just name it". Then I put "membership in supranational union, where applicable," with explanation "the note explains why one thing is mentioned and not another (e.g. Union of South American Nations and others) and also in the future there may be more supranational unions than the EU (or the EU may disband). putting generic term". Then Night w reverted to his version with explanation "we can adjust the note when we come to that; i think we'll be okay for the 10 or 20 years".

My opinion is - we should not have arbitrary preferred organizations (be they politically powerful or not) and say "we mention the EU". The footnote describes the principle of extant note mentions - we should say what and why we mention, not the end result. Thus I think "membership in supranational union, where applicable," is much better. If and when more such organizations appear is not relevant. Alinor (talk) 17:59, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

...But we do only mention the EU. Editing on the lines of "if and when more such organizations appear..." is WP:CRYSTALBALLING. We'll cross that path when we come to it. Right now, we write about the present. Right now, we only mention one. Did you want to propose mentioning more? Nightw 14:51, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

This is not WP:CRYSTAL. We won't say that such organizations WILL appear/disappear. The footnote can't say "mentioning EU", because this is arbitrary. Why the EU and not SACN, AU and others? The footnote must use the generic term and whether currently/in the future it will cover only the EU or some other organizations - this will not change anything in the footnote.

What problem do you see in "membership in supranational union, where applicable,"? Alinor (talk) 16:54, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Because the current supranational union article is underdeveloped and because your assertion that the EU is the only one is also unfounded. Google search supranational organisation, you get lists like this one. Adding "where applicable" is just saying "wherever we feel like it" without giving more information to the reader. EU is specific. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 17:00, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

"where applicable" just means "if this applies to the state in question", e.g. we don't write "not member in supranational union" for states that aren't. So, "where applicable" has nothing to do with "wherever we feel like it" and isn't intended to give any additional information. I don't insist on it, but Night w added it and I see the logic behind it (if what I said here is what he thinks too) - if this is substitute for "wherever we feel like it" it should be removed of course.

If there are other supranational unions - then we should mention them too. There is no reason to mention the EU only. In any case the footnote should be about the general term, not about arbitrary chosen organizations.

Most international organizations are operating purely by intergovernmentalism, they are intergovernmental organizations (as opposed to international nongovernmental organizations). Some of them include minor supranational aspects of international organizations, but still operate mainly by intergovernmentalism. The link that you gave is not about supranational unions, but maybe about organizations with minor supranational aspects or just badly written - is this a website of a private association for financial services or something like this? And its list of "supra-national organizations" seems to be focused only on such organizations that deal with financial activities. And it includes "European Commission" and "European Union" as two separate supra-national organizations, where in fact the former is an institution of the latter.

But the only supranational union so far is the EU. It has supranational international parliament - with legislative powers and direct elections among the EU population (not a consultative assembly of national parliaments or governments representatives). It has the European Commission with executive powers and legislation-proposing powers - members of the European Commission are appointed by the European Council, but to take office they need the approval of the directly elected European Parliament. Members of the European Commission are not responsible to national governments and do not report to them. Members of the European Commission do not "protect national interests" (as do national representatives in the European Council and Council of the EU) - the task of the European Commission is to work and represent the "common interest of the whole EU". The body of the EU, where the national governments are represented (e.g. that is most close to intergovernmentalism) - the Council of the EU - uses qualified majority voting for many of the policy aspects and this gives it strong supranational element - unlike international organizations that work by unanimity in the EU this is more like an upper house of parliament in a federal state (for those policy areas that don't require unanimity). The member states of the EU have transferred "part of their sovereignty" to the EU. The EU has exclusive competency in many important policy areas - for example member state governments have no power whatsoever anymore to conclude trade agreements with third countries - this is done only by the European Commission. In addition there are policy areas of shared competency, where member state governments cannot act if the EU has already taken action.

So, that's why the only supranational union so far is the EU (as you can see written in the article about supranational unions) - it has substantially more supranational aspects of international organizations than the others, some of which also aim to reach similar goals. Alinor (talk) 06:52, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Too long, didn't read. Looking at the last paragraph though, and your "that's why the only supranational union so far is the EU". Great, let's mention it by name then. There's no need to beat around the bush if we know what it is, unless you want a tag in there. Such a minor issue, how long did that essay you just wrote take you? Nightw 14:03, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

We should not mention arbitrary things by name. The footnote should point out the relevance of the information and in this case it is that the extants mention memberships in supranational unions. Is there any other reason why the EU is mentioned? If there is - the footnote should mention this reason. Alinor (talk) 14:32, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

We should not be vague when we know the specifics. Nightw 16:09, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

supranational union is not vague, it is a specific type of organization. We can't write "EU", because this would be arbitrary picking of a single organization among all others - we have to point out the type of organizations that are mentioned - otherwise it's unclear why only the EU and not the AU, etc. Alinor (talk) 19:33, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

We have picked a single organisation from amongst all others. It's called the European Union. If you want to change this, and propose that we list all supranational organisations (however many there may be), then do so. Nightw 12:48, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

If the EU is mentioned for no other reason that "we decided", then it should be removed from the extents. Anyway, I don't think so - I think we mention the supranational unions - because of the transfer of sovereignty and their resulting state-like features. Of course currently there is only one such entity - the EU, but the number is irrelevant. Alinor (talk) 20:29, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Are there any disagreements about the latest proposed above redactions of 'supranational union' and 'head of state' sentences of the footnote? Alinor (talk) 11:51, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Taivo, you reverted the supranational union to European Union with the explanation "...there is only one supranational union extant, why not simply tell the reader?" - the answer is - because the footnote needs to show why it's mentioned, otherwise it looks like an arbitrary picked organization with no good reason to be mentioned. Are there still objections to put 'supranational union' in the "information column" footnote? Alinor (talk) 13:13, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it's not very informative. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:41, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

The discussion continued below. Alinor (talk) 07:13, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Galmudug

Recent edit [2] changed:

• Puntland has declared itself an autonomous region of Somalia (a claim which the TFG does not recognise)[one source] - into:
• Puntland and Galmudug have declared themselves as autonomous regions of Somalia (a claim which the TFG does not recognise)[the same source as above]

I assume (but I would like a quotation or page number) that the source states both that Puntland has declared itself an autonomous region of Somalia and that TFG doesn't recognize this. But does it say the same two things for Galmudug? Alinor (talk) 08:29, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I dont know what the source says, but Galmudug has had stable borders for the past few years and its government asserts that it is a federative division of somalia equal in status to puntland. It needs to be included if puntland is included, but i dont know the Somalian Goverments position on it (if they even have one).XavierGreen (talk) 20:20, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

OK, but the current arrangement implies two things:

1. Galmudug declared itself an autonomous region of Somalia.
2. TFG doesn't recognise Galmudug as autonomous region of Somalia.

I will add a 'need quotation to verify' tag. Alinor (talk) 07:04, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Proposal to add "statistics" section to List of states with limited recognition

It has been proposed that a "statistics" section is added to List of states with limited recognition. Please contribute to the discussion at Talk:List of states with limited recognition#Statistics RFC. Alinor (talk) 08:16, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Bahrain & Iran

I read in a book (made in 2008) that Iran claims Bahrain as part of its territory. Is this true, false, or no longer the case? 97.96.65.123 (talk) 20:33, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Never heard that, what book was it? Outback the koala (talk) 02:56, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, it was a gallery of flags, but I've never heard that claim outside of that book either, so I was just wondering. 97.96.65.123 (talk) 13:53, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, It must have been a misprint of some kind. I don't believe that was ever the case. Outback the koala (talk) 17:44, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

The details of this are discussed here. Iran has claimed Bahrain at various points in the past, but it appears that these claims have since been renounced. TDL (talk) 06:59, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Wales and Scotland

It appears that Wales and Scotland are not countries. Yet on every map I have seen Scotland and Whales are countries. Jaws999 (talk) 05:46, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Whales? Where?! Nightw 05:48, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Tell me more about the Whales! Outback the koala (talk) 06:25, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

In all serious though, as far as I can see, the list does refer to them as "countries": "consisting of four countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales". And please note that this is not a list of "countries", so they don't get their own entries. Nightw 06:45, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

What map labels countries? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 16:21, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

inclusion criteria

I know that we still await the mediation for the sorting criteria (see here), but I want to raise one issue with the inclusion criteria that seems unrelated. Currently we use for inclusion criteria the combination of 5 requirements (all 5 need to be present):

1. a permanent population
2. a defined territory
3. government
4. capacity to enter into relations with the other states - with crucial role of recognition by other states
5. claim to be sovereign and independent

The first two - population/territory - are inter-related - you need to control a territory in order to have defined population (they actually are written "defined" territory and "permanent" population; but I think those two combined should be understood as "control of permanently populated territory", because micronations like Sealand/Molossia have "defined" territory, but it's debatable whether they have "sovereign"/full/ultimate control over it or it's part of/controlled by another state)

The relations/government are also inter-related - if there is a government it obviously has the "capacity to enter into relations" (it's another question whether it has entered into such - this depends on the willingness of the other states) and vice versa - international relations between states are almost aways intergovernmental.

Recognition is slightly different - you can have some type of relations without recognizing the other party as "sovereign state" and vice versa - you could have recognition, but no relations established (yet). Of course the more common case is that you have the two together. Anyway, that's why in the current criteria 'recognition can be used for determining who has capacity for relations' - but recognition is not a requirement itself.

The 5th requirement is self-explanatory - if an entity doesn't claim to be such, but still cover the other requirements - then it obviously is something else - most commonly some type autonomous/dependent/etc. entity that considers itself 'under the sovereignty' of one of the 'sovereign states'. The 5th requirement also makes the government/capacity-for-relations requirement somewhat redundant - in order for an entity to claim to be sovereign and independent it has to have some form of government or practically similar institution that makes this claim.

So, all this boils down to two: if an entity covers the 5th requirement (and thus 3th/4th) and has "control of permanently populated territory" (1st/2nd requirements).

Like the "potential problems" for the sorting criteria are the fringe cases - Vatican City/Holy See, Cook Islands, Niue, Cyprus, Armenia, Israel, China, North Korea, South Korea, the 10others (Kosovo, "Palestine", Taiwan, etc.) - in the same way the potential problems for the inclusion criteria are fringe cases: SMOM, governments-in-exile (of states, not of subnational entities), Somaliland, Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria, Palestine (the rest cover all 5 criteria and have at least 1 recognition by non-10others-state. No problem - these get listed as currently). Lets see these:

• SMOM. SMOM isn't recognized as state/doesn't claim statehood/doesn't control territory. No problem - it doesn't get listed (as currently).
• GiEs. a state(s) can recognize another entity as state and can have relations with its government - even if it doesn't control any territory/population - as 'in exile' government, e.g. as government that the first state recognizes to have the legal right to EVENTUALLY control the territory/population it claims. Such GiE of a 'state-in-exile' can get full diplomatic treatment as state, including embassies established in the name of the state-in-exile, etc. Problem/question - are we going to list GiEs that are recognized by other states? (currently the only entity that has both recognition as state and no territory under its control is the State of Palestine - but maybe other 'recognized GiEs' would emerge in the future as they had in the past)
• Somaliland. It covers all 5 criteria, but the 4th is covered by virtue of having a government (it also has relations with states that don't recognize it). No problem - it gets listed (as currently), regardless of lack of recognition - this is not requirement, but only an indication for the 4th requirement.
• Nagorno Karabakh. It covers all 5 criteria, but the 4th is covered by virtue of having a government (and recognition by some of the 10others). No problem - it gets listed (as currently). Potential problem - its recognition is by some of the 10others and thus may be debatable - but anyway, it covers all 5 criteria.
• Transnistria. It covers all 5 criteria. The 4th is covered by virtue of both having a government and relations (Russia has consulate there, regardless of not recognizing Transnistria; additionally it is recognized by some of the 10others). No problem - it gets listed (as currently), regardless of lack of recognition by non-10others-state - this is not requirement.

So, the current inclusion criteria have problem with GiEs and with entities recognized as state by at least 1 other state, but that don't hold sovereign/ultimate/final "control of permanently populated territory". I propose that in addition to the Declarative theory that our criteria currently employ we add also the Constitutive theory. Like we do here:

"The criteria for inclusion means a polity must claim statehood, lack recognition from at least one state, and either:

• have de facto control over a territory, a population, a government, a capacity to enter into relations with other states, or
• be recognised as a state by at least one other state." Alinor (talk) 13:23, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

If nobody objects I will add the Constitutive theory "or be recognised as a state by at least one other state." criteria. Alinor (talk) 11:12, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree with this, as long as the reference to the Montevideo Convention is removed aswell. Nightw 12:56, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

See my comments here. Making up our own criteria for inclusion would be OR. I suggest maybe rephrasing the description that goes with the inclusion criteria, rather than changing the inclusion criteria entirely to something arbitrary.--Jiang (talk) 19:32, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Currently the inclusion criteria uses the Declarative theory only. What I propose is that we include both Declarative theory and Constitutive theory - otherwise we make a choice of one over the other. Making a choice is prone to OR/POV in contrast to simply including both. Alinor (talk) 09:00, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Which I also agree with, we cannot pick one over the other. Note; we'll have to include the SMOM then. Outback the koala (talk) 00:46, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Why include SMOM? It doesn't control or claim any territory, doesn't claim statehood, isn't recognized as state by anyone. It claims only sovereignty and is recognized as sovereign (non-state) entity. It matches neither Declarative theory nor Constitutive theory. Alinor (talk) 07:14, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

SMOM is already mentioned in a footnote as not included. Alinor (talk) 07:18, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

We are preferring one over the other because that is the prevailing attitude of the scholarship. I don't see how this is OR/POV. Constitutive theory / state recognition isn't irrelevant - its role is simply limited to confirming the declarative criteria, not supplanting them. Worded carelessly, we would be suggesting that "being recognised as a state by at least one other state" is a criterion of statehood when in fact this is something we made up. We should use the criteria to create the list; we should not create a list based on preconceptions and then seek criteria to fit it.--Jiang (talk) 07:44, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

So, if we continue to use only the Declarative theory, then we can not include recognized GiEs if such appear (such as past examples of WWII governments or Baltics afterwards in the USSR, etc.) and we should remove the State of Palestine (recognized by many countries, but all of its territory under Israel occupation). I don't see why we should use such criteria that exclude an entity recognized as state by numerous other governments. That's why I propose to just use both Declarative and Constitutive theories - so that we include both "state-in-practice, but not yet recognized by anybody" and "not-a-state-in-practice, but recognized as such". Recognition by multiple governments is important and notable, regardless of the lack of "practical implementation of statehood"/"foreign occupation"/etc. - we should somehow mention this in any case. Alinor (talk) 11:10, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to modifying the text in the inclusion description to explain the presence of entities that do not satisfy the Montevideo Convention but are nevertheless recognized as states. That is, there are generally accepted criteria, as well as exceptions in practice to this criteria. This is different from adding a numbered criterion ("e") to the Montevideo criteria (as they are now grouped together as a-d), which could be improperly construed as an actual criteria of statehood.--Jiang (talk) 11:51, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't suggest adding an "e". I suggest using "a..d OR e" (included if satisfies either a..d OR e). If we don't do that we make a choice of Declarative over Constitutive theory. I know you say that the Declarative is the "real" criteria, but how do we back this up? And how can we disregard the positions of these governments that recognize an entity not satisfying the Declarative criteria and recognize it regardless as state? If we don't do that we can't include recognized GiEs (when/if such appear) and we have to remove the State of Palestine. Alinor (talk) 13:38, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Declarative theory is the prevailing view, so we should treat it as such (as opposed to one of two equally accepted views). We can back this sentiment up by referencing treatise-like sources, such as the one I have quoted from in the link above. The reason state recognition does not map to declarative theory as we interpret it is because state recognition is a matter of politics, not law. Governments extend recognition with political motives in mind; just because they did does not mean that on a theoretical level they are favoring constitutive theory over declarative theory. Whatever force that is keeping the recognized government from fulfilling the Montevideo criteria is deemed by the recognizing governments to be illegitimate, not that the Montevideo criteria are not important.

Instead of using "a..d OR e" I would incorporate "e" into the text below the a-d list. I don't think we are disagreeing over which entities to include, but the way to present this material.--Jiang (talk) 18:33, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Alinor that, as written, several states at least arguably don't satisfy the current inclusion criteria. Personally, I'd like to see the wording of the entire section softened, since currently none of the (a)-(d) (or declaration of independence) claims are supported by any sources. And even if they were, it would be WP:SYN to then state that SINCE all 5 points are satisfied it MUST be a sovereign state.

Why not something like:

"The list includes all states which either:

• (a) have been recognized as an sovereign state by at least one other state
• (b) have declared independence and are often regarded as being de facto independent."

This reduces the number of things which need to be verified on the list from 5 per state (points (a)-(d) + declaration of independence) to 1 or 2. And for states which are recognized, sourcing for this point should be easy. We'd only need to dig up sources on the de facto status for a few states.

Of course, we could keep the section describing the Montevideo criteria as an illustration of what others use to decide if a state is de facto independent or not. But it shouldn't be us that decides whether a state satisfies the criteria or not, since this inherently requires OR. TDL (talk) 19:41, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree with TDL arguments above. The only slight difference that I propose is to use wording more close to this:

"The list includes all entities which claim statehood and independence as sovereign state and either:

• (a) have been recognized as an sovereign state by at least one other state
• (b) have such control over permanently populated territory"

Using "de facto" can be accused as POV - because each of the 10others considers itself legitimate and de jure authority - according to their POV it is "de jure", according to the POV of conflicting claimant (and the majority of other states in most cases) it is not "de jure", but only "de facto"...

Anyway, I don't insist on that - we can use TDL wording too. Alinor (talk) 09:57, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

"such control" above means "control as sovereign independent state" - the same as "sovereign control"/"full control"/"ultimate control" and "de facto control" Alinor (talk) 10:02, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

I think we should note the de facto status, being de facto doesnt mean you aren't de jure, and the reason they are considered states is because of their de facto nature. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 12:04, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Agreed with Chipmunk. To claim that a state is de facto independent doesn't imply that it isn't de jure independent. They're completely distinct concept. TDL (talk) 18:40, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

OK, I don't see why we should use "de facto", but I don't object it, so what about:

"The list includes all entities which claim statehood and independence as sovereign state and either:

• (a) have been recognized as an sovereign state by at least one other state
• (b) de facto have such control over permanently populated territory"?

The "such" is important, because otherwise we have to include some insurgent groups and similar (such as FARC) that have "some" degree of control, but not up to "full/ultimate/sovereign". Alinor (talk) 07:51, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't see how the word "de facto" here serves any function, except to imply (incorrectly) that it is not de jure. If you took out the phrase "de facto" in the proposed text, then the meaning would not change at all. The inclusion criteria should not be concerned if whether a state is de facto or de jure, and these terms reek of weasel wording - when does a state become de jure?--Jiang (talk) 22:17, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Nothing about legitimacy is being implied by using "de facto" if it is applied (as an inclusion criteria) to all entries. Get rid of the reference to Montevideo, and just use the raw criteria of the declarative theory, plus recognition as an alternative criteria. There's no issue of verifiability, as it uses both competing theories, which are equally accepted elsewhere. Nightw 11:24, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

But you're wrong. There's a huge problem with WP:V of the raw criteria of the declarative theory directly. The criteria is too vague to determine if it's satisfied or not. How do we WP:V if a state has the "capacity to enter into relations with the other states", when it's far from clear what this even means?

