Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries/Archive 11

This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 5

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Archive 9

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Proposals for topic templates

This is a centralised proposal pertaining to navigation topic templates which contain a list of countries in a specified region: {{Africa topic}}, {{Asia topic}}, {{Europe topic}}, {{Oceania topic}}, {{North America topic}}, {{South America topic}}, and their possessive derivatives (e.g., {{African topic}}).

Most of these templates currently have an array of annoying and unnecessary footnotes attached to them (e.g., "Partially in Asia"). These are then embedded with wikilinks to articles that will doubtless be entirely unrelated to the subject being reviewed by the reader. Links to List of countries spanning more than one continent is probably the most common.

These are annoying, unnecessary, and open a whole can of technicality worms that nobody really cares about when all they want from this template is to get to a specific link.

I propose to get rid of these entirely, and stick to whatever entries are listed in the associated regional lists of countries maintained on Wikipedia. Whatever entries appear on List of countries in Asia will appear on {{Asia topic}}.

Navigation boxes shouldn't contain anything other than links, unless there is information that the reader needs to be immediately aware of. This isn't the case here. Nightw 10:23, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps on the partially ones, but it might be a good idea to keep ones like the Burma/Myanmar qualifier. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 09:55, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

What about adding the alternates in parentheses alongside the links? Both will point to the same article anyway, so it's useless to have duplicate links under different names. So like Burma (Myanmar)? Nightw 10:05, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

That'd work. At the moment it's in a footnote Template:Asia topic, no doubt some ancient compromise. The Asia topic also has a East Timor/Timor Leste note, while the Template:Africa topic uses brackets for Côte d'Ivoire/Ivory Coast already, so moving the asian footnotes up would work. Any other similar situations im missing? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 10:19, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Nah, that about covers it. Are there any concerns about getting rid of the extra info? Nightw 12:11, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Done Nightw 10:21, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Inclusion criteria

There has been recent debate concerning which items to include in these templates. I understand that prior consensus here concerning inclusion on any list of countries is to match the entries in ISO 3166-1, allowing for NPOV where necessary.

In my opinion, these templates should be no different. I think it'd be a good idea to use the ISO listing as a general rule, and if editors feel that there is a good reason for any additional item to be exempt, these can be examined case-by-case.

Items like Gagauzia, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, and other "autonomies", are unlikely to have many articles of their own, as most topics for these will be included in the national articles. So for practical reasons, the ISO listing is a good one to follow, allowing for exemptions determined by consensus. Nightw 09:50, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Supranational unions listing (EU)

I know that in the past there were multiple discussion about whether the EU should be mentioned (with an — instead of number) in "List of countries by GDP/area/population" and in other similar cases (infoboxes, templates, etc.) that deal with states, territories, etc. (for example: here) The arguments against that I remember were mostly around "EU is not a country/state" and "If we list EU, then we should list AU and other organizations" (referring to continental unions or trade blocs or international organizations in general).

Recently I had some related discussions (point 2 here, here).

I think the EU (and other supranational unions when/if some organization gains such properties) should be ranked (and listed) along the countries in cases such as: basic stats (population, territory, GDP), policies falling under EU competency (exclusive, shared, supporting or only some of these). Of course it would not get a "number" (e.g. if the EU has the 5th largest population it we be listed after the 4th, but will have "—" instead of number and the next state will get the number 5).

The argument in favor of listing the EU (and setting a criteria for listing other organizations/unions) is that as supranational union the EU works independently of the member states, e.g. it has "exclusive competencies" in contrast to the rest of the trade blocs and international organizations that have mostly supporting and maybe some shared competencies only. This does not mean that "the EU is a state": it just means that in some policy fields the member states no longer have the authority to take decisions (unless they withdraw from the EU) and actions are taken at the EU level only (by directly elected European Parliament with legislative powers; by the European Commission that does not represent the member states; by QMV, without veto power). Thus the EU also conducts relations with states on its own ([1], [2], [3], [4]) - the regular international organizations that are not supranational unions do not have such properties.

So, should we list a supranational union when the issue is basic stats or a policy in its competency? Alinor (talk) 13:28, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

A couple of years ago, we had a big discussion on this and similar topics. The final outcome was that:

Lists based on a single sources should follow the inclusion criteria of that source. This is most of them, including (I believe) all of our GDP lists. This is the only sensible way we can use those lists.
Lists based on multiple sources should use ISO 3166-1 as an inclusion criterion, making appropriate allowances for neutrality in cases of states with limited recognition. This applies to several of our "basic stats" lists.
Where circumstances specific to a given topic would clearly imply some other configuration, that configuration should be used.

Any list with inclusion criteria should - must - stick to those criteria with no exceptions. Any exception to the criteria risks opening the door to other exceptions - and the end result is a list that is so long that it is unusable. To put it another way: you argue that the EU's population should be included on a population list because the EU works independently of member states. Well, US states work independently of the Federal Government. Similarly Canadian provinces - though Canadian provinces have the capacity for external diplomatic relations as well. The same argument applies to both, I find. And it applies in many other cases throughout the world.

Another problem is the implication that the European Union is a sovereign state, or dependent territory. It isn't and doesn't claim to be. But by listing it alongside the sovereign states of the world, we would imply that it is.

Yet another is that many of these lists have a policy of only listing each place once. This is sensible, because it means we don't end up with a world with 40bn people or similar. But it means that if we were to add the EU, for consistency we would have to remove all of the member states.

Now, that third bullet point is intended to allow for common sense to prevail on lists in sporting contexts (for example) - such as the West Indies Cricket team or the English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish football teams, for example. It also allows us to deal with US states when discussing capital punishment, Canadian provinces when discussing the drinking age or UK countries when discussing abortion or education statistics. Equally, it would apply to areas where the EU has sole competence. If we have a multi-source list that deals with farm subsidies, for example (and given that a single source list would just use its source for its inclusion criteria), it would probably be more logical to deal with the EU than with the individual member states. But I don't see the need for any new rule there: it should be included anywhere.

In conclusion, I strongly oppose listing for "basic stats" or in single-source lists where the EU is not listed by the source, but support listing either in single-source lists where the EU is listed in the source or in cases where the list deals with an area in which the EU has sole competence. Pfainuk talk 14:18, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, I will go one-by-one over these concerns:

Lists based on a single sources that don't include the EU separately (if they include it - it is already listed, right?). I see no problem using WP:CALC to put the sum of 27-EU-members numbers into one EU number (or use another source for the EU number, for example Eurostat, and make it a multiple source list) - it will be distinguished from the rest, because the EU will not get a number, but a dash (—). Of course this applies only to lists where the topic is under EU competencies - no need to sum UK+Germany+Romania football victories and put a "EU victories" number.
Lists based on multiple sources. The ISO 3166/MA has "reserved the two-letter combination EU for the purpose of identifying the European Union within the framework of ISO 3166-1" - in addition these are already supposed to deviate from ISO 3166 because of the states with limited recognition. Again, supranational unions should be added only if the topic is under their competence.
"Where circumstances specific to a given topic would clearly imply some other configuration, that configuration should be used." - exactly what I want to say - lists/templates/etc. for topics under EU competency (or under competency of another supranational union) should include it. For basic stats topics (population/territory/GDP) see the points above.
US states, Canadian provinces, Administrative divisions of Norway, etc. are just that - 'administrative divisions of sovereign state XXX' - they are not included, because the sovereign state they are part of is included. What I propose is that in lists of basic stats we list not only the sovereign states, but also the supranational unions.
"But by listing it alongside the sovereign states of the world, we would imply that it is." - no, because it would be distinguished from the sovereign states by not having a number and/or by italics, background color, explanatory footnote, something else or combination of those.
"Yet another is that many of these lists have a policy of only listing each place once." - if there is some specific reason for listing each place only once that does not allow to use —/italics/background color/footnote/etc. to distinguish supranational unions from sovereign states - then OK, but generally this is not the case, so we don't have to remove all of the supranational unions member states if we include the supranational unions with a — for example.
Pfainuk conclusion and elaboration on 3rd bullet. I mostly agree with that - with the exception of the case of basic stats, where I find it useful to have the supranational unions mentioned, but of course distinguished by some means (such as — instead of number).
OK, so this raises the opposite issue - we should not list arbitrary (selected by the preference of the user adding them) international organizations/trade blocs/continental unions in each list where the EU (or another supranational union) is mentioned.

So, it seems our disagreement boils down to whether supranational unions should be mentioned in lists of basic stats. I think they should as such sovereignty-transfer arrangements between states are pretty notable. Of course they should be clearly distinguished from the sovereign states and there are many easy to implement ways to do this. Alinor (talk) 15:01, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Not quite, since you now seem to be calling for the EU to be included on single-source lists where the EU is not listed by that source.

There are three major problems with our summing up our own figures for the EU on single-source lists:

It creates precedent for us to create our own figures for other entities.
The figures used are very often not comparable. For example, data might come from different years, might measure similar but slightly different things, might include subjective judgements. There is a very good chance that any conclusion drawn from the data is original research.
Putting figures into a single-source list when they are not from that single source requires that we misrepresent that source. We cannot honestly put the EU into UN unemployment data list (for example) when the original does not include the EU.

On the rest of your points:

Your point 2: the EU is not present on ISO 3166-1, as the ISO 3166 specification makes perfectly clear. I believe that would be the sentence before the one you are quoting.

Your point 3: none of the points above make the case for inclusion in "basic stats" lists.

Your point 4: they are not supranational unions - true. But all the arguments made for supranational unions equally apply to subnational entities of many different countries. Given that, why shouldn't they be included?

If you want to create a list of supranational unions by population, and such a list does not already exist, then you're welcome to do so. But I see great value in retaining lists explicitly for countries (or more specifically for the sorts of entities that go on ISO 3166-1).

Your points 5 and 6: most of this is unavailable on many of our lists, because these methods are already used to distinguish entities that aren't independent from those that are. You quickly run out of way of distinguishing entities that don't meet the inclusion criteria (but that are randomly included anyway) from those that do.

That some might find it useful is insufficient reason for us to abandon any form of inclusion criteria, as you propose. It is the inclusion criteria that are most important here, and you propose that we ignore them. I cannot accept that.

Finally on a procedural note, I'd note that you could still expect this to be reverted on most of the lists. While I may be the only editor of those "basic stats" lists who knows about this discussion, I'm not the only one who opposes inclusion. I'd bet you'd still need to discuss this on each article. Pfainuk talk 15:55, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

It should be discussed on each article, and I don't want to go into every point, but the EU is probably relevant for economic lists, due to the single market and eurozone and other such items, and it is already on lists such as GDP (PPP). In terms of population and other matters, it will have less relevance. It would have to be a case by case inclusion, based on the EU's relevance to that factor. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 16:05, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

- What precedent? We will just make a sum of the figures of the 27 EU member states. This is not like "making out of thin air" a figure for a state not mentioned in the source.
- What is not comparable? We are speaking about combining figures from the same source, right?
- If we add figure for the EU from another source this will simply no longer be a single source list, but a multiple source list. And it will be clearly identified/noted what figures come from what source. If the UN has a list of countries by number of unemployed persons - what is the problem of making a sum of the 27 figures for the EU member states?
Yes, but as you noted deviations from the ISO are already envisioned and in addition 'EU is practically reserved for the European Union in ISO 3166'
reasons to include in basic stats lists: sovereignty transfer, operating by supranationalism.
they are, if they have ISO 3166-1. Why disregard the reserved EU ISO 3166-1 code? It's no coincidence that it's reserved.
I'm sure we will find a way of distinguishing - besides —/italics we can use footnotes with different text (and/or different background colors if there aren't too much colors already).

