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I and many other editors were notified on 5 March that this project was taking statements. ( Gnevin ( talk · contribs) kindly used AWB to notify lots of editors).
After taking my time to consider how the process was structured, I signed up as a member of this project 8 days later, on 13 March.
I don't think that the project page has substantially changed since then, but I am still going to focus on the version to which I signed up.
That page is explicit on a number of points, and for me the most significant of those was under the heading Graham's pyramid, which I will reproduce here in full:
That is a clear commitment by the moderators not to simply count heads, but rather to assess the validity of arguments. That's why I signed up for, and that's how I expected this process to proceed.
Unfortunately, that is not what is now happening. At Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ireland Collaboration/Panel#Preliminary_outcome, the moderators have done absolutely nothing to weigh any of the arguments or to assess evidence.
Instead they are doing the exact opposite of what was promised, which is making a headcount of the views of participants. And on that basis, they have ruled out several options: see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ireland Collaboration/Panel#Analysis.
How they arrived at those figures is another question, because the total number of supports and opposes counted on the major points at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ireland Collaboration/Panel#Preliminary_outcome significantly exceeds the 29 currently-signed up members of the project. As one example, look at one of the figures under the heading "Total": Republic of Ireland: 41/41
That's a claimed total of 82 participants, more than three times as many people as have signed up to the project. There are several possible explanations for this:
So on two key points, the path which the moderators are currently following is at odds with what was set out at the start:
Over the last few weeks, other editors have expressed concerns about the apparent inactivity of the moderators, and I have tried to support the notion that they needed to time to come up with a way to make the next steps on this process. I assumed in good faith that the moderators would do what they had promised at the outset, and I gave them the benefit of the doubt.
But what I now see at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ireland Collaboration/Panel removes any doubt in my mind, and it is clear that the moderators are now running phase 2 of the process in an entirely different manner to what was set out at the start. And to add the absurdity, they appear to be double-counting votes.
I hope that moderators will come here and explain both what they think they are up to, and how they plan to get the process back on the path which was advertised to those of us who committed our time and energies to participate in it.
But right now, it appears that the since the path they are following is so radically different from what the stall that was set out, that none of us need feel in any way bound by the outcome of this process. I hope that the moderators will be able to persuade me that I am wrong, and that we have not all been wasting out time for the last few months, but that's how it looks. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 20:28, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
Oh Lordy :(
Edokter has confirmed that the structured analysis by the pyramid, which was the methodology set out when I signed up and which is still the methodology set out on the project has been "put on the back burner". That's a pretty fundamental change to make, yet I see no effort at any stage to communicate it to project participants (I wasn't even aware of the existence of the panel talk page until today). This is not a good situation, to put it mildly. It seems to me to be essential in any fair form of structured process that if the rules of the game change, then that should be clearly communicated to the players.
I know that this will sound like nitpicking, but to me its fundamental: the writing on the panel-talk-page currently suggests excluding a range of options on the basis of numbers of supporters and opposers. Yet Edokter's explanations above offers two slightly different versions of what those numbers: first that he "must also debunk the sense that the results merely amount to a headcount, which is definitely not the case", secondly that "the analysis extracted the possible titles from the statements and the degree of support each of those arguments have secured". That sounds like counting heads on different arguments within each proposition, rather than simply counting heads on different statements ... but either way it's counting heads.
Now maybe I've misunderstood this, but I'm listening. So please, Edokter, please explain what those numbers mean, and how they were arrived at.
Edokter says the the "moderators were never intended to determin the validity of those arguments", which I'll note is not the approach adopted at CFD or AFD, where closers are expected to weigh the arguments. It's also completely at variance with the pyramid which was the basis on which editors were asked to participate in this process. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 00:49, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
As per my other recent comments, I think that this process is now in a big mess. I don't think that our depleted number of moderators have a clear idea of how to proceed, and Edokter's comments above seem to me to show that the moderators have departed significantly from what was proposed when editors were invited to participate in this process.
But I think that there is a way forward which brings all these strands together, and it's based on Deacon of Pndapetzim's proposal above, drawing on the Gdansk poll.
We have now had the statement process. It has been very valuable, because all sides have placed their evidence and their arguments on the table. Personally, I have found that it has helped enormously, both to clarify my own reasons for the options I prefer, but also to better understand the arguments of those with whom I disagree.
The question now is what to do with this material to make it usable in a community-wide poll of the sort that DofP prosed. It's a bit of a sprawl; some statements cover several issues, some cover one issue, but in a different way to others reaching similar conclusions. But nonetheless, most of the evidence is there; it just needs to be re-organised for clarity.
And I think that there is a way of doing that which needn't place an excessive burden on the moderators, if we use an approach like that of the pre-trial stage of civil proceedings in a modern judicial system, where a lot of preparatory work is done: both sides prepare evidence bundles and produce a copy for each side and one for the court; and both sides also prepare skeleton arguments so that the issues can be considered in some sort of logical fashion.
The problem is that there are 26 members of this process, so we may end up with 26 sets of arguments on each of the questions to be addressed. But we can easily enough avoid that by giving members an incentive to produce joint statements. What I propose is simply that all statements appear on one page, and the order in which statements are presented is determined by the number of signatories:
The moderators need merely announce a deadline, and editors can do the rest. X drafts a statement, Y signs it; Z says they'll endorse it too if it is changed, and they discuss it until the statement is submitted. Then it's up to people to sign or not sign, as they choose. And if someone else produces a statement which they all prefer, then Z, Y and Z can all abandon the first statement.
This process will lead to a major consolidation of the sprawling sets of arguments currently dispersed over dozens of statements. My guess is that on each issue, we will end up up with two or three statements which each attract five or more signatories, and then a number of lone voices.
If we do this first for Problem 1, and put it out for a vote like that for Talk:Gdansk/Vote, we will have the best of all possible worlds: all the best arguments for and against each option, prioritised by the level of support they have received from those closest to the issue. So on Problem 1, we may have a statement recommending option 1A signed by 7 editors, followed by a statement recommending option C signed by 6 editors, or whatever. Some statements may not prefer a particular option, but may instead make general comments or choose to say "anything other than option X", or "whatever decision you make, remember these points". So far as the moderators are concerned, it wouldn't matter what the stance is of a statement, so long as editors endorse only one statement.
This will provide a strong incentive amongst editors to remove weak or false arguments, and to focus instead on the most important points which they want to make to the voters. If a group of editors want to argue that Ireland should be an article about milk quotas in Ballyporeen because Granuaile taught Nelson Mandela how to make space-rockets out of mackerel, that's their lookout.
Once this is done for problem 1, we will have narrowed down the options for problem 2.1, and can address it in the same way; then we can do problem 2.2
This approach won't be quick, but it will allow everyone concerned to focus the case they want to make, and will allow the wider community to assess the arguments made by participants in this process, without placing on the moderators the burden of making an analysis of their own.
My idea may need refinement, but what do people think of that outline? -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 02:35, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
I thought they were to weigh up the statements and if no consensus emerged "close the discussion", i.e. make the decision? Why have they not done so? Redking7 ( talk) 19:52, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
Agree with MusicInTheHouse - I do not support BHG's "plan" and I agree that it is for the Moderators to make the decisions. Regards. Redking7 ( talk) 18:47, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
Redking, it is not for the moderators to impose a decision. That was never agreed. If you want a decision imposed, then the matter will have to be referred back to ArbCom. DrKiernan ( talk) 09:58, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Where did "on 1 May" come from? My belief is that the moderators are merely considering where the procedure goes next. Kittybrewster ☎ 21:54, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
The Staements Process is over. I don't think any "Endorsements etc" are going on. Not a single edit has been made on this discussion page in over a week.....MODERATORS - The process is over. Please now make your decision and "close the discussion". Why the delay? You are letting us all down. Regards. Redking7 ( talk) 22:38, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
At least, the squabling has slowed to a crawl on the Ireland naming related articles. GoodDay ( talk) 19:09, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
To recap, there has been a first round, based around statements, which hasn't produced an especially clear result. The approach of making Ireland a disambiguation page probably has the most support, but there isn't enough consensus to declare a winner. Consequently there has to be, at the very least, some sort of second round. Given the lack of a clear result, in the second round, other rival approaches to making Ireland a disambiguation page should be allowed. Also, there has been some discussion about whether the next round should be a poll where votes are counted, or a discussion where consensus is assessed. From this discussion, the next round probably shouldn't just be a poll, and editors should be allowed to make comments. However, I doubt that threaded argument will get us anywhere. Accordingly, I propose the second round should be similar in format to Request for Adminship, where editors make comments under headings of 'Support', 'Oppose' and 'Neutral'. Some discussion is allowed, but longer threads can be moved to the talk page. PhilKnight ( talk) 23:56, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
It will never be possible to get everyone to agree on a single solution, so the next best solution is to go with the majority. For problem 1 there seems to be a majority for Ireland to be a disambiguation page. On problem 2.2, everyone is agreed that the island of Ireland article should either be at Ireland or Ireland (island), so a decision on problem 1 will also decide problem 2.2. We should now check to see if there really is a majority for "Ireland" to be a disambiguation page. If we move forward on this point, at least we should be able to decide on two of the problems. In the past, polls have been opposed for the republic article because of concerns that UK editors will outnumber Irish editors. Are there such concerns for a poll/debate on the island article? DrKiernan ( talk) 07:33, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
I still don't see how this process is going to solve the entire Ireland naming dispute. Changing the titles of two or three articles does not solve the dispute about how to refer to the state in the many hundreds or thousands of other articles throughout Wikipedia. Mooretwin ( talk) 10:46, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
The way this might work is demonstrated by: Statements Process IECOLL. I suggest a deadline of 15 May for the end of the statement drafting/endorsing process. DrKiernan ( talk) 08:47, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
To DrKiernan. Did the Gdansk poll work, and if so did the decision actually stick? If it did then I would be inclined to go with a tried and tested method. Jack forbes ( talk) 14:09, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Choose an option.
(ui) Just to clarify, use of Éire is just an inaccurate as Eire in the English language. MITH 22:05, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
I am sorry to inform all of you that I will resign as a moderator of this project. I have failed to provide any usefull contributions as such, and find myself unable to assign any more time and effort. The two main reason being that 1) I have no experience in such a big mediation, and accepting the task has been a mistake. 2) I have been involved in a dispute of my own that is consuming all my attention, making it impossible for me to focus on any other task that requires a long-span attention. I will inform ArbCom of my decision. — Edokter • Talk • 22:18, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
I ask again - what was wrong with the solution provided by the Ireland Disambiguation Task Force? Mooretwin ( talk) 17:27, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I have put a note on User:ChrisO's page to ask his opinion. -- Evertype· ✆ 08:00, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
There's a Request for comment on content dispute resolution which could be of interest. PhilKnight ( talk) 23:00, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
Reading this page, it seems like there is general agreement (although not unanimous) that BHG's proposal for determining the solution to Problem 1 is a useful way forward. If what you need is a thoroughly neutral party to assist with organization and to set a deadline, then I'm sure an appropriate and willing editor can be found. I'm happy to volunteer, but I'm sure that with such a simple job description many other neutral editors would be willing to assist. I think its quite possible that this method will lead, eventually, to a permanent solution; on the other hand, if the outcome isn't conclusive, then the exercise will have been valuable of itself. Nathan T (formerly Avruch) 23:29, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
The three moderators appointed by the Arbitration Committee for WikiProject Ireland Collaboration are no longer active in the project under that capacity. These disengagements occurred voluntarily and separately under individual conditions without controversy. PhilKnight ( talk · contribs), Edokter ( talk · contribs), and SebastianHelm ( talk · contribs) are all thanked for their hard work and efforts as moderators. In response to the openings, the Committee appoints Masem ( talk · contribs) and Xavexgoem ( talk · contribs) as moderators, thanking them for taking on this task. A third moderator is not yet appointed, pending discussion with the participants.