That's why I suggested making the section describing the DTS an illustration of the criteria others use to determine who is a state and who isn't, and then just requiring that they're considered a de facto state by RS. If we verify the criteria point by point it's OR. Better to let others do the OR and we can use them as a RS. TDL (talk) 18:39, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

That's fine and I don't think anyone objects neither TDL (19:41, 23 February 2011) nor mine (09:57, 24 February 2011, 07:51, 25 February 2011) proposed wordings. Jiang objects only the "de facto" word, so why not use the 09:57, 24 February 2011 version? Alinor (talk) 19:02, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't object to your description of the DTS, but I do object to keeping a reference to the Montevideo criteria by name. It wasn't ever ratified into force, and was only ever signed by 19 states, all of them American. What about the criteria used by the EU, or the Swiss government, both of which use the same raw criteria and are in force? It's undue weight on a convention that has never actually been put to use. Nightw 05:55, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The force of the Montevideo Convention does not come from the number of states that ratified it, but its acceptance as the established doctrine over time by jurists and tribunals. see my comments here. We should give it as much weight as it is given in international law. In addition, I think that if we are to come up with our own criteria, we should preface it with "For the purposes of this list..." so as not to imply that our criteria is the criteria.--Jiang (talk) 06:19, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Jiang, Night's only objecting is to specifically mentioning the Montevideo Convention by name, not the theory in general. He's suggesting referring to the "raw" criteria with the more general DTS term. TDL (talk) 06:51, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

So how about replacing the "Criteria for inclusion" section with something like this (some wording has been copied from the linked articles):

There are two classes of definitions of statehood. The constitutive theory of statehood (CTS) defines a state as a person under international law if, and only if, it is recognized as sovereign by other states. In contrast, the declarative theory of statehood (DTS) defines a state as a person under international law if it meets the following criteria: 1) a defined territory; 2) a permanent population; 3) a government and 4) a capacity to enter into relations with other states. For the purposes of this list, all states which have either

• (a) been recognized as an sovereign state by at least one other sovereign state
• (b) declared independence and are often regarded as satisfying the DTS

and thus satisfy one of the theories of statehood have been included. Note that in many cases, whether an entity satisfies the DTS criteria is disputed.

On the basis of the above criteria, this list includes the following 203 entities:

• 200 states recognized by at least one UN member state
• One de facto state only recognized by non-UN members Abkhazia and South Ossetia: Transnistria
• One de facto state only recognized by non-UN member Transnistria: Nagorno-Karabakh
• One de facto state not recognized by any other state: Somaliland

Suggestions for alternative wording for de facto would be welcome. Basically we want to say "DTS compliant". By mentioning de facto AND recognition by non-UN members we can avoid the sticky business of deciding whether recognition by Transnistria, for example, is enough for inclusion. TDL (talk) 06:51, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I was trying very hard to figure out what "DTS" meant! I'm not sure how avoiding the name Montevideo while leaving its criteria in place serves any purpose. Its clearer to leave it in place as it is, in my limited experience, referenced more frequently in international law texts over the term "declarative theory of statehood". I think the text should not portray DTS and CTS as equals - DTS is more generally accepted than CTS.

I think your proposed text is using the word "de facto" because it is hesitant to endorse the view that the entities being mentioned are states. In declarative theory, a state is only a "de facto state" and not a "de jure state" if the state itself doesn't recognize itself as a state (e.g. if Singapore, after getting kicked out of Malaysia, continued to regard itself as part of Malaysia while being forced to act as a state...) A cleaner way to exhibit this hesitancy would be to replace "de facto state" with "polity" which avoids endorsing the view that these disputed entities are states. "Sovereign state" could be shortened to "state."

The proposed text also implies that CTS is satisfied by the recognition of one other state. The theory is not so clear - we don't know how many recognitions are needed for there to be a state.--Jiang (talk) 09:01, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

That's the problem with the CTS in my opinion, however we need to show them equal weight. Outback the koala (talk) 16:20, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

About mentioning Montevideo by name - I agree with both ways (mention or no mention). About "de facto" - I think we should try to avoid it (see below). About the four bullet groups - I propose to merge "recognized by non-UN members" and "recognized by non-UN member" into "recognized by non-UN members" even if only 1 - is it really so important if 1 or 2 non-UN members recognize another non-UN member? And also, you can see here that Nagorno-Karabakh is recognized not only by Transnistria. As a side note - whether we should focus on UN-members or something else is under discussion in the sorting criteria section, but I don't object changing the bullet groups per above proposal - pending further rewording after the sorting criteria issue is resolved. About CTS vs. DTS - I agree that slight re-arranging and re-wording is in order, so that CTS doesn't seem like "endorsed over" DTS. About trimming "sovereign" from "sovereign state" - I don't think it's better trimmed, because then the distinction from U.S. states and other federal entities gets blurred.

So, here is a modification:

There are two classes of definitions of statehood. The declarative theory of statehood (DTS) defines a state as a person under international law if it meets the following criteria: 1) a defined territory; 2) a permanent population; 3) a government and 4) a capacity to enter into relations with other states. In contrast, the constitutive theory of statehood (CTS) defines a state as a person under international law if, and only if, it is recognized as sovereign by other states. For the purposes of this list, all states which have either

• (a) declared independence and are often regarded as having control over permanently populated territory, or
• (b) are recognized as a sovereign state by at least one other sovereign state

and thus satisfy one of the theories of statehood, have been included. Note that, in some cases there is a divergence of opinion in international law over interpretation of these criteria and whether an entity satisfies them is disputed.

On the basis of the above criteria, this list includes the following 203 entities:

• 199 states having control over permanently populated territory and recognized by at least one UN member state
• Two states having control over permanently populated territory and recognized only by at least one non-member of the UN: Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria
• One state having control over permanently populated territory and not recognized by any other state: Somaliland
• One state not having control over permanently populated territory and recognized by at least one UN member state: Palestine

What do you think?Alinor (talk) 10:54, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Can we get rid of those useless acronyms... They don't serve any purpose as the theories aren't named again, and while I use them for convenience, I've never actually seen a reliable source do the same. Nightw 13:45, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Palestine has some control, albeit control allowed by Israel. Slight copyedit on the bullets:

• 199 states having control over a permanently populated territory recognized by at least one UN member state
• Two states having control over a permanently populated territory recognized only by non-UN states: Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria
• One state having control over a permanently populated territory not recognized by any other state: Somaliland
• One state with some control over a permanently populated territory recognized by at least one UN member state: Palestine

Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:04, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I think we should avoid getting into the status of Palestine, since it's impossible to do in a NPOV briefly. It's recognized, so it gets included by (b). No need to determine whether it satisfies (a) as well. How about these bullets:

• 200 states recognized by at least one UN member state
• Two states having control over a permanently populated territory and recognized only by non-UN member states: Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria
• One state having control over a permanently populated territory and not recognized by any other state: Somaliland

To address Jiang's other concern, I'd suggest scratching the "and thus satisfy one of the theories of statehood" so that we don't definitively suggest that these states DO satisfy the criteria. TDL (talk) 17:49, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with TDL to scratch "and thus ..." and with Night w (rarely) - to remove the DTS/CTS acronyms.

State of Palestine. We can't disregard either a/DTS or b/CTS. We mention Somaliland separately, because it is DTS without CTS and we should mention SoP separately as well - it's CTS without DTS. And about control. The State of Palestine (declared in 1988 by the PLO) doesn't have control over any territory because it's currently entirely under Israel occupation - it is not related to the Palestinian National Authority established by the PLO following the Oslo Accords with Israel. The PNA doesn't claim to be a state, it's an interim administration only allowed by Israel to have limited functions and only in some specific parts of the territories it occupies. The goal of the Oslo Accords is to eventually create a Palestinian state, but this depends on further negotiations and is not related to the SoP declared in 1988. The CTS recognitions are of SoP and not of the PNA. Also, the UN observer entity status is for the PLO, not for SoP or the PNA (the current Palestine extent is misleading in that regard - see a proposed revision). If somebody thinks it's needed a footnote explaining this can be added after Palestine on the fourth bullet. But I think the place for such explanations is the extent column and most of it is present there already.

So, here is a modification:

There are two classes of definitions of statehood. The declarative theory of statehood defines a state as a person under international law if it meets the following criteria: 1) a defined territory; 2) a permanent population; 3) a government and 4) a capacity to enter into relations with other states. In contrast, the constitutive theory of statehood defines a state as a person under international law if, and only if, it is recognized as sovereign by other states. For the purposes of this list are included all states which either

• (a) have declared independence and are often regarded as having control over permanently populated territory, or
• (b) are recognized as a sovereign state by at least one other sovereign state.

Note that, in some cases there is a divergence of opinion in international law over interpretation of these criteria and whether an entity satisfies them is disputed.

On the basis of the above criteria, this list includes the following 203 entities:

• 199 states having control over permanently populated territory and at least one recognition by UN member states
• Two states having control over permanently populated territory and at least one recognition, but by non-members of the UN: Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria
• One state having control over permanently populated territory, but no recognition by any other state: Somaliland
• One state not having control over permanently populated territory, but having at least one recognition by UN member states: Palestine

What do you think? Alinor (talk) 13:04, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Ah, no. I agree with Dan. Let's avoid making POV statements about Palestine. Whether it controls territory is clearly something that depends on perspective. This isn't the place for making a point. And if anybody is going to draft anything to do with Palestine on this article, I'd rather it be someone else since you've long since lost any good faith when it comes to that topic as far as I'm concerned. Nightw 15:00, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Night w, do you call the sources I gave above "Alinor POV" or what? And you lost your good faith in me only because of your stubbornness over minor issues (and I don't remember making any POV-inspired Palestine edits), but that's only IMHO of course. Alinor (talk) 08:43, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Agree with TDL. I don't want this to happen ;) :

• 198 states having control over permanently populated territory and at least one recognition by UN member states
• Two states having control over permanently populated territory and at least one recognition, but by non-members of the UN: Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria
• One state having control over permanently populated territory, but no recognition by any other state: Somaliland
• Two states not having control over permanently populated territory, but having at least one recognition by UN member states: Palestine and Somalia Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:04, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Good point! Nightw 15:25, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

True say. Outback the koala (talk) 16:49, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

The Montevideo Convention is endorsed over constitutive theory in international law. To state them to be equally accepted would be to be misleading. This is all about phrasing. Other than that, I think the proposed bullet points are the step in the right direction.--Jiang (talk) 05:31, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Chipmunkdavis bullets. Alinor (talk) 08:43, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I disagree, Jiang. Neither is "more endorsed" under international law, and neither is endorsed at all under ius inter gentes. In legal theory, maybe. But in customary international law, if what you claim were true, states wouldn't practise "recognition" and "non-recognition" as they (quite obviously) do. And, as many scholars argue, the declarative statehood theory is only truly fulfilled when recognition by other states is granted. So I don't see a problem with Dan's draft at all. Nightw 11:46, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

@Jiang: do you have any suggestions on how we could rephrase this to address your concerns?

@Alinor: I don't think Chipmunkdavis was seriously proposing that we use those bullets. He was just demonstrating how controversial the phrase "having control over permanently populated territory" can be. Hence why it's best to avoid making that characterization, except when necessary. The point of the bullets is just to justify that all 203 entries on the list do indeed meet our inclusion criteria, not to get into the details. If a state is recognized, then it gets in by (b), regardless of whether it satisfies (a) as well. If we want to claim that some states satisfy BOTH (a) and (b) it will become a WP:V nightmare. Best to leave the specifics to be explained in depth in the state's entry in the list. TDL (talk) 18:40, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it's so controversial (and have nothing against a SoP+TFG bullet and both can be sourced - if needed), and I proposed it so that both DTS and CTS are equally described in the bullets, so that it doesn't seem like endorsing of CTS over DTS. If others are OK with the other way I won't object. If we are going to the three-bullet variant I think we should use "...territory and at least one recognition, but by non-members of the UN" instead of "territory and recognized only by non-UN member states". Alinor (talk) 07:18, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

So, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems we agree on the text paragraph and a)b) bullets (13:04, 3 March 2011), but we don't yet have a common stance on the 3 or 4 "listing" bullets. I think the 4-bullet option is more fair (takes into account both DTS and CTS) than the 3-bullet option that mentions only CTS for the biggest portion. But do we actually need these bullets? Alinor (talk) 10:30, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Ready?

Are there any objections to the following variant:

There are two classes of definitions of statehood. The declarative theory of statehood defines a state as a person under international law if it meets the following criteria: 1) a defined territory; 2) a permanent population; 3) a government and 4) a capacity to enter into relations with other states. In contrast, the constitutive theory of statehood defines a state as a person under international law if, and only if, it is recognized as sovereign by other states. For the purposes of this list are included all states which either

• (a) have declared independence and are often regarded as having control over permanently populated territory, or
• (b) are recognized as a sovereign state by at least one other sovereign state.

Note that, in some cases there is a divergence of opinion in international law over interpretation of these criteria and whether an entity satisfies them is disputed.

On the basis of the above criteria, as of March 2011 this list includes 203 entities.

? Alinor (talk) 08:15, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I think we need the bullets to justify that everything on the list satisfies our inclusion criteria. There seemed to be a consensus in favour of this, with my bullets above, so I'd suggest we go forward with that. TDL (talk) 21:32, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't see where your "bullets above" are. I see Alinor's and Chipmunkdavis', but not yours. Would you mind reiterating? Thank you. --Taivo (talk) 22:12, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Here's the bullets I was referring to: [3].

It's basically an issue of how detailed we want to get in the bullets. I, and most others above, feel that there is no need to get into the details of whether states satisfy the DTS if they are recognized by a member of the UN. If they are recognized then they get included, and we can save the details of their status for the state's entry in the table. Only for unrecognized states do we need to assert that they satisfy the DTS to justify their inclusion. Alinor advocates for specifically mentioning which state satisfies the DTS, CTS, or both in the bullets with statements such as "One state not having control over permanently populated territory, but having at least one recognition by UN member states: Palestine." I don't see how this can be done briefly while maintaining neutrality. TDL (talk) 00:06, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

TDL, I don't agree that there is some neutrality problem in stating what the source I gave above in the box state (e.g. that the State of Palestine does not control territory). Of course, because of the confusion surrounding all items "Palestine", such statement would seem strange - but I don't think "unexpected information" should be removed from an encyclopedia. If required this can be explained further in a footnote (or the readers can look in the Palestine "information" column and the wikilinked articles).

Also, I don't think we need bullets as justification - justification is done for each individual entity row - in the "information" column. In that way we avoid Wikipedia editors creating artificial groupings such as "CTS by UN member", "CTS by UN non-member only" (so, we imply that these are some second class states), "DTS only" (so, we imply that DTS is inferior to CTS).

Anyway, I agreed with your mainly-CTS bullets, as a compromise (they seem unbalanced to me - they imply some kind of preference of CTS over DTS and we shouldn't do it this way IMHO; in addition there is the issue of UN membership - but this is related to the sorting criteria - as I already said - I agree using it only provisionally) - but I don't know if Jiang agrees. He responded below, so let's see if we can do some mix. If I understand his comment correctly after the end of his quotes the DTS/CTS bullets should be added and then the list-group bullets (TDL version?) should be added. Alinor (talk) 07:54, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

So you're suggesting that we should add the line: "has control over a permanently populated territory and is recognized by at least one UN member state" to 199 entries of our list? I think it's best to motivate inclusion here, so we don't needlessly repeat ourselves.

Verifying with CTS FIRST isn't unbalanced, it's just a matter of simplicity. The criteria gives equal weight to both CTS + DTS, we just choose to verify it using the easiest option first. The point is that our DTS criteria simply can't be verified for many states. How many states have actually made a formal declaration of independence? If we can't verify this, then we shouldn't claim we do. TDL (talk) 07:51, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

You are correct. But in this case, why not going without the 3/4 bullets and then at each row, after "UN member" we will add a reference showing that at least 1 state recognizes it? The 10others already have explanations both about CTS and DTS properties. The problem with the 3/4 bullets is that it's not obvious that these are "simply the easier to check", but imply endorsement of CTS over DTS. Anyway, we can discuss the fate of the 3/4 bullets later. Alinor (talk) 09:17, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, we could add a comment (or footnote) to the text explaining why we verify with CTS first if that helps address your concerns. TDL (talk) 17:42, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that would be nice, if it makes clear that "verify with CTS first" is not because of 'importance', but because it's easier and there are more sources. Anyway, as I said already - I don't object implementing it even without this explanation - and discussing this later. Alinor (talk) 07:24, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

OK, sounds good. I don't see any objections to this, so I suggest we implement it. TDL (talk) 20:52, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

To address my concerns above, I would reword it: "The dominant customary international law standard of statehood is found in the 1933 Montevideo Convention, which declared that "The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states." Debate exists on the degree to which recognition should be included as a criterion of statehood. The declarative theory of statehood, as outlined by the Montevideo Convention, argues that statehood is purely objective and recognition of a state by other states is irrelevant. On the other end of the spectrum, the constitutive theory of statehood defines a state as a person under international law only if it is recognized as sovereign by other states. For the purposes of this list are included all states which either"--Jiang (talk) 01:10, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm OK with this wording. Any objections? TDL (talk) 07:51, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree - see 07:54, 14 March 2011 comment. Alinor (talk) 09:17, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Final draft

So integrating all of the discussion above, how about this:

The dominant customary international law standard of statehood is found in the 1933 Montevideo Convention, which declared that "The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states." Debate exists on the degree to which recognition should be included as a criterion of statehood. The declarative theory of statehood, as outlined by the Montevideo Convention, argues that statehood is purely objective and recognition of a state by other states is irrelevant. On the other end of the spectrum, the constitutive theory of statehood defines a state as a person under international law only if it is recognized as sovereign by other states. For the purposes of this list are included all states which either:

• (a) have declared independence and are often regarded as having control over a permanently populated territory, or
• (b) are recognized as a sovereign state by at least one other sovereign state

Note that in some cases there is a divergence of opinion over the interpretation of the first point, and whether an entity satisfies it is disputed.