If the inclusion criteria is "ISO 3166-1 + deviation for states with limited recognition", then why not list the EU as "formally no ISO 3166-1, but having officially reserved code + deviation for supranational unions that have officially reserved ISO 3166-1 codes"?

To be discussed on each article - for those with topics different than basic stats this is required anyway (because inclusion is conditional on the topic - whether it is within supranational union competencies or not). But for basic stats a central location is better suited as the discussion will be the same - "is it notable or not?". Having reserved ISO 3166-1 code is one of the arguments in support of EU notability. Alinor (talk) 17:04, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

On your point 1. And what if Greece has a figure from 2005, France a figure from 2006, Germany a figure from 2008 and Sweden a figure from 2011? This sort of thing happens all the time. In the aforementioned unemployment statistics, what if Poland tries to estimate the total number of people not working, but Malta tries to measure those claiming unemployment benefit? If Germany adds together unemployment and long-term sickness benefit where Sweden does no? Do we count those people who have lost benefit in the UK because they weren't trying hard enough to find a job - something that does not happen in France? What if Hungary chooses to hand out its unemployment benefit to anyone who doesn't have a job, whereas Austria restricts it to those that are actively looking for a job?

What you have in such cases is a result that is statistically meaningless. It's worse than useless. Worse because including it may give some well-meaning reader the mistaken impression that the number we have has some reasonable basis to it when in fact it means nothing at all. Aside being intellectually dishonest in the extreme, it's banned by policy.

Your final point here: so you're saying that when we print out the nominal GDP list as collated by the World Bank (which includes the Eurozone but not the EU), we'd call it the GDP list collated by the World Bank but it would be a multi-source list. Again, that's dishonest. Either it's the list collated by the World Bank or it's a multi-source list. It cannot be both.

Your point 2. Perhaps then we should include the UK (GB, UK) and France (FR, FX) twice each then? What about the Soviet Union (SU)? That's what you just argued. Codes are also reserved for institutions such as the African Regional Industrial Property Organization (AP) or the Patent Office of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GC) - among others - given as they meet your standard, will you be pushing for them to be included?

Your point 3. Sovereignty is transferred to the UN as well. And to NATO. And to ASEAN. And the Unasur. And to Caricom. And the ICJ. And there are plenty of others where that came from. This model of unrestricted internal sovereignty may be tidy, but it doesn't exist outside the EU any more than it exists in the EU. And that's not a reason to include them in a list of sovereign states and dependent territories. Nor is the fact of supranationalism - because all of those entities have some measure of supranationalism as well.

Your point 4. The European Union is not on ISO 3166-1. As I pointed out under your point 2, relying on codes reserved in ISO 3166-1 leads to absurd conclusions. But more to the point, this does not change the fact that there are very similar arguments that could be made as regards US states, Canadian provinces and so on.

The point is that the inclusion criteria generally used is ISO 3166-1. The only exceptions are driven by IAR and logic (in that there's no point in listing an uninhabited territory's population, or listing fifty states with "unknown", or whathaveyou). There is mention made of states with limited recognition - often enough in footnotes, not as full entries of their own. Kosovo is generally a footnote of Serbia. Abkhazia and South Ossetia are generally footnotes of Georgia. And so on. We are required to mention them by NPOV - this is not the case with EU (in fact, as I've pointed out, the opposite is true: including it risks breaking NPOV by implying that the EU is, or should be, a single sovereign state).

And I don't think you're going to get a choice as to whether to have discussions on individual articles if you insist on pursuing this. It doesn't tend to work like that. Not every editor there is likely to read this talk page. And this thing has been discussed many times before, so pointing people at a consensus here - if you got consensus here - is unlikely to convince. Pfainuk talk 18:11, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

- What do you mean? That the hypothetical single source is using incoherent figures? So, regardless if we calculate a EU sum or not - using of such source is inadvisable (because, as you say, it may lead to confusion, is dishonest, etc.). What you say will apply to a case where we use multiple different sources for the 27 EU members to calculate the EU sum, but this is a different case (and I don't suggest it) - here we speak about a SINGLE source (e.g. using a UN population statistics for the same year, calculated by the same methodology for each state, etc. - and combining the 27 figures for the EU members into one EU figure - it clearly is for the same year and calculated by the same methodology as the rest), not MULTIPLE sources.
- "Either it's the list collated by the World Bank or it's a multi-source list. It cannot be both." - yes, so in cases where the EU value can't be easily calculated by the data in the single source we make a multi-source list and use one source for the states and another for the EU (clearly marking each data). And it will be as you say a multi-source list, "not both".
Of course France/UK will not be listed twice. USSR and international organizations you mention are not supranational unions, thus they don't cover the 'modified' criteria I propose.
For this you can check here: Supranational aspects of international organizations. Some of the examples you give are very far away from supranationalism (UNASUR is not yet in force, some work by unanimity, etc.) - "The only union generally recognized as having achieved the status of a supranational union is the European Union.[15]"
The point about subnational entities - those of them having ISO code are already covered by the criteria. About the other controversies - see point2.
So the inclusion criteria used is "ISO 3166-1 + states with limited recognition" and I propose to change it to "ISO 3166-1 + states with limited recognition + supranational unions (distinguished by — or something else)" (this is to apply to basic stats only - other cases are to be decided individually).

OK, of course if somebody objects at some particular article it will have to be discussed. Alinor (talk) 19:31, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

The point I still haven't got here is why you want them? That it might be a "supranational union" is not, in and of itself, a good reason.

So the number one. Lots of lists do include information collected in different ways, because that's the only way of sourcing the statistics.

You mention population. OK. Different countries determine their populations in different ways. They have their censuses at different times, and make their estimates at different times. Some European countries (such as Belgium) don't have censuses at all. The estimates are calculated based on different dates, and may well each be based on a different premise. At what point do we count immigrants, for example? Or is it just citizens, or is it some immigrants and not others?

The UN get their data from 200-odd different sources - one for each country. Each with its own methodology, none of which are likely on the same basis as all the others. And we can do something similar because we can provide the sources we're using. The only way we could do that in the way you propose is by pointing out right beside the measurement that we've done two dozen things, each of which alone would render the number totally meaningless.

Your point 2 provides an obvious problem. Either you're including entities for which codes are reserved, or you aren't. If you aren't, the EU doesn't go on. If you are, the Patent Office of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf has to go in.

Your point 3: you said that the EU had to go in because countries had ceded a level sovereignty to join. All of these entities have some measure of supranationalism and all require members to cede some level of sovereignty.

Your point 4: no point has been made yet that would rule out inclusion of subnational entities for the same or for similar reasons to the EU.

Your point 5: no. The inclusion criteria are ISO 3166-1. Full stop. The only exceptions are entities excluded for reasons of common sense. States with limited recognition are mentioned, but not included in the list. The EU also gets a mention on some lists as an example of an entity not included - but isn't and shouldn't be included. Pfainuk talk 20:13, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

- I don't get your argument that "It's OK to use all of the figures from a single inconsistent source, but it isn't OK to use 27 of these same figures provided by this same source" - if you find it acceptable to use this source in the first place, then what's the problem of using its figures for the EU member states?
- I don't suggest that we "emulate the way UN works" and compile EU figure by using 27 different sources - I suggest that we use the 27 figures for the member states from one single source - that hypothetical source that is used for the whole hypothetical basic stats article we speak about. And since the single source is accepted as reliable in the first place - we don't need to bother how it has gathered its information.
No, I suggest to add only those of the entities with reserved ISO 3166-1 codes that are suprantional unions, not each and every organization.
As you can see in the links above "some level" in most cases means 'minimal level' - in contrast to the supranational unions that have 'substantial level'.
They are not ruled out - on the contrary, they are included if they have ISO 3166-1 codes - for example some dependencies have such.
Common sense. That's why I suggest adding supranational unions. And for the states of limited recognition - I'm not sure that it's NPOV to "not list them, but only mention them as footnotes". On the contrary - the NPOV way is to list all sovereign states (regardless if they have ISO 3166-1 code or not - as granting ISO code may be denied for political reasons). Alinor (talk) 20:56, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Your points one and two. What you're suggesting is that we add together bits of data from different years and based on different methodologies and imply that the final number is meaningful. That is unacceptable because very often it won't be. The fact that the numbers come from the same source does not imply - particularly in this case - that they were all generated in the year with the same methodology.

Our current lists do what the existing lists do. They don't try and interpret the data and do their best to flag up the differences. You propose that we do the opposite and interpret the data in a way that is totally meaningless.

Your point 3 - so why shouldn't someone else propose the others then? On what basis would we not put the Patent Office of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf on? I don't see one. You're drawing a distinction that does not exist in the data you're trying to use.

Your point 4 - either ISO 3166-1 is crucial or it isn't. If it is crucial, as you say in this point, then you have no basis to exclude the Patent Office of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf. If it isn't crucial, then you have no basis to exclude Louisiana - which is, after all, a sovereign state according to its constitution.

And your point 5. It seems to me that common sense would dictate that an entity that is not included by our inclusion criteria - and for that matter is not a sovereign state, not a dependent territory, and does not meet any significant definition of the word "country" (these being what the reader is led to expect in our lists) - should not go on those lists. It also seems to me that I would want a very good reason to overturn what have proved to be very stable inclusion criteria (which is the point of using ISO 3166-1), and that no such reasons have been provided.