For the Committee, -- Vassyana ( talk) 15:51, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
There seems to be a lot of ambivalence towards the previous round of moderation. What had failed on the part of the moderators, and how do we now fix that? -- Xavexgoem ( talk) 07:08, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
In the previous round we agreed on the problems, and agreed that a statement process was the best way to proceed at first. However, at the end of the statement process there was no clear consensus on (1) what they showed or (2) how to proceed next.
On point (1), this is because the statements are wide-ranging, numerous and various, and sometimes unfocused or lacking a certain clarity. In future, we need to ensure more focus on the problems and a smaller number of more specific statements, where the arguments on each side and the number of editors supporting each side are clear. This is suggested as option 1 of the four #Options for next phase. While this may not provide consensus either, it should at least make clear the majority view, or produce clear potential statements that could be taken forward into discussion or used as the basis of a poll.
On point (2), I fear it will be too difficult at this stage, with a set of unclear statements, to agree how any future decisions will be reached. Option 1 does not prejudge any future phases of the process but it does provide a stronger base from which to proceed. Clearer statements with clear numbers will make it easier to discuss the shape of the next phase. DrKiernan ( talk) 10:13, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
I may be reading this wrong, but Ireland as a disambig seems to have the broadest appeal (31 for, 10 against). Am I correct in assuming that the larger problem, broadly speaking, is the naming of the articles the disambig could/would point to? Xavexgoem ( talk) 11:01, 14 May 2009 (UTC) I'm still collecting all the info, so for the moment I might be a bit slow
One point that I saw when looking at the history was not just the impact on the naming of the country article and the geography article, but also the impact on the naming of "Something of X" articles. Does anyone have a list of what articles may be affected in naming only by the results of this collaboration? Is it worth considering how those are to be affected by this? -- MASEM ( t) 13:28, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
A third moderator has not yet been appointed. Some participants have indicated that the presence of an arbitrator on the project could be helpful. In general, how do members of this project feel about one or two arbitrators taking a more active role here? If one or more arbitrators take part, should they officially be project moderators? What sort of role should they take? Should they be directly active, as would be traditionally considered for a moderator? Should they take a more distant role, focusing on occasional advice and oversight? What would you expect from an arbitrator looking to assist this project? Thank for your time and consideration of these questions.
For the Committee, -- Vassyana ( talk) 16:11, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
Why can't we just take the Ireland disambiguation task force Ireland Disambiguation Task Force to its conclusion? It came very close to reaching consensus on ALL issues, but was supplanted by this crazy process. Mooretwin ( talk) 11:49, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
I have seen two broad-ish consensuses - which my spellchecker is informing me is actually a word - that either support moving Ireland to a disambig, or support keeping it in its present form as an article on the island. I want to start with this, since this seems to be the less troublesome divide. Assuming for the moment that Ireland will be either of these two choices, what is your opinion on your preferred choice over the other? Xavexgoem ( talk) 12:29, 15 May 2009 (UTC) This isn't an exercise in consensus; I just need to nail down why some people prefer one over the other so I can move from there
The problem is the splitting of Ireland, a very recent, and probably temporary, thing (to take a long term view). For most of Ireland's history, the island and the state have the same thing. Even when Ireland as a whole was just a constituent part of the British state (by whatever name) the Nothern/Southern thing was not applicable, and the island and the constituent-country-of-the-other-state. Since some time after the start of the 20th century only part of Ireland isn't Ireland (the state). And it's a small part, and it belongs to the state over on the other island. What is the point of this early-morning meditation? If we are seeking primary topic, the island/state are really one thing, taking the long term view. In terms of primary topic, I am sure it is a fair bet that in the news "Ireland = State" wins out over "Ireland = Island". I don't see a strong reason, apart from prejudice, against Ireland = state, Ireland (island) = georgarphy etc, and Ireland (disambiguation) as a stub for towns in West Virginia or personal names or whatever. -- Evertype· ✆ 08:27, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
← The poll data I have now is insanely contradictory, and any more polling is going to cause more confusion. With that in mind, it would be for the best if we stayed away from the majority/minority comparisons; I'm not seeing it in the data, particularly as all the polls existed in their own context. Aside from which, if one were to insist, some folks are in a majority on one subject and in a minority on another.
I'm still thinking on this. -- Xavexgoem ( talk) 03:54, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
To make sure I'm clear, it sounds like there are two options on the table based on reading all the past information:
The natural third option, with the country at Ireland, seems to have the least support. This also discounts having the country page at Republic of Ireland, leaving that as a redirect to wherever the country article ends up, as this seems to have little support as well. Am I correct in this assumption? -- MASEM ( t) 22:02, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
It should be Ireland(country), state has different meanings in different parts of the world. USA, Australia, Mexico, India, Brazil, Venezuela, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nigeria, Palau... Country does not have the same problem. T*85 ( talk) 19:07, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Here we go again. For what its worth - The short bit - If the RoI article is not to be moved to "Ireland", I agree with the compromise proposal that:
For those who wish to read on:
There are a bunch of states that have geographic names that do not fully correspond with their borders – Examples:
....The names of all of the above states have Wikipedia articles that follow their usual names.Why is Ireland being singled out? Regards. Redking7 ( talk) 06:12, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
Below I recycle some China/Ireland type arguement: Regards Redking7 ( talk) 21:20, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
In addition, some one raised the Georgia example - This is the example I believe the Irish should follow. Georgia is the official name of the Georgian State - thats respected in the article name. The same should go for Ireland. I've always said "Ireland (state)" - similar to "Georgia (country)" is a fair compromise. Regards. Redking7 ( talk) 21:26, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
What is your objection to having the reader go through a DAB page to get to the island article? If they really want to know about the island they will make one click, if they want to know about the country they will make one click T*85 ( talk) 02:57, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
Let's not regurgitate past arguments here - I'd like to make sure that the two options ( Ireland as DAB or Ireland as island) are likely the only significant and well-supported options available for us to consider should the next step be a poll to vote. We've gotten the merits of either side through the previous commentary phase here, and don't need to rehash it. (Note, I'm not asking for opinion one way or another, just making sure that no other major option hasn't been brought up as a likely possibility). -- MASEM ( t) 14:03, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
Please stop personal attacks; what other editors have done in POV-ish manners in other naming conflicts is not a factor we are considering here. -- MASEM ( t) 13:08, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Now, there is a good question brought up, in that what parenthetical name do we give to the country (and is this something for strong debate)? Choices I've seen:
Is this missing any other realistic options? -- MASEM ( t) 18:20, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Ireland (sovereign state)? Jack forbes ( talk) 18:32, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
I am confused here, how is an island a country? how would Ireland(country) be confused with Northern Ireland? -- T*85 ( talk) 18:55, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Refs please, other than the one provided above which also has Tibet listed as a country.-- T*85 ( talk) 20:14, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
I would like to see some good references that state Ireland (island) is considered a country. Perhaps something along the lines of these ones on the Countries of the United Kingdom article. Jack forbes ( talk) 20:26, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Most travel, food, history, etc.. books are going to be about the entire island that does not imply that the island is a country. I am looking for a reference that clearly states that the island is a country. Show me some references like the ones you can find for Scotland, England, that explain while they do not meet the requirements to be an official country they are described as countries by the British government. I really also don't understand your logic, country and state can be used interchangeably, so how can you be against having Ireland(country) but not Ireland(state). Also why don't you go to the current article and on the island of Ireland and change the opening line to say it is a country.-- T*85 ( talk) 20:43, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Basque Country = a name of a region, Kurdistan is not a country it is autonomous part of Iraq, England is a self defined country.-- T*85 ( talk) 21:40, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Well in my opinion it would seem like the use of the word country in the Ireland article when it is not referring to Republic of Ireland is wrong since it should be "island" instead of "country". You are wrong when it comes to the word state. State with a capital (S) and country can be used interchangeably. State with lower (s) is a division of a federal state. Your use of Scotland as an example is also wrong since Scotland defines itself as a country. Florida is not a country because it is state (lower s). Your example of France is correct just like Ireland (the country) is both a state and country since the term can be used interchangeably. If you can provide me some good references to back up your claim that the island is a country I will apologize.-- T*85 ( talk) 21:40, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
"A State (note the capital "S") is a self-governing political entity. The term State can be used interchangeably with country." "A "state" (with a lower-case "s") is usually a division of a federal State (such as the states of the United States of America)." [4]
"political organization of society, or the body politic, or, more narrowly, the institutions of government. The state is a form of human association distinguished from other social groups by its purpose, the establishment of order and security; its methods, the laws and their enforcement; its territory, the area of jurisdiction or geographic boundaries; and finally by its sovereignty. The state consists, most broadly, of the agreement of the individuals on the means whereby disputes are settled in the form of laws. In such countries as the United States, Australia, Nigeria, Mexico, and Brazil, the term state (or a cognate) also refers to political units, not sovereign themselves, but subject to the authority of the larger state, or federal union. [5]
"The Montevideo Convention
(a) a permanent population;
(b) a defined territory;
(c) government; and
(d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states. [6]"
The island only satisfies two of those requirements.-- T*85 ( talk) 22:01, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Yes I am sure there is many countries in the world which refers to itself as "the State" in its constitution.-- T*85 ( talk) 21:40, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Maybe because when the constitution was written they claimed the whole island?-- T*85 ( talk) 21:40, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Again the people who wrote that preamble did not even accept the partition of the country and claimed the entire island up until 1998. -- T*85 ( talk) 22:04, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
[7], the British government descibes Scotland, England, Northern Ireland, as countries. -- T*85 ( talk) 22:08, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Right, but to be honest if I am having this much trouble trying to get people to believe that a country and state can be used interchangeably, I don't think I want to get into an argument about whether NI,England,Scotland are officially countries.-- T*85 ( talk) 22:17, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
I am not trying to impose anything, I just find it weird that people think I have some motive to have country instead of state when the opening line of the Republic of Ireland article says "Ireland is an island country in"? I live in America and did most of my high school and college here. Not knocking the education system here but I bet most of my friends would not think that state can also mean a independent country. That is where my opinion is coming from. -- T*85 ( talk) 22:25, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
No I never said that, I only said that from my experience the people I know would not think of a state as an independent nation. You can take that for whatever it is worth, here they seem to focus mainly on American history. It also is not only America where state can have an alternative meaning, if you include the English speaking countries of America, Australia, India, and Nigeria that is around 1.6 billion people.-- T*85 ( talk) 23:12, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Don't know what people think of "Ireland (sovereign country)", but that's what I threw out as a possibility way up the board here. It uses 'country,' but differentiates it from the all-Ireland context. Its also the phrasing currently (or at least last time I checked!) used on the Ireland hatnotes to lead to the ROI page.