On the basis of the above criteria, this list includes the following 203 entities:

• 200 states recognized by at least one UN member state
• Two states which control a permanently populated territory and are recognized only by non-UN member states: Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Transnistria
• One state which controls a permanently populated territory and is not recognized by any other state: Somaliland

References

Any last objections? TDL (talk) 04:29, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I think that the footnote should be at the end of the "On the basis of the above criteria, this list includes the following 203 entities" line and explain something along the lines of "bullet groups below are arranged according to the readily available sources for each of the two criteria (a) and/or (b). This arrangement is not related to the relative importance of each of the two criteria". I can provide sources for at least 1 recognition for each of the 200 bullet1/2 states (in total only ~15 references - because a few of these 15 cover the bulk of the states) - if needed. Alinor (talk) 08:08, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Fine with me. TDL (talk) 17:44, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't mean to be difficult, but I still don't agree with naming the Montevideo Convention, a purely American convention that was never ratified. What makes it more relevant here than, say, the criteria set forth by the Batinder Committee, or the Swiss government's criteria, that are derived from the same theory but are actual government policy. The declarative theory certainly wasn't "outlined by the Montevideo Convention", it's the other way around. Montevideo was an attempt to codify the declarative theory. And while Montevideo did claim that statehood is indenpendent of recognition, the declarative theory doesn't touch upon the subject. The proposed wording mixes those up in that instance also. Nightw 05:08, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

So, what about "The dominant customary international law standard of statehood is the declarative theory of statehood that defines a state as a person under international law if it meets the following criteria: 1) ..."? Alinor (talk) 07:25, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

That's fine. I wouldn't object to a mention of the convention (along with other criterias) to show the theory's general prominence and use in international law, but outright use of the convention as criteria is not appropriate. Use the theory instead. Nightw 07:36, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

What about:

The dominant customary international law standard of statehood is the declarative theory of statehood that defines the state as a person of international law if it possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states." Debate exists on the degree to which recognition should be included as a criterion of statehood. The declarative theory of statehood, also outlined by the Montevideo Convention, argues that statehood is purely objective and recognition of a state by other states is irrelevant. On the other end of the spectrum, the constitutive theory of statehood defines a state as a person under international law only if it is recognized as sovereign by other states. For the purposes of this list are included all states which either:

• (a) have declared independence and are often regarded as having control over a permanently populated territory, or
• (b) are recognized as a sovereign state by at least one other sovereign state

Note that in some cases there is a divergence of opinion over the interpretation of the first point, and whether an entity satisfies it is disputed.

On the basis of the above criteria, this list includes the following 203 entities:[note 32 - remains unchanged, per status quo)]

• 200 states recognized by at least one UN member state
• Two states which control a permanently populated territory and are recognized only by non-UN member states: Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Transnistria
• One state which controls a permanently populated territory and is not recognized by any other state: Somaliland

Notes

? Alinor (talk) 12:03, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. The only suggestions I'd make is to change "also outlined by the Montevideo Convention" to "an example of which can be found in the Montevideo Convention" or something along those lines. Also, maybe reword the note to: "The following bullets are grouped according to the availability of sources for the two criteria ((a) and/or (b)). This arrangement is not intended to reflect the relative importance of the two theories. Additional details are discussed in the state's individual entries." These are just a stylistic issue though. TDL (talk) 16:33, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

This is fine. Nightw 05:43, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

OK. Alinor (talk) 07:35, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

I've added this to the page. TDL (talk) 22:57, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Bahrain & Iran

I read in a book (made in 2008) that Iran claims Bahrain as part of its territory. Is this true, false, or no longer the case? 97.96.65.123 (talk) 20:33, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Never heard that, what book was it? Outback the koala (talk) 02:56, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, it was a gallery of flags, but I've never heard that claim outside of that book either, so I was just wondering. 97.96.65.123 (talk) 13:53, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, It must have been a misprint of some kind. I don't believe that was ever the case. Outback the koala (talk) 17:44, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

The details of this are discussed here. Iran has claimed Bahrain at various points in the past, but it appears that these claims have since been renounced. TDL (talk) 06:59, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

"supranational union" versus European Union

Very simple. The reader should not be bombarded with technical terms that have no real usefulness. There is only one supranational union and there are no real prospects for any other supranational union in the near future. We should simply tell the reader that we judge membership in the European Union rather than inserting a vague term in the middle. --Taivo (talk) 12:35, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

From above: Taivo, you reverted the supranational union to European Union with the explanation "...there is only one supranational union extant, why not simply tell the reader?" - the answer is - because the footnote needs to show why it's mentioned, otherwise it looks like an arbitrary picked organization with no good reason to be mentioned. We don't just mention the EU, because we like it. We mention the EU, because it's a supranational union. Alinor (talk) 13:16, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

You have a very restricted definition of supranational union. I have yet to see a source that states the EU is the only one. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 13:45, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

The working definition that we have used here is a group of states that have ceded partial sovereignty to an umbrella organization. The European Union is the only organization that has done that--common currency, joint parliament with rights to regulate trade and commerce, etc. There are no others in that situation. If we need to spell out why the European Union is listed, then a link to supranational union really doesn't cut it because the casual reader isn't going to wade through that article. Rather, if we need to state why we use the EU (if it isn't clear to most of our readers already), then a brief statement like, "the EU is unique because member states have ceded partial sovereignty to it" is better than a link, IMHO. --Taivo (talk) 14:37, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Link to the most precise article. In this case, that's European Union. On another note, Alinor, I've reverted your addition of another note. You failed to get consensus for it in the last thread, and as far as I'm concerned, nothing's changed. Nightw 14:46, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Taivo, if we include a more descriptive note it will be OK - or if we just include a link to supranational union and list these unions (currently only the EU) afterwards.

Night w, there is no "more precise article" - there is "unclear reasons to mention an arbitrary organization" and there is "explanation why particular organization(s) are mentioned". About the other note - you didn't replied in the last thread to 20:29, 21 February 2011 and 11:51, 28 February 2011 comments. Alinor (talk) 05:35, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I think a link to supranational union is helpful, but agree with Taivo that there should be some explanation locally so the reader doesn't have to wade through the article to determine why the EU is special. How about:

• "membership in the European Union, the only supranational union with significant sovereignty transferred to it by its member states, where applicable" TDL (talk) 18:50, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like a good version except I would change "significant" to "partial". Different members have different levels of their sovereignty transferred and "significant" sounds like a measurement that could be debated. "Partial" doesn't make a statement about how much any particular state has transferred. --Taivo (talk) 20:25, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

That sounds okay, with Taivo's redaction. Would require a source though. Nightw 20:47, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I would prefer that we first mention the general term (supranational union) and afterwards the specific examples (EU, maybe even in brackets). About source - for the EU see [4]. If we find sources for other supranational unions (existing, not envisioned) with similar sovereignty transfer we will add them. Alinor (talk) 07:31, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

No, Alinor. I disagree with your proposed order. One should always write from the known to the unknown in a footnote or other explanatory comment. EU should precede the term until such time as there is more than one supranational union, then it can be reworded. But for now our readers know the EU, but not what a supranational union is. Tell them what they know and add a link to what they don't know. --Taivo (talk) 12:51, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't think this is the encyclopedic way of presenting information, but anyway - let's do it in the way you suggest. What about:

• "membership in the European Union where significant sovereignty transferred to it by its member states amounted to the formation of the only supranational union so far, where applicable"? Alinor (talk) 21:15, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

No Alinor. I'm still waiting for that secondary source stating the EU is the only supranational union. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 01:34, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

I found one link above [5] (showing that EU is such) and also from the article itself we have [6] (that it's the only so far). Do you think that there are others (the most advanced in regional integration in practice are CARICOM and MERCOSUR, but even these two are operating almost exclusively by intergovernmentalism. AU and UNASUR also have ambitious long term goals, but are not too far with implementation - UNASUR founding treaty even hasn't entered into force yet - and it will need many further "deepening" agreements in order to achieve these goals)? Alinor (talk) 06:49, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Any other objections for the variant from the 21:15, 5 March 2011 comment? Alinor (talk) 08:03, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

You worded it wrong based on the previous discussion. It should be "membership in the European Union where partial sovereignty has been transferred to form a supranational union, where applicable". That is simple and straightforward without over elaboration. --Taivo (talk) 13:23, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

The issue is that we should underline that it gets listed because it reached the stage of supranational union (e.g. significant sovereignty transfer), and also it should point out that we list all supranational unions and don't just arbitrary pick some of them. That's why, if EU is to remain mentioned by name it should be added that it's the only one so far. Alinor (talk) 06:27, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

As discussed above (please actually read the discussion if you missed it) and agreed to by others, "significant" is a measurement that is subject to disagreement and "partial" is more neutral. Since different members of EU have surrendered different amounts of sovereignty, then "significant" is meaningless in any objective way. The phrasing can be modified to "...transferred to form the only supranational union,..." That should be quite sufficient for our purposes here. --Taivo (talk) 06:52, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

The word "partial" doesn't address the issue we're trying to solve, namely why do we only include the EU. I used to the word "significant" to set a lower bound on how much authority the organization must have, to rule out supranational unions which have had only very minimal sovereignty transfered to them. The word partial means less then complete, so thus ANY transfer of sovereignty, no matter how minimal, would qualify the union. There are other examples where very limited transfers of sovereignty have occurred. What makes the EU special is that it's the only organization which has had a significant (ie non-minimal) amount of authority delegated to them. If we use the word "partial" we're going to have to mention every single organization which has even the slightest bit of sovereignty transfered to it. I'd be open to other choices of words, but we need to make it clear why we are excluding things that have only minimal authority. TDL (talk) 21:30, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree that we want to exclude minimal sovereignty transfers (such as NAFTA, for example), but since the EU members have transferred differing levels, "significant" seems rather debatable and subject to defining some arbitrary exact measurements in order to determine "significant" versus "not-quite-so-significant". I am very open to other lexical options. --Taivo (talk) 22:16, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I understand your point, but I think that any choice of wording is going to suffer from this issue since we're trying to define an inherently vague idea. The details of what constitutes "significant" could be elaborated on in the supranational union page. Other possible words off the top of my head: meaningful, considerable, substantial? Not sure that any of these are any better, just throwing some ideas out there. TDL (talk) 23:49, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I mostly agree with TDL on this. The few differences between EU members (e.g. opt-outs and others) are no reason not to use the adjectives TDL proposed (including "significant"). The significant part of sovereignty transfer applies to all EU members - supremacy of EU law over national law (including direct entry into force of EU regulations - without the need for member state parliaments to take any steps - unlike EU directives that are subsequently "transposed" into national laws), direct election to European Parliament, supranational executive and legislative powers of the European Commission and European Parliament, supranational trade policy, etc. The most "widely known" of the "not all EU members are the same" issues is adoption of the Euro currency. But this does not diminish the significance of all the rest.

Also, we already have sources (see 06:49, 6 March 2011 comment) showing that the EU is the only supranational union - and that's why we don't mention any other organizations. NAFTA is not a supranational union. The African Union is not supranational union. Etc. There are many regional integration organizations and intergovernmental organizations - but none of them has achieved the integration and significant sovereignty transfer reached by the first and only so far supranational union. Of course some of them aim to do this in the future - and when they become supranational unions we will mention them.

My point is - in the above discussion I see comments like "how to distinguish the EU from the other supranational unions?" - but IMHO these should actually read "how to distinguish the EU from the other international organizations? - by its nature of a supranational union contrasted with the other international organizations, that work trough intergovernmentalism." Alinor (talk) 07:33, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Whether or not the EU has achieved the status of supranational union is up for debate: [7]. I don't think we should definitively claim that is has. TDL (talk) 07:14, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Do we need to mention the term "Supranational Union"? Can't we just say the EU is noted because of the sovereignty transfer? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 08:37, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

TDL, the link you gave contradicts the other links and IMHO is incorrect - besides purely cosmetic issues the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe was re-adopted as the Treaty of Lisbon (the authors there seem to focus on the word "constitution" and somehow disregard that Lisbon substance is the same. Also, not that the so-called EU Constitution was a "Constitution for Europe" and not a "Constitution of the European Union"). In addition the claim in the link that the EU is not yet a supranational union, because member states have not yet renounced national sovereignty in favor of a federal state is bogus - a supranational union is not a federal state. The main characteristic of a supranational union is that unlike federal state it doesn't include full sovereignty merge, but only partial. Federal states exist since very long time. The innovation in supranational unions is that they allow for substantial cooperation without the abolishment of the national states that get membership. Alinor (talk) 09:36, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Chipmunkdavis, yes, we can, but then comes the question of "how much sovereignty transfer is enough to warrant mentioning?" Alinor (talk) 09:36, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Alinor, no one said that NAFTA was a supranational union, only that we want to distinguish the EU, which is a supranational union, from other international agreements which have involved a minimal amount of sovereignty transfer. Indeed, it could be argued that any international agreement involves some sovereignty transfer if we define sovereignty as "the ability of a state to do whatever it wants without approval". So back to the lexical choice. What are some qualifying terms used in sources--"significant", "meaningful", etc.? --Taivo (talk) 11:19, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm fine with "significant" or "substantial". But the wording should show that all of these significant-sovereignty-transfer-organizations/supranational unions are mentioned - otherwise it seems that we picked the EU arbitrarily. Alinor (talk) 13:17, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Alinor, there is only one--the EU. --Taivo (talk) 13:45, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and this needs to be made clear in the footnote - 'the information column includes information on membership in supranational unions/significant-sovereignty-transfer-organizations, currently only the EU'.Otherwise it would seem as if we made an arbitrary choice and picked EU among multiple such organizations. Alinor (talk) 07:12, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Any there still objections for the variant from the 21:15, 5 March 2011 comment? Alinor (talk) 07:45, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Taivo's. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 07:50, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Just because we stopped arguing with you in circles, Alinor, doesn't mean that you have built a consensus. --Taivo (talk) 10:30, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

OK, but what is Taivo's objection? His last comment was "there is only one--the EU" and I don't propose that we write something else. The problem with the current version of the note is that it doesn't explain why we mention only the EU and not other organizations. I said that right below Taivo comment and got no answer, that's why I asked whether there are still objections.

So, how will we correct this problem? Alinor (talk) 07:16, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

"membership in the European Union where partial sovereignty has been transferred to form a supranational union, where applicable" Chipmunkdavis (talk) 07:34, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this is better than the current version, but there were objections raised against "partial" in contrast to "significant". Also, is it clear from this version that we list all supranational unions and that we haven't just arbitrary picked the EU among many others? And what's wrong with the 07:45, 22 March 2011 comment version? Alinor (talk) 11:20, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I see no objection to changing to significant. The objection to your version is "the only supranational union", a fact far from being proved by sources here. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 11:35, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Please see my comment 06:49, 6 March 2011 for sources about that. The problem is the following - if the consensus/sources were showing that there are other supranational unions, then we should mention them too. We can't mention only the EU if there are others - this is arbitrary picking by Wikipedians personal preferences - OR, POV or whatever you like to call it, but in any case inappropriate. So, far I don't see such sources/consensus, but this should be made clear - because the status quo note seems like 'arbitrary picking' by the article editors. Alinor (talk) 08:20, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

And I (and I assume others) remain unconvinced by this argument, and by the sources you have mentioned. Anyway, this would be my favourite choice, dropping all mentions of the supranational.

"membership in the European Union where significant sovereignty has been transferred to the union, where applicable" Chipmunkdavis (talk) 08:26, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

But this doesn't address the problem with arbitrary picking. Because 'significant sovereignty transferred' is vague - it can't replace a whole article describing the concept of supranational union - that's why IMHO it should be linked.

This note should answer the question why we mention only the EU and no others. I haven't seen any other answer so far besides - Because the EU is the only international organization that has reached the stage of supranational union. There are a few other international organizations with few supranational elements, but they operate predominantly by intergovernmental procedures. The EU is the only one who has 'significant' supranational institutions and procedures and sovereignty transferred to the these institutions - so 'significant' that they amounted to formation of a supranational union. The first and so far the only one. Others have announced similar goals, but haven't reached these goals yet.

If something in that answer is incorrect and there is another organization similarly advanced in integration and supranationalism - then we should mention it too. But we can't mention only the EU without a reasonable explanation why we mention only it. Alinor (talk) 07:44, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Snooze. Nightw 08:05, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

So? Are there objections to the variant from the 21:15, 5 March 2011 comment or another proposal for solving the problem? Alinor (talk) 12:33, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 12:36, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

How many times do we have to say "yes, there are objections", Alinor? I'm happy with the text as it currently stands and you'll need a consensus to change it. --Taivo (talk) 15:59, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

I asked again because of the comment by Night w. Anyway - those that are happy with the current text - could you please answer why only the EU is mentioned? How and why was it selected? Why is it notable in the context of this list? Because the current text doesn't offer any explanation. Alinor (talk) 06:50, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

The reason is stated in the footnote that was recently updated. I think I'm repeating someone else's comment... Should I write it in caps? Nightw 09:53, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

The text I see in the article is "membership in the European Union, where applicable," - I don't see any explanation here, just a statement "EU is mentioned". And it doesn't answer the questions above. I don't object mentioning only the EU, on the contrary - I support this decision, but I think that we should have a valid reason to do it and the readers should be informed of it. Alinor (talk) 07:28, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

It is explained in footnote number 7 quite sufficiently. It does not need to be explained in the bulleted list as well. --Taivo (talk) 13:46, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

OK, we can add the explanation to the EU footnote. Currently it says: "The member states of the European Union have transferred part of their sovereignty in the form of legislative, executive, and judicial powers to the institutions of the EU, which is an example of supranationalism." - so, this answers the question "Why is it notable in the context of this list?" and doesn't say anything about "currently the only", "significant transfer" or simply "supranational union".

So what about - "why only the EU is mentioned? How and why was it selected?" - what about other international organizations with supranational aspects, what about other trade blocs? Alinor (talk) 05:48, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

No other trade bloc has given sovereignty to the bloc. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 06:12, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't be so sure about CARICOM or some of the others such as UEMOA, EAC, MERCOSUR, etc.; NAFTA also has some rudimentary elements regarding dispute settlement. Anyway, I don't say (and haven't seen sources that say so) that any of these is so advanced at integration and supranationalism as the EU.