Finally, are you arguing that we should ignore the fact that the legality of Nagorno-Karabakh or Transnistria is in dispute? Surely not - that would mean taking sides in every such dispute in the world. Pfainuk talk 22:01, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't get it - are you saying "It is meaningful to compile one list of states with bits of data from different years and based on different methodologies" and at the same time "It is not meaningful to add together in one figure bits of data from different years and based on different methodologies"? If you claim that the hypothetical source uses inconsistent methodologies and uses data from different years - then this source should not be used for any list - regardless of EU listing or no EU listing. And vice versa - if a source is used (without EU listing), this means that it is consistent and reliable - so its numbers are not from different years and based on different methodologies.
I don't propose any data interpretation - I propose that we either A] make a sum of 27 figures or B] transform the list in multi-source list with one source for the EU and one for the states. Of course A] is more consistent as it uses (for both the EU and the states) data from the same year and with the same methodology.
The distinction is not drawn by me, but by the source at reference15 here.
ISO 3166-1 is fine, but it's not perfect. We deviate from it for the states with limited recognition. If you have a proposal for another deviation (besides states with limited recognition and supranational unions) - please define it.
"country" being what the reader is led to expect in our lists. That's why supranational unions will be noted with — or other distinction - to separate them from the countries.
"are you arguing that we should ignore the fact that the legality of ... is in dispute?" - no, but this doesn't mean that the disputed states should be mentioned as footnotes on states they have dispute with. Such arrangement means taking the side of Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, Moldova over Transnistria, etc. The NPOV way is to list them both and put explanatory notes describing/linking to the dispute. Alinor (talk) 23:24, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

On your point 1: on that basis, very few lists of countries are possible, because it is very unlikely that we will able to find a source that uses the same year and same methodology throughout all 200-odd states and territories. All I'm saying is that we should do - and do do - what the sources do: mix methodologies and years and flag up the inconsistencies. Each number on its own is based on a single year and a single methodology - each is meaningful in its own way - but if you try and add them together then your final result will not be.

Which brings me to your point 2: summing 27 figures is data interpretation. And you most certainly cannot assume that the data will be from the same year and will use the same methodology throughout, because it almost certainly won't be - even if it came from the same source. Randomly adding a separate source for the EU on what is otherwise a single-source list is likely to be very awkward: in many cases there is great advantage to have a single-source list. Such lists give us a template from which to work and allows us to ensure that we non-experts are not randomly using one data point (taken from the media, for example) where we should be using another. That's aside the point that we'd promptly have to remove a lot of the detail of the source being used (it would not be reasonable to present a World Bank list as a World Bank list if it randomly included data that was not included by the World Bank).

Your point 3: I never claimed that the EU isn't different in degree from the others. But that does not imply that it has to be treated as though it were a sovereign state.

Your point 4: no we don't. We generally include no entities whatsoever that are excluded from ISO 3166-1. And that's the way it should be - a clear-cut, easily-delimited, inclusion criterion. But your argument at this point appears to be that ISO 3166-1 is crucial in the case of the EU but irrelevant in the case of the Patent Office of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf. That sovereignty is crucial in the case of the EU but irrelevant in the case of Louisiana.

Your point 5: this does not back up your argument that common sense dictates that the European Union - which is not on ISO 3166-1, not a country, not a sovereign state and not a dependent territory - belongs on a list of sovereign states and dependent territories or a list of countries defined according to ISO 3166-1. As I say, I would rather suggest the opposite: that common sense would imply that the EU should be excluded.

Your point 6 is not done precisely because of the inclusion criterion (ISO 3166-1) and the principle that each area should be included only once. As it happens, I would argue that we'd be better off using a notes column rather than footnotes, but I don't think it's a particularly big deal, all told. Pfainuk talk 10:27, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't agree that having a list with inconsistent numbers is somehow better or worse than having a sum of inconsistent numbers. I think the disadvantages are the same in both cases and both should be avoided. And that's why if all other things are equal a single source list is better than multiple source list.
Per above - I don't think we should use inconsistent sources - neither for lists nor for EU sums. If the single source is reliable then I don't see any problem in calculating the EU sum from its data.
I don't suggest to treat it like sovereign state - I suggest that we include supranational unions in basic stat lists. If required we can change the names to "List of sovereign states and supranational unions by GDP", but this seems too much to me - a simple — in front of supranational unions when mentioned in a "List of sovereign states by GDP" will suffice, IMHO.
If Louisiana is sovereign state ("regular - listed in ISO 3166-1" or "with limited recognition - not listed in ISO 3166-1") or supranational union or something-else-that-you-define - it gets included. If it isn't - it's not included. I ask for the definition of the third type of entities that you think should be added to the lists.
See point3.
Using ISO 3166-1 in the case of state with limited recognition is POV. If we want to have a NPOV list, then these states should have their own lines just like the ISO 3166-1 states. Yes, most of the time this will be hard to do (because of lack of data), but if we have the data we should present it properly (of course additionally the disputes should be mentioned, etc.)

OK, I see that we have disagreements on point1&6 that are unrelated to the supranational unions issue, but simultaneously you don't accept their inclusions in the lists of basic stats - and for the time being I won't continue to insist.

P.S. Supranational unions are relevant as a reference/context for the basic stats lists - even if it is a "List of countries by GDP" adding (with —) the EU (and other supranational unions, when such appear) is relevant and notable addition. This doesn't mean that "EU is a state" (and can be clarified with a footnote, if needed) - it just presents the information in a convenient way. I don't understand your opposition to such simple and highly notable addition, but as I said - for the time being - I won't insist. Alinor (talk) 13:02, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

We can use inconsistent lists because our sources do. We are just following the example of sources - and if we eliminate them, we have to eliminate a good number of lists. But what our sources don't do is try to interpret the data by creating their own, new entries based on inconsistent data. A source can be reliable for what it claims to do (flagging up the inconsistencies just as we do in our articles), without being reliable for our interpretations (the addition of numbers to generate a new number).

The GDP lists are a bad example, because they are each composed of three single-source lists. Two of those sources happen include the EU, the third the Eurozone - and we follow exactly the same pattern. This is just a matter of following what the source does - we cannot put the IMF list of countries by GDP without including the EU, because the EU is included by the IMF. This reasoning does not follow on for multi-source lists.

By listing the European Union alongside the sovereign states and dependent territories of the world, you imply that it is one or the other. Putting a dash does not prevent this.

Louisiana, like all US states, is formally a sovereign state in its own right. It is not listed by ISO 3166-1, or by our list of sovereign states, because it fails both the published inclusion criteria for ISO 3166-1, and the published inclusion criteria for our list of sovereign states. Notably, it does not claim to be an independent sovereign state. Nonetheless, it has more place on a list of sovereign states than the EU, because it actually is a sovereign state. The fact of sovereignty can be used to include Louisiana if anything more convincingly than for the EU.

I don't personally want a third type - or indeed a second type - included. I think that using ISO 3166-1 is a good idea precisely because it gets rid of the rough edges that are causing such difficulty at list of sovereign states: rough edges that inexact terms such as "sovereign state", "country" or "dependent territory" or indeed "supranational union" cannot hope to eliminate. There is a clear-cut distinction: either an entity is on the list or it is not. And if it is not, it does not go on our lists. If you like, you can see this as the standing resolution to equivalent to the dispute at list of sovereign states. We don't have the potential problems of original research or editor bias in choosing the states to include in these lists because we've farmed it out to an appropriate outside source.

I don't agree on states with limited recognition. It's the same problem as at list of sovereign states - it's just as POV to create an unsegregated list with data in it as it is to create an unsegregated list at list of sovereign state - and for the same reasons. There's also the additional problem of double-counting, which is considered unacceptable on those lists. Hence division based on ISO 3166-1, with a notes column or footnotes for those excluded that have limited recognition.

You mention reference/context in as a reason to include the EU. I don't accept this as a reason to include on the list - context is already amply provided by the states included in the list. Additionally, the lede sections for these lists very often include sections that refer to entities not included, together with Wikilinks and footnotes that contain the data, so comparison is not particularly difficult. And I also see no end to the amount of data that can be included as context or for reference - again, North Americans might feel that it would be convenient to include US states or Canadian provinces as context. Why shouldn't we? My arguments would be the same as for the EU. If we were to include the EU, I see no basis on which we could refuse.

You say it's "highly notable" and "relevant" - I would say that relevance and notability are defined by the inclusion criteria. That any entity that fails the inclusion criteria is not relevant, and any entity that passes the inclusion criteria is relevant. The EU fails the inclusion criteria for most multi-source lists. Pfainuk talk 14:51, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Again, mentioning supranational unions does not imply that they are states - they will be mentioned with —, footnote explaining what they are (e.g. "not a state"), background color, italics or some combination of these. It will be perfectly clear.

"fails inclusion criteria" - yes, that's what this discussion is about - to change them.

single sources are not sacred cows - we are not forced to include the EU just because the IMF includes it. We can simply skip the EU line (I don't suggest that we should do this, I only say that we can - if we decide so).

Also, about the notability - the fact that WB/IMF include the EU is telling enough. This covers GDP. Area statistics are not exactly "dynamic" (and also these lists are pretty consistent - they either include waters or they don't, etc.) so they can be taken from Eurostat or by calculating a sum of 27 numbers. Of the basic stats only the population remains - here it is really important what methodology is used, etc. - but I really find it uncontroversial to sum 27 numbers that we already take as reliable - or to just take the number from Eurostat (it uses different methodology/year, but you argue that each of the numbers uses different methodology/year even if from single source - so adding one more is not a problem).

Anyway, I know you don't agree with the above. Alinor (talk) 16:21, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Template changes

User:Italiano111 recently made two changes to the template without prior discussion, and then went off altering a bunch of country articles to suit this new template (including some featured country articles). I didn't notice the changes, subtly hidden with edit summary "references" till now. I've held off reverting immediately, but feel that these changes should definitely not have been made without discussion on the talk page, as they affect the default layout of over 200 articles and have been used as a justification by the user to then change other articles. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 08:10, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
I've reverted, although a review of the organisation is due. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 12:07, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

The addition of "References" which is a standardized section in almost all Wikipedia completed the list. The other changes were aimed to install a coherent recommendation which do not contradict with Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries/Templates. For example: The former format talks of "Administrave divisions" here, while the Template talks of "Divisions". The minor change also installs the defacto practise of either existing FA country articles or the practise of a vast number of existing country articles. Hope this rationale can be understood by everybody. Italiano111 (talk) 19:47, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

References was fine. The other changes were not. You changed both the template page and this page, both the same way. FA countries are different. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 04:20, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Your edits have reinstated a contradictory recommendation within this Project page. In order to ensure a coherent set of country organization which is synchronized with Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries/Templates your edits have been reverted. Please recognize that a coherent name regime within this Project is necessary to have a basic logic. Italiano111 (talk) 14:33, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Please respect WP:BRD and WP:Consensus. Just let the RFC work it's way, the world is not going to end. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:39, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

The problem is, that you have no position offered so far to resolve the obvious (former) nonsynchronized MOS of Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries and Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries/Templates. I have and I argued in logical way. Think about it, you only have reinstated chaos. Italiano111 (talk) 15:25, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

My solution? Go with Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries/Templates. But anyway, some of your changes weren't even part of the dispute, such as the change from Subdivisions to Administrative divisions. It is subdivisions on both. I have created an WP:RFC, and argued there. That's wikipedia policy. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:31, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Adding a "Corruption index" parameter to the infobox countries template

You are invited to join the discussion at Corruption index. Zuggernaut (talk) 19:31, 20 January 2011 (UTC) (Using {{Please see}})

Featured portal candidate: United States

Portal:United States is a current featured portal candidate. Please feel free to leave comments. -- RichardF (talk) 05:58, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Rwanda - new peer review

Hi guys,

Just to let you all know that I've relisted it for another peer review at Wikipedia:Peer review/Rwanda/archive3. I got useful feedback from the last one four months ago, and have now improved the article accordingly. Any and all opinions on its current state welcome! Thanks — Amakuru (talk) 23:33, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Marking of dispute territories

Hi. I would begin discussion about controversies in marking of self-independent countries and dispute territories on maps. I know 4 self-independent countries in the World: Kosovo, Taiwan, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. But first 2 are marked on main maps of countries which mean so it's just dispute territories, Serbia and People's Republic of China. Last 2 not mark on main map of Georgia, and User:ComtesseDeMingrelie don't want to put map for main, where mark Abkhazia and South Ossetia, explaining so Wiki have no standards about marking territories like so - "Article about Georgia so main map must be show just Georgia".