"Country" does seem to get a good deal of informal usage to mean the whole island. The example that I've heard that springs to mind is Irish TV or radio where the announcers will say things such as 'We'll take calls from across the country. In the Republic call XXXX and in Northern Ireland call XXXX..." That sort of thing. From a quick online search, here's a few of the first uses of 'country' that come up where the context indicated is all-island. Mostly tourism and some sports (rugby, in this case, where playing for the all-island team is decribed as playing for one's country) BTW, I'm not claiming any of these as 'official' or great Wiki references--just saying that in informal, 'every-day' use the concept of 'country' does appear to be provable as ambiguous on this issue: [8]; [9]; [10]; [11]; [12]; [13]; [14]; [15] Nuclare ( talk) 22:48, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
I'm concerned that the moderator, Masem, states " Republic of Ireland seems out since this is not an officially recognized name (as best I understand the situation), but is a reasonable redirection." Technically correct, it's not the name of the state - but it is the state's own officially legislated for description. I would remind you that keeping the article on the state at Republic of Ireland is the preferred option of at least some Irish editors (me, BrownHairedGirl, Djegan, and others) and attempts to move it from that over many years have failed through lack of consensus. With all due respect, it should not be ruled out by moderator whim. Bastun BaStun not BaTsun 22:55, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
UN designation | Official name | Wikipedia article |
---|---|---|
Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia | Republic of Macedonia | Macedonia |
China | People's Republic of China | People's Republic of China |
Ireland | Ireland | Republic of Ireland |
United States of America | United States of America | United States |
France | French Republic | France |
I am fully aware that most on the isle of Ireland see "the rest of Ireland" to mean Northern Ireland, if speaking geographically for the whole island and I don't mean that Dublin necessarily claims the part administered by Belfast, although some editors here would like this to happen (I myself AM one of them). It is local perspective and those who have a problem with "British", should really look more at the selfish appropriation of "Irish" by those living in the part of Ireland controlled by Dublin, even as travel brochures make less distinction of it. Those I address feel that those in the North are wrong for using "Irish" for themselves (being that they are considered "Scots in exile"), although Northerners and affiliated islanders never claim exclusive use; truthfully, only the church primate in the Province of Armagh has precedence throughout Ireland, despite Dublin's secular precedence. "Irishness" is the real issue, but it is occasioned by the fact that the name for the UK is GB & NI, while Eire claims to be Irish in general terms. Quot homines tot sententiae: suo quoique mos. ( talk) 09:20, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
Here is some recycling from above:
"Is Hohhot (a city of about 3m) in Mongolia? Yes - but not Mongolia! Is Arlon in Luxembourg? Yes - but not Luxembourg!. Is Pago Pago in Samoa? Yes but not Samoa. Is Bouganville in the Solomon Islands - Yes but not in the Solomon Islands! Now lets put the question again - Is Lough Neagh in Ireland? - Yes but not in Ireland - Why should places in Ireland be treated any differently to those in Mongolia, Luxembourg or Samoa? A bunch of countries have geographic sounding names that do not correspond fully with their borders. Ireland is no exception and should be treated no differently to the others.". Regards. Redking7 ( talk) 20:54, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
Or maybe Ireland *is* an execption to those examples and you just don't know it. It is perfectly possible that 'all-Ireland'-ness (ok, I know that's not a word!) is simply far more concrete and used than the wider examples that you've presented. Or it could be that the particular people editing those pages are simply more state-oriented and things could be different with a different set of editors. I'm not saying it would be, just that your suggestion that Ireland must be like those articles--as if things such as this at Wiki *must* be one way or another--is questionable. Nuclare ( talk) 11:13, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
The most reccurent theme and arguement is firmly on the term Republic.
This kind of talk about the Republic of Ireland term > "...should always be avoided", "...is not official", etc. and then debating it, describing references etc. There is more talk page material on that than in any article. That debate could be compressed to 10% everytime by enshrining some facts about the names, North, Republic and island. Then in any debate about where the term Republic came from or how and if it is official to the state, it is right there on the project page, debate is halved, productivity is doubled. Even if the term Republic is voted in as ridiculous to use for the state, it has been used and has been official. Nothing as a fact has been more debated. The members of this project have a sort of duty to point out that, the term Republic of Ireland was created by the Irish government, is an official Irish term for the state, and not an unusual name at all.
If you were on WikiProject Green and received a new person every week that says "Blue is not a real part of green" should have a clear sign that "Blue is real even if everybody likes yellow."
There should be a clear annoucement about the nature of that term, even warnings about getting the wrong idea, because it is so often confusing, so much more so than any other well known term. ~
R.
T.
G
17:52, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
Here's some more relevant recycling (this time from the Names of the Irish State article):
The distinction between a description and a name has sometimes caused confusion. The Taoiseach, John A. Costello who introduced the legislation explained the difference in the following way: [1]
"If I say that my name is Costello and that my description is that of senior counsel, I think that will be clear to anybody who wants to know...[Similarly, the state's] name in Irish is Éire and in the English language, Ireland. Its description in the English language is "the Republic of Ireland."
-- Redking7 ( talk) 19:01, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
"If I say that my name is Costello and that my description is that of John Costello, Senior Counsel, I think that will be clear to anybody who wants to know...[Similarly, the state's] name in Irish is Éire and in the English language, Ireland. Its description in the English language is "the Republic of Ireland."
or
"If I say that my name is Costello and that my description is that of Senior counsel, I think that will be clear to anybody who wants to know...[Similarly, the state's] name in Irish is Éire and in the English language, Ireland. Its description in the English language is "republic."
Mooretwin ( talk) 08:31, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
The description of the United Kingdom is Constitutional monarchy, but we don't do Constitutional Monarchy of United Kingdom here. No, we don't do that here for UK. Tfz 16:48, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
Both of the following statements could be argued against, at least as being unclear and potentially misleading:
It is simple enough to clarify the former by restating it as
How should the latter be clarified? -- 81.151.192.243 ( talk) 01:43, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
Can the moderators urgently take a look at whats been happening BritishWatcher ( talk) 16:16, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
The shorter version is a deliberate attempt to circumvent the procedure mandated by the Arbitration Committee for settling this dispute — i.e. the discussion going on here. I suggest filing a report at WP:AE. — ras52 ( talk) 16:51, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
I really think the moderators need to setup a process as soon as possible in order to avoid something like this happening again. What happened to the idea of polling what should be at Ireland? Wasn't that meant to be starting shortly? MITH 18:54, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
Is it time to have a vote on this? If so, I propose Ireland, country as my first choice, no brackets. This discussion page will go on for years and years, and really it's doing the project no good whatsoever by having this unharmonious loose end hanging about. All other issues will fall into place once the move is made, as they always do. Tfz
Could someone please make a brief summary of how things are going on? Is this moving forward? Thanks. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 08:15, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
(outdent) There are probably a small number of editors whose views could be seen at being at the extreme ends of a bellcurve. Fortunately, the bellcurve appears to be getting steeper. Significant progress is being made. My only wish is that the ArbCom participators would regularly capture the progress and agreements so that we can avoid having to redo discussions and just point back to an agreement or decision. -- HighKing ( talk) 13:54, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
So much of our argument/counter arguments are lost in the depths of discussion that they are lost to anyone looking from the outside. In order to summarise our current position, I'm proposing that we engage in a relatively short collaborative statement of our current positions. The exercise would see us collaborativly summarising the arguments and counter-arguments and the outcome of them that we have had.
Each argument, counter-argument and outcome (summary) should be written - collaboratively - in one sentence. These should not be statements, but arguments (i.e. the need a "because"). They should relate only to a outcome that we want to see from this (so nothing about "Cork is in Republic of Ireland because..." since "Cork" is not a potential outcome for this process). All of the arguments should be "positive" argument (i.e. no arguments like "The article on the state should NOT be moved because..." or the "The article on the state should NOT be at Republic of Ireland because...") - this is so the process is less adversarial and more focused on outcomes.
The counter augments should ONLY address the specific argument that comes before them. The summary should contain a NPOV summary of the results of the argument vs. counter argument.
Both 'sides' can edit any argument, counter argument or summary.
So for example:
The intention is that the end of this process (we can set a date - two or three days from now), we will have a summary of every argument we've had. And an NPOV summary of the result in a digestible form. (Plus we - hopefully - won't be at each other throats while we are doing it.) --rannṗáirtí anaiṫnid ( coṁrá) 15:08, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
Why don't we just vote now? We all know what it is at this stage. Qaziphone ( talk) 13:48, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
(Sarek had two summaries here, but moved them)
MITH, while I was wrong to delete your comments, note that we're trying to summarize the arguments below: hence, they're not "your comments", just like the lines I edited aren't mine. -- SarekOfVulcan ([[User talk:SarekOfVulcan|talk]]) 16:16, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
The short bit - If the RoI article is not to be moved to "Ireland", I agree with the compromise proposal that:
For those who wish to read on:
There are a bunch of states that have geographic names that do not fully correspond with their borders – Examples:
....The names of all of the above states have Wikipedia articles that follow their usual names.Why is Ireland being singled out? Regards. Redking7 ( talk) 20:51, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
Re Congo and Korea - Firstly, none of the 4 states concerned claim to be simply "Congo" or "Korea" as the case may be. More importantly, even if the Congos or Koreas did claim they should be known simply as "Congo" or "Korea" as the case may be - they would be claims of multiple states. In contrast Ireland is the only state in the world that asserts that its name is Ireland and that name is recognised by every state in the world without qualms.
Re Micronesia, that name is more comparable with the America (check where that link brings you - its a DAB, somethin I suppor Ireland becoming). No comparison with Ireland. Regards. Redking7 ( talk) 21:14, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
It has come to my attention that there is an article named Outline of the Republic of Ireland, which, upon inspection is not about an outline, or list, of articles about the republic of Ireland, but instead clearly lists all subjects related to Ireland, and is clearly misnamed. Any objection to excluding it from the ban on moves and move it? In any case, were it to be about a list of articles or outline of the republic of Ireland, it would still need to be renamed, as republic is not a part of the name of the country Ireland. 199.125.109.102 ( talk) 00:07, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
Political battles should be fought at Parliament, not here at Wikipedia. An encyclopedia is supposed to state the facts, not the pov. BritishWatcher, Mooretwin, and Asarlai are obviously on a concerted campaign to add confusion into the compilation of this encyclopedia. Enough of this please. Tfz 13:28, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
Ireland, state is a complete violation of the naming rules. Factalicious!. MickMacNee ( talk) 23:05, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
Some relevant recycling: Is this process just a ruse to ruse to stop the "disruption" caused by the RoI/IRL dispute by pretending that a process is in place to resolve the conflicting viewpoints? I hope this is a genuine process that will lead to a prompt decision but it looks unlikely to me. In particular, the ground rules on the project page state "Decisions for the WikiProject will primarily be based on the consensus of members". Is some one seriously suggesting a consensus will emerge? If no consensus emerges, does that mean there will be no decision (or another decision to make no decision as before)? What reason is there to think a consensus will emerge when it has not done so before? Is there a timeframe for this process? How long will it run? What is the deadline? I think those running this process should answer these questions and set them out on the project page. Participants can then take a view on whether this is a credible process. After all, who runs a project without having a clear timeframe? It goes without saying, I hope the project is successful. It should have credibility. Regards. Redking7 ( talk) 23:57, 12 March 2009 (UTC) Time, unfortunately, is proving my original scepticism right. Regards. Redking7 ( talk) 00:54, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
It's a joke that people seem to desperately want to be told what to do by arbcom. They are not your mothers, they are not your teachers, they are not your betters. You can't really blame the naughty kids for this disaster, the fault of the absolute failure of this process to come up with anything but repetition primarily lies with absent administrators, the only reason nobody is interested in this crap anymore is that not a single person is ever pulled up for tendencious editting. Of the hundreds available, the two examples that come to mind quickly are Redking's incessant copy pasting of the same points, and Mooretwin's incessant harping back to IDTF, and that's before we go over old ground about AGF and accusations of POV/CABALs. I predicted as much in the arbcom case, if a proper accountable and available panel of admins were not appointed to oversee behaviour with the expectation of actually doing what they were appointed to do and enforce behavioural policies, then nothing would get done here that didn't resemble all previous train wrecks. Did any of your all seeing all knowing arbitrators listen, did they bollocks. They cannot even bother themselves to examine a simple request for an ammendment to stop the latest batch of bad behaviour. The pitiful participation count we are down to now on this page would not produce any legitimate solution at all. This page ceased to have any meaningfull mandate long ago, considering anything it comes up with has to demonstrate consensus. MickMacNee ( talk) 04:13, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
You've utterly missed the point. Everybody knows what you want, you've repeated it a billion times. But if you tried to present this solution supported by facts and consensus to the wider community, where is your evidence? You don't have it, because the process to show it is a sensible and legitimate move in an organised manner, that somebody could read in a few hours, has been a bloody disaster, and we are down to two or three people left, repeating the same thing said a year ago, in the same format. It did not get consensus then, so what do you think is different now, because the community has not been following this car crash at all. It won't be interested in the logic behind any change, no matter how much people insist it is 'the obvious solution'. And tediously, to make up for this failure, as usual, people are still insisting arbocom should just implement it, which for very obvious reasons, is not what they do. MickMacNee ( talk) 14:53, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
GoodDay...where do you think the majority is...For of against change. Lets get a poll going I suppose and then close the process. There is no consensus for the status quo or for the change. Regards.