The problem is that this isn't mentioned in neither of the footnotes, thus the two questions remain unanswered. Even if we don't put the answers in the article, we need to agree on these answers here - and later point to this discussion if somebody asks these questions (as has happened previously with questions such as "Why mention the EU, but not the AU?" and similar). Alinor (talk) 08:59, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

"The problem is that" ... This is becoming your catch phrase. Nobody else sees a problem with the current version. When does WP:STICK start to sink in with you? Nightw 11:34, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

If and when another intergovernmental organisation gains the power to legislate for its members, then I reckon it's got a case for inclusion. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 11:54, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Agree with both Night W and Chipmunkdavis. No one else has a problem with this, Alinor, and you are not building a consensus for anything different. --Taivo (talk) 12:12, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

As I said - if we don't answer these two questions ("why only the EU is mentioned? How and why was it selected?") in the article, then we should agree on the answers here (and refer to this discussion in the future). Unless we have these answers it is "arbitrary picking". Alinor (talk) 11:25, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Here it comes... Nightw 07:28, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Wales and Scotland

It appears that Wales and Scotland are not countries. Yet on every map I have seen Scotland and Whales are countries. Jaws999 (talk) 05:46, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Whales? Where?! Nightw 05:48, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Tell me more about the Whales! Outback the koala (talk) 06:25, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

In all serious though, as far as I can see, the list does refer to them as "countries": "consisting of four countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales". And please note that this is not a list of "countries", so they don't get their own entries. Nightw 06:45, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

What map labels countries? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 16:21, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Libya

Shall we add the Libyan Republic to the listing under Libya? The National Transitional Council is now recognised by the UK, Portugal and France, as well as the GCC and the Arab League. It's also displaced the Tripoli government to maintain dialogue with the EU, and the ambassador and the deputy ambassadors to the UN have also defected. Peter Geatings (talk) 13:11, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

No. This is not an established situation and is still fluid. There is no need for Wikipedia to react to a rapidly changing situation on the ground until some sort of ceasefire or other stable situation has evolved. --Taivo (talk) 13:48, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Taivo. Alinor (talk) 07:13, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd expect to see the Libyan Republic being mentioned on the rightmost column. I don't think it's correct or neutral to endorse the Arab Jamahiriya, or to endorse the status quo ante bellum. Peter Geatings (talk) 16:51, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't object mentioning it in the "information" column on the Libya entry. Yesterday there was news that the transitional council declared an 'interim government', so this is an additional point for mentioning it. Alinor (talk) 08:07, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Should we mention all civil wars then? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 08:18, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

There aren't so many ongoing civil wars, but the problem is that we may get into arguments about which of them are 'real' civil wars and which are insurgency conflicts of 'small' scale. I think the issue of whether/how we mention civil wars should be debated separately. My position above is that since so many editors want to somehow mention the situation in Libya the most appropriate way, at the present point, would be to use the Libya Jamahiriya entry "information" column - because the other option is to open a second entry for Libya Republic. I suggest that we refrain from adding entries until the situation settles (into Republic win, Jamahiriya win, or split/stalemate). Alinor (talk) 07:55, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

If we are going to mention these, then we need to somehow distinguish between FARC-like situation ("rebels/insurgents/freedom fighters/etc." controlling some villages/cities/etc. where "central government" troops/police/administration can't go/operate/function normally over "long periods of time") and Mexico-drug-cartels-like situation (where some village/city/etc. is temporary "overrun" by "rebels/drug-gangs/simply-criminals/etc.", the police station is burned/the mayor is executed/etc. - but "soon" the "central government" dispatches more units that manage to "restore order"). Alinor (talk) 08:56, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Are any of those recognised by foreign governments as legitimate governments of sovereign states? Peter Geatings (talk) 12:58, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

If we add this note to Libya, then the same info should be added inmediately to all similar cases where there are more than one competing governments! Now, only self-declared independent and self-declared autonomous entities are mentioned in the notes section. So if we change the info on Libya, plz change as well in the case of Somalia and Ivory Coast (now I dont remember other cases), there are also two competing governments. Maybe even other cases should be mentioned, where part of the countrys territory is out of the control of the internationally recognized government: Afghanistan, Colombia, now dont remember other cases. --maxval (talk) 19:06, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I guess the only comparable case is Ivory Coast. But the president-elect there isn't claiming another full name for the country. They're disputing ownership over the presidency. That isn't yet clearly a rival government as in the case of Libya as at the time being. Peter Geatings (talk) 17:13, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

"Are any of those recognised by foreign governments as legitimate governments of sovereign states?" - This is not an issue. There are already mentioned states with limited recognition that lack recognition by any foreign government! --maxval (talk) 19:15, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Under the definition of statehood, without clearly established and stable borders there cannot be a separate state arising out of an unresolved civil war, as is the case for China and Korea. The transfer of recognition to the Libyan Republic does not create a de facto separate state (hence need for a separate entry on this list), but rather lends legitimacy to one of two governments claiming the same territory. A separate entry should be added only after there appears to be a stalemate with a static border.--Jiang (talk) 17:24, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

...or, you know, a source. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 17:31, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

....which doesnt seem to be what we're using when we include items on this list.--Jiang (talk) 18:38, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Here are the sources about each of these 203 states - showing either that it is recognized or that they have control over permanently populated territory: If needed these could be added - either to the "criteria for inclusion" section (the three bullets - there is already a footnote about "available sources") or to each one of the states. Alinor (talk) 11:32, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

So, should we add these to the bullets or not? Alinor (talk) 11:03, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Limited addition proposal - to add a sorting criteria to status quo section bullets

All editors are welcome to comment on this and other proposals at Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2011-01-25/List of sovereign states. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 11:30, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Please see below the proposed redaction of the section1 description bullet and other slight rewordings in the nearby sentences that come along with it:

This is a list of sovereign states, giving an overview of states around the world with information on the status and recognition of their sovereignty.

Compiling a list such as this can be a difficult and controversial process, as there is no definition that is binding on all the members of the community of nations concerning the criteria for statehood. The list is compiled according to the criteria for inclusion and as of 2011 contains 203 entries divided into two parts, each of them arranged alphabetically:

1. The "internationally-recognized sovereign states" section lists 193 states, which are considered by the UNSG to be "recognized as States by the international community" and at the same time have successfully joined an international treaty as a "State".
2. The "other states" section lists 10 states which satisfy the criteria for inclusion, but are not widely recognised diplomatically as an independent sovereign state.

References

This addition will not result in any changes/moves/additions of states in the list or their arrangement between the two sections. The status quo will be retained - we will just add a sourced sorting criteria instead of the current blanket statement in section1 bullet description. Please join the discussion at Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2011-01-25/List of sovereign states. Substantial and unrelated to this 'limited addition proposal' overhauls of the article are also discussed there - these can be implemented separately later, pending reaching consensus on some issues and details about these bigger changes. Alinor (talk) 20:15, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Isn't this part of the mediation? Or are we having multiple discussions? Nightw 20:38, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

This is totally inappropriate here. Alinor is trying to circumvent the mediation discussion. --Taivo (talk) 22:18, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Can we collapse it then? Nightw 05:35, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

No, you can't collapse it. And it's no "try to circumvent". As you see above this is an invitation for editors to join the discussion. Just like we did previously. It's not supposed to be discussed here - but at the link provided. Alinor (talk) 06:28, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it can be collapsed, there is nothing to discuss here. --Taivo (talk) 07:28, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

It's not up to you to decide. This is an announcement of one proposal to notify editors who want to express their opinion to join the discussion at the MEDCAB page. You know, there are others beside the dozen of us "involved" at MEDCAB. Alinor (talk) 12:11, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

If you want to invite people to join the medcab discussion, then invite them to join the discussion. Don't present your proposals here for discussion. There are other proposals being discussed at Medcab as well and yours is not the only one. Yours isn't even a final one or one that has gained any level of consensus. --Taivo (talk) 12:46, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Don't edit my comments. I invite people to say what they think about a proposal and don't need you to interfere in my comment. Alinor (talk) 10:54, 14 April 2011 (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.

Ukraine

Why in section of Ukraine indicated 2 languages ?--Artemis Dread (talk) 16:39, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

The languages used in the list are the "official, national, and other important languages" of the state in question. Russian is the native language of something like a quarter of the population of Ukraine, which qualifies it as an important language for the purposes of this list. Orange Tuesday (talk) 17:29, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Across the CIS, Russian is an extremely important secondary language for many and a primary language for a good number. This is true in the Ukraine because 29.6% of pop speaks Russian as a first language. See Languages of Ukraine. Outback the koala (talk) 06:48, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Russian is an official language of some of the regions of Ukraine: Crimea, Zaporizhia Oblast, Odessa Oblast, Donetsk Oblast, and Sevastopol. Hellerick (talk) 16:17, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Recently (last year?) there were some changes in the language laws in Ukraine - maybe somebody can find sources showing what is the status of Russian on national level. Alinor (talk) 07:38, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

All overseas collectivities of France are part of the Republic

http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=51708 Ladril (talk) 00:52, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah. Same goes for the dependent territories of the Netherlands, Denmark, and Australia. The integral vs. non-integral distinction doesn't really appear to have any basis in fact, our list of dependencies doesn't appear to conform to anyone else's list of dependencies, and we probably need a new verifiable set of criteria. That being said this discussion should probably go on the dependent territory page. We can just copy whatever they do over there. Orange Tuesday (talk) 04:38, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

I will say though I still think the easiest way is just to gather some verifiable lists (like the ISO 3166 or something the UN puts out) and say that everything that gets a distinct entry in one of those should qualify for a bullet point. Orange Tuesday (talk) 04:45, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about Australia. If I remember, there's debate about whether the territories are integral or not. A legalistic pointless one, I'm sure. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 08:46, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough. But there's no question about Denmark, France, or the Netherlands. Orange Tuesday (talk) 13:05, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

There are already enough problems with the sorting and inclusion criteria to spend much energy on this at the moment, but reconsidering the positions of other participants I wonder if it would not be a good idea to retain the names of the territories (even Greenland), due to their strong identities.

What I see in most need of attention for the moment, however, is the excess of flags. As far as I know, only the French Polynesia and New Caledonia flags are recognized as "official". The rest of collectivities should not have flags on the page. Ladril (talk) 15:41, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

uh well those are the only flags on the page right now. Although it was my understanding that TAAF's flag has been official from 2007 on. And while the flags of Wallis and Futuna and Saint Pierre and Miquelon aren't official, they are used in reliable sources to represent the territories (CIA World Factbook for example), so I think you could make a case to include them under WP:V.

In general, I don't think removing territory names is the answer here at all. A list which doesn't mention Greenland or the French overseas territories would not be very useful at all. Clearly our integral vs. non-integral distinction is out of step with reality, and we need some reliable source to do the distinguishing for us. Orange Tuesday (talk) 16:02, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

There are 8 countries that are considered as having “non-integral” territories: Australia, Denmark, France, Netherlands, New Zeland, Norway, UK, USA. In the cases of Denmark, Netherlands and France there are NO non-integral territories, all of them are “integral” from legal point of view. In the cases of the the UK, the USA, Norway and New Zealand there is a legal distinction between integral and non-integral territories. In the case of Australia even the Australian government doesn’t know what is the legal status of their territories… :-) --maxval (talk) 16:29, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

An interesting criteria may be applied in the case of member countries of the EU that have no legally defined non-integral territories: Denmark, France, Netherlands. In the case of Denmark, neither Greenland, nor the Faroes are part of the territory of the EU. This means that these territories are not integral! In the case of France, 4 of the 5 overseas counties (all except Mayotte) are part of the territory of the EU, while of the remaing territories only St Barthelemy and St Martin are part of the EU, all other territories are NOT part of the territory of the EU. In the case of Netherlands, territories outside of Europe are not part of the EU, even the Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba are not part of the EU, no matter they are legally part not only of the “Kingdom of Netherlands”, but also of “Netherlands” in a narrow sense. --maxval (talk) 16:39, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Greenland is definitely integral to Denmark, it just has the right to not be a part of the EU. The Åland Islands (an integral part of Finland) had this same right but they chose not to exercise it in the 1995 referendum. Orange Tuesday (talk) 17:57, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Rather than having to go through each country and make our own determinations of "integral" or "non-integral" status for each unattached geographical unit, why not use a single reliable source and list every unattached unit with a population to its owner? The function of the CIA World Factbook, for example, is to list every geographical unit and under the government section list who owns it (if it's not independent). Every dependent territory's relationship with its owner is different, even when owned by the same country as its neighbor, and we're dealing with where to divide shades of gray. Why not just list the separate inhabited units identified in something like the CIA's World Factbook and leave it at that? (But it's critical that only one source be used and not try to blend multiple sources.) This is the opposite of what I would argue for the inclusion criteria for sovereign states, but so be it. --Taivo (talk) 18:27, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

I'd accept the Factbook. It's got a convenient list of dependent territories right here: [8]. I do like ISO 3166 though just because it's so neutral and widely used. The UN Statistics Division would be another option: [9] Orange Tuesday (talk) 18:38, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

I would not use a single reliable source because such "reliable sources" are often laden by errors (way more often than you expect). Our purpose here is not to make our lives easy, it is to provide accurate information. Besides, I don't think the task is so Herculean; an official or authoritative source for each state should do. However, the reference should be the dependent territory page, which - among other mistakes - lists Cook Islands and Niue as dependencies of New Zealand. This is why I've been reluctant to work on that page. We have to wait until Alinor gives us permission to advance the mediation to the CK and Niue part. Ladril (talk) 19:08, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

What specific errors are there in the Factbook or the ISO 3166 lists? Orange Tuesday (talk) 19:14, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

The ISO is not of much help because it does not, to my knowledge, describe the political status of the territories. I still have to spot a major gripe with the CIA Factbook, but it shouldn't take precedence over sources closer to the country in question or over more specialized sources. Ladril (talk) 22:49, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Correction: I'm spotting one right now (following your link): Aruba is not a dependency. Ladril (talk) 22:51, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Which link? The CIA? It describes it as a "constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands", which is correct. Orange Tuesday (talk) 23:06, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Also, we don't need any information on the political status on any territory. We already have all that info. What we need is a source for which territories should be included and which should not. I'm proposing we make the ISO that list. If a territory has an entry on that list, it gets a bullet point. If it isn't, it doesn't. I'm open to other proposals but obviously the status quo can't be verified. Orange Tuesday (talk) 23:10, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I was talking about the CIA. I get the point of the proposal, but my point is that if we use that basis for classification it would be a list of "dependent and special territories", since it includes Aruba and Hong Kong. It's also leaving out entries which probably (again: probably) deserve mention, such as Easter Island. But this is opening the door to a lot of debates and, since some people think mentioning Kosovo as a member of the UN system is POV, my perception is we may not have the appropriate climate for it at this moment. To make myself more clear, I wouldn't object if the dependent territory page was changed to "dependent and special territories" or some such, because this is what it is at this moment. But this requires a stronger definition of what a special territory is and as such would be a tough task. Ladril (talk) 00:33, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

The problem is we don't even have a workable definition of "dependent territory" right now. I mean, is that integral area thing even based on anything or did someone just make it up at some point? The definition on the main dependent territory article has had a citation needed notice on it for a very long time. Orange Tuesday (talk) 00:59, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

There are several reasons why it's important to split hairs thin when defining whether a territory is "dependent" or not. In many of those from your CIA list a process of decolonization has taken place, meaning they are not really subordinated to the previous colonizing country, though they retain some sort of association to it (Aruba is an example). Others are not dependent territories but territories under a special administering status (such as Hong Kong). The word "dependency" implies subordination, which is not present in many cases. Ladril (talk) 01:32, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

How can we split hairs over a definition when we don't even have a definition? I mean you say the word "dependency" implies subordination, but what's the source for that? What's the source for anything we're currently saying about dependent territories? It seems to me like this is all entirely arbitrary. Orange Tuesday (talk) 01:51, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

We have to keep from splitting too many legalistic hairs here. First, Aruba is a "dependency" of the Netherlands, otherwise it would be listed here as a "sovereign" state. If a state is not sovereign, it is a dependency of something else. In other words, if Pres. Obama wants to conduct business with Aruba, he doesn't go to Aruba first--he goes to the Netherlands. That's a dependency. I know that Brits want to make a big deal of the fact that Scotland, Wales, etc. are "countries", but they are dependencies of the United Kingdom. The U.K. is at the top of the "org chart". It is the U.K. that is a member of the UN, just as it is the Netherlands that is a member of the UN, not Aruba. From fully sovereign to fully dependent/integrated is a sliding scale of dependency/integration and there really is no foolproof way to divide it up. That's why I suggested a single list that we can use as a verifiable source. --Taivo (talk) 04:34, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Taivo, your definition of dependency doesn't gel with me; basically you're saying that any territory is a dependency of the sovereign state it's in? That doesn't seem right. I don't think that the term dependency has any great meaning in modern politics anymore. It's probably only ever really used as a general term for the C24, which is of course just politics. The facts are as such. If we define for the moment "integral territories" as territories which have been legally declared as part of their sovereign state by that state, then Denmark, the Netherlands, and France have no territories which are not integral. Norway needs to be double checked, because Svalbard and Jan Mayen are definitely part of Norway (according to Norway), but I'm not sure about Bouvet Island. No one really knows what's up with Australia legally, not that anyone ever does with Australia. In terms of officially non-integral territories, that leaves the British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, the United State's unincorporated territories, and Tokelau. I'd add the Cook Islands and Niue as well, although I'm not sure how people here will take that. That's legality. Of course, real life is never as plain and simple as this. Tell me if there's a mistake in what I've just said. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 09:38, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Any time I present a source it gets pelted, but here is for example one in which non-independent polities are divided into three categories. [10] This is why the matter is not so clear-cut. Ladril (talk) 12:09, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

That's certainly a weird list. It has Easter Island in the Aruba category but the document dates to 2002, when Easter Island was just a regular province of Chile. And even now it's still a part of Valparaíso Region. The list also has FSM, Palau, and Marshall Islands in that same category.

I mean ultimately for the purposes of this page do we really need to start devising categories for all possible non-sovereign territories? That seems like it's going to be an endless headache. I really think we're better off just citing sources which attempt to list the important non-sovereign territories and building our bullet points from that. Orange Tuesday (talk) 13:21, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Can everyone see the trajectory of this discussion as clearly as I can? A: "Here's a list." B: "But that list doesn't treat (my favorite territory) the way I want it to." C: "How about this list?" A: "But that list doesn't treat (my favorite territory) the way I want it to." D: "Why don't we treat everything the same?" A: "Because (my favorite territory) is a little different than (B's favorite territory)." B: "And (my favorite territory) should be treated totally different from all the others because it's a little different." --Taivo (talk) 13:32, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Prophecy fulfilled. It's not personal agendas that are at stake: it's information for the reader what I want to capture. Ladril (talk) 15:10, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

If it's any consolation Ladril, I'll be using that source later when I have time to revamp the current Dependent territory page. What we have is fairly close to that list anyway. We mention the compact of free association on the Marshall Islands etc. sections, and we mention Easter Island. We have also got a wider geographic area, so unlike in that article we have places such as the Falklands, Gibraltar, Greenland, etc. (it actually does mention Greenland/Faroes were excluded due to geography). Perhaps to bring it in line the compact of free association is mentioned in the United States description? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:26, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

At least from where I'm standing, it's pointless to spend much energy going into these debates at this moment. Three cases (Kosovo, Cook Islands and Niue) are taking up too much attention for the time being. We first have to dispel the notion that there is an evil conspiracy of extreme Kosovar-Cook Islander Niueans wishing to take over Wikipedia and convert it to the dark side. That's what I expected the mediation to be for, but prospects are not looking bright at the moment. Ladril (talk) 15:49, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Sint Martin, Aruba, and Curacao are not integral parts of the Netherlands, they are in personal union with it under the Kingdom of the Netherlands. As for france French Southern and Antarctic Territory are not legally integrated, the collectivities are only partially integrated. Regular french law does not apply to the collectivities as it does to the departments.XavierGreen (talk) 16:49, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Personal union is not the correct term. The Kingdom of the Netherlands (i.e. the entity that is on this list) is a federacy with four constituent countries. Aruba is integral to that entity. Orange Tuesday (talk) 18:01, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

The constituants in the three dutch caribean "countries" have virtually no say in what goes on in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. They have no rights in regards to their defense among other issues that the Kingdom assumes, they have no representation at all within the legislature of the "federation".XavierGreen (talk) 01:09, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Their defence is handled by the state, as defence of Tasmania is handled by Australia. This is the issue here, the lines aren't clear cut. They are legally regarded as fully participating parts of the state on the basis of equality, but in reality are not, shown by the fact that the Kingdom has the same name as one of its supposed parts. We can't place the Netherlands Denmark of France into one of the traditional arrangements of a state (federation, unitary, etc.) without contention. When one speaks of regular French of Dutch law, it in fact only applies to one part of the state, albeit the biggest and dominant one. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 05:52, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

The issue has been raised before (for example here). Anyway, I agree with those who say that French law does not apply in full to all of these territories and I disagree if there are proposals to not mention these territories at all 'because they are part of France'. Excuse me, if this comment isn't helpful - I haven't gone trough the whole discussion above. Alinor (talk) 07:55, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

No one is saying we should remove them from the page. It is just a comment to inform a debate that had taken place previously as to whether the Frande d'Outremer had an analoguous status to that of the US or British external territories, or Tokelau. Now it's clear it doesn't. Ladril (talk) 16:32, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

International participation

So far the entries list states members of the EU or the Commonwealth. Why not include other groupings such as the African Union, the CIS, ASEAN, the Pacific Islands Forum or UNASUR? Or maybe do away with this information entirely? Thoughts? Ladril (talk) 16:56, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

The reasoning for including the EU specifically is that, unlike any other multinational organization, it requires a surrender of certain aspects of sovereignty (human rights, language policy, economic policy, visas, tariffs, etc.), and strongly encourages other aspects (common currency, etc.). It's a more binding organization than, say, ASEAN or the CIS. --Taivo (talk) 18:23, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

And the Commonwealth? Ladril (talk) 18:25, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Can't answer for the Commonwealth. Perhaps its because most of them share the same person as head of state. --Taivo (talk) 22:04, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, the Commonwealth of Nations is not listed here, just the Commonwealth Realms. I once suggested this exact same thing, got shot down if I remember! Chipmunkdavis (talk) 02:57, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I have raised the issue of clarifying what's mentioned in the extent note multiple times (see for example here). Currently this is done in the footnote - see the bullets there. Commonwealth realms are mentioned as "any situations where one person is the Head of State of more than one state," (this doesn't apply to the Commonwealth of Nations).