Also I begun discussion about dispute territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which are dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan since 1991. I'm put map where mark this territory, But User:Proger returned map comeback which was without Nagorno-Karabakh. And his also explained that so in Wiki haven't standards about marking dispute territories.

So must we show that's territories of map, or we not? Because if talking about self-independent countries, so Kosovo are marked on main Serbian map and Taiwan marked on main map of PRC. So why we are not must mark Abkhazia and South Ossetia on main map of Georgia?

And so question about dispute territories. On maps so many countries dispute territories are marked on main maps, like about Venezuela with western Guyana, Moldova with Transnistria, India and Pakistan with Jammu and Kashmir, Japan with Kuril Islands. Why Nagorno-Karabakh not must be shown on main map of Azerbaijan?

If see how make maps right now, so some people might think so mark here just special territories with special people. It's not OK.

If we have no standards about main maps, so I can put map in article about Serbia where not mark Kosovo, map of China where not mark Taiwan, Venezuela without western Guyana, and it will be OK. I'm right or not?

EGroup (talk) 09:28, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Heads up on health articles for countries

The following countries have health articles, the rest do not:

That's about a third of the countries of the world. Some of the countries that don't have a "Health in" article have a redirect to "Health care in", which is not the same subject. Even the United States does not have a "Health in" article. The Transhumanist 22:21, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

It may not be the identical subject, but most people would expect pretty much the same content so it shouldn't be forked by default. JFTR Special:Allpages/Healthcare in and Special:Allpages/Health care in . --Joy [shallot] (talk) 22:39, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Looking them over, they're not the same subject. Health care pertains to health insurance, hospitals, and the distribution of health care services. Health pertains to life expectancy, fitness, disease or lack thereof, sanitary conditions, etc. Health subsumes health care, but not the other way around.

By the way, the countries lacking "Health in" articles include:

Regardless of the titles, there are a lot of countries lacking coverage on these subjects. The Transhumanist 23:26, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Citation templates now support more identifiers

Recent changes were made to citations templates (such as {{citation}}, {{cite journal}}, {{cite web}}...). In addition to what was previously supported (bibcode, doi, jstor, isbn, ...), templates now support arXiv, ASIN, JFM, LCCN, MR, OL, OSTI, RFC, SSRN and Zbl. Before, you needed to place |id={{arxiv|0123.4567}} (or worse |url=http://arxiv.org/abs/0123.4567), now you can simply use |arxiv=0123.4567, likewise for |id={{JSTOR|0123456789}} and |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/0123456789 → |jstor=0123456789.

The full list of supported identifiers is given here (with dummy values):

{{cite journal |author=John Smith |year=2000 |title=How to Put Things into Other Things |journal=Journal of Foobar |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=3–4 |arxiv=0123456789 |asin=0123456789 |bibcode=0123456789 |doi=0123456789 |jfm=0123456789 |jstor=0123456789 |lccn=0123456789 |isbn=0123456789 |issn=0123456789 |mr=0123456789 |oclc=0123456789 |ol=0123456789 |osti=0123456789 |rfc=0123456789 |pmc=0123456789 |pmid=0123456789 |ssrn=0123456789 |zbl=0123456789 |id={{para|id|____}} }}

Obviously not all citations needs all parameters, but this streamlines the most popular ones and gives both better metadata and better appearances when printed. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:40, 8 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) 07:54, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Consistent structuring of state articles for editing continuity

I'm not a member of the project, but I 'surf' across articles of modern and historical states. It seems to me that this Project hasn't quite realised that all the states that hat at some stage existed are also part of the project.

It is often difficult to readily find information in state articles because they are not consistently structured.
Also, it seems to me that editors are not sure about how to write continuity between sections so the prose flows a bit more rather than ending abruptly.
Having thought about this for a few weeks, I came up with a new structure matrix (below), and obviously would appreciate feedback, but also naturally the possibility of its adoption by this project

Regional environment -> Geology, Hydrology, Geography, Climate, Soil science, Biodiversity (Flora, Fauna and Waterborne),

       |
        shapes
       v

Human habitation -> Territoriality, Demographics, Human rights, Social conflicts, Urbanisation, Natural resource management,

         |
        shapes
         v

History & future -> Regional history, State history, Local history, Historical preservation, Current affairs, National aspirations,

         |
         shapes
         v

Governance -> The State (Head of, Symbols, Location, etc.), Representation, Legislative, Executive, Judiciary, Public Service, Administration, Civil Society

          |
          shapes
          v

Economy -> Economic history, Agriculture, Mining, Development, Sciences, Technology, Infrastructures (Health, Transport etc. ), Public utilities (Water, Energy, etc.), Commercial sectors (Manufacturing, Services, etc.),

          |
           shapes
          v

International relations -> Diplomacy (Interests & Influences), Memberships, Trade, Conflicts, Defence, Humanitarian activity,

           |
            shapes
           v

Culture -> Language, Architecture, Lifestyle, Culinaria, Cultural institutions, Religions, Performing arts, Visual arts, Literature, Sports, Education, Public communications,

and a signature Koakhtzvigad (talk) 12:57, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

There's a very loose structure found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries/Templates. I'm quite for a structure somewhat like this, noting of course that these sebsets of information wouldn't be actual subsections but part of the prose, per WP:SUMMARY STYLE. Would also have to be flexible, but that's a given. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 13:25, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately the existing structure is too loose and this creates the look of inconsistency across the project articles. And this is just for the current countries, to say nothing of historical entities. The infobox is inadequate for the later because it doesn't allow input of region, independence from, foundation date, cessation date, and integrated into data.

The matrix is intended as a sandbox guideline, not lines etched in stone :) Koakhtzvigad (talk) 23:54, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I believe former countries were transferred over to Wikipedia:WikiProject Former countries. Appropriate infobox might be Template:Infobox former country. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 01:42, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Ordering of sections in country articles

For those who have not yet spotted it, there is an ongoing discussion over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries/Templates#Organisation of Country pages concerning the ordering of sections in country articles. In order to unify the discussion, I won't give details here, but please give your input over there if you have an opinion. Thanks — Amakuru (talk) 08:41, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Notice of RfC pertaining to Kosovo

The placement of Kosovo on List of sovereign states is currently being debated. We need further input from uninvolved editors about how best to proceed. Your participation would be greatly appreciated. The discussion is being held at Talk:List of sovereign states/Discussion of criteria#Kosovo's placement on the list. Nightw 00:12, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Rwanda FAC

Hi again guys,

Following a lengthy peer review led by User:Cryptic C62, I have now nominated Rwanda for Featured Article status. I would like to invite any contributions to the process and feedback from members of this project at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Rwanda/archive1 if you have the time/inclination! Thanks — Amakuru (talk) 12:31, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Popular pages

I've requested that this project be added to the toolserver's popular pages statistics. This will offer the project a monthly listing of the most-viewed pages under this project's scope. -Mabeenot (talk) 13:14, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Requested move for Côte d'Ivoire

A move discussion for Côte d'Ivoire (to move to Ivory Coast) is being held at Talk:Côte d'Ivoire. Rennell435 (talk) 17:03, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

List of countries for this project

Is there any list of countries for the purpose of this project? From what I observed this project covers all sovereign states (including all un(der)recognised states), all dependent territories, and Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Am I right? Peter Geatings (talk) 18:46, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Countries or articles? I think you're looking for Category:WikiProject Countries articles. Nightw 08:29, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

I would suggest adding "Green House Gas Emissions" and "Greenhouse Gas Emissions per Capita" to the country infobox. This data can be found, for example, in [5]. I volunteer to add this information to all countries once the country infobox template supports this. I also volunteer to change the template myself, if someone tells me where I can find a tutorial showing how to do it (I was able to find tutorials for basic templates in the MediaWiki help pages, but not for advanced ones like the country infobox. I can program; so, parser functions shouldn't be a problem for me...).

--Ceilican (talk) 04:42, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Cfd of interest

The CfD I instigated at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2011_June_23#Category:International_rankings is of interest to this WikiProject. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 04:02, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Missing templates

Not sure if this WikiProject is aware of it but some of the country topic templates are missing eg. {{Oman topics}}, {{Malawi topics}}. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 04:29, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

RM notice: China

A move request has been filed for China to be made a disambiguation page. See Talk:China. Nightw 18:33, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Pageview stats

After a recent request, I added WikiProject Countries to the list of projects to compile monthly pageview stats for. The data is the same used by http://stats.grok.se/en/ but the program is different, and includes the aggregate views from all redirects to each page. The stats are at Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries/Popular pages.

The page will be updated monthly with new data. The edits aren't marked as bot edits, so they will show up in watchlists. You can view more results, request a new project be added to the list, or request a configuration change for this project using the toolserver tool. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. Thanks! Mr.Z-man 01:42, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Slogan?

I understand that Wikipedia is (for the most part) a serious place. However, I would like to propose a slogan for this project that would perhaps appear on templates and our other logos: "Turn the map yellow!". After all, is that not the ultimate aim of this project - to bring every country to FA status, and thus turn the entire world map yellow? Interchangeable|talk to me|what I've changed 22:56, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I personally have no issue with humour off the mainspace. I do however prefer gold to yellow. Far more regal. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 23:14, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Alright, then; how about "Turn the map gold!"? Interchangeable|talk to me|what I've changed 04:02, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

If you wish. Add a bit of flair and personality. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 00:24, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't really know how to add text to templates and animations well. Will someone please do that? Interchangeable|talk to me|what I've changed 21:23, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

RM: China

A move has been requested to move People's Republic of China to China and to move China to Chinese civilisation. See this for the discussion. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:16, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Notice of RfC pertaining to List of sovereign states

Please join a preference survey on how to divide our List of sovereign states. All responses are appreciated. Thanks, Nightw 13:38, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Poll on ArbCom resolution - Ireland article names

There is a poll taking place here on whether or not to extend the ArbCombinding resolution, which says there may be no page move discussions for Ireland, Republic of Ireland or Ireland (disambiguation), for a further two years. Fmph (talk) 20:09, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

RFC on Cook Islands and Niue

RFC opened on their status here: [[6]]. Editors are invited to participate. Ladril (talk) 17:26, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Where's that section? 116.48.87.86 (talk) 18:44, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

RFC on treatment of Hong Kong and Macau in aviation-related lists

There is an RfC at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation/Style guide/Lists about whether Hong Kong and Macau should be listed separately from mainland China on aviation-related lists. Please comment there. (Please also update the article alert list of this WikiProject to include the discussion.) Der yck C. 16:14, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

IMHO there should be one single centralised RfC discussion for all lists and categories and for all dependent territories that are inhabited. 218.250.156.183 (talk) 21:13, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

That makes no sense. Each case is different. 70.24.247.61 (talk) 03:46, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Quite a lot of cases are essentially similar. Exceptions aren't common. 119.237.156.46 (talk) 13:17, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

A list

I have created a list of countries by traffic and number of viewers, which can be found here. I think it might be useful for the project. - ☣Tourbillon ^A ? 09:05, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Open Ireland page move discussion

After a two year ban imposed by Arbcom, a page move discussion for the Republic of Ireland can be entertained.