I do not mind Deacon's moving the poll to the project, or even to taking a poll, but I object to the poll's not offering the option to move Ireland (disambiguation) to Ireland and I believe it should allow people to rank their votes in terms of preference. See the Talk page of his poll, please. (These objections are made in good faith. There is a reasonable number of people who have supported Ireland = disambiguation, Ireland (state) and Ireland (island) as a compromise.) -- Evertype· ✆ 15:10, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
(Note, this is only my take, not the other moderators) Per above, it was suggested that a restatement of what this issue is here would be helpful. Let me outline what I see this as:
Issues at hand:
As such, for the naming aspects, we have no policy or guidelines to really follow, and past attempts to come to consensus have resulted in little progress.
Past just the naming of the island and nation articles, there is a need for preciseness in the writing of articles related to the island, the nation, or both. Just as "Ireland" being a common name that without context is difficult to resolve to the island or the nation and prevents an easy solution on renaming, it poses the same problem in article text bodies and the like. Thus, there needs to be a scheme for how to distinguish between these two when they come up in such articles.
The method of solution, given that consensus has been tried and failed, thus should be as follows:
As this has been going on for some time, and has already exhausted three moderators, it is in everyone's best interest to try to resolve this as soon as possible. -- MASEM ( t) 16:11, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
Thank you Masem for defining what you see as the problem. I agree also with the point Bastun has made re: Republic of Ireland. For a clear explanation on "Republic of Ireland" see here, to understand why it does “purposely inflame” and should be amend accordingly.
The options are:
We already have both of these opinions on the Ireland Article with a third under discussion:
Now we already have articles on both Ireland and Northern Ireland which can and are used were clarity is needed. So the whole Ireland (island) and Ireland (state) options are first off, based on WP:OR, devoid of verifiability and against neutral point of view. What we as a community need to do, is identify areas were clarity is needed and formulate wording to address the issues in articles.-- Domer48 'fenian' 18:12, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
Masem I was simply reasoning out what you yourself said, "Ireland" is the most common name applied to both the island and to the 26-county nation" and "the nation… is recognized internationally as "Ireland." Is this disputed? Ireland is the common name of both the island and the State. Why is there a need to differentiate? On the RoI / Ireland , Europe state quite clearly “ NB:Do not use ‘Republic of Ireland’ nor ‘Irish Republic’ now that is very clear an unambiguous. Now editors can all agree on that? I would again point out this point is addressed in by ArbCom in the section titled naming conventions, which say "Wikipedia determines the recognizability of a name by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject." -- Domer48 'fenian' 19:24, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
Please read both the comments by Masem and myself, "Ireland" is the most common name applied to both the island and to the 26-county nation" and "the nation… is recognized internationally as "Ireland." The question I ask was why is there a need to differentiate? This point is addressed by by ArbCom in the section titled naming conventionswhich says "Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity." It also says "The names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors, and for a general audience over specialists." -- Domer48 'fenian' 19:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
It is concerning that a moderator is making statements like the descriptor "republic of Ireland" is correct, but not the proper noun "Republic of Ireland". I am also concerned about the use of the term "nation" rather than state, since this is ambiguous. The 26-county constitution defines the "nation" as the entire island. Mooretwin ( talk) 20:42, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
Just a be of clarity, "The 26-county constitution defines the "nation" as the entire island." Not true, please read the Constitution. Thank you Dunc, you make the point very well. If there is a clear need to differentiate the content that deals with the country and the content that deals with the State, it must be true then of all countries and States. -- Domer48 'fenian' 21:17, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
BritishWatcher please treat the contributions of editors with the same courtesy as you would expect yourself. Now there is a place called Germany it can be described as a nation, a state, or a country... its all the same thing. Likewise, Ireland is the name of as a nation, a state, or a country... its all the same thing. No difference! So why have separate articles on Ireland (State) and Ireland (country) it makes no sense. -- Domer48 'fenian' 22:22, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
No GoodDay, there is not. Ireland the country and Ireland the State and Ireland the island are all the same thing. There is an article on Northern Ireland. MitH see this here -- Domer48 'fenian' 22:33, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
MitH, Ireland the country and Ireland the island are the same thing. There is the state of Northern Ireland on the island of Ireland. Are you saying that we need disambiguation between Northern Ireland and Ireland? Is the difference not obvious? Is this on the top of the article not enough For the constituent country of the United Kingdom, see Northern Ireland? -- Domer48 'fenian' 22:50, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
26 counties are part of the sovereign state Ireland, while there are 32 counties on the island 6 counties are in Northern Ireland. The island and the sovereign state are the same depending on context. Therefore disambiguation is obvious, Ireland / Northern Ireland depending on context. Is this on the top of the Ireland article not enough For the constituent country of the United Kingdom, see Northern Ireland? Please try to remain calm. -- Domer48 'fenian' 23:24, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
We have certain core principles, they are WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR and editors must accept them before being allowed to contribute here. Please read what the Irish government see as the Irish Nation. The Irish government accepted that unification would only come through "the consent" of the people in both jurisdictions in the island. Now BritishWatcher you are correct there is an Island called Ireland and a country called Ireland. As Masem has pointed out "Ireland" is the most common name applied to both the island and to the 26-county nation" and "the nation… is recognized internationally as "Ireland." I'm encouraged that both editors are now suggesting we use evidence to support our opinions, and this should be welcomed and seen as progress. Could editors now provide evidence to support their view that "Ireland" in the English speeking world is considered ambiguous. Once again I would ask editors is this disambiguation hatnote on the top of the Ireland article not enough For the constituent country of the United Kingdom, see Northern Ireland? -- Domer48 'fenian' 07:44, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
There are two 'countries' called Ireland? No, there is only one and that's an internationally recognized state. Thanks for the ref, but it does not support your comments. Thanks again, -- Domer48 'fenian' 09:42, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
I thought we were going to support our comments with evidence and not just offer opinions. Bastun articles Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution of Ireland which are replaced with the principle of "consent" in the Irish Constitution, so I can't see the point you are trying to make, but you are using Diff's and that is to be welcome. Now could one of you please provide a link to were there was agreement that there is two islands called Ireland. WE all agree then that there is only one Irish State that is an internationally recognised state. Rannpháirtí anaithnid you appear to be going off in the wrong direction, we don't need a defination of the words, we need a sourced reference saying that there is two islands called Ireland or Ireland is ambiguous according to...? But thanks again for starting to use references very positive efforts. Once again I would ask editors is this disambiguation hatnote on the top of the Ireland article not enough For the constituent country of the United Kingdom, see Northern Ireland? Thaks -- Domer48 'fenian' 13:06, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Sorry Bastun, if you feel I have misrepresenting what people are saying please show me and I'll correct it stright away. Could I ask you is this disambiguation hatnote on the top of the Ireland article not enough For the constituent country of the United Kingdom, see Northern Ireland? Just so we can move on from it. If it is not could you explain why? Thanks again, and sorry if there is any misunderstanding, -- Domer48 'fenian' 13:21, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Rannpháirtí anaithnid you ask why do we need a reference to say that Ireland is "ambiguous"? Because we rely on what's known as WP:V, a core policy of wiki. A group of editors just agreeing on something with any supporting evidence is not enough. Editors "are saying that there are two "Irelands" - there is a state of that name and an island (or two!)" I'm asking the editors to support this view with a reference per WP:V. Now even Masem says that "country" and "state" and "nation" are terms that are used synonymously with each other in this discussion. Nor is there a difference between Ireland the country and Ireland the state. Some editors say there is, so provide sources? Hope that helps, -- Domer48 'fenian' 14:37, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
STOP.
We're going to be here forever if editors keep insisting on reiterating over minor points and trying to rule-broker the situation.
It is very clear (without a need for sources) that two topics have nearly equal claim as the "most common English use" of the word "Ireland" - the island and the 26-county nation. As to which has the "most", we'd be here forever trying to justify some metric that swings one way or another. The core of this dispute needs to start at the fact that it is impossible to assert that the island or the nation is the most common use of the word "Ireland", so the resolution is to find some other means to determine that.
It is also very clear that as of this moment there exists only one nation/state/country of Ireland, that being the 26-county one, regardless of what other connotations that those words may mean personally (as in one's homeland) to people or to Ireland's past history. Under what name that that country resides at is the issue of contention. Or, to be clearer: there are two countries on the island of Ireland: the country/nation/state of Ireland (consisting of 26 counties) and a portion of the United Kingdom called Northern Ireland. None of these means are synonymous with each other. Again, that's fact, not an opinion, but a fact nevertheless that we need to build from, not argue indefinitely.
Now is not the time to be bickering over details; everyone had their chance to argue their preferred choice during the Statement phase; now is the time to progress forward and figure out how we are going to figure out the preferred solution. -- MASEM ( t) 15:13, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
MASEM I agree with a number of the points you have made such as “‘Ireland’ is the most common name applied to both the island and to the 26-county nation that covers most of that island” and that “for the nation, it is recognized international as ‘Ireland.’” There can be no argument there, however supporting references should be applied. I disagree however when you say that on “the naming aspects, we have no policy or guidelines to really follow." We do, and it was provided by by ArbCom themselves under the title titled naming conventions.
I also disagree when you say “[I] claim that we'd have to invoke OR for the island and nation - well, not really.” The point I would make is one you yourself made, “there's no simple answer to say which of these is the most common use.” As you pointed out above “‘Ireland’ is the most common name applied to both the island and to the 26-county nation that covers most of that island” and that “for the nation, it is recognized international as ‘Ireland.’” In the absence of supporting references WP:OR is the only option, which you are willing to accept by saying “we do need to nix choices that are not supported by literature.” You are also willing to in the absence of sources to “use a simple poll to deal with that factor once and for” in order to find “a solution as fast as possible.” This is not “the last option we have,” because there is one wiki option which has never been used. That is to ask editors to provide references to support the view that we need to make a distinction between “which of these is the most common use…either the island or the nation.” Who else in the international community supports the need for this distinction.