For the EU you can see this discussion. Currently the footnote simply states that EU membership is shown (without explanation why) and refers to another footnote saying "The member states of the European Union have transferred part of their sovereignty in the form of legislative, executive, and judicial powers to the institutions of the EU, which is an example of supranationalism." At the last discussion I was saying that it's better if the first footnote gives explicit explanation such as "membership in supranational unions,[footnote2]" (currently the EU is the only organization having reached such integration and sovereignty transfer level - see the linked discussion for sources, etc.), but this wasn't accepted. Alinor (talk) 07:19, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Now this idea of yours I think makes some sense. I'll second it if you promise not to adopt the same attitude you have taken with "the other thing". Ladril (talk) 16:33, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

My attitude in both cases is the same - to implement constructive improvements. You are free to support or object either proposal, but this isn't related to anyone's attitude. Alinor (talk) 06:31, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

No, your attitude so far has been my way or the highway". Ladril (talk) 13:29, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

UN Security Council, European Union and Commonwealth realms all should be mentioned for those that it applies to. BritishWatcher (talk) 12:24, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

And that is all that is necessary in my opinion... unless some sort of structured criteria was made about which to include. Night w2 (talk) 10:24, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

BW: what you don't seem to be getting is that we're not here to follow orders or to do things "because that's the way they're done". There has to be a consensual reason for everything we include on a page. Back to the issue at hand, the reasons for including EU membership seem valid to me, though since it has been decided to lend weight to it, the reasons for mentioning it should feature more prominently than a footnote. A more detailed explananation of the reasons for mentioning realmhood is also in order, so that the page does not look like systemic bias has crept into it. Ladril (talk) 16:08, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

We also include a description of the leadership of Andorra, in line with the commonwealth realms. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 16:56, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Sandbox 3i2

Based on the consensus which was formed at the recent mediation, Sandbox 3i2 should now be implemented. --Taivo (talk) 16:09, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

In the interests of a final procedural point, I'd like someone to finish it in the draft space first then note here for say 24hrs before implementing. That would address one of Alinor's concerns, and shouldn't slow down anything too much. Of course, we should treat the consensus around 3i2 exactly the same, this is just for procedure. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 16:27, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

There is no consensus. IMHO pretending otherwise is not productive. We are close, but not there yet. See proposal at Talk:List of sovereign states/Discussion of criteria#Sorting criteria - continuation of discussion. Alinor (talk) 08:26, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Your proposed changes are unacceptable sorry. 3i2 should be implemented as it currently is. That is atleast a big improvement on the status quo. BritishWatcher (talk) 14:04, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Alinor, you deceive yourself if you claim that "no consensus" was reached. Consensus doesn't mean "as long as Alinor agrees". --Taivo (talk) 14:23, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

It should be implemented immediately, my only concern has been addressed sufficently.XavierGreen (talk) 03:30, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

No, consensus doesn't mean "as long as Alinor agrees", but it also doesn't mean "as long as few editors agree and few editors disagree". And please don't split up the discussion on two talk pages. The discussion of criteria is subpage Talk:List of sovereign states/Discussion of criteria. Alinor (talk) 14:20, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Alinor, the other page is for discussing the details of tweaking Sandbox 3i2. This place is simply a call for implementation. And, Alinor, there was a WP:CONSENSUS for implementing Sandbox 3i2 here and then tweaking it. Your objections are simply one voice crying in the wilderness. Everyone else compromised and accepted the implementation of Sandbox 3i2 with the understanding that discussions would continue for improving it. The consensus was for implementation. --Taivo (talk) 16:54, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Until the tweaks are agreed on there is no need for such call for implementation. Otherwise, if you want to 'implement first, tweak later' - I object since there is no need to implement something with so many problems in it - 3i2-column cells are a horrible mess (quite unlike a simple yes/no), the notability of criteria utilized in the 3i2 column is not explained and there are no sources about it, in the 3i2 proposal you can find nowhere explanation who is 'recognized as State by the international community' (I have proposed multiple solutions here, including using a separate article), 3i2 proposal forces upon the readers one specific sorting criteria - negating the neutrality advantage of single sortable list. Alinor (talk) 08:34, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Baloney, Alinor. 3i2 is not a mess--you are the only editor that claims such. It is not perfect, but it's better than the status quo. The tweaks to be made are strictly cosmetic. --Taivo (talk) 11:01, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

"the notability of criteria utilized in the 3i2 column is not explained and there are no sources about it" We have indeed presented sources about it. It's you who continues to cling to a summary of practice of the UN as the *only* document we should be referencing. And your interpretation of it as the only criterion we should adopt. It's clear we should explain in text what the sorting criterion is. We haven't said we will not do it: you're objecting because we are not adopting the exact criteria you're saying we should adopt. In this respect, you're essentially adopting the same attitude the "UN+VC" group did before. Ladril (talk) 15:47, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

"We have indeed presented sources about it." - yes, and I asked some clarifications about these, but anyway - can we see 3i3, with columns moved, footnotes/text added (for dispute criteria and 3i2 criteria explanation), all other10+UN6+Vatican shown, etc. - so that before implementing we can see what you want to implement? Otherwise it's like cat-in-a-sack ... Alinor (talk) 07:25, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes. After 3i2 is fuly implemented, I shall work on making improvements to it, as time permits. Of course, your concerns will be taken into account. Ladril (talk) 12:00, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

No. 3i2 should be improved to implementable consensus state before implementation, not afterwards. Alinor (talk) 13:06, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

No, Alinor, there was a consensus during the mediation to implement 3i2 and then tweak it (moving columns, adjusting footnotes, etc.). It is better than the status quo. Your continued foot-dragging, insisting on your own personal additions that everyone else has rejected is not helpful and is against consensus. --Taivo (talk) 13:15, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Alinor, review WP:CONSBUILD. If the minority is against a supermajority proposal, they are obligated to make a counter-proposal that the rest find acceptable. If they don't... tough luck. Move on. Ladril (talk) 16:02, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Also review WP:NOTUNANIMITY. Here is something especially pertinent: "Editors should make a good faith effort to reach a consensus. That means that the dissenting party has to state how the current proposal fails to meet the interests of the wider group, rather than merely stating they will not accept it. But after a good faith discussion, sometimes the dissenting party must consent to move forward even if they disagree with the specific course of action." Ladril (talk) 16:04, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Taivo, the MEDCAB was inconclusive. That's the fact. How many editors support one or another proposal is a separate issue.

Ladril, I don't agree with implementing 3i2-as-is. Besides other things its 3i2-criteria-column is SYNTH/OR without any source. As good faith compromise I could accept it, if it's supplemented by additional column backed by source. Alinor (talk) 06:15, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, Alinor, but you are completely wrong. The mediation resulted in Ludwigs2 clearly stating that the consensus was to implement 3i2. We no longer need to compromise with you in order to implement 3i2 because the WP:CONSENSUS was for implementation as determined by our mediator. You accepted mediation, so you must accept the conclusions of the mediator. And you never compromised with the majority, why should the majority seek compromise with you? Your version of "compromise" has always been "I get my way". --Taivo (talk) 11:58, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Can we just implement it and ignore Alinor who refuses to accept the will of the clear majority consensus. This has been dragging on for so many months now. BritishWatcher (talk) 12:25, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes we can. I'm just in the process of converting the current list to the new format here, but it's a slow, tedious process. TDL (talk) 17:03, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

"Ladril, I don't agree with implementing 3i2-as-is." Then write down your proposed addition, keeping in mind the observations made to your previous proposals (I'll refresh your memory with diffs if you claim "no one has commented on my ideas"). Ladril (talk) 13:28, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Like hell it should. The closing vote showed that at least 3 editors would prefer implementation to occur after pending issues were discussed and resolved, while 4 editors voted to go ahead with it now. Who decided that was a consensus? The mediator certainly didn't ("no apparent possibility of consensus")... Night w2 (talk) 10:16, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

What the mediator said was: "I suggest that a sufficient consensus on sandbox 3i2 has developed here for it to be implemented directly over any objections. Those who might still object are (obviously) within their rights to challenge that action, but I strongly recommend that any such challenge not involve further debate between these participants, but be turned over to third parties via RfC, 3rd Opinion, formal mediation, or arbitration. Further discussion of the issue by the involved parties at this point has no reasonable expectation of being successful." Orange Tuesday (talk) 13:55, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Whereupon, we conducted a "formal vote on closing the mediation", getting the results I just summarised... And taking what you've quoted from the mediator, Alinor and I are quite clearly challenging the action of implementation, and I am in the process of drafting an arbitration case over the proposed placement of Kosovo, as it doesn't seem like anyone is particularly interested in continuing the discussion casually. As I've said before, the other issues I'm willing to let go. Night w2 (talk) 07:57, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Just for the record, two users objected to the consensus, not three. Ladril (talk) 23:53, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

The consensus for what? The sandbox? Not talking about that; we're talking about the consensus for immediate implementation, for which there was none, as 3 out of 7 editors objected to such a notion. Night w2 (talk) 04:47, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm talking about "a sufficient consensus on sandbox 3i2". Two editors objected: you and Alinor. I don't remember anyone else. Outback the Koala does not seem to be "objecting" or stonewalling the process. She said she would have preferred if changes would have been made within the mediation framework, but according to [11] "I agree with Chip, let this go; work to make changes within the consensus framework.". Just a little something. Ladril (talk) 05:16, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

...Again...not about the sandbox itself or proposed changes to it, we're talking about the notion of implementing that sandbox prior to further discussion, which, in the formal vote conducted, Outback was one of three editors who preferred (in Outback's own words) to "continue to improve outside [the mediation] framework allowing implimentation hopefully later". I'm going to leave it there, mate. Read the thread again or something. Night w2 (talk) 07:25, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

What we're talking about is people "objecting" (your words). All of us agree that 3i2 can and should be improved (check my other comments on this very page) and would prefer to see those improvements made ASAP. There is however, a big difference between saying that and putting into her mouth that she "objected". Just for the record. Ladril (talk) 08:24, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

The minority says there is no consensus. The majority says there is one. What could be simpler? Ladril (talk) 15:54, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Singapore edit request

This article appears to have been locked with the following text listed for Singapore:

Widely recognized member of the UN, Singapore is a Member states of the Commonwealth of Nations

Not only is this grammatically incorrect, it is also inconsistent with all other members of the Commonwealth which do not have such a status listed (apart from the Commonwealth Realms, of which Singapore is not a member). I would like to request that the comment for Singapore be reset to simply "Widely recognized member of the UN" as before, and then if users wish to propose listing Commonwealth membership (which would have to apply to all member countries were it to make sense) that can be discussed here. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 13:48, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to our edit warriors, you'll have to follow a convoluted procedure to get anything done in the article for a while. Use the template in the next section to request the change, which seems uncontroversial. Ladril (talk) 16:51, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

South Sudan?

What about including South Sudan in the list? It has just recently voted for independence from the rest of Sudan and even before that the area was in the hands of the rebel government and not functionally a part of Sudan. I think it should be added to the "other states" list first, and then when it officially declares independence (expected later this year) we can move it into the normal category of sovereign countries. Hibernian (talk) 03:23, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Consensus is not to include states until they become independent (South Sudan is still in the transitional phase). The page is currently undergoing a major overhaul in organizing criteria, so the placement of South Sudan will have to be discussed later. It's still not clear whether it will be a disputed state or not when it comes about. Ladril (talk) 15:41, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Second column depends on North Sudan's reaction, first column depends on what international organizations South Sudan joins. It's likely they'll get UN membership pretty quickly though (It took Montenegro like three weeks). Orange Tuesday (talk) 15:30, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

RfC opened

Opened the RfC at Talk:List of sovereign states/Discussion of criteria. On the mediator's recommendation, I'd ask editors previously involved to try and keep their participation to a minimum. I've made a statement, but I'll refrain from commenting further for a while. You're all welcome to do the same. Any alternative suggestions are also welcome. Thanks, Nightw 00:08, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm. I do not remember reading anywhere that RfC were a license to silence other participants. So here's a suggestion, since you said they're welcome: remove that section with our names. It only makes you look bad. Ladril (talk) 00:41, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Don't really care. The "request" to keep your comments to a minimum is just that. You can go right ahead and post a wall of text if you want. I'm respecting the mediator's recommendations by making the request. Nightw 00:49, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I care even less since it's your interest at stake, not mine. Just saying this is not supposed to circumvent the consensus-making process. Ladril (talk) 00:57, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Don't know what you're talking about. Take it up with Ludwigs. Nightw 01:00, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

No no. You can use playground tactics if you want. Not that they are going to be of much help. Ladril (talk) 01:10, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Ladril, the 3i2-criteria-column has many flaws (such as lack of any source), but one of them is SYNTH/mixup. It mixes three separate things - membership in one of the Vienna organizations (UN), membership in the rest of the Vienna organizations, UN observership (ad hoc status not defined in the UN charter). Also, it doesn't mix these consistently (tries to solve that in a clumsy way by the "all UN members are also members of the ICJ and at least one specialized agency" added to the footnote) and it's title is wrong (UN System and Vienna formula are different). A "UN membership" column (yes/no) would be OK (if supplemented by other columns, so that we avoid the common misconception of "UN membership POV" that this is a gatekeeper/proof of sovereignty). A "Vienna membership" column (yes/no) would be OK. SYNTH/mixing these two is already wrong. Adding the ad hoc UN observership is unnecessary and just increasing the SYNTH/mixup breach along with further proliferating the "UN gatekeeper of sovereignty" misconception.

The issues of separating RoK from SoP, ROC and the rest of the other10 (e.g. the RoK cell implies that RoK is "more of a state" than SoP and ROC) and of the separating of Cook Islands from the Holy See (e.g. the Holy See cell implies that Holy See is "more of a state" than Cook Islands and Niue) - these two issues are simply examples of flaws in the 3i2-criteria. But the flaws of 3i2-column are principle issues, not simply these two examples of wrong placing that doesn't match the real world and the reliable sources.

Anyway, I repeat that I'm willing to accept keeping the 3i2-criteria-column as compromise - if we add one more column showing what [12][13][14][15] show. Why not utilize the single sortable list advantage by presenting both and leaving the reader to decide what to use? Taivo, Ladril and others will sort by 3i2-column; Night w, Alinor and others will sort by UNSG/international community column. Alinor (talk) 12:32, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

As an uninvolved admin, I've removed everyone's comments on the RFC who are listed in that section, and will be attempting to keep them out going forward. You've all made your comments -- let's let someone else get a word in edgewise. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:58, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

OK, the dispute resolution will continue with a request for a comment. However, I do not understand how the procedure is supposed to continue from now on. I don't recall finding anything objectionable with the way the user presented his argument in the request, except for that not-that-veiled call for users who disagree with him not to intervene (may have to look more closely, but let's leave at that for the moment). It should be noted that an attempt was made to resolve the same dispute through a request for comment before [16]. I understand that things were different back then, but there was not any attempt to silence any of the participants. What are we supposed to do while the current request runs its course? Just stand and watch other people give opinions? I'm confused. Ladril (talk) 17:01, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

For the record, I'm not interested in WP:BLUDGEONing my arguments on any new participants. I'm just concerned the way it was filed may be an attempt to forum-shop in order to circumvent the consensus-making process. Ladril (talk) 17:03, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Basically, yes. We've heard all the involved opinions before, at length. This is an attempt to get some fresh eyes on the problem. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:05, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree completely that this change has far-reaching implications, and that many users and sub-projects have to be persuaded of its benefits. If this request is adopted by all of us in that spirit I'm happy with it, but I proclaim that this should not be an abuse of process meant to indefinitely gag the users who cared enough about the problem to engage in a two-year long resolution process. Ladril (talk) 17:18, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

It's only "gagging" you for the purposes of the RFC. Everywhere else is more-or-less fair game, as long as you stay away from the disruptive and tendentious lines. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:23, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Forgive me the literal-mindedness, but I'm still not sure I'm understanding how the process will carry out. Let's say the RfC is closed after a month and a sizable amount of opinions are expressed. Let's say also a majority of commenters disagree with the current implemented version (or preferably, that really good arguments are made against it). How are those opinions going to find their way into this consensus-building process? Is the onus on the requester, on the commenters or on the participants at large to incorporate them into the talk page discussion? Sorry to be obnoxious, but knowing Night w as I do, I'm sure he'll not rest until every minute objection raised in every little corner of the Wikipedia is discussed to death. Ladril (talk) 17:40, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Edit request - restore 3i2

Please restore this version, which seems to have a broad consensus for use. Please just support or oppose below, so that the uninvolved admin who reviews this request will be able to judge more easily. Walls of text will probably be read as an attempt to obfuscate your being on the side against consensus.