(Discuss) – Republic of Ireland →Ireland (republic) Kauffner (talk) 08:06, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

FAR

I have nominated Turkey for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Dana boomer (talk) 13:55, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Another move request at Burma

Surprised this wasn't mentioned here. Please join a move request discussion at Talk:Burma. Nightw 03:46, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Etymology vs toponymy

Project guidance is that an etymology subsection should be created under history if there is sufficient material. Should this actually be a toponymy subsection? --Biker Biker (talk) 13:00, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

It's placement under history is never followed in practice, so I'll change that. Also in practice, not all the sections are named Etymology, and not all countries have this section. See East Timor, which has the section titled "Name", or Rwanda, which doesn't have one as information doesn't actually exist (so I'm told). In the end it depends on the information in there, but if the name is change, there should be an anchor to Etymology {{Anchor|Etymology}} (see East Timor again). Chipmunkdavis (talk) 16:35, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

OK, but what about etymology vs toponymy? The latter is the correct word for the origin of place names (and anchoring to etymology is easy to preserve existing links) --Biker Biker (talk) 16:39, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Depends I suppose. Often the information goes beyond basic toponymy into the origin of the actual words, which I wouldn't personally classify as just toponymy. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 17:24, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Move discussion: ROC > Taiwan

Within this ongoing discussion, it is proposed that Republic of China is moved to Taiwan, and Taiwan is moved to Taiwan (island). Output from additional editors is welcome. -- 李博杰 | —Talk contribs email 10:30, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Malaysia FAC

Malaysia is up for FAC at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Malaysia/archive3. All comments welcome. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:27, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Comments requested at Flag of Western Sahara

Hello - Your comment is requested over at Talk:Flag of Western Sahara; there is an RfC underway there to help decide what the article contents should be. If you can take some time to share your opinion on the matter, it would be very much appreciated. --Tachfin (talk) 09:42, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

RFC on coordinates in highway articles

There is currently a discussion taking place at WT:HWY regarding the potential use of coordinates in highway articles. Your input is welcomed. --Rs chen 7754 01:40, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Sound links removal by Jamaican IP

I encounter, by chance, for already quite some time one hopping Jamaican IP editor, who preferentially edits infoboxes of country articles, mostly tweaking wikilinks and removing all and any internal links to ogg files, sometimes adding external audio links instead. Recent example [7], but there are many more (he/she usually makes a dozen of edits and then hops). This is an example of their edit pattern 69.160.101.134 (talk · contribs) - wikignomish tweaks, yet systematically removing any ogg links on the way. Some edits are sort of misguided, like using language stats for ethnic stats. Any feedback? Materialscientist (talk) 23:13, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

There's a couple of IPs which gnome around on infoboxes, removing oggs and adding wikilinks, although I have no idea if they're all the same. If you think oggs should stay in, then I suppose we'll have to revert. We can't block them (hopping), and semiing all country articles would be unfeasible. I haven't noticed any language stats for ethnic stats myself, that's a problem. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 08:09, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Example on ethnic stats. Can't verify those edits easily, but saw a lot of such from that user recently, all unsourced, but not looking suspicious. I wrote because it is a not a random user, but a "wikipedian", editing every day, for months. Don't know about ogg, but some are "featured sounds", and [8] is an FA on anthems. Materialscientist (talk) 08:22, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Ah yes, 184.170.61.53. I haven't seen anything bad, I spotchecked their recent Malawi edit, and their ethnic group figures were taken from the CIA, and were different to the language figures. That Switzerland edit was also simply taken from the CIA, so if any error is present it's the CIAs fault not the IPs. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 11:19, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Listing of dependencies on country lists

[9] Should dependencies such as Puerto Rico, Hong Kong, Greenland, Bermuda be listed with their own sections? 116.48.173.15 (talk) 14:05, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Austria 20th century editing

There is a few wrong stuff here, for example Adolf Eichmann was not Austrian, he was German born by nationality.

Secondly, "Austria was incorporated into the Third Reich" the better term would be "annexed" not "incorporated".

"Two days later native Austrian Hitler" then he is mentioned again as an Austrian origin, that is going twice over yourself.

It is a country also, not a state

I have edited it to how I think it should be and also the speech he gave when in Vienna.--Vincentnufcr1 (talk) 23:15, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Categorisation of Hong Kong and Macau

From what I observed, many Hong Kong and Macau categories are subcats of the corresponding by-country parent categories (by their status of dependencies), and are subcats of the corresponding China or PRC categories with a <spacebar>Hong Kong or <spacebar>Macau catsort (in some cases an asterisk is used instead in place of the <spacebar> tho). When I apply it to other categories, SchmuckyTheCat (talk · contribs) undid them en masse.[10] Can anyone help look into the problem? Please respond at Wikipedia talk:Categorisation. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 17:09, 13 February 2012 (UTC)Blocked as sock

United States GAR

An article that you have been involved in editing, United States has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the good article reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Cambalachero (talk) 18:27, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Statesman's Year-Book, now in Wikisource

For historic information (1871, 1899, 1913, 1921) on the countries of the world, see the announcement at s:Wikisource:Scriptorium#Statesman's Year-Book. --LA2 (talk) 21:14, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Use of International Futures in Country Pages

Hello all,

I've come in contact with a source that I believe would be a tremendous addition to Wikipedia pages dedicated to countries. The project is called "International Futures" from the Pardee Center for International Futures at the University of Denver. International Futures is a long-term forecasting and global trend analysis project that has gained credibility and international notoriety in the policy community.

Their work has been sourced in some very credible projects that I've come across.

United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Reports - here's the latest http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2011/papers/HDRP_2011_08.pdf

The African Futures Project with the Institute for Security Studies - http://www.ifs.du.edu/assets/documents/Africa%20Futures%202050%20ISS%20Pardee%20IFs.pdf

The UN's Global Environmental Outlook - http://www.unep.org/geo/geo4.asp

The US Institute for Peace - http://www.usip.org/publications/vulnerability-intrastate-conflict

The US National Intelligence Council, Global Scenarios 2025 - http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2025_global_scenarios.html

And their work is hosted by Google's Public Data Explorer (Although I've been told that this data is not as current as their website) http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=n4ff2muj8bh2a_

It's difficult to find independent sources that verify their work, but I think that some of their clients and projects may speak to the quality of their work. I've been in touch with International Futures to get a list of some of this recent work, so if there's any other questions regarding their work I can contact them easily.

I've posted a few external links to country pages, but it has been brought to my attention that I should start a conversation on this message board to seek consensus. I think that it's a tool that has a great deal of utility, and the forecasts add something new and interesting to country discussions. International Futures is the world's largest integrated and endogenous model for global forecasting. As far as I am aware, this is the only place where these policy planning tools are freely available and open source. This project seems to place significant emphasis on transparency, which is part of the reason that I place such value in it. I believe it's a great addition, and I'd like to see these forecasts on more country pages. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

The web based version of the model can be found at http://www.ifs.du.edu/ifs/Ifs.aspx (Shredder2012 (talk) 22:01, 24 January 2012 (UTC))

I must admit I find it fascinating, but does it help readers to understand the country? Also, what links are you adding? Just the homepage? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 02:20, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response! I’ve found that International Futures is an excellent place to start for learning about a country. If I could, I’ll give you the example that I first encountered that has led to one of my current interests. I placed an external link to Ukraine’s “Key Development Forecasts” from International Futures on Ukraine’s country page.

http://www.ifs.du.edu/ifs/frm_CountryProfile.aspx?Country=UA

I think from just a brief look at this page, you can learn a great deal. For instance, the population forecasts go from 45 million in 2012 to 27 million in 2060. Clearly, this represents long and dramatic demographic transition. To me, these forecasts serve as a great launching point for further research. And examples like this are abound, just from this Country Page – from health or governance indicators to economic variables. Additionally, the model has many more capabilities, including scenario building and analysis of historical variables.

I first started experimenting with Wikipedia putting these Development Forecast pages in external links and using model-generated forecasts to do some in-text edits on country pages. I also used International Futures to generate a population pyramid for 2012 for Ukraine, which replaced an outdated pyramid on the country page. The external links that I have done previously are direct links to country-specific information. I’d definitely like to see this continue – I just haven’t seen anything quite like this project. Do you think this is something that would be a good addition to country pages? (Shredder2012 (talk) 04:57, 25 January 2012 (UTC))

There's a lot of information in those pages. As the pages also show some historical and some current information, I think they definitely fullfill the purpose of an EL. The Ukraine pyramid looks like an improvement to the article. I suppose you can definitely feel free to add them to the relevant pages, assuming they get their historical information from somewhere reliable. Just be sure to justify the addition on the talkpage if it ever comes into question. Cheers, Chipmunkdavis (talk) 11:34, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

That's excellent news, thanks so much for reviewing this source. I want to contribute in a meaningful way to Wikipedia discussions on countries and international relations, and I'm glad to see that we're in agreement. I look forward to working with you in the future, and please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any project ideas. (Shredder2012 (talk) 18:35, 25 January 2012 (UTC))

I wouldn't give green light to this one, sorry, even though I'm a great fan of futurology etc. Most figures of demographic and economic predictions for the term of more than 20-30 years (one generation) are mostly pure speculation in my opinion, even if they are based on extrapolations of some credible statistical data. Of course, they might be interesting etc., but I doubt most such predictions have encyclopedic quality.

Reviewing the predictions page for Russia, [11] it is all plain wrong and outdated from the very beginning. Take the first figure "Population - Mil People 2012: 141.2" - it is 2012 already, the population of Russia is 143 million and is growing according to Rosstat, which is the provider of all the basic statistics on Russia used by Russian and international organisations. All the current Russian population statistics (birth rate, death rate, life expectancy, fertility etc) for 2011 is much better than predicted by International Futures for 2012, and there are no reasons why everything should get so much worse in one year when the current dynamics is positive.

It looks like they in International Futures just have taken some outdated figures and extended the trends based on them into the future, resulting in a highly pessimistic demographic scenario (similar negative scenarios made for 2000s have been already proven false; they failed to account the improvements in late 2000s thanks to the increasing number of potential mothers, delayed births, improved level of life and government support).

