This archive deals with discussions about the naming conventions surrounding the following issues:
Perhaps breaking the deadlock needs some dynamite. I have no interest in the PRC/ROC problem. I do have an interest in seeing that Wikipedia is the most useful resource it can be. And to this end, having China direct to the article China rather than the People's Republic of China is extremely problematic. Overwhelmingly, in popular use, whether spoken, printed, internet, or on television, in English the word China is used to refer to the People's Republic of China. Wikipedia should reflect this.
Yet, Wikipedia should not take a position on whether the PRC or ROC is the legitimate government of the territories of the PRC and ROC. So lets have this. The guideline, as I've reformulated it, states that any time the usage of China may have a political meaning, the PRC or ROC should be explicitly stated.
This is what people have been trying come to for a long time. It may make some uncomfortable to have used China refer to People's Republic of China here, but this is the way things are in real life, and Wikipedia, in WP:NAMING and many other places upholds that it reflects this. Mostlyharmless ( talk) 00:40, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
To quote at length from WP:Naming Conflict
A number of methods can be used to identify which of a pair (or more) conflicting names is the most prevalent in English.
That China is used to refer to the PRC overwhelmingly, and forms the "correct" usage is obvious when every one of these tests is applied. Whenever there is any doubt, or political recognition might be implied, PRC or ROC are used. Why, for the life of me, we can't use the same standard as everyone else is beyond me. Mostlyharmless ( talk) 04:45, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Mostly Harmless is repeating things I've said multiple times on this page, and Wikipedia policies and guidelines are distinctly at odds with what this page has been deadlocked in saying. The attempt to "gain consensus" to change this page is impossible, for either side. If there is no consensus to reach, then the NPOV section about the wording of "China" should be removed entirely from this text. SchmuckyTheCat ( talk)
This proposal falls under the same category as the proposal to merge the PRC article into China. I doubt any consensus would be reached. --
Joowwww (
talk)
11:39, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
the NPOV section about the wording of "China" should be removed entirely from this text. I strongly disagree. We need to have some sort of guidelines. What we have isn't deadlocked simply because we can't agree on anything. It's deadlocked because we can't agree that anything is better. The guidelines at very least provide a way to yank the more extreme wordings back to the region of NPOV. If we get rid of the guidelines, the articles may begin thrashing about wildly as people struggle to get their interpretation accepted as the new "concensus". Given the difficulty we've seen of agreeing to anything, the struggle will be conducted mostly through never-ending edit wars. Readin ( talk) 13:13, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
OK this discussion is so convoluted I've only managed to skim through it but all I will say is this; come on, get a grip and redirect "China" to "The people's Republic of China" already. This is laughable, unhelpful, and damages wikipedia's reputation. A kid searching for China on google does not want to be confused by decades obsolete cold war politics. And besides, Taiwan is Taiwan, it isn't even part of "China". ʄ!• ¿talk? 16:40, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
SmuckyTheCat removed a couple selected sections and did some rewrite. I put them undid them because we don't have consensus on something new. Before we make changes, let's discuss. Do we still have a dispute. What, in particular, is disputed about the section? I'll go first: Readin ( talk) 17:01, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Removed "Wikipedia treats the Republic of China as a sovereign state with equal status with the People's Republic of China, yet does not address whether they are considered separate nations." because it is not a guideline (does not tell editors what to do) and uses political terms with ambiguous meanings that blunt the effectiveness of the sentence. The difference between a state and a nation is not clear.
Edited "Taiwan should not be described either as an independent nation, as a part of the People's Republic of China, or as part of China." because it is partly contradicted by its succeeding sentence if the meaning of nation is to be taken broadly.-- Jiang ( talk) 18:57, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
But the Kosovo article uses the common name for the country/renegade province/whatever, and the article is about the current political entity (de facto about the partially recognized country). The use of the two names ('China' and 'Taiwan') is 99% of the problem. 'China' should be an article about the PRC (the current country). 'Taiwan' should be about the ROC (the current country). Relevant issues should be explained inside of the two articles, simple as that.
Looking at Flamarande points, I think most of the data may not be as valid as it seems. For example, Almost all "country-articles" in Wikipedia use the common name of the country in question, as majority of the contries on earth are the non-dispute ones, the usually naming convention may not be applicable here. Moreover, popularity doesn't mean accuracy. We should look at more examples in special situation, such as
I suggest we should keep the China page just about the civilization. -- Da Vynci ( talk) 12:50, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
The policy Readin cited from WP:NAME says "Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.".