You go on then to say that “both [the island and nation] cannot co-exist at that same page because there is a very defining line between that content. They are two separate articles and thus the goal here is to find two separate article titles here for them.” However you contradict this by saying “I don't see anything that says there is - "country" and "state" and "nation" are terms that are used synonymously with each other in this discussion. Nor is there a difference between Ireland the country and Ireland the state” But then say you have “no desired outcome of this moderation save to see it to its end.” Based on this I do understand when you say “Maybe I'm confused, but I don't see a difference between "the state of Ireland" and "the country of Ireland - from everything I can read, they seem to be the same, speaking to the 26-county nation. But if there is a difference, please explain this.” Your final point to me is the most important, because that is exactly the question I’ve been trying to have addressed, without any look.
Your summing up under the “stop” title “It is very clear (without a need for sources) that two topics have nearly equal claim as the "most common English use" of the word "Ireland" - the island and the 26-county nation.” I would suggest they have an identical claim, and to try to differentiate between the two is futile, as you say, the “terms that are used synonymously with each other” and that there is no “difference between Ireland the country and Ireland the state.” It is not for us to “determine” this at all because it is “very clear that as of this moment there exists only one nation/state/country of Ireland, that being the 26-county one.” It is obvious what the article title should be based on your observation, “it is recognized international as ‘Ireland.’” On the island of Ireland you have “Ireland” and “Northern Ireland” and “none of these [names] are synonymous with each other. Again, that's fact, not an opinion, but a fact nevertheless that we need to build from, not argue indefinitely.”
Your summary is very welcome, and I’d personally like to thank you for the effort and time you have put in. I may disagree with you on some points but in general you have tried to be pragmatic. I a little disappointed that the only response to your detailed comments was for editors to jump straight in with their preferred options. I am trying to formulate a proposal, but find it difficult to nail the problem editors have down. If they at least engaged with me and addressed simple straight forward questions it would help a lot. The incivility and stonewalling while it is something I’m used too, I’d like to think we could all move on in a more positive and productive spirit. Thanks -- Domer48 'fenian' 18:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
We are never going to resolve this matter if certain methods are used by some editors to waste time. What exactly are we all expected to do when some people refuse to even accept the fact Ireland is ambiguous. If someone cant accept this very simple fact which most people understand, how are they going to accept the outcome of this dispute? We are just going to go round and round in circles if this continues. BritishWatcher ( talk) 15:00, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Would any of you now like to comment on my post? -- Domer48 'fenian' 18:05, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
The fact that this project even exists is due to the fact there's ambiguity. In fact, it's part of the ArbCom findings of fact. Thus, I'm going to say here that any attempts to override this statement will be seen as hampering this process, and could result in administrative action if it continues. -- MASEM ( t) 19:58, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Hi HighKing, consensus is not the primary and foremost policy that trumps all others. Please read WP:CONSENSUS, consensus is not simple agreement; a handful of editors agreeing on something does not constitute a consensus. Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. Consensus is not immutable. Past decisions are open to challenge and are not binding, and one must realize that such changes are often reasonable. Thus, "according to consensus" and "violates consensus" are not valid rationales for making or reverting an edit, or for accepting or rejecting other forms of proposal or action. Consensus decisions in specific cases do not automatically override consensus on a wider scale – for instance, a local debate on a WikiProject does not override the larger consensus behind a policy or guideline. To ensure transparency, consensus cannot be formed except on Wikipedia discussion pages. In determining consensus, consider the strength and quality of the arguments, including the evolution of final positions, the objections of those who disagree, and existing documentation in the project namespace if available. Minority opinions typically reflect genuine concerns, and their (strict) logic may outweigh the "logic" (point of view) of the majority. Polls are structured discussions, not votes. Opinion has more weight when you provide a rationale during a poll, not just a vote. Convince others of your views, and give them a chance to convince you. Editors can easily create the appearance of a changing consensus by "forum shopping": asking again and hoping that a different and more sympathetic group of people discusses the issue. This is a poor example of changing consensus, and is antithetical to the way that Wikipedia works. Wikipedia does not base its decisions on the number of people who show up and vote; we work on a system of good reasons. -- Domer48 'fenian' 22:47, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
HighKing your example shows an incorrect use of the term Republic, that's all it does not support the suggestion that it's ambiguous. However here in this reference, we see Ireland being used as a "geographical name" and the name of the country. So 27 countries see nothing ambiguous about Ireland, but it is only on wiki and no where else is this discussion needed. I hope that answers both your comments above. -- Domer48 'fenian' 22:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
So we now have a clearly reliable source that now tells us that Ireland can relate to two different things (another clue is in Daly's use of the word also, which means in addition to). Since this supports the current situation which has been stable for years - we have distinct articles on the different things - the onus of on you, Domer, to provide a source that counters it. Its not good enough to give a source telling us that Ireland is the name of the state according to X,Y,Z; we already know that. Provide us with a source that tells us, explicitly, the state and the island are the same thing. Rockpocke t 02:23, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Rock: Per MASEM above, "arguing that there isn't any ambiguity between the island and the country...is going completely against the Arbcom-stated finding of fact." If MASEM says I can respond, I will. You could possibly help, if you provide both MASEM and myself a link to the discussion were consensus was reached on this issue, and on which ArbCom based their FoF, both of us are unable to locate it. A list of referenced sources which supported this consensus from the discussions would also be useful. HighKing raised the issue of consensus above and Per WP:Consensus To ensure transparency, consensus cannot be formed except on Wikipedia discussion pages. If your open minded and wish to be I'm sure I can provide a reasonable responce free of WP:SYN. I'll highlight editors names I'm addressing and responding to, since one can never get a responce with editors jumping in and the question being buried. -- Domer48 'fenian' 10:12, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
I have a proposal: if and only if it is determined that article about the 26-county State should have a name of the form "Ireland (blah)", it should be "Ireland (state)", as the Irish constitution refers to it by that term and no other state I can think of has a claim to that term. Anybody currently discussing actually disagree with this? (And if you want "Ireland" or "Republic of Ireland", just hush for now, that's not the question.)-- SarekOfVulcan ( talk) 15:36, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Ireland (Free State) is what it is known by in the country itself, north and south. -- De Unionist ( talk) 23:46, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
So you do know what The Free State refers to then...sort of proves my point.-- De Unionist ( talk) 00:13, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
See [16] for Irish Free State. -- De Unionist ( talk) 00:47, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
I just thought I would take a moment here to weep a bit. -- Evertype· ✆ 16:06, 10 June 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rannpháirtí anaithnid ( talk • contribs)
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I and many other editors were notified on 5 March that this project was taking statements. ( Gnevin ( talk · contribs) kindly used AWB to notify lots of editors).
After taking my time to consider how the process was structured, I signed up as a member of this project 8 days later, on 13 March.
I don't think that the project page has substantially changed since then, but I am still going to focus on the version to which I signed up.
That page is explicit on a number of points, and for me the most significant of those was under the heading Graham's pyramid, which I will reproduce here in full:
That is a clear commitment by the moderators not to simply count heads, but rather to assess the validity of arguments. That's why I signed up for, and that's how I expected this process to proceed.
Unfortunately, that is not what is now happening. At Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ireland Collaboration/Panel#Preliminary_outcome, the moderators have done absolutely nothing to weigh any of the arguments or to assess evidence.
Instead they are doing the exact opposite of what was promised, which is making a headcount of the views of participants. And on that basis, they have ruled out several options: see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ireland Collaboration/Panel#Analysis.
How they arrived at those figures is another question, because the total number of supports and opposes counted on the major points at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ireland Collaboration/Panel#Preliminary_outcome significantly exceeds the 29 currently-signed up members of the project. As one example, look at one of the figures under the heading "Total": Republic of Ireland: 41/41
That's a claimed total of 82 participants, more than three times as many people as have signed up to the project. There are several possible explanations for this:
So on two key points, the path which the moderators are currently following is at odds with what was set out at the start:
Over the last few weeks, other editors have expressed concerns about the apparent inactivity of the moderators, and I have tried to support the notion that they needed to time to come up with a way to make the next steps on this process. I assumed in good faith that the moderators would do what they had promised at the outset, and I gave them the benefit of the doubt.
But what I now see at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ireland Collaboration/Panel removes any doubt in my mind, and it is clear that the moderators are now running phase 2 of the process in an entirely different manner to what was set out at the start. And to add the absurdity, they appear to be double-counting votes.
I hope that moderators will come here and explain both what they think they are up to, and how they plan to get the process back on the path which was advertised to those of us who committed our time and energies to participate in it.
But right now, it appears that the since the path they are following is so radically different from what the stall that was set out, that none of us need feel in any way bound by the outcome of this process. I hope that the moderators will be able to persuade me that I am wrong, and that we have not all been wasting out time for the last few months, but that's how it looks. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 20:28, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
Oh Lordy :(
Edokter has confirmed that the structured analysis by the pyramid, which was the methodology set out when I signed up and which is still the methodology set out on the project has been "put on the back burner". That's a pretty fundamental change to make, yet I see no effort at any stage to communicate it to project participants (I wasn't even aware of the existence of the panel talk page until today). This is not a good situation, to put it mildly. It seems to me to be essential in any fair form of structured process that if the rules of the game change, then that should be clearly communicated to the players.
I know that this will sound like nitpicking, but to me its fundamental: the writing on the panel-talk-page currently suggests excluding a range of options on the basis of numbers of supporters and opposers. Yet Edokter's explanations above offers two slightly different versions of what those numbers: first that he "must also debunk the sense that the results merely amount to a headcount, which is definitely not the case", secondly that "the analysis extracted the possible titles from the statements and the degree of support each of those arguments have secured". That sounds like counting heads on different arguments within each proposition, rather than simply counting heads on different statements ... but either way it's counting heads.
Now maybe I've misunderstood this, but I'm listening. So please, Edokter, please explain what those numbers mean, and how they were arrived at.
Edokter says the the "moderators were never intended to determin the validity of those arguments", which I'll note is not the approach adopted at CFD or AFD, where closers are expected to weigh the arguments. It's also completely at variance with the pyramid which was the basis on which editors were asked to participate in this process. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 00:49, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
As per my other recent comments, I think that this process is now in a big mess. I don't think that our depleted number of moderators have a clear idea of how to proceed, and Edokter's comments above seem to me to show that the moderators have departed significantly from what was proposed when editors were invited to participate in this process.
But I think that there is a way forward which brings all these strands together, and it's based on Deacon of Pndapetzim's proposal above, drawing on the Gdansk poll.
We have now had the statement process. It has been very valuable, because all sides have placed their evidence and their arguments on the table. Personally, I have found that it has helped enormously, both to clarify my own reasons for the options I prefer, but also to better understand the arguments of those with whom I disagree.
The question now is what to do with this material to make it usable in a community-wide poll of the sort that DofP prosed. It's a bit of a sprawl; some statements cover several issues, some cover one issue, but in a different way to others reaching similar conclusions. But nonetheless, most of the evidence is there; it just needs to be re-organised for clarity.
And I think that there is a way of doing that which needn't place an excessive burden on the moderators, if we use an approach like that of the pre-trial stage of civil proceedings in a modern judicial system, where a lot of preparatory work is done: both sides prepare evidence bundles and produce a copy for each side and one for the court; and both sides also prepare skeleton arguments so that the issues can be considered in some sort of logical fashion.
The problem is that there are 26 members of this process, so we may end up with 26 sets of arguments on each of the questions to be addressed. But we can easily enough avoid that by giving members an incentive to produce joint statements. What I propose is simply that all statements appear on one page, and the order in which statements are presented is determined by the number of signatories:
The moderators need merely announce a deadline, and editors can do the rest. X drafts a statement, Y signs it; Z says they'll endorse it too if it is changed, and they discuss it until the statement is submitted. Then it's up to people to sign or not sign, as they choose. And if someone else produces a statement which they all prefer, then Z, Y and Z can all abandon the first statement.