More problems are found in the other sections of that predictions page. Why shouldn't the smoking rate substantially decrease in Russia like it did in Europe when the Russian government currently is gradually implementing the tighter restrictions on smoking?

When it comes to economy, why the 2012 figures of GDP (both nominal and PPP) are so much lower compared to the data in the List of countries by GDP (PPP) and List of countries by GDP (nominal), while the current growth forecasts are positive?

Such predictions based on outdated data contradicting to the current situation and to the current short term trends are not credible, and if there are similar problems with predictions for other countries, they should not be added to any country articles. GreyHood ^Talk 23:14, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response. If I could, I'd like to try to address your concerns one by one. It seems to me that each of the issues that you've highlighted are difference of opinion about data sources used or assumptions.

1. Foremost, your claim that forecast beyond one generation (20-30 years) is mostly "pure speculation" is not true of the scientific community more generally. For instance, reputable publications like Nature or Science use long-term forecasting for population, the environment, energy and education. There is clearly a scientific basis for these forecasts, and there's an interest in long-term forecasting in the policy community, too.

2. The difference in population figures is a matter of sources. According to the World Bank, the total population of Russia is exactly the same as International Futures. [12]

3. In regard to the smoking rate, it could obviously substantially decrease over time, but the male smoking rate is astonishingly high in Russia relative to many European countries. [13]

4. The economic data is substantially different, because the forecasts use 2000 dollars and the sites that you referenced use 2005 dollar values, thus the discrepancy.

In all, you obviously have a point. Forecasting is difficult, especially over a long time horizon. That being said, it is an accepted practice of the international scientific community. The problems you highlighted were not really problems - they were differences in opinion about data sources or assumptions. The forecasts for Russia are not overly pessimistic and are a useful tool for policy planning and analysis. (Shredder2012 (talk) 00:35, 29 February 2012 (UTC))

Rwanda FAC

Rwanda is up for second FAC. Please comment at WP:Featured article candidates/Rwanda/archive2. Thanks! — Amakuru (talk) 10:42, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Volenteer

Just a quick note that I am volenteering to be a part of WP:Countries. I have interest in politics, geography, world history, and of the sort, and was recently involved in the Taiwan naming dispute. JPECH 95 20:45, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Great to have people around! I suggest adding Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries/Article alerts to your watchlist. CMD (talk) 02:00, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Advice

Hi all, just wondering if anyone can point me to Wikipedia's naming conventions on country articles - if there are any? -- Director (talk) 15:12, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

There have been a few proposals, but as of now we just follow the standard criteria at Wikipedia:Article titles. CMD (talk) 17:26, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

RfC regarding the official language of Mexico

I have started an RfC regarding the question of whether Spanish should be mentioned as an official language in the infobox recognizing its de facto official status in spite of the fact that it is not legally given that status in Mexican law which simply mentions it as a National language along with the indigenous languages, and does not specify an official status. Please give your input. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 12:55, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

rugby

rugby is a spot that has contact in it there is a rugby called tag rugby it is were the players han a belt to tags on each side of the belt you hav to try and get there tags and whenyour team has got 7 tags the ball go's to the team that you are playing agenst. by morgan9892 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Morgan9892 (talk • contribs) 16:06, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Infobox country request

Template talk:Infobox country#Can we add a small button to play the anthem?.Moxy (talk) 02:46, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
- There's no consensus that these should even be included. Users+IPs often go through streaks of adding and deleting them throughout all country articles. CMD (talk) 09:09, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Request for comment, Australia

A request for comment has been made by myself on the talk page of the Australia article, regarding a discussion on the inclusion of the Australian royal anthem in the infobox. Please comment on the matter if you have an interest in the Australia article. Anjwalker ^Talk 07:55, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Ethnic data

CIA World Factbook often disagrees with national censuses, and this has been brought up at Talk:Colombia and Talk:Ecuador. Need comments on what data to use - at least for consistency sake. Materialscientist (talk) 05:29, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Is this because the Factbook gets updated more regularly than censuses are taken? I guess I would mostly use actual census results, unless there's some clear issue with it. Really up to editorial discretion I reckon. CMD (talk) 23:02, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

My feeling is it is not about dates, but datasets - census and CIA use different ethnicity groups, but some data differ vastly for the "same" group. Materialscientist (talk) 23:06, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Ah. I'd be inclined to take the CIA as more likely to be 'neutral' if there is some sort of ethnic dispute, as well as more updated. CMD (talk) 23:52, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, if you want to see what I mean, check the talks linked above (bottom thread, census links are there, CIA link is in the main article). Materialscientist (talk) 00:00, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

This has come up in the past (long ago for Canada articles). The population stats from the last official country census is the primary and definitive source for population and ethnic data in articles. Because most countries use there own "nationality/ethnic" classification systems. We should always use the best sources when possible... not to say CIA is not reliable - its just that national data is better for the most part.Moxy (talk) 00:15, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

CIA factbook is simply not a reliable source for ethnic data at all. It frequently invents its own ethnic categories (sometimes based on racial categories, sometimes religious sometimes linguistic) and there is no transparency in its sources or census materials used. They certainly should never ever be thought to trump official censuses. CIA is furthermore very likely to be partial if there is somekind of ethnic dispute since it is a political organ of the US and not a neutral research organ. (This source which analyzes the factbooks data for ethnic and religious groups in the UK comes to the same conclusion http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/hilltopreview/vol4/iss2/5/ - see also page 38 in this book for analysis of some of the ridiculous nonsense you can find in the factbook) ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:18, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Notable people

I notice that "list of notables" is not covered. My suggestion is to limit that list, which is inevitable, nevermind our own opinion about it, to people notable outside the country. So for the List of notables from the United States, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln might be on it; Millard Fillmore might not be! (I'm afraid to check!

BTW, I am currently being taken to the woodshed for not allowing "everybody" who has an article at the national level on the list: e.g. all Presidents of "France" (It's not France BTW), all premiers of France, all Supreme court justices of France, all Kings of France (since day 1) all Poets Laureate of France, etc. And we won't even begin to discuss musical groups! :) Student7 (talk) 22:47, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

How is notability outside a country evaluated/ CMD (talk) 01:35, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

It's fairly easy to exclude presidents, governors, premiers, justices. They would need citations from outside their country to include them. So "George Washington" must be a person that a person in India or Malaysia would have heard of, in order for him to be listed as a "Notable American." If India or Malaysia (to pick on two) don't think he is "famous" and don't recognize him in reliable sources, then he is omitted. Military people are a little bit easier. A genuine Western Marshal/FieldMarshal would automatically be notable outside the country. But maybe not, if that Field Marshal was in Papua New Guinea! That would include American 5-star generals. Eisenhower, for example, would be listed, not for being President, necessarily, but for his military rank. Montgomery in UK, Rommel in Germany.

And it's exclusion that tends to be easier. Not Mr. U.S.A. 1951 unless he went on to win a world title. Student7 (talk) 13:53, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

How can we ascertain if a particular person has been heard of in India or Malaysia? It sounds far too difficult to implement to be a viable inclusion criteria. CMD (talk) 17:15, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

It's a challenge. I don't have complete answers. We need to define it. As I mentioned, easier to define exclusions. Not so easy to define inclusions.

I would think success would be the criteria for new musical groups. The guys in their garage who cut a recording for release on the web, might have an article. They always seem to. This would be okay at their local level (small town or neighborhood), but for countries, their songs (multiple) ought to have stood x for n weeks on a list of songs preferred. They ought to have y income for at least a year, I would think. And they should be listened to by a lot of people outside their own country. I don't know what those figures are. Everyone has heard of the Beatles. But these groups from garages? I don't think so. Not even all the kids!

But they don't have to be notable in India or Malaysia. Maybe they never heard of the Beatles in Tibet or North Korea. But they should require notability outside of their own nation. The entire world would not be required. Student7 (talk) 13:57, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Featured article review

I have nominated Nauru for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:14, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2011

Hi. The Wikimedia Foundation received a courtesy notice from the United States Department of State advising that their 2011 Human Rights Reports for 199 countries have been released. Naturally, they imagine we might be interested in the information or links for potential inclusion in Wikipedia articles: [14]. (They have similar reports related to Human Rights here.)

The person who contacted us noted that many articles don't seem to address human rights issues on countries and adds that "Given the prominence that discussions of human rights in global affairs, I would respectfully submit that it’s worth a chapter heading for major countries."

Since the Wikimedia Foundation does not create or curate content in the articles, this is, of course, a community matter. I'm passing along the information to your project and a few others (Wikipedia:WikiProject Human rights; Wikipedia:WikiProject International relations; Wikipedia:WikiProject Politics) in case you find the information useful or in case her suggestion spurs discussion. If there's a better place that you know of, please feel free to pass it on. :)

Thanks! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:02, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

GDP estimates on Pakistan, transplanted from RS/N

GDP estimates on Pakistan

Source: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2012/01/weodata/weorept.aspx?pr.x=37&pr.y=1&sy=2009&ey=2012&scsm=1&ssd=1&sort=country&ds=.&br=1&c=564&s=NGDPD%2CNGDPDPC%2CPPPGDP%2CPPPPC%2CLP&grp=0&a=

Article: Pakistan

Content: Hi,

I had updated GDP estimates on Pakistan article. Some editors have reverted my edits and called in question the need to do so. However, I believe the estimates should be updated from 2011 to 2012. The article clearly states GDP "ESTIMATE" like other similar articles on Wikipedia. We are NOT talking about actual GDP figures but again ESTIMATES. The literal meaning is 'to guess the cost, size, value, etc. of something'. Thus, articles such as France, United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia have updated to 2012 estimates.

We have discussed the matter on the talk page [[15]]. I would like other senior editors to contribute to the discussion here or possibly on the talk page.

Please advise on how to proceed further. Pk-user (talk) 15:38, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

The fact that other articles have listed it that way may be relevant to the article in question, but not too much here for reliability purposes. There may be a norm that is used for country articles, but that's outside the scope of this board (and I don't know that answer). Yes, the IMF is RS for this data, even though they differentiate the 2012 numbers specifically, it states that these estimates are IMF staff estimates, and there's no reason to believe that the IMF is a poor source for those estimates, and after all, estimates are just that, estimates. Suggestion: Leave notes on the France, UK and Saudi Arabia article talk pages asking if this was a contentious issue for them, and to comment on the Pakistan talk page. Also, isn't there a portal or project for countries? That would seem like an ideal place for this question, I think the source is fine, I'm not sure that's really the issue here. Then again, if that really is the issue, as I said, I find this source RS for the claim. -- Despayre ^{tête-à-tête} 18:56, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

There is indeed: Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries. I think this would be best discussed on its talk page. --Stfg (talk) 19:38, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

A fountain of information.