This is not a general situation, thus that particular policy isn't quite applicable here. The China (civilization) article fits well for the neutrality requirement, so as the current PRC and ROC article naming. Mixing those names up will just spark more controversy and confusion to readers. -- Da Vynci ( talk) 05:21, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
If you say Congo, I (and other ppl who r unfamilar w/ African politic) wouldn't ask you whether it is Democratic Republic of the Congo or Republic of the Congo, simply becoz there are people who am not familar with the African politic . The same with China, there are people who are not familar with Asian politic who wouldn't care the difference between ROC and PRC. It is important for wikipeida's address facts with accuracy, not base on the simple popularity that you cited. As I said , popular isn't mean being correct. So we can't equte China to PRC or ROC. -- Da Vynci ( talk) 22:32, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
I think we should redirect China to PRC....I didn't bother to read the mass of arguments above (so forgive me if I am repeating something), but, the definition of China is "a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia." which I agree totally. But lets include the younger users of Wikipedia. What if one of those children clicked on "Republic of China" instead of PRC?? ...that might lead to confusion. Anyways, let us remember that the ROC is EXILED. When the Republican Spanish Government was exiled from Spain and moved to Mexico, Mexico wasn't considered part of Spain. International law states that an exiled government does not affect sovereignty, so Taiwan (which was liberated by the San Francisco Peace Treaty) is a country under the Administration and occupation of the ROC... Correct me if I'm wrong. -- Taiwanrox8 ( talk) , 1 March 2009 (UTC)
First, the contention that the ROC is exiled is actually hotly disputed, and I'll refer you to the article Legal status of Taiwan for the gory details as to why. Second, it is unlikely that someone would enter "Republic of China" when looking for information on "China." And FWIW the article itself clearly points people to where they should be looking, if they get the article wrong. Ngchen ( talk) 13:33, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Pyl and I have gotten into a discussion about the proper term for calling the ROC government when describing relations between the ROC and another government such as the PRC or Ireland that does not formally recognize the ROC. In both cases, we have a situation where the other government refuses to call the ROC "ROC". In the case of relations with the PRC, it seems the ROC is called the "Taiwan side".
What term should be used in each case?
I would prefer to get some answers before Pyl and I start arguing it here so that perhaps we could get some unsullied opinions. Readin ( talk) 19:11, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
I am not sure why you kept mentioning me in terms of the cross-strait relations article. I am not the person who wrote up "mainland side" and "Taiwan side". When you posted a question on this issue on the discussion page, I said "I have no opinions on" these terms. In fact, ROC and PRC are mentioned as two governments in cross-strait relations. It appears to me that you just selectively read stuff and have problems with them, like your issues with "information about Han Chinese [being] repeated" in Demographics of Taiwan. As I pointed out to you, they weren't.-- pyl ( talk) 13:49, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
I was hoping to get more comment, but I suspect a lot of people don't want to get in the middle of a dispute between Pyl and me.
I think "Chinese Taipei" doesn't work in either case. "Chinese Taipei" is used generally used where there is agreement between Taiwan and some organization that "Chinese Taipei" will be the official name within that organization. For example, at the Olympics, "Chinese Taipei" isn't a nickname, it is the official name for Taiwan at the Olympics. On the other hand, it is in no way the name of Taiwan in general. It is not the common name (what most people use in a neutral setting). It is not the official name.
When discussing government-to-government relations between the ROC and governments that are not part of the ROC, I believe we should be consistent in applying names. NPOV is one of the highest goals of Wikipedia. As editors we should take that responsibility seriously. One good way to be neutral is to apply standards consistently from article to article. We should avoid making POV distinctions where none are necessary or informative. Using different names in the cross-strait relations article and the diplomatic missions of Ireland article would implies that there is something different about the relations. On the other hand, consistently calling them by their preferred names from one case to another causes makes no implication. Were I to write an article about relations between South Korea and California, using their official names would not suggest that both are sovereign states.
Due to the political situation, we have often used a standard of writing "Republic of China" when talking about the government and "Taiwan" when talking about other things. It is totally consistent to use "Republic of China" when talking about the government's negotiations with the People's Republic of China.
Pyl has argued that in the context of cross-strait relations calling the ROC the "Republic of China" and calling the PRC the "People's Republic of China" would imply that there are two states involved. However there is no such implication unless one already believes that the "Republic of China" is a state and that the "People's Republic of China" is also a state. Using the two names together neither changes nor reinforces that belief. On the other hand, if one doesn't know what the two governments are called, or if they indeed know nothing about the situation, it is hard to see how hiding the names of the governments will be less of a bias than using their names. Choosing different standards to achieve different results in the articles appears to be a deliberate attempt to avoid the agreed on facts in order to further an ideology.