• Support as proposer. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:01, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
• Support Ladril (talk) 14:03, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
• Support TDL (talk) 14:17, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
• Support --Jiang (talk) 16:54, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
• Support Pfainuk talk 21:13, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
• Support --Taivo (talk) 04:35, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
• Against Alinor (talk) 06:02, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

• Why don't you just ask Ludwigs2 to clarify what his position? The inherent vagueness with which he closed the mediation looks to be the problem. Nightw 06:43, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

This quote: "I suggest that a sufficient consensus on sandbox 3i2 has developed here for it to be implemented directly over any objections." is taken directly out of Ludwigs2's statement moving to close the mediation. It is his final statement on the issue. What is unclear about that? --Taivo (talk) 10:16, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

• Support, not perfect (IMO, colouring with green and red is a bit too much), but finally clear progress L.tak (talk) 10:43, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
• Support  — Amakuru (talk) 11:14, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
• Support, it's time to move forward with this table and work on improving it rather than sending it back to the shop over and over again. Orange Tuesday (talk) 14:44, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

• done Yeah onlu 24 hours but it looks pretty one sided.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Geni (talk • contribs) 15:00, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Excuse me. Could we keep the protection up? One opposer has a precedent of continuing the edit warring after administrator intervention. Or should we file the request for protection separately? Ladril (talk) 16:19, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

The protection level hasn't changed.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:27, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Clarification

Forgive my ignorance here, but what does 3i2 actually mean? I have looked through the reams of conversation and the MEDCAB and can't find any explanation... it might be useful in making a decision on the above :) Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 09:06, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

(Sandbox) 3i2 is this version of the list. --Taivo (talk) 10:11, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Ah OK, thanks for that. This may be irrelevant to the issue at hand but what does 3i2 actually mean/stand for? I'm just curious now :)  — Amakuru (talk) 10:56, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

As the mediation on this progressed, the various sandboxes were given numbers (1-x). Sandbox 3 became the version the majority preferred and it went through various iterations (a-i), thus Sandbox 3i, of which Sandbox 3i2 is a slightly modified version. Nothing too magical. --Taivo (talk) 11:05, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps for the sake of everyone else we should call it "the sortable table" or something. Orange Tuesday (talk) 14:44, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, the only thing to be gleaned from the 3i2 name is how protracted and agonizing this discussion has been. I think we need a need a new WP:category for all our sandboxes! TDL (talk) 16:26, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Full 3i2 sandbox

I've made a full 3i2 sandbox here. I started fresh, so any changes to the current list over the last several months should be included. Most of the new text is a bit rough, but everything sorts properly (I think). What do you think? TDL (talk) 21:16, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Seems to me we still have to improve the Palestine entry, but I do not object to immediate implementation. Ladril (talk) 22:39, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Looks good enough to implement. Yes, there are tweaks, but we should implement first, then spend the next month tweaking. --Taivo (talk) 01:14, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Looks great, well done and support for it being implemented ASAP. Glad this seems to finally be resolved. BritishWatcher (talk) 00:04, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Looks good, better than current one at any rate. I'm increasingly questioning the need for the Perisa-->Iran link though. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 03:36, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and made it live. Go ahead and discuss-implement your adjustments. Ladril (talk) 18:59, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Ladril, you're well aware that there isn't a consensus for that yet. There are still outstanding issues. Stop being disruptive. It's pathetic. Nightw 08:12, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, daddy. I will. Ladril (talk) 18:22, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, there is a consensus in favour of 3i2. Not unanimous support, but quite clearly there is a consensus in favour of it. Please re-read the mediators comments if you haven't WP:HEARD it. It's all well and good to complain that your outstanding issues should be addressed before implementation, but if you aren't going to propose any solutions than further discussion is pointless. You claim that you've accepted the general structure of 3i2, but object to Kosovo's placement. Fine, but weeks after the mediation closed you still haven't explained how you propose to solve this issue. Objecting to implementation but refusing to propose solutions isn't moving us towards a solution. Either accept the broad consensus in favour of 3i2 or suggest tweaks that will address your concerns. If you honestly believe that there is no consensus in favour of 3i2 we can run a poll to find out, but I think we both know what the result of that will be. TDL (talk) 18:49, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Didn't say there wasn't a consensus for the proposal. This is about immediate implementation (see thread above). The "WP:HEAR" link you've just thrown at me is substantially more relevant to you and Ladril, and I'll throw the same advice right back at you. I'll even post the mediator's closing comment here so you won't get lost this time:

"Those who might still object are (obviously) within their rights to challenge that action, but I strongly recommend that any such challenge not involve further debate between these participants, but be turned over to third parties via RfC, 3rd Opinion, formal mediation, or arbitration. Further discussion of the issue by the involved parties at this point has no reasonable expectation of being successful."

This means that, as far as participants here go, it's a deadlock (i.e., "No apparent possibility of consensus."); consensus can only be ascertained through wider input. My issues with the proposal will be turned over to WP:ARBKOS. Since you're apparently still denying the existence of every suggested solution (again, way more relevant to you), I'll post the issue there, and editors (read: not you or anyone else here) can then give their opinion about how best to handle it. Nightw 10:09, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Nightw, WP:CONSENSUS does not require unanimity, especially when two editors simply refuse to compromise. 11 to 2 is a consensus. --Taivo (talk) 15:49, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Night, please read the mediators comments again: "I suggest that a sufficient consensus on sandbox 3i2 has developed here for it to be implemented directly over any objections." It's right there black and white. How can you read this and continue to claim otherwise? The mediator clearly said that a sufficient consensus existed in favour of 3i2. TDL (talk) 15:55, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

TDL: let's run a tally:

Users against 3i2:

Alinor

Night w

Users for 3i2:

Pfainuk: "Consensus for 3i2 has already been achieved at mediation and has only been reinforced since."

Taivo: "Looks good enough to implement."

BritishWatcher: "Looks great, well done and support for it being implemented ASAP."

Chipmunkdavis: "Looks good, better than current one at any rate." "Alinor, please stop denying the rough consensus that has formed. In the discussion on mediation page, only two editors openly objected to the principle of 3i2 and didn't want it to move forward."

XavierGreen: "If thats the case then i support it fully, pardon my ignorance on the issue i dropped out of the mediation discussion once i felt it was going no where though it looks like something good came out of it after all."

TDL: "There is a clear consensus to move forward without your additional column."

Outback the Koala: "I agree getting another mediator would be pointless, we have a consensus - we should go continue to improve outside this framework allowing implimentation hopefully later."

OrangeTuesday: "Please, please, please just agree to 3i2 as a starting point."

Munci: "It would be best ust go with that 3i2 one then."

Jiang: "But for the sake of getting something better than the weasel wording we currently have, I am supporting the current proposal." "It would be more effective to implement 3i2 with reservations and have whatever changes you (and often I) favor implemented gradually."

Yours truly.

If 11 to 2 is not a consensus, then what is? We can go with a poll if you prefer, but I think the result can clearly be anticipated. Ladril (talk) 19:03, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh don't get me wrong, I completely agree with you. As the mediator stated, there's clearly a sufficient consensus in favour of 3i2 to implement it and I don't think that a poll is required to prove that. But those who are opposed to 3i2 seem to be clinging to the belief that there is no consensus. If they won't admit that a consensus exists, and are just going to edit war over implementation, then a poll would be a nice, clean way of demonstrating the level of consensus. If a poll produced anything close to a 11-2 result then no one could legitimately claim that no consensus existed. TDL (talk) 19:42, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Even a poll won't be of much help here. The problem here is two users stonewalling and gaming the system to get their way. Ladril (talk) 21:30, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

I also don't agree with implementing 3i2 without some additional changes (the most important one - a column showing who is recognized as state by the international community and who isn't, e.g. state parties to UNSG deposited treaties vs. the rest/other10 - this is what we have sources for [17][18][19]) - you can see my position here.

The 3i2 is a SYNTH/OR and without any source. Also, it doesn't mention Vienna, contrary to the claim of 3i2-supporters that 3i2-awkward-column criteria is Vienna. Is it or is it not? It seems that it isn't because Vienna criteria gives a "yes/no" cells and not the convoluted mess of the 3i2-column. On a side note - there is nothing to support implying that RoK has more international acceptance than ROC and SoP (hint: look at participation in international organizations and bilateral diplomatic recognition and relations) - unlike the 3i2 configuration.

Also 3i2 sectional separators do not match the 3i2-column (column has 4 types of cells, but only 3 sections). The sovereignty-dispute-column description also doesn't match its cell contents - Palestine has "unrecognized by Israel" cell where Armenia/Cyprus/Israel don't have "unrecognized by X" cells. Also, Palestine is not "claimed in whole by another sovereign state" (at least no such state is mentioned in its sovereignty dispute cell in 3i2) as mentioned in the column footnote. I have proposed a way to resolve this, but it seems 3i2-supporters ignored it - just as they ignore [20][21][22].

I suggest, as compromise to 3i2-supporters, to add one more column - about yes/no recognition by the international community/state party to UNSG deposited treaty, per [23][24][25]. Your 3i2-criteria-column will also be kept and readers will choose which one of the three columns/criteria to use for sorting. Let's discuss that here. Alinor (talk) 13:10, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

That is no "compromise", Alinor. We have told you time and time again that a yes/no column is unacceptable. It wasn't acceptable a month ago, it wasn't acceptable a week ago, and it's still unacceptable. Stop beating a dead horse. And both of you (Alinor and Nightw), there is a consensus for implementation. A very, very clear consensus. --Taivo (talk) 19:48, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Fighting will not solve the issue at hand. What options do we have at this moment? Formal mediation? I really don't see how it could be more helpful than the informal one we had already, but I'm willing to exhaust all options. Ladril (talk) 21:13, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

At this piont we should just find an uninvolved admin to tell us we have a consensus. This is way way way too drawn out. Outback the koala (talk) 21:40, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

If Night or Alinor edit-war I'll do that. Ladril (talk) 21:43, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

OK, that's cool then. Outback the koala (talk) 21:54, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Better get going then, Ladril. Nightw 09:26, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Would somebody explain why don't we just add one more column? This is the advantage of the table approach - we can have as many criteria as we want. Isn't it better for all (including the readers) if we present the three criteria: 3i2-camp, UNSG treaty/international community, sovereignty dispute? What's the disadvantage in this compromise approach? Alinor (talk) 10:24, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Alinor, this has been explained to you over and over and over and over and over and you continue to completely ignore everything that has been said to you. You are classically deaf to anything other editors say. --Taivo (talk) 15:47, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

It should be noted that Alinor is currently banned from editing Kosovo and related articles by the Arbitration Committee [26] [27]. Since he has accepted on this very page that his edit-warring is connected with inconformities relating to how Kosovo is portrayed, this will be brought to the attention of the Committee as part of a disruptive pattern of behaviour related to the Kosovo topic (even if, in strict terms, this article is probably not covered by the original ruling). Ladril (talk) 17:13, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I've pinged Sandstein to see if he agrees that this is a violation of the sanction he imposed or not. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:30, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Ladril, the so-called Kosovo ban was only because of miscounting of 3RRs - and as you can see on the Kosovo and related articles my position is the correct one and is currently standing in the live articles. (I can give links if you insist) The reverts were needed because some pro-RoK POVed editors were wishing to push their changes by disregarding the consensus and by trying to utilize flawed procedures. You can see in the discussions there that I as a passer-by non involved editor make big efforts at structuring the discussion and reaching consensus. And you can see the result - IMHO currently the Kosovo article is NPOV and its editing/discussion page is calm. Also, you can see that Night w is one of the my vocational opponents there.

Trying to use this discredited (check the live articles) so-called Kosovo ban for anything is simply wrong and unacceptable IMHO.

I consider your attempt to utilize the so-called Kosovo ban as excuse to silence me off as a hostile act. Calling my principled position supported by sources a "disruptive pattern of behaviour" and trying to imply that sorting criteria for sovereign states is part of "the Kosovo topic" (it's as much "Kosovo topic" as it's "Vatican topic" and "Cook Islands topic", etc. 205 topics) - and trying to use this as bureaucratic leverage and procedural/rules abuse is very mean-spirited. Alinor (talk) 06:40, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

And just to make it clear - my opposition to 3i2 is not because of RoK. RoK placing is only one of the examples why 3i2 is problematic. See [28] and 12:32, 1 June 2011 comment here below.

Again, what is the reason not to utilize the multiple-criteria sortable list advantage by adding a 3rd criteria to the two present in 3i2? This will let each reader decide for himself which of the criteria to use. Alinor (talk) 06:55, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Whether or not you were "right" in your previous Kosovo-related edit war really isn't relevant Alinor. An admin banned you from editing Kosovo related articles for three months. Given that the proposed changes to this list significantly alter Kosovo's presentation, and that you've repeatedly stated that this change is an example of why you're opposed, it seems likely that an admin would find you in violation of this block. As such, I think you'd be wise to request a self-revert from the admin who protected the page (User:Cirt) and to continue your opposition from the talk page. But that's just my opinion. You're free to take your chances at WP:AE if you like. TDL (talk) 07:29, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

TDL, that's not important. The point is that Ladril (and maybe you as well?) try to use a discredited act in a twisted way. This is a procedural abuse. Is this so-called Kosovo ban related to the content of my edits at Kosovo? No, it's just about miscounted 3RR. Are my Kosovo edits POVed or otherwise inappropriate and removed in the end? No. Trying to portray things as if I have some "Kosovo agenda" there or on this article here is ridiculous and insulting to my successful good faith attempt as non-involved editor in resolving the long standing problem at the Kosovo article. Personally, I expect apology from Ladril about this hostile act against me.

The problems with 3i2 are different - Kosovo placement is just one example (maybe an easy one to pick - because many people have opinions on the Kosovo/Serbia conflict).

I understand that you, Ladril and some others hope that you will succeed in forcing 3i2 upon the readers despite its multiple grave flaws. I think your hope is based on your "majority rule" interpretation of voting-like 6-7 against Alinor and Night w. Whether this will succeed in the appropriate fora is to be seen - but I think it would be better if the 3i2-camp makes a small compromise and accepts my proposal to utilize the multiple-criteria sortable list advantage. This is a win-win proposal and will result in a full consensus. Alinor (talk) 08:31, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

There is absolutely nothing vindictive about this. I like you as a person but thou shall not edit war, especially not when an uninvolved admin has intervened to define a case and most definitely not while you're under a ban for edit warring on the same topic. I understand you may be unhappy with the result, since your position is very different from Night w's. He has been a conservative all the time, while you have been pushing for change for as long as anyone here. However these are not proper forms for venting your frustration. You're completely free and within your rights to continue dispute resolution through a request for comment or arbitration, but do not shoot yourself in the foot with disciplinary infractions while you're doing it. Ladril (talk) 16:33, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Alinor, there is no "so-called" ban, there is a ban--period. --Taivo (talk) 18:48, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

No. It's so called ban and discredited ban, because the final result is that my edits are kept in the live articles and are defining for the whole arrangement of the Kosovo topic articles.

Taivo and especially Ladril - have you seen the Kosovo articles&discussions archives? Who is edit warring and going against the consensus there? The result shows that it isn't me. And who is trying to add structure to the discussion and resolve the problems?

Ladril, I see elsewhere that you are continuing your attempts to use this discredited ban in a twisted way. You are trying to link my opposition to 3i2 to RoK - repeatedly. And trying to link Night w reverts to my revert so that it seems that I'm edit warring. I have said multiple times - I oppose 3i2 because of its SYNTH unsourced criteria column with awkward cell contents and discrepancy/self-contradiction between sectional separators and cell results (among other problems such as proliferating of the "UN, the gatekeeper of sovereignty and statehood" common misconception). As solution I propose that we have one more column - sourced and with yes/no cells (I willing to compromise to keep the 3i2-undefined-criteria column). These problems affect Holy See, Cook Islands, Niue and it happens that they also affect Kosovo - they affect the most 'borderline' of the sovereign states - these that aren't easy to sort (unlike France and Somaliland) - that's the reason we have such long 'sorting criteria discussion'.

The so-called and discredited Kosovo ban is result of simple miscounting of reverts (who has miscounted them is irrelevant) - there is no "edit-warring behavior pattern", there is no "Kosovo agenda/POV". If you think that the Kosovo ban is correct and my edits there are wrong and the consensus there is different - please take this to the Kosovo talk page before trying to use it elsewhere.

Instead of apologizing you continued your hostile act. This is insulting to the positive achievements my brief involvement in Kosovo articles arrangement problem brought. Alinor (talk) 06:51, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Good we finally made you WP:HEAR something I said Alinor. This will be taken to the attention of the Committee and, if there is anything sanctionable in my own behaviour, I'll oblige to the sanction. Ladril (talk) 12:55, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what you "made me hear", Ladril? Above I see only insulting insinuations and lack of apology. I don't know which committee you refer to - I have no intention in complaining anywhere about your insult - I already clearly stated that I expect an apology from you. This isn't related to Wikipedia policy or whatever. You are free to choose whether to apologize or not. So nobody else will sanction your behaviour. If you refer to a continuation of your insult somewhere else - at a committee or whatever - then obviously your choice is not to apologize. That's what matters to me in this pointless discussion here about the discredited ban. Alinor (talk) 13:23, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Why are your prolonging this discussion Alinor? Insisting on an apology from Ladril and Taivo is just going to push them to report you to WP:AE. I have a hard time believing that any uninvolved admin is going to buy the argument that your ban has been discredited just because you don't agree with it. I'm pretty sure every editor who has ever been banned feels that their ban has been discredited. Also, edit warring to keep what you perceive to be the "right" version (which you did both previously and here) isn't WP:NOT3RR. TDL (talk) 19:11, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

sorting criteria - major problem of the article

I will explain below what problems the 3i2 implementation brings to the article. It seems that these won't be resolved without notifying WP:RS, WP:NPOV, WP:OR, WP:SYNTH, WP:MEDCOM, WP:ARBCOM or some similar noticeboard. The question here is only to the editors who agree that there is a problem - which noticeboard should we take the issue to?

The List of sovereign states article has (currently) consensus and undisputed 'inclusion criteria' (defining which entities are 'sovereign states' and will be included in the article). The problem is with the 'sorting criteria' (the way in which we arrange these included states).

The status quo article before the recent change was 'intuitively' following the 'common sense' division found in many unprofessional lists without explanation why individual entries are included/excluded, how these lists of states were compiled, how these states were chosen: "UN members+Vatican City/widely recognized" vs. "the rest/other10" (other10 are the rest of states satisfying the inclusion criteria: Abkhazia, SOssetia, NKarabakh, Transnistria, TRNC, Kosovo, SADR, Somaliland, Palestine, Taiwan). This wasn't backed by a source, utilized WEASEL wording "widely recognized" and was unverifiable.

The article currently implements a 'single sortable list' table with different sorting criteria implemented trough a column for each criteria. This has the NPOV advantage of allowing multiple POVs to be presented (including alphabetic sort - e.g. primacy of the "inclusion criteria"). Theoretically this prevents editors from pushing/forcing one particular arbitrary (the consensus is that sources doesn't give us a 'definitive ultimate sorting criteria' - so we, the editors, select the various criteria) selected by them criteria over the readers - instead the readers themselves choose which column to use for sorting. In each of the criteria columns the states get a specific "cell result" - content of the cell for criteria column1, content of the cell for criteria column2, etc. There are sectional dividers that separate the table in sections depending on the selected sorting column cell results (e.g. states with the same cell results are grouped together).