That's where I would recommend you take this question Pk-user. -- Despayre ^{tête-à-tête} 20:10, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Requested move of Côte d'Ivoire

There is currently a discussion on moving the article Côte d'Ivoire to Ivory Coast. Please join the discussion here if you are interested. TDL (talk) 02:15, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

New awesome article idea

I've been exploring wikipedia, and found that we have a few stubby articles like Stereotypes of Argentines.. and that got me thinking: how about an article on Stereotypes of countries/Country stereotypes?? There's an awesome source at The Guardian, which then splits off into 6 articles on Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Spain. These sources are particularly good as they don't just state and explain the stereotypes, they also say how close they are to the actual situation in the country. This subject is very fascinating, and would love to get stuck in, however I do feel that you guys would be a lot better at putting this article together than I. Perhaps instead an article entitled National stereotypes - GoogleBooks seems to have a wealth of info on this topic.

Some useful sources:

Etc, etc. This also ties nicely with Yanko Tsvetkov's stereotype maps, seen here, and here. Please, tell me what you guys think!! :D --Coin945 (talk) 10:28, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Sort keys for "<year> in international relations" categories

I was planning to create some of the missing (non-empty) "<year> in international relations" categories, but I noticed that the sort keys for the existing year categories in the parent "<century> in international relations" categories are inconsistent. For the 21st century the individual year categories are divided by decade; for the 10th to 15th centuries and the 20th century they're all sorted under "*"; for the 16th to 19th centuries, they're all sorted under "1", and for centuries before the 10th century, there's a mixture. What is the preferred sorting scheme? (I'm possibly prepared to update all the non-conforming categories to the preferred scheme). P.S. Feel free to advertise this discussion at other relevant WikiProjects. Thanks. DH85868993 (talk) 05:59, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Burma → Myanmar requested-move notification

A requested move survey has is ongoing at Talk:Burma, which proposes to move:

Burma → Myanmar

Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. — --Wolbo (talk) 00:47, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Maps in Infoboxes

Should the maps of countries in the main Infobox show irridentist claims to neighbouring countries' territory, as is the case, for example, at Venezuela, Argentina, China or India. We do not show such claims for Israel or Guatemala. I accept that it would be appropriate within the article to discuss territorial claims, and to show a map, which can show the area far more clearly than the maps often used in Infoboxes. However, I would argue that the main Infobox map should show the territory that is actually controlled by the state, not the extent of the state's wishful thinking. Skinsmoke (talk) 09:56, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

In discussions on the China and India maps it was taken as a good way to show both the actual controlled state and the claimed state, showing two different POVs. It motsly spread from there, although it hasn't been universally applied, as you note. I think it's useful to show claims, as long as they're clearly indicated as not being actual controlled territory. CMD (talk) 20:58, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Help needed re: foudnation dates in InfoBox for Bulgaria

Assistance is needed at Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Bulgaria_discussion to help decide which dates should be included in the InfoBox of Bulgaria. It is a complex situation, because there were political entities from 700-1300, then a gap of several hundred years without any entity, then 1878 saw a new state. Any input is appreciated. Please comment there, not here, to keep things co-located. --Noleander (talk) 17:22, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Correction on the dates: the entities First Bulgarian Empire and Second Bulgarian Empire are from 681 until 1422 and then the semi-independent Bulgarian Archbishop of Ohrid lasted until 1768. Ximhua (talk) 15:55, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Request for Comment Romania Infobox

Should the heads of the houses of Parliament be listed under Government in the infobox in Romania? Also, should the name of the Legislative body be listed in the native language or in English?

From most pages, I've seen that the heads aren't listed, and the Parliament is usually written as "Parliament"; Please comment on the talk page if you have an opinion, there seems to be an impasse currently. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Silvrous (talk • contribs) 13:38, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

New country I am founding?

I am founding a new country. Can I write an article on it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.57.219.240 (talk) 23:01, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Only if wp:reliable sources comment on it. CMD (talk) 23:23, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm planning on making a website for it. Also, the country may not be founded until the year 2020 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.57.219.240 (talk) 21:19, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

A single website won't be enough, usually news reports of some sort are needed. Good luck, CMD (talk) 22:43, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I can have news sources and my future website for the future country, even though it will be founded in the future? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.57.219.240 (talk) 01:48, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

India (featured article)

There is a discussion on Dispute resolution noticeboard, comment there if you will

India is presently a long-standing featured article. But that's for another day. The thing is, many other FAs about countries (Japan, Germany, Canada, Australia et al.) have a city population template in the demographics section and with good reason. India doesn't have one. So I made a template (actually I made two because of the high varieties of subsequent complaints about its "ugly looks"). I went to discuss. Got feedback along the lines of WP:IDON'TLIKEIT.

"This was discussed^[where?] in the past and the template was removed because it doesn't add any value to the article. I for one think that these city templates are nothing but an eyesore." - apparently the editors of other FAs that have the template, are unmindful. That's what it seems to me.
"No need for more clutter" - notice that the "demographics" section of other similar FAs (Germany, Japan, Australia) usually contain subsections like "religion", "language", "education", "health"; India, being an FA, has none of that, yet supposedly it is causing too much clutter as far as the inclusion of the template is concerned.
"no to a city template" - Yup. that's it and nothing more.
"you better show something other than WP:OSE and stop repeating yourself like a parrot." - however, I tried to explain how it will help give the readers some idea about the populations of the largest populated areas/settlements/cities in India. All in vain.
"City templates are fine with me as long as they're in the right place."
"I generally approve of city templates. They aren't that large, and they give me a rough idea on whether the population is distributed throughout various areas or concentrated on a few major cities...(big comment)" and other comments basically saying either we can have one or we must not have one, check here.

After undergoing this highly perplexing and hazy discussion, I boldly inserted one of the templates in the demographics section, to see what happens afterwards, naturally it was reverted with the summary "consensus first, inclusion later". I continued the discussion, again replies were "Looks awful", "Absolutely no to such ugliness", "India is preeminently (and in my view thankfully still) a rural country" (emphases are my own). I momentarily bursted out saying that the template's primary job is to give information about largest urban agglomerations in India rather than serving as an eye-candy. Then I was advised "never underestimate the importance of aesthetics and good taste" by the one who reverted me. I started discussion about the looks of the template. Nothing helpful came out of it with the exception of one comment by Ashley who made me rethink the order of those agglomerations.

Yes, we can quibble about the looks or the stats of the template all we want but that alone or WP:IDON'TLIKEIT cannot serve as grounds for removal of the template altogether, especially when other FAs have these in demographics section. As a side note, in the article, there is not a glimpse of the modernized part of India. Now, I am frankly sick of these asinine comments. Don't desire to see more of those here. Thank you for your time. Mrt 3366 ^{(Talk page?)} 09:32, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

France portal at FPR

Portal:France has been nominated for a featured portal review. During this review, editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the portal from featured status. Please leave your comments and help us to return the portal to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, portals may lose its status as featured portals. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. JJ98 (Talk / Contribs) 09:36, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Demographics of Ghana

Can someone review Demographics of Ghana? Someone just deleted the demographics infobox -- 76.65.131.248 (talk) 04:54, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

RFC

There is a Request for comment about the need/redundancy of Largest cities/city population templates. This is an open invitation to participate in the request for comment on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/City population templates. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. Mrt3366 ^(Talk?) ^{(New thread?)} 08:59, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Including French in Algeria lede and infobox

Please see Talk:Algeria#French_in_lede WhisperToMe (talk) 19:48, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Greece article/Treatment of sovereign debt crisis

There is a discussion on the above on the talk page of the EU Wikiproject here which may be of interest to readers of this page. The issue relates to whether the situation Greece is in at the moment (i.e. because of the current economic/financial crisis) should be mentioned in the article's lead. A group of editors believe this should happen only if the leads of the other so-called PIIGS countries mentions it as well. The following is an extract from my response in that thread:

Firstly, on the question of recentism, the point of it being in the lead doesn't relate to its historical significance - unquestionably for a country of several thousand years of human history it is insignificant from that point of view. Its significance is as a descriptor of the country currently. As much the same way as GDP, current standard of living and quality of life indices are often cited in the lead. (In the case of Greece, the latter two for 2010 are cited).

Secondly, the reliable sources clearly treat the Greek crisis differently in terms of impact/magnitude than the other countries hit. Undoubtedly other countries may catch up and in the end may be significantly bigger - but as of today, Greece is different.

Thirdly, and this is a specifically Wikipedia point, it is entirely the wrong attitude to say we can't have Bad Point X in country A's article because country B's Bad Point Y is just as bad but it's not in that article. That way encourages editors of the nationality of the country in question (any country) to treat the article as a WP:BATTLEGROUND to "defend" their country. Each article should be looked at on its own merits and anything that encourages articles to be a forum for national rivalries and comparisons (God knows we have enough trouble with that trait as it is) should be deprecated.

If you wish to comment please do so ~~at the Wikiproject EU Talk page rather than here to keep the discussion in one place.~~ here as that discussion was closed. DeCausa (talk) 19:58, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Proposal at Talk:Azerbaijan: Issue of whether to colour Nagorno-Karabakh a lighter shade of green

Your comments are invited at Talk:Azerbaijan: Issue of whether to colour Nagorno-Karabakh a lighter shade of green. MatthewVanitas (talk) 16:51, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Discussion now closed and changes made. Skinsmoke (talk) 11:56, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Morocco : controversy about adding a section about "Sexual tourism" to the article

Hello,

We are seeking for more opinions about the insertion of a long section about "Sexual tourism" on the article "Morocco".

Your opinions will be highly appreciated on the Talk page of the article "Morocco".

Thanks in advance,
--Omar-toons (talk) 03:22, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

criteria for list, index and outline of country articles

Please see Talk:Lists of country-related topics#The problem of incompleteness. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 12:49, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Country-article first-sentence

- Should the country description in a first sentence reflect (a) the official descriptions available from that government -- or -- (b) something of original research – or – (c) only territory used in the statistical reports for the article?

Country-Article First-Sentence
Existing ‘France’ and Proposed ‘United States’
Existing France first-sentence	Proposed U.S. first-sentence
France, … officially the French Republic, is a unitary semi-presidential republic located mostly in Europe [Metropolitan France, mainland and Corsica] - [note: five removed departments] with several overseas regions and territories.	The United States of America … is a federal constitutional republic consisting of fifty states, a federal district, five territories and nine islands.

1) Editors may seek to limit the first-sentence to statistical samples throughout the article, making the “official” extent of places the same as the samples reported. This is not so for the ‘Republic of France’ official geographical extent versus OECD reports of Metropolitan France. -- Should it be so for the ‘U.S. of A.’ official geographical extent versus Census reports of 50 states and DC?

2) A 1904 judicial ruling excluded Puerto Rico from the official U.S. as ‘unincorporated’ colonial territory with a population never meant to become U.S. citizens or a state. But that doctrine was voided in federal district court for Puerto Rico in 2005. If no direct source quote since 2005 can be found in federal court excluding PR from the geographical extent of the U.S. -- Should interpretations excluding PR govern the country-article first-sentence edit?