This process will lead to a major consolidation of the sprawling sets of arguments currently dispersed over dozens of statements. My guess is that on each issue, we will end up up with two or three statements which each attract five or more signatories, and then a number of lone voices.
If we do this first for Problem 1, and put it out for a vote like that for Talk:Gdansk/Vote, we will have the best of all possible worlds: all the best arguments for and against each option, prioritised by the level of support they have received from those closest to the issue. So on Problem 1, we may have a statement recommending option 1A signed by 7 editors, followed by a statement recommending option C signed by 6 editors, or whatever. Some statements may not prefer a particular option, but may instead make general comments or choose to say "anything other than option X", or "whatever decision you make, remember these points". So far as the moderators are concerned, it wouldn't matter what the stance is of a statement, so long as editors endorse only one statement.
This will provide a strong incentive amongst editors to remove weak or false arguments, and to focus instead on the most important points which they want to make to the voters. If a group of editors want to argue that Ireland should be an article about milk quotas in Ballyporeen because Granuaile taught Nelson Mandela how to make space-rockets out of mackerel, that's their lookout.
Once this is done for problem 1, we will have narrowed down the options for problem 2.1, and can address it in the same way; then we can do problem 2.2
This approach won't be quick, but it will allow everyone concerned to focus the case they want to make, and will allow the wider community to assess the arguments made by participants in this process, without placing on the moderators the burden of making an analysis of their own.
My idea may need refinement, but what do people think of that outline? -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 02:35, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
I thought they were to weigh up the statements and if no consensus emerged "close the discussion", i.e. make the decision? Why have they not done so? Redking7 ( talk) 19:52, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
Agree with MusicInTheHouse - I do not support BHG's "plan" and I agree that it is for the Moderators to make the decisions. Regards. Redking7 ( talk) 18:47, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
Redking, it is not for the moderators to impose a decision. That was never agreed. If you want a decision imposed, then the matter will have to be referred back to ArbCom. DrKiernan ( talk) 09:58, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Where did "on 1 May" come from? My belief is that the moderators are merely considering where the procedure goes next. Kittybrewster ☎ 21:54, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
The Staements Process is over. I don't think any "Endorsements etc" are going on. Not a single edit has been made on this discussion page in over a week.....MODERATORS - The process is over. Please now make your decision and "close the discussion". Why the delay? You are letting us all down. Regards. Redking7 ( talk) 22:38, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
At least, the squabling has slowed to a crawl on the Ireland naming related articles. GoodDay ( talk) 19:09, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
To recap, there has been a first round, based around statements, which hasn't produced an especially clear result. The approach of making Ireland a disambiguation page probably has the most support, but there isn't enough consensus to declare a winner. Consequently there has to be, at the very least, some sort of second round. Given the lack of a clear result, in the second round, other rival approaches to making Ireland a disambiguation page should be allowed. Also, there has been some discussion about whether the next round should be a poll where votes are counted, or a discussion where consensus is assessed. From this discussion, the next round probably shouldn't just be a poll, and editors should be allowed to make comments. However, I doubt that threaded argument will get us anywhere. Accordingly, I propose the second round should be similar in format to Request for Adminship, where editors make comments under headings of 'Support', 'Oppose' and 'Neutral'. Some discussion is allowed, but longer threads can be moved to the talk page. PhilKnight ( talk) 23:56, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
It will never be possible to get everyone to agree on a single solution, so the next best solution is to go with the majority. For problem 1 there seems to be a majority for Ireland to be a disambiguation page. On problem 2.2, everyone is agreed that the island of Ireland article should either be at Ireland or Ireland (island), so a decision on problem 1 will also decide problem 2.2. We should now check to see if there really is a majority for "Ireland" to be a disambiguation page. If we move forward on this point, at least we should be able to decide on two of the problems. In the past, polls have been opposed for the republic article because of concerns that UK editors will outnumber Irish editors. Are there such concerns for a poll/debate on the island article? DrKiernan ( talk) 07:33, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
I still don't see how this process is going to solve the entire Ireland naming dispute. Changing the titles of two or three articles does not solve the dispute about how to refer to the state in the many hundreds or thousands of other articles throughout Wikipedia. Mooretwin ( talk) 10:46, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
The way this might work is demonstrated by: Statements Process IECOLL. I suggest a deadline of 15 May for the end of the statement drafting/endorsing process. DrKiernan ( talk) 08:47, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
To DrKiernan. Did the Gdansk poll work, and if so did the decision actually stick? If it did then I would be inclined to go with a tried and tested method. Jack forbes ( talk) 14:09, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Choose an option.
(ui) Just to clarify, use of Éire is just an inaccurate as Eire in the English language. MITH 22:05, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
I am sorry to inform all of you that I will resign as a moderator of this project. I have failed to provide any usefull contributions as such, and find myself unable to assign any more time and effort. The two main reason being that 1) I have no experience in such a big mediation, and accepting the task has been a mistake. 2) I have been involved in a dispute of my own that is consuming all my attention, making it impossible for me to focus on any other task that requires a long-span attention. I will inform ArbCom of my decision. — Edokter • Talk • 22:18, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
I ask again - what was wrong with the solution provided by the Ireland Disambiguation Task Force? Mooretwin ( talk) 17:27, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I have put a note on User:ChrisO's page to ask his opinion. -- Evertype· ✆ 08:00, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
There's a Request for comment on content dispute resolution which could be of interest. PhilKnight ( talk) 23:00, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
Reading this page, it seems like there is general agreement (although not unanimous) that BHG's proposal for determining the solution to Problem 1 is a useful way forward. If what you need is a thoroughly neutral party to assist with organization and to set a deadline, then I'm sure an appropriate and willing editor can be found. I'm happy to volunteer, but I'm sure that with such a simple job description many other neutral editors would be willing to assist. I think its quite possible that this method will lead, eventually, to a permanent solution; on the other hand, if the outcome isn't conclusive, then the exercise will have been valuable of itself. Nathan T (formerly Avruch) 23:29, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
The three moderators appointed by the Arbitration Committee for WikiProject Ireland Collaboration are no longer active in the project under that capacity. These disengagements occurred voluntarily and separately under individual conditions without controversy. PhilKnight ( talk · contribs), Edokter ( talk · contribs), and SebastianHelm ( talk · contribs) are all thanked for their hard work and efforts as moderators. In response to the openings, the Committee appoints Masem ( talk · contribs) and Xavexgoem ( talk · contribs) as moderators, thanking them for taking on this task. A third moderator is not yet appointed, pending discussion with the participants.
For the Committee, -- Vassyana ( talk) 15:51, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
There seems to be a lot of ambivalence towards the previous round of moderation. What had failed on the part of the moderators, and how do we now fix that? -- Xavexgoem ( talk) 07:08, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
In the previous round we agreed on the problems, and agreed that a statement process was the best way to proceed at first. However, at the end of the statement process there was no clear consensus on (1) what they showed or (2) how to proceed next.
On point (1), this is because the statements are wide-ranging, numerous and various, and sometimes unfocused or lacking a certain clarity. In future, we need to ensure more focus on the problems and a smaller number of more specific statements, where the arguments on each side and the number of editors supporting each side are clear. This is suggested as option 1 of the four #Options for next phase. While this may not provide consensus either, it should at least make clear the majority view, or produce clear potential statements that could be taken forward into discussion or used as the basis of a poll.
On point (2), I fear it will be too difficult at this stage, with a set of unclear statements, to agree how any future decisions will be reached. Option 1 does not prejudge any future phases of the process but it does provide a stronger base from which to proceed. Clearer statements with clear numbers will make it easier to discuss the shape of the next phase. DrKiernan ( talk) 10:13, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
I may be reading this wrong, but Ireland as a disambig seems to have the broadest appeal (31 for, 10 against). Am I correct in assuming that the larger problem, broadly speaking, is the naming of the articles the disambig could/would point to? Xavexgoem ( talk) 11:01, 14 May 2009 (UTC) I'm still collecting all the info, so for the moment I might be a bit slow
One point that I saw when looking at the history was not just the impact on the naming of the country article and the geography article, but also the impact on the naming of "Something of X" articles. Does anyone have a list of what articles may be affected in naming only by the results of this collaboration? Is it worth considering how those are to be affected by this? -- MASEM ( t) 13:28, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
A third moderator has not yet been appointed. Some participants have indicated that the presence of an arbitrator on the project could be helpful. In general, how do members of this project feel about one or two arbitrators taking a more active role here? If one or more arbitrators take part, should they officially be project moderators? What sort of role should they take? Should they be directly active, as would be traditionally considered for a moderator? Should they take a more distant role, focusing on occasional advice and oversight? What would you expect from an arbitrator looking to assist this project? Thank for your time and consideration of these questions.
For the Committee, -- Vassyana ( talk) 16:11, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
Why can't we just take the Ireland disambiguation task force Ireland Disambiguation Task Force to its conclusion? It came very close to reaching consensus on ALL issues, but was supplanted by this crazy process. Mooretwin ( talk) 11:49, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
I have seen two broad-ish consensuses - which my spellchecker is informing me is actually a word - that either support moving Ireland to a disambig, or support keeping it in its present form as an article on the island. I want to start with this, since this seems to be the less troublesome divide. Assuming for the moment that Ireland will be either of these two choices, what is your opinion on your preferred choice over the other? Xavexgoem ( talk) 12:29, 15 May 2009 (UTC) This isn't an exercise in consensus; I just need to nail down why some people prefer one over the other so I can move from there
The problem is the splitting of Ireland, a very recent, and probably temporary, thing (to take a long term view). For most of Ireland's history, the island and the state have the same thing. Even when Ireland as a whole was just a constituent part of the British state (by whatever name) the Nothern/Southern thing was not applicable, and the island and the constituent-country-of-the-other-state. Since some time after the start of the 20th century only part of Ireland isn't Ireland (the state). And it's a small part, and it belongs to the state over on the other island. What is the point of this early-morning meditation? If we are seeking primary topic, the island/state are really one thing, taking the long term view. In terms of primary topic, I am sure it is a fair bet that in the news "Ireland = State" wins out over "Ireland = Island". I don't see a strong reason, apart from prejudice, against Ireland = state, Ireland (island) = georgarphy etc, and Ireland (disambiguation) as a stub for towns in West Virginia or personal names or whatever. -- Evertype· ✆ 08:27, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
← The poll data I have now is insanely contradictory, and any more polling is going to cause more confusion. With that in mind, it would be for the best if we stayed away from the majority/minority comparisons; I'm not seeing it in the data, particularly as all the polls existed in their own context. Aside from which, if one were to insist, some folks are in a majority on one subject and in a minority on another.