The article currently has two sorting criteria:

• ('3i2 criteria') "The membership within the United Nations system column divides the states into three categories: 192 member states of the United Nations, 2 states which are not UN member states but which are either a UN observer state or a member state of a UN specialized agency, and 9 other states." Title: Membership within the UN System; footnote:This column indicates whether or not a state is a member of the United Nations. It also indicates which non-member states participate in the United Nations System through membership in the International Atomic Energy Agency or one of the specialized agencies of the United Nations. All United Nations members belong to at least one specialized agency and are parties to the statute of the International Court of Justice.; Cell results: (ordered as arranged)
  • UN member state (majority of cases)
  • UN observer state and member of one or more related agencies (Holy See)
  • Not a UN member state, but member of one or more related agencies (Kosovo; Cook Islands?, Niue?)
  • No membership (Abkhazia, SOssetia, Transnistria, NKarabakh, TRNC, Palestine, SADR, Taiwan, Somaliland)
• ('dispute criteria') "The sovereignty disputes column divides the states into two categories: 13 states whose sovereignty is disputed and 190 other states." Title: Sovereignty dispute; footnote: This column indicates whether or not a state is the subject of a major sovereignty dispute. Only states which are claimed in whole by another sovereign state are mentioned. Minor territorial disputes are detailed in the Further information.. column.; Cell results: (ordered as arranged)
  • None (majority of cases; Cook Islands?, Niue?)
  • Claimed by X (PRChina, NKorea, SKorea, Abkhazia, SOssetia, Transnistria, NKarabakh, TRNC, Kosovo, SADR, Taiwan, Somaliland)
  • Unrecognized by Israel (Palestine)

Problems in the current 3i2 implementation:

• 3i2 criteria is a SYNTH/mixup without any source (thus there's no explanation how/why it's selected) and has convoluted awkward cell results. Some of its supporters say that it's somehow related to the Vienna formula - but this isn't actually written in the implementation. Also, Vienna formula gives simple "yes/no" cell results (unlike the implementation). The 3i2 criteria mixes three separate things - membership in one of the Vienna organizations (UN), membership in the rest of the Vienna organizations, UN observership (ad hoc status not defined in the UN charter[29]). Also, 3i2 doesn't mix these consistently (tries to solve that in a clumsy way by the "all UN members are also members of the ICJ and at least one specialized agency" added to the footnote) and it's title is wrong (UN System and Vienna formula are different). Also 3i2 sectional separators do not match the 3i2-column (column has 4 types of cells, but only 3 sections) - another example of SYNTH/mixing - editors have arbitrary decided to mix "UN observers" with "not observers, but members of related agencies".
  • I'm proposing a compromise - keep the 3i2 criteria column if we add another column that isn't SYNTH and that's backed by sources (see below).
• the whole arrangement is proliferating the common misconception that the UN is a gatekeeper/proof/requirement for sovereignty and/or statehood - the 'UN membership POV' - this contradicts directly the UN position itself[30] and real world diplomatic practice as evidenced in many international treaties and organizations and in bilateral intergovernmental relations. How is this common misconception proliferated: UN observership is shown for non-members of the UN (regardless of it being an ad hoc status not defined in the UN charter[31]); 3i2 criteria is titled "membership in the UN system" (not matching its contents) contrary to Vienna formula and real world practice intent of the Vienna organizations membership check - where the intent is to stress that non-members of the UN are 'equal' to its members[32]; Vienna organizations are separated of each other in the 3i2 criteria - in the same criteria column UN is separated from the rest of them. This is related to the SYNTH/mixup - the 3i2 criteria is neither 'Vienna formula' nor 'UN membership'; 50% of the sorting criteria are UN-biased - the 3i2 criteria (point1 in the lead) as described here. The inclusion criteria 'check' described also includes UN-bias (has 3 bullets divided according to presence/lack of recognition by UN members). Combining all this gives a heavy UN-bias to the list - one or two usages of UN may be appropriate/unavoidable, but using so many isn't.
  • A "UN membership" column (yes/no) would be OK (if other columns are present, so that we avoid the common misconception of UN being a gatekeeper/proof of sovereignty). A "Vienna membership" column (yes/no) would be OK. SYNTH/mixing these two is already wrong. Adding the ad hoc UN observership is unnecessary and just increasing the SYNTH/mixup breach along with further proliferating the 'UN gatekeeper of sovereignty' misconception.
• dispute criteria description also doesn't match its cell contents - Palestine is not "claimed in whole by another sovereign state" (at least no such state is mentioned in its sovereignty dispute cell in 3i2) as mentioned in the column footnote. Also it's cell contents are not consistent - Palestine has "unrecognized by Israel" cell where Armenia/Cyprus/Israel/Cook Islands?/Niue? don't have "unrecognized by X" cells.
  • my proposal here is to change the footnote from "states which are claimed in whole by another sovereign state" to "states which are claimed or occupied in whole by another sovereign state" - and to replace Palestine cell with 'Occupied by Israel' (we have sources for that).
• the 'recognition as State by the international community' is not shown in the current implementation or elsewhere in Wikipedia. We have sources for that and ignoring this is unacceptable. See proposal below.

By having only two criteria columns (3i2 and dispute) the importance of each of these is greater (than if we had more columns), so until we have more columns greater care should be taken that there are no problematic arrangements resulting in any of these columns. The 3i2 criteria column has 3-tiered sections and 4-tiered cells results - each of which is implying that higher place means being a 'more' accepted/mainstream state and that lower place means 'less' legitimacy. Examples of these separation problems:

• Implying that RoK/Kosovo has more international acceptance than ROC/Taiwan and SoP/Palestine (hint: look at participation in international organizations and bilateral diplomatic recognition and relations). Implying that RoK/Kosovo has similar international acceptance to that of the Holy See/Vatican.
• Implying that Holy See/Vatican is "more of a state" than Cook Islands and Niue
• Implying that each of the UN members (e.g. Liechtenstein, Palau, etc.) is "more of a state" than other states recognized by the international community (e.g. Holy See, Cook Islands, Niue) - this is related to the 'UN gatekeeper misconception', but this UN-bias is amplified by the lack of more criteria columns

Minor/formatting problems:

• sorting columns to be moved to the right
• coloring of cells is unnecessary - distracting and it adds the problem of which colors to choose
• overlinking of 'UN member state' in the 3i2 criteria column

Proposal for compromise - to add one more criteria column:

• ('international community') "The international community recognition column divides the states in two categories: 193 state parties to an international treaty deposited with the UNSG and 10 other states." Title: International community recognition; footnote: The Secretary-General of the United Nations takes into consideration who is "recognized as State by the international community" when deciding who is allowed to become a State party to an international treaty deposited with him.[33] The present State parties are listed in the UN Treaty database.[34][35]; Cell results: (ordered as arranged)
  • yes (majority of cases; Cook Islands?, Niue?)
  • no (Abkhazia, SOssetia, NKarabakh, Transnistria, TRNC, Kosovo, SADR, Somaliland, Palestine, Taiwan)

For a graphical illustration of the proposal you can see this UN map. Alinor (talk) 09:29, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

I will never support anything that equates the Cook Islands and Niue as states until they declare independence, are admitted into the UN, or are recognized by more than half of states as being independent. I think the 3i2 works statisfactory to its purpose. Technically a state does not have to sign any treaties in order to be soveriegn, so by your proposal you would be createing a a Treaty POV instead of a UN PovXavierGreen (talk) 17:43, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Just to reiterate for the hundredth time, Alinor, your proposal for a third column has been rejected over and over and over and over again. Nothing has changed in your proposal. You clearly are unable to hear what others say. --Taivo (talk) 19:08, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

I see many proposals in one long post, which will make it hard to implement (and for me too long to read in detail...); it might be good to split the suggestions of changes you want to make to the current version. I think you have a point in that some things need to be explained a bit better. My main problem with an extra column is the authority going from "the international community", which suggests a wide reaching forum (which doesn't exist), which suggests that such a criterion would override everything else. However, a note/paragraph on which states are part of "all states" according to the secretary general of the UN, if needed after consultation of members in conventions would be a valuable addition IMO... L.tak (talk) 19:22, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

This post is too long. No one, perhaps with the exception of the usual suspects, will have the patience to read it to completion. You would be more effective in getting your point across if you shortened it to 1/5 of its current length.--Jiang (talk) 00:39, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Ltak a number of small changes spread out would be a much more sustainable way of making the changes you want to the current list. I suggest starting with the smaller aspects and working your way up to issues that will be more objectionable/substaintial. Outback the koala (talk) 05:35, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

New template

I moved all the messy "display:none" stuff in the "Sovereignty dispute" column, required to get everything to sort nicely, to the new template {{Claimedby}}. Usage is simple:

• {{Claimedby|SERBIA}} = BClaimed by AfghanistanClaimed by GeorgiaClaimed by North Korea Claimed by Serbia Claimed by Somalia Claimed by the People's Republic of China Claimed by the Republic of China Claimed by South Korea Claimed by Azerbaijan Claimed by the Republic of Cyprus Disputed by Israel Claimed by Indonesia Claimed by the Marshall Islands Claimed by Mauritius Claimed by Morocco Claimed by Moldova Claimed by Mali Claimed by Spain Claimed by Argentina Claimed by Ukraine

Hopefully this makes things a bit more intuitive to edit here. TDL (talk) 05:39, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Edit Request: Official name of Burma in Burmese script.

Resolved

 – Edit done. Pfainuk talk 14:28, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

The current Burmese script we have on this page reads "ပည္ေထာင္စုမန္မာနုိင္ငံေတာ္" According to the page for Burma, the correct name should be "ပြည်တော်စု သမ္မတ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်" Could an administrator please change this? Thanks. Orange Tuesday (talk) 19:17, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Both look the same to me. Just kidding. Ladril (talk) 21:27, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

I feel uneasy making a change without having the script installed, and without someone explaining what the difference is and where it comes from. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:31, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

The first (that we currently use) is not actually a logical piece of Burmese script, at least in the way it is rendered on my machine. It contains square boxes, and several diacritics that are not attached to letters. I am not versed in either the Burmese script or the Burmese language, but it is obvious that it is wrong simply by looking at it. I will post a .png image if required.

The second appears to be the same as , the image used in the infobox at Burma. Pfainuk talk 12:14, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Add: just found this source, which cites the Burmese names as "မန္မာနုိင္ငံေတာ္" or "ပည္ေထာင္စုမန္မာနုိင္ငံေတာ", both of which are rendered with similar issues on my machine though appear fine in that document. So it might just be my machine rendering things weirdly. Pfainuk talk 12:23, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Got it. The existing text was written using the Zawgyi font, which does not conform to the Unicode standard. The proposed change essentially moves this text to the Unicode standard. See also this explanation (in English) from the Burmese Wikipedia and this note on Unicode use in Burmese-language websites. Pfainuk talk 12:51, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

The Unicode rendering was the issue, yeah. Should have explained that better. Thanks Pfainuk. Orange Tuesday (talk) 16:44, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Edit Request: Add Vanautu to recognizers in Abkhazia listing.

Vanautu has recognized the independence of Abkhazia, this needs to be added to Abkhazia's section. It is uncontroversial and has nothing to do with the dispute that caused the page to be edit protected.XavierGreen (talk) 06:20, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

I think we should hold off on this until the situation is clarified. Vanautu has denied that they have recognized Abkhazia: [36] TDL (talk) 18:20, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Over at Talk:List of states with limited recognition there is what I see as sufficient evidence to add Vanuatu to the list of Abkhazia recognizers. Ladril (talk) 02:00, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Kommersant has even published the official document, signed by both prime ministers, announcing the establishment of diplomatic relations: [37]. I'll add them. TDL (talk) 05:11, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Abkhazia → Abkhazia

Are these necessary now that you can alphabetically sort the list? Obviously they are for countries like Myanmar and Côte d'Ivoire but I'm not sure they make sense for states which are in a different section under the same name. Orange Tuesday (talk) 13:39, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree, they're unnecessary (and a little confusing) now. --Taivo (talk) 16:10, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, at first glance the list looks just like a single sorted list (also because about 188 out of about 200 are in the first part); and only when scrolling down the 2nd and 3rd section become visible. I can imagine people starting to look for abkhazia exactly at the place where the "Abkhazia → Abkhazia" and it thus seems to serve a purpose.. L.tak (talk) 14:42, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree with L.tak, I think they're helpful. I set the redirects up so they always sort into the "dominant" group: UN members and undisputed. But if others want to get rid of them it doesn't particularly bother me. TDL (talk) 15:01, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

One problem with them is their behaviour when you actually do sort the list alphabetically. If you sort in descending alphabetical order you get them all clumped together at the top of the list before Zimbabwe. Orange Tuesday (talk) 12:29, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

It is indeed not the most elegant solution; and I would be interested in hearing tricks on how to sort better. Luckily it becomes only annoying (to me) in descending alphabetical order (zyxw...cba), which is a sorting order which does not seem to be all too relevant... L.tak (talk) 15:43, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Maybe not, but I feel like if we're going to offer the option to the reader then it should at least work properly. Orange Tuesday (talk) 16:26, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Yeah that's a technical limitation I haven't found a way around yet. I could set the redirects up so that they sort alphabetically as well, but then they'd be listed side-by-side with the thing they're redirecting to. Might make the problem more subtle at least. TDL (talk) 16:52, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Names for the dividers?

Judging from recent edits, the dividers without an explanation tend to confuse readers. Should we insert text to explain the categories? Proposal: first category is "UN member states", second is "UN observer states and member states of UN Specialized Agencies", third is "States with no participation in the UN system". Ladril (talk) 01:18, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Named dividers can't be properly sorted. I don't see any recent edits that lead me to believe that people can't handle the dividers as they are though. Orange Tuesday (talk) 12:03, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

When the current version first went live, an IP editor started removing the dividers, apparently not understanding their purpose. This is why I suggested titles for them. Ladril (talk) 14:13, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I hacked something together that sorts properly. It's not the most attractive thing, but it works. Feel free to revert if you don't like. TDL (talk) 04:05, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't quite work. Try sorting by Sovereignty Dispute descending and you get a whole whack of dividers at the top of the list. Orange Tuesday (talk) 12:24, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, that's the same problem as with the redirects discussed above. The dividers need to go somewhere when an alternative sort method is chosen, so I send them to the bottom. Unfortunately, the bottom becomes the top in reverse sort order. TDL (talk) 16:54, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I forced these named dividers to always sort to the bottom, but the drawback is that sorting by "UN membership" doesn't restore them to the proper place. They get stuck at the bottom. TDL (talk) 17:31, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Honestly I'm not sure it's worth implementing a semi-broken solution for the sake of one IP user who didn't get the new layout. Orange Tuesday (talk) 18:23, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned, feel free to restore to the version without titles for the moment. I'll ask for assistance at the technical help desk. A solution to achieve this wouldn't hurt. One of the 3.0E+25 sandboxes had titles in the dividers. Ladril (talk) 01:58, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Nagorno Karabakh, Eastern Libya and Somaliland

NK, SO, Abkhazia and Transnistria are full members of CIS-2, and recognize each other, Somaliland isn't recognized by any state and possibly they could be excluded from the list or transferred to the new 4th section of unrecognized states, Transitional National Council fits the definitions of state and has limited internationall recognition. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.250.88.127 (talk) 05:54, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

RfC proposal

I reverted the implementation of a two category proposal coming out of the recent RfC [38]. I did not do it because of personal disagreement but rather because I believe the proposal ought to take into account the opinion of those users previously involved in the dispute resolution process. Besides, the RfC is not yet closed. So feel free to comment on the proposal presented in the diff. I would strongly suggest not changing significantly the current version while the RfC is still open. Ladril (talk) 17:14, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

The admin that you asked to stop intervene the RfC will redact comments from anyone involved. I'll close the RfC at the end of the month, and then we can have a follow-up discussion and discuss the ideas. Nightw 16:13, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I did what? I did not ask for any RfC to be stopped. Somebody must have dreamed that. Ladril (talk) 16:53, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorry Ladril, I've confused you with User:Danlaycock. Nightw 17:23, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

That's not true either. What Danlaycock did express was the opinion that the RfC should not be used to circumvent the consensus-building process. Given some previous developments I witnessed, I share his concern. You and I seem to be in the same frequency about this matter, however, so I'll leave it there. Ladril (talk) 19:19, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Exactly, you're still dreaming Night because I never asked for the RFC to be stopped either. I had concerns about the situation, and requested input from Sarek on how to proceed. Once Sarek removed the most glaringly partisan portions of your RfC filing, and the edit warring against consensus by you and Alinor stopped, I've happily let the RfC play out to get some outside opinions on the situation. TDL (talk) 19:34, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

One thing I am going to say about the version by Noleander is that the second section should not be titled "Entities" but "States". Ladril (talk) 17:48, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Otherwise we run into problems trying to classify Palestine. TDL (talk) 19:34, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Reducing num sort categories from 3 to 2

In accordance with the RfC discussion at Talk:List_of_sovereign_states/Discussion_of_criteria, I've reduced the number of sort categories from 3 down to 2. That is, the two small categories at the bottom ("Observer/Specialized" and "No UN affiliation") are now a single sort category. No other changes were made. I think that editors should focus on filling in good detail in the "Further information" and "Dispute" columns, rather than increasing the number of sort categories. Breaking the table into multiple sort categories is bad for the readers ... because when they search for something, they have to go through multiple alphabetical groups. For example, a reader searching for, say Vatican City, may scroll down to Zambia, and - no seeing Vatican City, conclude it is not within this article (but it is: just further down). If there is a dispute about whether a given entity is a "sovereign state" or not, that dispute can be explained with color-coding and with text in the Dispute/Further information columns. Sorting is a confusing way to convey details about sovereignty disputes to the reader. --Noleander (talk) 17:15, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

See 'RfC proposal' above for an explanation of the revert. Ladril (talk) 17:19, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

No problem. Waiting longer is always a good thing to do. --Noleander (talk) 18:06, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Further discussion of this will be needed following the close of the RfC that some may not participate in. Outback the koala (talk) 21:38, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Agree with Outback. --Taivo (talk) 03:01, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Request to put Reed tablemount bank as a sovereign of the Philippines

To whom it may concern, I'm requesting to the author or any member whose righteous to edit this article to include Reed/tablemount bank in the "Further information on status and recognition of sovereignty column" as part of the claimed sovereign of the Philippines and is occupied entirely by the Philippines and under its territory. Thanks Manager0916 (talk) 00:05, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Regardless who occupies it, it cannot be the subject of a soveriegnty claim (in its own right) through its occupation since it has no landmass above water. See the law of the sea convention for more details on the details of soveriegnty and water features.XavierGreen (talk) 03:59, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Inconsistent total number of states

The article's second line states that "The list contains 195 entries" Both methods however sum up to a total of 203 instead of 195 entries (192 + 2 + 9 // 190 + 13) --> Please update the number of 195 to 203 so it reflect the current amount of entries — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.196.7.170 (talk) 13:36, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Southern Sudan

Southern Sudan needs to be added. — Preceding unsigned comment added by FrysUniverse (talk • contribs) 04:59, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I'd say it's going to be added after a reliable source documenting its independence becomes available (a news report should suffice). Ladril (talk) 16:06, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Here is a news report corroborating such an event http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-07/08/c_13974315.htm - it appears Tommorrow July 9th with be the date of independence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.7.215.64 (talk) 16:35, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

While we're here, am I right in thinking it will be in the same category as the Vatican (for now), with it's name in English and Arabic and a note something like "In a dispute with Sudan over Abyei"? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 19:03, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Not by the current sorting, I think, until they join either the UN or some UN Specialised Agency. I'd say this is near-certain within the next few weeks, but better not to jump the gun. Note that Sudan has pre-announced recognition (so there will be no dispute as to its sovereignty) and that according to that article, celebrations begin at 2100 UTC on 8 July (midnight local time, or about an hour and a half from now). I don't know at what exact moment we should be counting from, but that seems a good a one as any. Pfainuk talk 19:36, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, according to BBC the UN application goes through on the 13th, with membership apparently planned for the 14th. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 20:04, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Independence will be official from July 9, according to sources. I would still suggest waiting for some confirmation from reliable sources that same day. Ladril (talk) 20:58, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

My understanding is that the name planned is to be "South Sudan" rather than "Southern". Does anyone have refs to support this? Outback the koala (talk) 20:52, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