3) The official geographic extent of the U.S. federal republic is -- by (a) reliable scholarly source, (b) Congressional INA law, (c) State Department Manual, (d) Census "native-born U.S. citizen", (e) tables and charts available at State and CIA online – the same as is found at | U.S. Executive Order 13423 Sec. 9. (l) – the federal republic of the U.S. extends to 50 states, a federal district, five territories and associated islands in the 21st century. The 'France' article uses the country's official geographic extent in the first sentence. Should the 'U.S. of A.' article also describe its official geographical extent?

4) See Request for Comment -- Introduction first paragraph. It looks long, but there are only two of us “wrapped around the axle” to date. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 21:55, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Adding a Few United Nations Millenium Development Goals (ie Under-5 Mortality Rate, % Access to Improved Sanitation, % Access to Improved Water Sources, etc) to Country Pages Sidebars

Moved from Wikipedia:Help desk

Maybe Wikipedians might consider adding a few UN Decennial Development Goals to the sidebar of Country pages, for instance, under the heading 'Population', such as:

<H69><a href="http://apps.who.int/gho/data/#" target="_blank">World Health Statistics</a></H69> (1) <a href="http://apps.who.int/gho/data?theme=main&vid=1320" target="_blank">Under-5 Mortality (Rate)</a> \t [VALUE] (VALUE) (2) <a href="http://apps.who.int/gho/data?theme=main&vid=590" target="_blank">Access to Improved Water Sources (% pop., 2010)</a> \t [VALUE] (3) <a href="http://apps.who.int/gho/data?theme=main&vid=590" target="_blank">Access to Improved Sanitation (% pop., 2010)</a> \t [VALUE] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.153.48.10 (talk) 23:02, 26 December 2012 (UTC) (shifted to this talk page from Wikipedia:Help desk -Thibbs (talk) 20:41, 28 December 2012 (UTC))

Categories for States and territories disestablished before 1000CE

I have proposed that 158 sub-categories of Category:States and territories by year of disestablishment should be upmerged. All these categories relate to disestablishment before 1000AD. I believe that they fall within the scope of this WikiProject.

The discussion is at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 February 13#States_and_territories_disestablished_before_1000CE, wher your comments will be welcome.

Thank you. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:40, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Cameroon FAR

I have nominated Cameroon for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. --FutureTrillionaire (talk) 00:06, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Articles

Hello! Do we have some complete listing of article set that should each country have? Like Transport in XXX, Economy of XXX, Energy in XXX, Agriculture in XXX, Culture of XXX, etc? Do we have some complete list of those? And with default names, is there any standardisation? I wanted to create that, but do we have it already? --WhiteWriter^speaks 15:41, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't think we do, and if we did, such as list would be quite extensive. It could go from topics as broad as Culture and Economy to topics as specific as National Parks and Urbanisation (if there's enough written about those topics!). One would expect an article for each of the main sections given here (ie History, Politics, Administrative divisions, Geography, Economy, Demographics, and Culture). From there, if a topic is too long for a page, it can be shifted to a subpage. If you're looking for ideas, perhaps look at various Outline articles, which are sometimes even created with redlinks. CMD (talk) 22:19, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Economic Predictions/Projections

Should reliably sourced economic predictions [16] be included in the economy section and/or lead in Turkey. Many countries do have such info in their economy sections (e.g., Brazil#Economy, China#Economy). See Talk:Turkey#RFC_2 Cavann (talk) 19:10, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Call for research participants

Hi Wikipedians. We are a team of researchers interested in the editing dynamics on different language Wikipedias regarding the topic of Kosovo. We are looking for users who have edited and discussed articles about this topic, and who would be willing to be interviewed for the purpose of this research project. The project is approved by the Wikimedia Foundations´ Research Committee and you can find more information on this meta-wiki page. Research results will be published under open access and your participation would be much appreciated. If you would like to participate you can reach us at interwikiresearch@gmail.com and we will set up an interview in a way that best suits your needs.Pbilic (talk) 11:40, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

GAR

Mali, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for an individual good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 03:44, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Burundi

Burundi has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 00:52, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Switzerland

Switzerland has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 15:57, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Ukraine, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for an individual good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 02:44, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

RfC Bangladesh

Opinions are requested at WT:Bangladesh about the best style of introductory material to use for a country. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 12:10, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

RFC: Audio links to national anthems

Opinions are requested at Template talk:Infobox country regarding whether country infoboxes should include an audio (ogg) link to the country's national anthem. — Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 22:30, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Current African Head of States

Dear country experts:

A lot of work has been put into the above article. It seems to me that it would get out of date fairly quickly, but is this an appropriate list article? It was never submitted for review, maybe because the author wasn't sure how. It hasn't been worked on lately. Maybe someone from your group could take a look at it. —Anne Delong (talk) 16:03, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Where should Siam redirect?

Where should the Siam page redirect? Please discuss at Talk:Siam. — AjaxSmack 03:17, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Country templates up for deletion

See Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2013_August_27 where several country templates are up for deletion -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 05:37, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

also Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2013_August_26 -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 05:40, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

also Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2013_August_29 -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 10:22, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

International organization templates up for deletion

See Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2013 August 30 where most of the major international organizations temmplates are up for deletion -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 11:36, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

and Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2013 August 31 -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 02:47, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

About footer navboxes

From the project page of WP:Countries, I read this:

As noted at Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes the number of templates at the bottom of any article should be kept to a minimum. Country pages generally have footers that link to pages for countries in their geographic region. Footers for international organizations are not added to country pages, but they rather can go on subpages such as "Economy of..." and "Foreign relations of..." Categories for some of these organizations are also sometimes added. Templates for supranational organizations like the European Union and CARICOM are permitted. A list of the footers that have been created can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries/Templates/Navboxes, however note that many of these are not currently in use.

This is all eminently sensible, but as everyone who regularly reads or edits country articles will know, these suggestions are regularly flouted. You can see it at Turkey#External links and South Africa#Further reading, just to name two articles which I edit fairly often. I have no way to knowing if the unofficial guidelines above reflect a well-established consensus, or if they are the work of few editors, but I think many will agree that the continued proliferation of those footer navboxes is undesirable, and that their use in country articles should be reduced. The suggestions above try to establish some inclusion criteria of sorts, even though the difference between international organizations and supranational organizations is not at all clear, but if they are to have any effect they need to be followed, otherwise they're just dead letter. Is there any consensus in support of this?--eh bien mon prince (talk) 02:44, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_November_15#Category:Northern America

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_November_15#Category:Northern America. Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 00:39, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Request for PR

I recently failed the GA nomination of the article Malaysia–Vietnam relations (review here: Talk:Malaysia–Vietnam_relations/GA1), and the author, Mr Tan, has asked for feedback using the peer review system (here: Wikipedia:Peer_review/Malaysia–Vietnam_relations/archive1). The review has been archived without comment. Whether you agree or disagree with my comments during nomination, both I and Mr. Tan would be very grateful for some relevant comments from this WP to help improve the article's quality, whether on the archived PR page, the article's talk page, or his talk page. Kind regards, --LT910001 (talk) 11:15, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

CfD

See my three CfDs related to Israel/Palestine historical cats at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 February 9. trespassers william (talk) 21:49, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Popular pages tool update

As of January, the popular pages tool has moved from the Toolserver to Wikimedia Tool Labs. The code has changed significantly from the Toolserver version, but users should notice few differences. Please take a moment to look over your project's list for any anomalies, such as pages that you expect to see that are missing or pages that seem to have more views than expected. Note that unlike other tools, this tool aggregates all views from redirects, which means it will typically have higher numbers. (For January 2014 specifically, 35 hours of data is missing from the WMF data, which was approximated from other dates. For most articles, this should yield a more accurate number. However, a few articles, like ones featured on the Main Page, may be off).

Web tools, to replace the ones at tools:~alexz/pop, will become available over the next few weeks at toollabs:popularpages. All of the historical data (back to July 2009 for some projects) has been copied over. The tool to view historical data is currently partially available (assessment data and a few projects may not be available at the moment). The tool to add new projects to the bot's list is also available now (editing the configuration of current projects coming soon). Unlike the previous tool, all changes will be effective immediately. OAuth is used to authenticate users, allowing only regular users to make changes to prevent abuse. A visible history of configuration additions and changes is coming soon. Once tools become fully available, their toolserver versions will redirect to Labs.

If you have any questions, want to report any bugs, or there are any features you would like to see that aren't currently available on the Toolserver tools, see the updated FAQ or contact me on my talk page. Mr.Z-bot (talk) (for Mr.Z-man) 05:01, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

"Politics" considered harmful as a subsection

The problem of having "Politics" as a subsection title, is that most of the English Wikipedia is edited by Americans. They mostly think that electioneering is "politics," pretty much the pov of American media BTW.

So if an American Senator says he's going to introduce a bill to make everybody sanitize their hands before eating in a public establishment, this could well wind up under "Politics!" The significance of the remark is absolutely zero. The Senator was addressing some select audience and gave an offhand remark that was exaggerated for effect. But it's on American news for several days until the next "non-news" item manifests itself! While I have picked a trivial example, more complex ones require days to solve, involving "voting" editors, Rfcs etc. Not so easy with few editors willing to assist in some smaller countries.

My thought is to wait as long as possible before categorising any section, article or category as "Politics." A lead section should be "Government" which would inform readers about the traditional organisation of the government: Legislative, Executive, Judicial. A subsection under Government would include "Elections." This would cover who was in office, who votes and when. Campaigning if unique in some way. Then, and only then, list a "Politics" subsection which would contain laws unique to this government and other undertaking such as foreign affairs. None of this is wrong BTW. It is all correct. Yes, it should "roll up" under Politics at some higher level hypothetical point, but it isn't really necessary in the country article. This prevents a lot of problems with no loss to the encyclopedia. Student7 (talk) 00:20, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

geographical coordinates

I've just noticed that rather few of our country articles actually have geographical coordinates for the countries. Is this a deliberate omission? (Part of the issue may be that the {{Infobox country}} template has lat and long parameters that seem to have been usurped for the coordinates of the capital city, so they can't be used for the whole country. I've also raised this question on the template talk page.) —Steve Summit (talk) 02:38, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Assessment

1. There should be a page in this project solely devoted to assessment, not just a redirect (e.g. Wikipedia:WikiProject Libraries/Assessment) 2. I've recently expanded and fixed a bunch of stuff on Suriname. Any way it can be re-assessed? Thanks, ৳€Ø฿€ƦȺ₡Ⱥƪ^{৳€Ø฿€ƦȺ₡Ⱥƪ} 06:40, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

CfD discussion for societies and cultures

There is a discussion going on right now at WP:Categories for discussion that involves changing the category names for all cultures, from, for example, "Afghan society" to "Society of Afghanistan". I can see that next will be changing "German culture" to "Culture of Germany" and the like. This would be for all ethnicities, nationalities and cultures.
If you would like to weigh in, the conversation is occurring at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 March 27#Society by country. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 15:13, 29 March 2014 (UTC)