I'm still thinking on this. -- Xavexgoem ( talk) 03:54, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
To make sure I'm clear, it sounds like there are two options on the table based on reading all the past information:
The natural third option, with the country at Ireland, seems to have the least support. This also discounts having the country page at Republic of Ireland, leaving that as a redirect to wherever the country article ends up, as this seems to have little support as well. Am I correct in this assumption? -- MASEM ( t) 22:02, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
It should be Ireland(country), state has different meanings in different parts of the world. USA, Australia, Mexico, India, Brazil, Venezuela, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nigeria, Palau... Country does not have the same problem. T*85 ( talk) 19:07, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Here we go again. For what its worth - The short bit - If the RoI article is not to be moved to "Ireland", I agree with the compromise proposal that:
For those who wish to read on:
There are a bunch of states that have geographic names that do not fully correspond with their borders – Examples:
....The names of all of the above states have Wikipedia articles that follow their usual names.Why is Ireland being singled out? Regards. Redking7 ( talk) 06:12, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
Below I recycle some China/Ireland type arguement: Regards Redking7 ( talk) 21:20, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
In addition, some one raised the Georgia example - This is the example I believe the Irish should follow. Georgia is the official name of the Georgian State - thats respected in the article name. The same should go for Ireland. I've always said "Ireland (state)" - similar to "Georgia (country)" is a fair compromise. Regards. Redking7 ( talk) 21:26, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
What is your objection to having the reader go through a DAB page to get to the island article? If they really want to know about the island they will make one click, if they want to know about the country they will make one click T*85 ( talk) 02:57, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
Let's not regurgitate past arguments here - I'd like to make sure that the two options ( Ireland as DAB or Ireland as island) are likely the only significant and well-supported options available for us to consider should the next step be a poll to vote. We've gotten the merits of either side through the previous commentary phase here, and don't need to rehash it. (Note, I'm not asking for opinion one way or another, just making sure that no other major option hasn't been brought up as a likely possibility). -- MASEM ( t) 14:03, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
Please stop personal attacks; what other editors have done in POV-ish manners in other naming conflicts is not a factor we are considering here. -- MASEM ( t) 13:08, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Now, there is a good question brought up, in that what parenthetical name do we give to the country (and is this something for strong debate)? Choices I've seen:
Is this missing any other realistic options? -- MASEM ( t) 18:20, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Ireland (sovereign state)? Jack forbes ( talk) 18:32, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
I am confused here, how is an island a country? how would Ireland(country) be confused with Northern Ireland? -- T*85 ( talk) 18:55, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Refs please, other than the one provided above which also has Tibet listed as a country.-- T*85 ( talk) 20:14, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
I would like to see some good references that state Ireland (island) is considered a country. Perhaps something along the lines of these ones on the Countries of the United Kingdom article. Jack forbes ( talk) 20:26, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Most travel, food, history, etc.. books are going to be about the entire island that does not imply that the island is a country. I am looking for a reference that clearly states that the island is a country. Show me some references like the ones you can find for Scotland, England, that explain while they do not meet the requirements to be an official country they are described as countries by the British government. I really also don't understand your logic, country and state can be used interchangeably, so how can you be against having Ireland(country) but not Ireland(state). Also why don't you go to the current article and on the island of Ireland and change the opening line to say it is a country.-- T*85 ( talk) 20:43, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Basque Country = a name of a region, Kurdistan is not a country it is autonomous part of Iraq, England is a self defined country.-- T*85 ( talk) 21:40, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Well in my opinion it would seem like the use of the word country in the Ireland article when it is not referring to Republic of Ireland is wrong since it should be "island" instead of "country". You are wrong when it comes to the word state. State with a capital (S) and country can be used interchangeably. State with lower (s) is a division of a federal state. Your use of Scotland as an example is also wrong since Scotland defines itself as a country. Florida is not a country because it is state (lower s). Your example of France is correct just like Ireland (the country) is both a state and country since the term can be used interchangeably. If you can provide me some good references to back up your claim that the island is a country I will apologize.-- T*85 ( talk) 21:40, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
"A State (note the capital "S") is a self-governing political entity. The term State can be used interchangeably with country." "A "state" (with a lower-case "s") is usually a division of a federal State (such as the states of the United States of America)." [4]
"political organization of society, or the body politic, or, more narrowly, the institutions of government. The state is a form of human association distinguished from other social groups by its purpose, the establishment of order and security; its methods, the laws and their enforcement; its territory, the area of jurisdiction or geographic boundaries; and finally by its sovereignty. The state consists, most broadly, of the agreement of the individuals on the means whereby disputes are settled in the form of laws. In such countries as the United States, Australia, Nigeria, Mexico, and Brazil, the term state (or a cognate) also refers to political units, not sovereign themselves, but subject to the authority of the larger state, or federal union. [5]
"The Montevideo Convention
(a) a permanent population;
(b) a defined territory;
(c) government; and
(d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states. [6]"
The island only satisfies two of those requirements.-- T*85 ( talk) 22:01, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Yes I am sure there is many countries in the world which refers to itself as "the State" in its constitution.-- T*85 ( talk) 21:40, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Maybe because when the constitution was written they claimed the whole island?-- T*85 ( talk) 21:40, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Again the people who wrote that preamble did not even accept the partition of the country and claimed the entire island up until 1998. -- T*85 ( talk) 22:04, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
[7], the British government descibes Scotland, England, Northern Ireland, as countries. -- T*85 ( talk) 22:08, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Right, but to be honest if I am having this much trouble trying to get people to believe that a country and state can be used interchangeably, I don't think I want to get into an argument about whether NI,England,Scotland are officially countries.-- T*85 ( talk) 22:17, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
I am not trying to impose anything, I just find it weird that people think I have some motive to have country instead of state when the opening line of the Republic of Ireland article says "Ireland is an island country in"? I live in America and did most of my high school and college here. Not knocking the education system here but I bet most of my friends would not think that state can also mean a independent country. That is where my opinion is coming from. -- T*85 ( talk) 22:25, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
No I never said that, I only said that from my experience the people I know would not think of a state as an independent nation. You can take that for whatever it is worth, here they seem to focus mainly on American history. It also is not only America where state can have an alternative meaning, if you include the English speaking countries of America, Australia, India, and Nigeria that is around 1.6 billion people.-- T*85 ( talk) 23:12, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Don't know what people think of "Ireland (sovereign country)", but that's what I threw out as a possibility way up the board here. It uses 'country,' but differentiates it from the all-Ireland context. Its also the phrasing currently (or at least last time I checked!) used on the Ireland hatnotes to lead to the ROI page.
"Country" does seem to get a good deal of informal usage to mean the whole island. The example that I've heard that springs to mind is Irish TV or radio where the announcers will say things such as 'We'll take calls from across the country. In the Republic call XXXX and in Northern Ireland call XXXX..." That sort of thing. From a quick online search, here's a few of the first uses of 'country' that come up where the context indicated is all-island. Mostly tourism and some sports (rugby, in this case, where playing for the all-island team is decribed as playing for one's country) BTW, I'm not claiming any of these as 'official' or great Wiki references--just saying that in informal, 'every-day' use the concept of 'country' does appear to be provable as ambiguous on this issue: [8]; [9]; [10]; [11]; [12]; [13]; [14]; [15] Nuclare ( talk) 22:48, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
I'm concerned that the moderator, Masem, states " Republic of Ireland seems out since this is not an officially recognized name (as best I understand the situation), but is a reasonable redirection." Technically correct, it's not the name of the state - but it is the state's own officially legislated for description. I would remind you that keeping the article on the state at Republic of Ireland is the preferred option of at least some Irish editors (me, BrownHairedGirl, Djegan, and others) and attempts to move it from that over many years have failed through lack of consensus. With all due respect, it should not be ruled out by moderator whim. Bastun BaStun not BaTsun 22:55, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
UN designation | Official name | Wikipedia article |
---|---|---|
Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia | Republic of Macedonia | Macedonia |
China | People's Republic of China | People's Republic of China |
Ireland | Ireland | Republic of Ireland |
United States of America | United States of America | United States |
France | French Republic | France |
I am fully aware that most on the isle of Ireland see "the rest of Ireland" to mean Northern Ireland, if speaking geographically for the whole island and I don't mean that Dublin necessarily claims the part administered by Belfast, although some editors here would like this to happen (I myself AM one of them). It is local perspective and those who have a problem with "British", should really look more at the selfish appropriation of "Irish" by those living in the part of Ireland controlled by Dublin, even as travel brochures make less distinction of it. Those I address feel that those in the North are wrong for using "Irish" for themselves (being that they are considered "Scots in exile"), although Northerners and affiliated islanders never claim exclusive use; truthfully, only the church primate in the Province of Armagh has precedence throughout Ireland, despite Dublin's secular precedence. "Irishness" is the real issue, but it is occasioned by the fact that the name for the UK is GB & NI, while Eire claims to be Irish in general terms. Quot homines tot sententiae: suo quoique mos. ( talk) 09:20, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
Here is some recycling from above:
"Is Hohhot (a city of about 3m) in Mongolia? Yes - but not Mongolia! Is Arlon in Luxembourg? Yes - but not Luxembourg!. Is Pago Pago in Samoa? Yes but not Samoa. Is Bouganville in the Solomon Islands - Yes but not in the Solomon Islands! Now lets put the question again - Is Lough Neagh in Ireland? - Yes but not in Ireland - Why should places in Ireland be treated any differently to those in Mongolia, Luxembourg or Samoa? A bunch of countries have geographic sounding names that do not correspond fully with their borders. Ireland is no exception and should be treated no differently to the others.". Regards. Redking7 ( talk) 20:54, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
Or maybe Ireland *is* an execption to those examples and you just don't know it. It is perfectly possible that 'all-Ireland'-ness (ok, I know that's not a word!) is simply far more concrete and used than the wider examples that you've presented. Or it could be that the particular people editing those pages are simply more state-oriented and things could be different with a different set of editors. I'm not saying it would be, just that your suggestion that Ireland must be like those articles--as if things such as this at Wiki *must* be one way or another--is questionable. Nuclare ( talk) 11:13, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
The most reccurent theme and arguement is firmly on the term Republic.
This kind of talk about the Republic of Ireland term > "...should always be avoided", "...is not official", etc. and then debating it, describing references etc. There is more talk page material on that than in any article. That debate could be compressed to 10% everytime by enshrining some facts about the names, North, Republic and island. Then in any debate about where the term Republic came from or how and if it is official to the state, it is right there on the project page, debate is halved, productivity is doubled. Even if the term Republic is voted in as ridiculous to use for the state, it has been used and has been official. Nothing as a fact has been more debated. The members of this project have a sort of duty to point out that, the term Republic of Ireland was created by the Irish government, is an official Irish term for the state, and not an unusual name at all.
If you were on WikiProject Green and received a new person every week that says "Blue is not a real part of green" should have a clear sign that "Blue is real even if everybody likes yellow."
There should be a clear annoucement about the nature of that term, even warnings about getting the wrong idea, because it is so often confusing, so much more so than any other well known term. ~
R.
T.
G
17:52, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
Here's some more relevant recycling (this time from the Names of the Irish State article):
The distinction between a description and a name has sometimes caused confusion. The Taoiseach, John A. Costello who introduced the legislation explained the difference in the following way: [1]
"If I say that my name is Costello and that my description is that of senior counsel, I think that will be clear to anybody who wants to know...[Similarly, the state's] name in Irish is Éire and in the English language, Ireland. Its description in the English language is "the Republic of Ireland."
-- Redking7 ( talk) 19:01, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
"If I say that my name is Costello and that my description is that of John Costello, Senior Counsel, I think that will be clear to anybody who wants to know...[Similarly, the state's] name in Irish is Éire and in the English language, Ireland. Its description in the English language is "the Republic of Ireland."
or
"If I say that my name is Costello and that my description is that of Senior counsel, I think that will be clear to anybody who wants to know...[Similarly, the state's] name in Irish is Éire and in the English language, Ireland. Its description in the English language is "republic."