I can think of two ways we can be consistent. One is to use the official names preferred by both governments. This would be consistent with the commonly used standard of writing ROC or PRC when talking about the governments. Or we could write the names used in the relations. For the cross-strait relations article these are "mainland side" and "Taiwan side" while the diplomatic missions of Ireland would use "Taiwan" per the language used by the Minister of Foreign Affairs in explaining the relations. Readin ( talk) 06:12, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
This archive deals with discussions about the naming conventions surrounding the following issues:
Perhaps breaking the deadlock needs some dynamite. I have no interest in the PRC/ROC problem. I do have an interest in seeing that Wikipedia is the most useful resource it can be. And to this end, having China direct to the article China rather than the People's Republic of China is extremely problematic. Overwhelmingly, in popular use, whether spoken, printed, internet, or on television, in English the word China is used to refer to the People's Republic of China. Wikipedia should reflect this.
Yet, Wikipedia should not take a position on whether the PRC or ROC is the legitimate government of the territories of the PRC and ROC. So lets have this. The guideline, as I've reformulated it, states that any time the usage of China may have a political meaning, the PRC or ROC should be explicitly stated.
This is what people have been trying come to for a long time. It may make some uncomfortable to have used China refer to People's Republic of China here, but this is the way things are in real life, and Wikipedia, in WP:NAMING and many other places upholds that it reflects this. Mostlyharmless ( talk) 00:40, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
To quote at length from WP:Naming Conflict
A number of methods can be used to identify which of a pair (or more) conflicting names is the most prevalent in English.
That China is used to refer to the PRC overwhelmingly, and forms the "correct" usage is obvious when every one of these tests is applied. Whenever there is any doubt, or political recognition might be implied, PRC or ROC are used. Why, for the life of me, we can't use the same standard as everyone else is beyond me. Mostlyharmless ( talk) 04:45, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Mostly Harmless is repeating things I've said multiple times on this page, and Wikipedia policies and guidelines are distinctly at odds with what this page has been deadlocked in saying. The attempt to "gain consensus" to change this page is impossible, for either side. If there is no consensus to reach, then the NPOV section about the wording of "China" should be removed entirely from this text. SchmuckyTheCat ( talk)
This proposal falls under the same category as the proposal to merge the PRC article into China. I doubt any consensus would be reached. --
Joowwww (
talk)
11:39, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
the NPOV section about the wording of "China" should be removed entirely from this text. I strongly disagree. We need to have some sort of guidelines. What we have isn't deadlocked simply because we can't agree on anything. It's deadlocked because we can't agree that anything is better. The guidelines at very least provide a way to yank the more extreme wordings back to the region of NPOV. If we get rid of the guidelines, the articles may begin thrashing about wildly as people struggle to get their interpretation accepted as the new "concensus". Given the difficulty we've seen of agreeing to anything, the struggle will be conducted mostly through never-ending edit wars. Readin ( talk) 13:13, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
OK this discussion is so convoluted I've only managed to skim through it but all I will say is this; come on, get a grip and redirect "China" to "The people's Republic of China" already. This is laughable, unhelpful, and damages wikipedia's reputation. A kid searching for China on google does not want to be confused by decades obsolete cold war politics. And besides, Taiwan is Taiwan, it isn't even part of "China". ʄ!• ¿talk? 16:40, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
SmuckyTheCat removed a couple selected sections and did some rewrite. I put them undid them because we don't have consensus on something new. Before we make changes, let's discuss. Do we still have a dispute. What, in particular, is disputed about the section? I'll go first: Readin ( talk) 17:01, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Removed "Wikipedia treats the Republic of China as a sovereign state with equal status with the People's Republic of China, yet does not address whether they are considered separate nations." because it is not a guideline (does not tell editors what to do) and uses political terms with ambiguous meanings that blunt the effectiveness of the sentence. The difference between a state and a nation is not clear.
Edited "Taiwan should not be described either as an independent nation, as a part of the People's Republic of China, or as part of China." because it is partly contradicted by its succeeding sentence if the meaning of nation is to be taken broadly.-- Jiang ( talk) 18:57, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
But the Kosovo article uses the common name for the country/renegade province/whatever, and the article is about the current political entity (de facto about the partially recognized country). The use of the two names ('China' and 'Taiwan') is 99% of the problem. 'China' should be an article about the PRC (the current country). 'Taiwan' should be about the ROC (the current country). Relevant issues should be explained inside of the two articles, simple as that.
Looking at Flamarande points, I think most of the data may not be as valid as it seems. For example, Almost all "country-articles" in Wikipedia use the common name of the country in question, as majority of the contries on earth are the non-dispute ones, the usually naming convention may not be applicable here. Moreover, popularity doesn't mean accuracy. We should look at more examples in special situation, such as
I suggest we should keep the China page just about the civilization. -- Da Vynci ( talk) 12:50, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
The policy Readin cited from WP:NAME says "Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.".