To confirm: [39][40][41]. Al-Jazeera say that South Sudan have "declared independence", whereas the ABC/AP and BBC just say that they have become independent. All use "South Sudan"; the ABC/AP refer to the "Republic of South Sudan". To my mind we are now fully sourced and ready to go. Pfainuk talk 21:21, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I have added it, including a sourced bit to Al-Jazeera that I suggest be removed in a few days once this is no longer likely to be challenged. I haven't added the Arabic only because I don't know it and it isn't mentioned at South Sudan (yet). Pfainuk talk 21:29, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Agree with the addition. Ladril (talk) 21:34, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I've seen some media refer to the Republic of Sudan as North Sudan. Anyone have any idea if they've officially changed their name? Obviously it's too soon to know what the WP:COMMONNAME will become, but it might be a situation like the Koreas where the common name's geographic identifier (North/South) isn't part of the official name. In that scenario we sort them both under K. When the geographic qualifier is part of the official name (ie South Ossetia) we sort under S. TDL (talk) 22:02, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, here's something the current setup has achieved: months of edit wars about whether South Sudan is an "internationally recognized state" have been preempted. Ladril (talk) 22:12, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't know for certain, but the current location of our article Sudan would appear to suggest not. You might see a parallel in the US states of Virginia and West Virginia. I think North Sudan is just a colloquialism coined to more clearly contrast from South Sudan - obviously this is fundamentally different from North/South Korea (for example) in that the two sides recognise one another. Pfainuk talk 22:34, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I think Pfainuk is right. The South is officially called South Sudan, much like South Ossesita and unlike South Korea (Korea). I doubt Sudan will change its name, "North Sudan" is probably a convenient way to disambiguate. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 22:56, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I suspect you're correct that it's just a colloquialism. But my point with the comparison to the Koreas was that even if the name hasn't officially changed we might want to add some qualifier to their entry to disambiguate it. For the Koreas we use the colloquial names (Korea, North and Korea, North) and for the Congos we use the official names (Congo, Democratic Republic of the and Congo, Republic of the). So the options would be:

Sudan, North or Sudan, Republic of

Perhaps it's easiest to wait and see what happens to the Sudan article and follow their lead on the common name. TDL (talk) 23:27, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't look necessary to me. You don't use a qualifier to distinguish Baja California and Baja California Sur, or the US states of Virginia and West Virginia. I suppose the encyclopedia follows common usage. Ladril (talk) 00:02, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm seeing the term "North Sudan" pop up a lot in major news organizations. A quick google news search shows Reuters [42], The Globe and Mail [43], The Telegraph [44], Al Jazeera [45], NPR [46], the AP (via ABC) [47], Jerusalem Post [48], and The Guardian [49] all using the term. This is worth keeping an eye on. Orange Tuesday (talk) 13:41, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

On the issue of recognition, XavierGreen has noted on other pages that there are only two recognitions. Can anyone enlighten on this? There are many statements I can find from countries saying they will recognise (pre-9th), but few saying they have. Montenegro situation? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 00:07, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Given as north Sudan recognises, I'd say it sounds like a Montenegro situation (i.e. there are a lot of places that have yet to sort out the paperwork). There's some question on Eritrea, I think, since they are on record as opposing independence, though I'm not sure to what extent this is being carried through to active refusal to recognise now that independence has occurred. The President of Eritrea is in Juba today, if that means anything. Pfainuk talk 16:40, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

[50] This article indicates that UN membership will likely come on 14 July. We should be ready to move the entry to the first section at that point. (Not that it'll take too much work) Orange Tuesday (talk) 15:19, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Agree. Though I suggest we wait for the UN Press release. Pfainuk talk 16:40, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

With the addition of South Sudan, should the total number of current UN member states be changed to 193? Peter Geatings (talk) 17:44, 14 July 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.236.141.32 (talk)

It has officially been admitted to the UN as a member state. http://www.fox43.com/news/nationworld/sns-rt-us-sudan-un-memberstre76d6f9-20110714,0,4096482.story — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.42.220.88 (talk) 21:08, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

I would request a "Sudan, South" redirect from somebody more versed in code than I. Ladril (talk) 21:44, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

 Done, have you used it anywhere? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 21:54, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, but what I meant is a redirect in the table so that people looking under "Sudan" will be directed to South Sudan. Ladril (talk) 22:37, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Added one here, should work. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 23:02, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

List of countries

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Please discuss at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2011 July 10 Chipmunkdavis (talk) 10:46, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

---

Earlier today SilkTork converted List of countries from a redirect to this page into a dab page. I think this is a mistake as we already have Lists of countries and territories which acts as a dab page to cover this and List_of_sovereign_states is the primary meaning for List of countries. Therefore I have reverted the edit to the last one by Chipmunkdavis (6 September 2010) which redirected List of countries to this page. This has been the consensus for the last few years and I think that it should be discussed here and a new consensus reached before the redirect is changed into another dab page. -- PBS (talk) 18:23, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes. There are several lists of countries with organisations counting countries differently. When someone like myself is putting in a search for "lists of countries" it is likely (in my case most certainly) we are looking for the lists of those organisations, such as United Nations, FIFA, IANA. The sovereign states list looks very attractive, though it is just one list out of the many - so directing people here is perhaps not as helpful as directing people to the fuller range. The Wikipedia list doesn't appear to be an official list. It has its own criteria for inclusion. Interesting material, but as it was not the list I was looking for, it seemed inappropriate to redirect List of countries to List of sovereign states. I changed the redirect, and then noted that this had been done in the past - several times. The current redirect is unstable as a number of people find it unsatisfactory that when putting in a search for a list of countries we are offered a Wikipedia version, rather than the fuller range of official and unofficial lists. A dab page appears the most helpful in the circumstances, especially as a country is not a Sovereign state. SilkTork *^{Tea time} 22:52, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

The common meaning of "country" in English is a sovereign state, so the redirect here is perfectly appropriate and in keeping with WP:COMMONNAME. In English, a list of countries is, indeed, the list of sovereign states. Only the Scots have a problem with this since they want to call Scotland a "country". But they are a minority of English speakers. I agree with Philip Baird Shearer on this. --Taivo (talk) 23:04, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I've put List of countries up for discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion. SilkTork *^{Tea time} 23:08, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Misuse of WP:COMMONNAME, the simple fact is that there are countries which are not sovereign states. This has been debated many times and the sources are very clear. If we have a list of countries then it will need to include those countries which are not sovereign states, the current redirect avoids that problem. Sorry SilkTork but I can't see the logic in your argument. At one point you say that countries are sovereign states, but then when a search on list of countries takes you to the list of sovereign states you say it was not the list you were looking for. --Snowded ^TALK 14:26, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

There is a POV issue amongst a small number of editors who stridently push a narrow and unyielding view that such-and-such a place (usually located on an archipelago off the north-west coast of France) is a "country" and must not be called anything less ... otherwise THE WORLD WILL END!!! (Struck: 08:44, 14 July 2011 (UTC))

However, in this case, I find myself in sympathy with them. Country is ambigious - a reason why it is best avoided on articles to do with such-and-such a place in favour of more clearer terms (contrary to their POV pushing). What makes a "country" is not well defined, and while the common use in English is for country to mean sovereign state, there are other places which are called "country".

For that reason, I would suggest to two-pronged approach. A move to one article and a change to the redirect on List of countries:

1. Move Lists of countries and territories → Lists of sovereign states and territories
2. Change the redirect on List of countries to point to Lists of sovereign states and territories

That way, List of countries would rightly point to an ambigious "list of lists", which includes a link to List of sovereign states. --RA (talk) 08:01, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I absolutely oppose making List of countries point to any article other than List of sovereign states. Are you seriously trying to tell me that when a British school child asks, "What are the countries of the world?" he or she seriously thinks that the provinces of Scotland and Wales should be separate entries along with the independent states of France, Germany and South Korea? I find that a ludicrous assertion. The simple truth is that the great majority of English speakers, when they ask "What are the countries of the world?" are expecting exactly what they get right now--List of sovereign states. The compromise is that this list is already called "sovereign states" instead of "countries". --Taivo (talk) 08:27, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

The provinces? I'm sorry Taivo, but I'm finding it harder and harder to take anything you say seriously. Nightw 10:34, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

All very interesting, I'm sure. But please note that discussion on redirects of this article has been centralised here: Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2011 July 10. Daicaregos (talk) 08:36, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Will post there. --RA (talk) 09:14, 13 July 2011 (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.

List of countries straw poll

A straw poll has been posted at the discussion for what to do with List of countries and its relation to this article. --Taivo (talk) 21:14, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Kosovo

I amended the entry after Kosovo to read as follows:

Kosovo is formally under the administration of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244. Serbia continues to maintain its sovereignty claim over Kosovo. However, Kosovo unilaterally declared indepdendence in 2008 and it has obtained diplomatic recognition by 114 UN member states and by the Republic of China. Other UN states and non UN states continue to recognise Serbian sovereignty or have taken no postion on the question. Kosovo is a member of the IMF and the WBG. Republic of Kosovo has de facto control over most of the territory, with limited control in North Kosovo.

User Taivo has undone this edit without any explanation save that consensus is needed. By undoing it, all reference to the UNMIK is omitted. This is hardly appropriate when we are tryting to provide readers with a note as to the status of Kosovo....To omit that it is formally under UN administration is an inexplicable omission. I would welcome other editors' reasoned views. NelsonSudan (talk) 18:20, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

In this article that is often subject to hard bargaining for every word, and especially where Kosovo is concerned, getting consensus before making radical changes to text is absolutely required. That is explanation enough. If you develop a consensus for this text, then add it by all means. But in this article on this topic, getting consensus first is critical. --Taivo (talk) 21:59, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree discussion is needed for this change; some would argue that the self-declared government of Kosovo is acctually in de facto control and the UNMIK holds no real power. This is a good venue for this discussion; but notification on other related pages should take place. (ie Kosovo, Serbia, International recognition of K...) Outback the koala (talk) 00:00, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Isn't that what is stated in the amendment? That it's formally under UNMIK and de facto under the ROK? I think the amendment is fine. I don't know why it was removed if there's no actual objection. The article's far from perfect and reverting everything just discourages people from making improvements. Nightw 10:00, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Let's not make this bigger than it is. I agree if this is indeed the formal situation. It seems also consistent with the Kosovo situation. Let's put it in... L.tak (talk) 12:12, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

"The article's far from perfect and reverting everything just discourages people from making improvements." The pot calling the kettle black.

Regarding the proposed new text, it doesn't seem objectionable per se, but if the Kosovo entry is going to be tweaked then several others will need it as well (including maybe the Vatican). Ladril (talk) 13:48, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Why exactly? the UN-mandate thing seems to pertain exclusively to Kosovo and as such to stand on itself. I am afraid by combining this with other issues we will have big discussions starting over an issue that I have heard no content-related objections yet... If anyone wants to take this wider: let's discuss if formal UN-control should be mentioned and if there are more countries that would qualify (I can't think of any....). L.tak (talk) 14:23, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

The pot...? What is this supposed to mean? I repeat: if nobody has any objection to the edit, it shouldn't be reverted. Nightw 15:38, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

The text sounded suspiciously pro-Serbia to me, but whether that was the case or not, Kosovo issues are contentious enough that major changes to the text should be discussed here on the Talk Page first. Had this been a change to France or Rwanda, I might not have reverted and asked for consensus first. However, this was a change to Kosovo. People must learn to tread lightly, carefully and build consensus first when they perform major surgery on a piece of text concerning Kosovo. I'm not going to apologize for reverting, Nightw, no matter what you think. Editors must learn when to be bold and when to be cautious. --Taivo (talk) 17:57, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

As expected, but you might at least be gracious enough to explain your reasoning...? You've reverted the edit. Shouting simply "pro-Serbian" at the editor without elaboration might be considered offensive. Let's hear some suggestions about how you think this might be corrected... Nightw 21:24, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

My edit summary very precisely indicated my reasoning as I described above--major edits concerning Kosovo need discussion and consensus first. It's not about Serbia or Kosovo or anything else. My opinion of the edit had nothing to do with my reverting it. Kosovo is a highly contentious subject and major edits need to be considered before being made. That's exactly what I said in my edit summary and exactly my opinion here. It seems that most of you agree with the edit. Great. That's exactly the point--if the edit gets consensus, then make it. Don't accuse me of "ungraciousness", Nightw. I reverted for precisely the reason I stated in my edit summary--Kosovo edits need consensus first. --Taivo (talk) 22:03, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

So you're making up policies now? And imposing them on others? Have I got that right? Because I don't remember that written anywhere. In fact, in regards to Kosovo-related content, editors are advised to assume good faith. Nightw 12:17, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

You are just getting snippy now, Nightw, because you do not WP:AGF on my part. I said exactly what I intended to say and it has nothing whatsoever to do with WP:AGF. I assumed that the proposing editor was acting in good faith and nothing I have said implies otherwise. I said and meant exactly what I said and meant--major Kosovo-related content editing here needs consensus first. I'm not going to respond to you anymore on this. I've said what I have to say. If you want to continue to harp on this, then go ahead and harp to your heart's content. I'm not going to read any more of your comments on this (unless you are responding to the resumed content issue below). --Taivo (talk) 12:50, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Taivo, the point I'm making is that you cannot invent your own policies and impose them on other contributors. Especially when others appear to disagree with such measures. As long as it doesn't conflict with policy, editors are free to adopt their own editing process and are not required to adopt yours. If you cannot grasp this concept, next time, it won't be me explaining it to you. Nightw 13:18, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I feel like the only thing that needs serious discussion and consensus before editing is the actual structure of the page (i.e. if someone was trying to move Kosovo from one section to another). The text of the entries themselves is hardly perfect and we should be encouraging editors to improve the article as they see fit. It's easy enough to undo edits that are poorly cited or factually inaccurate, after all. Orange Tuesday (talk) 20:05, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

My point exactly. The editor's summary correctly pointed out that a reference to UNMIK was absent. If there was a conceived issue with the wording, a redaction or rephrase would have sufficed. Nightw 21:24, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

The issue was NOT about wording or else I would have said that in my edit summary. The submitting editor expressed some kind of shock that his precious words would be reverted. I said exactly why I reverted--get consensus on Kosovo issues first. --Taivo (talk) 22:04, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Content discussion then... I would change the order a bit. My first sentence would be: "Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in 2008 and it has obtained diplomatic recognition by 76 UN member states and by the Republic of China." Followed by the UN and Serbia statements at the end. L.tak (talk) 22:25, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

I'd prefer reading it chronologically and I think it'd be good to have a link to Kosovo at the start, but I don't have a problem if people feel it's better to put the declaration first. Nightw 13:18, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I think L.tak's suggestion is a good one; what is in place on the ground can go first, followed by the formalities. Outback the koala (talk) 01:18, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Can you reconstruct the whole thing with that rearrangement? I just tried adding it in, but it didn't make sense. Nightw 18:39, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Possibly far from ideal, but I would turn it around like this: L.tak (talk) 22:41, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in 2008 and it has obtained diplomatic recognition by 114 UN member states and by the Republic of China. However, Kosovo is formally under the administration of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244. Serbia continues to maintain its sovereignty claim over Kosovo. Other UN states and non UN states continue to recognise Serbian sovereignty or have taken no postion on the question. Kosovo is a member of the IMF and the WBG. Republic of Kosovo has de facto control over most of the territory, with limited control in North Kosovo.

Still offput by this whole "formally" idea. What does that mean? Is that Serbia's formally, or maybe the UN's formally? I don't think Kosovo formally regards itself as under UN rule. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 23:50, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

We need a bit more clarification over what "formally" means. The US was "formally" under British control during the Revolution, but, as Chipmunkdavis states, that doesn't mean that the Continental Congress thought that. --Taivo (talk) 00:49, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. Formally always suggests a specific legal frame of reference, which is in this case the UN. We could also rephrase to specify: "Pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, Kosovo is (still/formally/?) under the administartion of UNMIK". Would that work?

That'd be good, placing the claim in the middle of the sentence does help tone it down. Perhaps instead of Still/formally we use "...regarded by soandso as under the administration of UNMIK." Sorry to be pedantic, but we all know how these issues can blow up. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 10:56, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Actually, Chipmunkdavis, I think the sentence "Pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, Kosovo is under the administration of UNMIK" should be enough because it already says "who" in the name "United Nations". If Kosovo disputes this, then another clause could be added at the end of the sentence ", but the government of Kosovo disputes this." If the government of Kosovo accepts this arrangement, then nothing more need be said. But "United Nations" already says, "by whom". Using the phrase "...regarded by X as under..." opens up a whole new door of having to list everyone who works through the UNMIK rather than through the locals (if there is an actual difference in relations from one state to another). --Taivo (talk) 11:08, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough, that's defendable. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 11:09, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

 Done! L.tak (talk) 21:21, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Would it be too much to ask editors to breathe slowly, calm down and create a more friendly contributing environment? I'm kinda fed up with the back and forth between certain contributors (won't single anyone out). If I have somehow contributed to the situation, I'm willing to apologize and change my ways. Thanks. Ladril (talk) 16:01, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Some tea, perhaps? ;) Nightw 08:03, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Papua Niugini

An IP just put this in, so I thought I'd bring it up here. The source doesn't give a long-form name in Tok Pisin. The direct translation of the English long-form name is used in the Papua New Guinea article. But it doesn't appear on any sources that I've looked at, nor can it be found within the .gov.pg domain. What to do...? Nightw 10:34, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

If it's unsourced, it should probably go. Add a hidden note? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 19:30, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, sounds good. Nightw 07:22, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Languages given

In lots of countries many important languages aren't included, for example russian is historically important and/or major minority and/or spoken by majority language in all former soviet states, norway, israel and mongolia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.250.88.127 (talk) 12:11, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't see the reason why the English name of a country needs to be included twice in some countries with English as a official or important language. The English names are already shown in bold besides the flag. Grioghair (talk) 14:56, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Because the presence of an English name alone as the overall reference does not imply that it has any official or important status in a country. --Taivo (talk) 15:25, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

I feel there has to be a more economical way of conveying that information. Entries like "Bahamas – Commonwealth of The Bahamas / English: The Bahamas – Commonwealth of The Bahamas" are redundant and clunky. Orange Tuesday (talk) 16:30, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

"Historically important languages of the state" should be deleted from the criteria, because no definition of "historically important languages", no sources for these languages, and finally for most countries historically important languages are not listed (i.e. French in Andorra, Algeria, Morocco, Syria; English in Bangladesh, Brunei, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka; Italian in Albania, Libya, Eritrea, Somalia; Indonesian in East Timor, Arabic in South Sudan and so on). Aotearoa (talk) 04:59, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

No, it should not be deleted as it is an important issue for some of these countries. If you find a state that has a historically important language that is not included, then by all means add it, but do not delete historically important languages where they occur here just because they are not found in all entries. --Taivo (talk) 05:02, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Is not important issue, because no definition of “historically important language”. Which languages are historically important? If 600 years ago Spain was part of Arabic World is Arabic “historically important language” of Spain? If 300 years ago Romania was part of Ottoman Empire is Turkish “historically important language” of Romania? If 200 years ego Sri Lanka was Dutch territory is Dutch “historically important language” of Sri Lanka? If 230 years ego Equatorial Guinea was Portuguese colony is Portuguese “historically important language” of Equatorial Guinea? This is “List of sovereign states” and only currently important languages (official, national, minority) should be listed, undefined historical languages should be deleted from this list. Aotearoa (talk) 06:40, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

This has been discussed here before several times, Aotearoa, and the consensus has always been to leave historically important languages. Unless you can build a consensus otherwise, then the standing consensus is to include historically important languages. "Historically important" has always been rather loosely defined as languages of former sovereignty of part or all of the country. And WP:OTHERSTUFF has never been considered a valid reason for removing information. --Taivo (talk) 11:26, 29 July 2011 (UTC)