This is not a general situation, thus that particular policy isn't quite applicable here. The China (civilization) article fits well for the neutrality requirement, so as the current PRC and ROC article naming. Mixing those names up will just spark more controversy and confusion to readers. -- Da Vynci ( talk) 05:21, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
If you say Congo, I (and other ppl who r unfamilar w/ African politic) wouldn't ask you whether it is Democratic Republic of the Congo or Republic of the Congo, simply becoz there are people who am not familar with the African politic . The same with China, there are people who are not familar with Asian politic who wouldn't care the difference between ROC and PRC. It is important for wikipeida's address facts with accuracy, not base on the simple popularity that you cited. As I said , popular isn't mean being correct. So we can't equte China to PRC or ROC. -- Da Vynci ( talk) 22:32, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
I think we should redirect China to PRC....I didn't bother to read the mass of arguments above (so forgive me if I am repeating something), but, the definition of China is "a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia." which I agree totally. But lets include the younger users of Wikipedia. What if one of those children clicked on "Republic of China" instead of PRC?? ...that might lead to confusion. Anyways, let us remember that the ROC is EXILED. When the Republican Spanish Government was exiled from Spain and moved to Mexico, Mexico wasn't considered part of Spain. International law states that an exiled government does not affect sovereignty, so Taiwan (which was liberated by the San Francisco Peace Treaty) is a country under the Administration and occupation of the ROC... Correct me if I'm wrong. -- Taiwanrox8 ( talk) , 1 March 2009 (UTC)
First, the contention that the ROC is exiled is actually hotly disputed, and I'll refer you to the article Legal status of Taiwan for the gory details as to why. Second, it is unlikely that someone would enter "Republic of China" when looking for information on "China." And FWIW the article itself clearly points people to where they should be looking, if they get the article wrong. Ngchen ( talk) 13:33, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Pyl and I have gotten into a discussion about the proper term for calling the ROC government when describing relations between the ROC and another government such as the PRC or Ireland that does not formally recognize the ROC. In both cases, we have a situation where the other government refuses to call the ROC "ROC". In the case of relations with the PRC, it seems the ROC is called the "Taiwan side".
What term should be used in each case?
I would prefer to get some answers before Pyl and I start arguing it here so that perhaps we could get some unsullied opinions. Readin ( talk) 19:11, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
I am not sure why you kept mentioning me in terms of the cross-strait relations article. I am not the person who wrote up "mainland side" and "Taiwan side". When you posted a question on this issue on the discussion page, I said "I have no opinions on" these terms. In fact, ROC and PRC are mentioned as two governments in cross-strait relations. It appears to me that you just selectively read stuff and have problems with them, like your issues with "information about Han Chinese [being] repeated" in Demographics of Taiwan. As I pointed out to you, they weren't.-- pyl ( talk) 13:49, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
I was hoping to get more comment, but I suspect a lot of people don't want to get in the middle of a dispute between Pyl and me.
I think "Chinese Taipei" doesn't work in either case. "Chinese Taipei" is used generally used where there is agreement between Taiwan and some organization that "Chinese Taipei" will be the official name within that organization. For example, at the Olympics, "Chinese Taipei" isn't a nickname, it is the official name for Taiwan at the Olympics. On the other hand, it is in no way the name of Taiwan in general. It is not the common name (what most people use in a neutral setting). It is not the official name.
When discussing government-to-government relations between the ROC and governments that are not part of the ROC, I believe we should be consistent in applying names. NPOV is one of the highest goals of Wikipedia. As editors we should take that responsibility seriously. One good way to be neutral is to apply standards consistently from article to article. We should avoid making POV distinctions where none are necessary or informative. Using different names in the cross-strait relations article and the diplomatic missions of Ireland article would implies that there is something different about the relations. On the other hand, consistently calling them by their preferred names from one case to another causes makes no implication. Were I to write an article about relations between South Korea and California, using their official names would not suggest that both are sovereign states.
Due to the political situation, we have often used a standard of writing "Republic of China" when talking about the government and "Taiwan" when talking about other things. It is totally consistent to use "Republic of China" when talking about the government's negotiations with the People's Republic of China.
Pyl has argued that in the context of cross-strait relations calling the ROC the "Republic of China" and calling the PRC the "People's Republic of China" would imply that there are two states involved. However there is no such implication unless one already believes that the "Republic of China" is a state and that the "People's Republic of China" is also a state. Using the two names together neither changes nor reinforces that belief. On the other hand, if one doesn't know what the two governments are called, or if they indeed know nothing about the situation, it is hard to see how hiding the names of the governments will be less of a bias than using their names. Choosing different standards to achieve different results in the articles appears to be a deliberate attempt to avoid the agreed on facts in order to further an ideology.
I can think of two ways we can be consistent. One is to use the official names preferred by both governments. This would be consistent with the commonly used standard of writing ROC or PRC when talking about the governments. Or we could write the names used in the relations. For the cross-strait relations article these are "mainland side" and "Taiwan side" while the diplomatic missions of Ireland would use "Taiwan" per the language used by the Minister of Foreign Affairs in explaining the relations. Readin ( talk) 06:12, 11 December 2008 (UTC)