Mooretwin ( talk) 08:31, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
The description of the United Kingdom is Constitutional monarchy, but we don't do Constitutional Monarchy of United Kingdom here. No, we don't do that here for UK. Tfz 16:48, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
Both of the following statements could be argued against, at least as being unclear and potentially misleading:
It is simple enough to clarify the former by restating it as
How should the latter be clarified? -- 81.151.192.243 ( talk) 01:43, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
Can the moderators urgently take a look at whats been happening BritishWatcher ( talk) 16:16, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
The shorter version is a deliberate attempt to circumvent the procedure mandated by the Arbitration Committee for settling this dispute — i.e. the discussion going on here. I suggest filing a report at WP:AE. — ras52 ( talk) 16:51, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
I really think the moderators need to setup a process as soon as possible in order to avoid something like this happening again. What happened to the idea of polling what should be at Ireland? Wasn't that meant to be starting shortly? MITH 18:54, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
Is it time to have a vote on this? If so, I propose Ireland, country as my first choice, no brackets. This discussion page will go on for years and years, and really it's doing the project no good whatsoever by having this unharmonious loose end hanging about. All other issues will fall into place once the move is made, as they always do. Tfz
Could someone please make a brief summary of how things are going on? Is this moving forward? Thanks. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 08:15, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
(outdent) There are probably a small number of editors whose views could be seen at being at the extreme ends of a bellcurve. Fortunately, the bellcurve appears to be getting steeper. Significant progress is being made. My only wish is that the ArbCom participators would regularly capture the progress and agreements so that we can avoid having to redo discussions and just point back to an agreement or decision. -- HighKing ( talk) 13:54, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
So much of our argument/counter arguments are lost in the depths of discussion that they are lost to anyone looking from the outside. In order to summarise our current position, I'm proposing that we engage in a relatively short collaborative statement of our current positions. The exercise would see us collaborativly summarising the arguments and counter-arguments and the outcome of them that we have had.
Each argument, counter-argument and outcome (summary) should be written - collaboratively - in one sentence. These should not be statements, but arguments (i.e. the need a "because"). They should relate only to a outcome that we want to see from this (so nothing about "Cork is in Republic of Ireland because..." since "Cork" is not a potential outcome for this process). All of the arguments should be "positive" argument (i.e. no arguments like "The article on the state should NOT be moved because..." or the "The article on the state should NOT be at Republic of Ireland because...") - this is so the process is less adversarial and more focused on outcomes.
The counter augments should ONLY address the specific argument that comes before them. The summary should contain a NPOV summary of the results of the argument vs. counter argument.
Both 'sides' can edit any argument, counter argument or summary.
So for example:
The intention is that the end of this process (we can set a date - two or three days from now), we will have a summary of every argument we've had. And an NPOV summary of the result in a digestible form. (Plus we - hopefully - won't be at each other throats while we are doing it.) --rannṗáirtí anaiṫnid ( coṁrá) 15:08, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
Why don't we just vote now? We all know what it is at this stage. Qaziphone ( talk) 13:48, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
(Sarek had two summaries here, but moved them)
MITH, while I was wrong to delete your comments, note that we're trying to summarize the arguments below: hence, they're not "your comments", just like the lines I edited aren't mine. -- SarekOfVulcan ([[User talk:SarekOfVulcan|talk]]) 16:16, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
The short bit - If the RoI article is not to be moved to "Ireland", I agree with the compromise proposal that:
For those who wish to read on:
There are a bunch of states that have geographic names that do not fully correspond with their borders – Examples:
....The names of all of the above states have Wikipedia articles that follow their usual names.Why is Ireland being singled out? Regards. Redking7 ( talk) 20:51, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
Re Congo and Korea - Firstly, none of the 4 states concerned claim to be simply "Congo" or "Korea" as the case may be. More importantly, even if the Congos or Koreas did claim they should be known simply as "Congo" or "Korea" as the case may be - they would be claims of multiple states. In contrast Ireland is the only state in the world that asserts that its name is Ireland and that name is recognised by every state in the world without qualms.
Re Micronesia, that name is more comparable with the America (check where that link brings you - its a DAB, somethin I suppor Ireland becoming). No comparison with Ireland. Regards. Redking7 ( talk) 21:14, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
It has come to my attention that there is an article named Outline of the Republic of Ireland, which, upon inspection is not about an outline, or list, of articles about the republic of Ireland, but instead clearly lists all subjects related to Ireland, and is clearly misnamed. Any objection to excluding it from the ban on moves and move it? In any case, were it to be about a list of articles or outline of the republic of Ireland, it would still need to be renamed, as republic is not a part of the name of the country Ireland. 199.125.109.102 ( talk) 00:07, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
Political battles should be fought at Parliament, not here at Wikipedia. An encyclopedia is supposed to state the facts, not the pov. BritishWatcher, Mooretwin, and Asarlai are obviously on a concerted campaign to add confusion into the compilation of this encyclopedia. Enough of this please. Tfz 13:28, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
Ireland, state is a complete violation of the naming rules. Factalicious!. MickMacNee ( talk) 23:05, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
Some relevant recycling: Is this process just a ruse to ruse to stop the "disruption" caused by the RoI/IRL dispute by pretending that a process is in place to resolve the conflicting viewpoints? I hope this is a genuine process that will lead to a prompt decision but it looks unlikely to me. In particular, the ground rules on the project page state "Decisions for the WikiProject will primarily be based on the consensus of members". Is some one seriously suggesting a consensus will emerge? If no consensus emerges, does that mean there will be no decision (or another decision to make no decision as before)? What reason is there to think a consensus will emerge when it has not done so before? Is there a timeframe for this process? How long will it run? What is the deadline? I think those running this process should answer these questions and set them out on the project page. Participants can then take a view on whether this is a credible process. After all, who runs a project without having a clear timeframe? It goes without saying, I hope the project is successful. It should have credibility. Regards. Redking7 ( talk) 23:57, 12 March 2009 (UTC) Time, unfortunately, is proving my original scepticism right. Regards. Redking7 ( talk) 00:54, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
It's a joke that people seem to desperately want to be told what to do by arbcom. They are not your mothers, they are not your teachers, they are not your betters. You can't really blame the naughty kids for this disaster, the fault of the absolute failure of this process to come up with anything but repetition primarily lies with absent administrators, the only reason nobody is interested in this crap anymore is that not a single person is ever pulled up for tendencious editting. Of the hundreds available, the two examples that come to mind quickly are Redking's incessant copy pasting of the same points, and Mooretwin's incessant harping back to IDTF, and that's before we go over old ground about AGF and accusations of POV/CABALs. I predicted as much in the arbcom case, if a proper accountable and available panel of admins were not appointed to oversee behaviour with the expectation of actually doing what they were appointed to do and enforce behavioural policies, then nothing would get done here that didn't resemble all previous train wrecks. Did any of your all seeing all knowing arbitrators listen, did they bollocks. They cannot even bother themselves to examine a simple request for an ammendment to stop the latest batch of bad behaviour. The pitiful participation count we are down to now on this page would not produce any legitimate solution at all. This page ceased to have any meaningfull mandate long ago, considering anything it comes up with has to demonstrate consensus. MickMacNee ( talk) 04:13, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
You've utterly missed the point. Everybody knows what you want, you've repeated it a billion times. But if you tried to present this solution supported by facts and consensus to the wider community, where is your evidence? You don't have it, because the process to show it is a sensible and legitimate move in an organised manner, that somebody could read in a few hours, has been a bloody disaster, and we are down to two or three people left, repeating the same thing said a year ago, in the same format. It did not get consensus then, so what do you think is different now, because the community has not been following this car crash at all. It won't be interested in the logic behind any change, no matter how much people insist it is 'the obvious solution'. And tediously, to make up for this failure, as usual, people are still insisting arbocom should just implement it, which for very obvious reasons, is not what they do. MickMacNee ( talk) 14:53, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
GoodDay...where do you think the majority is...For of against change. Lets get a poll going I suppose and then close the process. There is no consensus for the status quo or for the change. Regards.
I do not mind Deacon's moving the poll to the project, or even to taking a poll, but I object to the poll's not offering the option to move Ireland (disambiguation) to Ireland and I believe it should allow people to rank their votes in terms of preference. See the Talk page of his poll, please. (These objections are made in good faith. There is a reasonable number of people who have supported Ireland = disambiguation, Ireland (state) and Ireland (island) as a compromise.) -- Evertype· ✆ 15:10, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
(Note, this is only my take, not the other moderators) Per above, it was suggested that a restatement of what this issue is here would be helpful. Let me outline what I see this as:
Issues at hand:
As such, for the naming aspects, we have no policy or guidelines to really follow, and past attempts to come to consensus have resulted in little progress.
Past just the naming of the island and nation articles, there is a need for preciseness in the writing of articles related to the island, the nation, or both. Just as "Ireland" being a common name that without context is difficult to resolve to the island or the nation and prevents an easy solution on renaming, it poses the same problem in article text bodies and the like. Thus, there needs to be a scheme for how to distinguish between these two when they come up in such articles.
The method of solution, given that consensus has been tried and failed, thus should be as follows:
As this has been going on for some time, and has already exhausted three moderators, it is in everyone's best interest to try to resolve this as soon as possible. -- MASEM ( t) 16:11, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
Thank you Masem for defining what you see as the problem. I agree also with the point Bastun has made re: Republic of Ireland. For a clear explanation on "Republic of Ireland" see here, to understand why it does “purposely inflame” and should be amend accordingly.
The options are:
We already have both of these opinions on the Ireland Article with a third under discussion:
Now we already have articles on both Ireland and Northern Ireland which can and are used were clarity is needed. So the whole Ireland (island) and Ireland (state) options are first off, based on WP:OR, devoid of verifiability and against neutral point of view. What we as a community need to do, is identify areas were clarity is needed and formulate wording to address the issues in articles.-- Domer48 'fenian' 18:12, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
Masem I was simply reasoning out what you yourself said, "Ireland" is the most common name applied to both the island and to the 26-county nation" and "the nation… is recognized internationally as "Ireland." Is this disputed? Ireland is the common name of both the island and the State. Why is there a need to differentiate? On the RoI / Ireland , Europe state quite clearly “ NB:Do not use ‘Republic of Ireland’ nor ‘Irish Republic’ now that is very clear an unambiguous. Now editors can all agree on that? I would again point out this point is addressed in by ArbCom in the section titled naming conventions, which say "Wikipedia determines the recognizability of a name by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject." -- Domer48 'fenian' 19:24, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
Please read both the comments by Masem and myself, "Ireland" is the most common name applied to both the island and to the 26-county nation" and "the nation… is recognized internationally as "Ireland." The question I ask was why is there a need to differentiate? This point is addressed by by ArbCom in the section titled naming conventionswhich says "Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity." It also says "The names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors, and for a general audience over specialists." -- Domer48 'fenian' 19:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
It is concerning that a moderator is making statements like the descriptor "republic of Ireland" is correct, but not the proper noun "Republic of Ireland". I am also concerned about the use of the term "nation" rather than state, since this is ambiguous. The 26-county constitution defines the "nation" as the entire island. Mooretwin ( talk) 20:42, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
Just a be of clarity, "The 26-county constitution defines the "nation" as the entire island." Not true, please read the Constitution. Thank you Dunc, you make the point very well. If there is a clear need to differentiate the content that deals with the country and the content that deals with the State, it must be true then of all countries and States. -- Domer48 'fenian' 21:17, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
BritishWatcher please treat the contributions of editors with the same courtesy as you would expect yourself. Now there is a place called Germany it can be described as a nation, a state, or a country... its all the same thing. Likewise, Ireland is the name of as a nation, a state, or a country... its all the same thing. No difference! So why have separate articles on Ireland (State) and Ireland (country) it makes no sense. -- Domer48 'fenian' 22:22, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
No GoodDay, there is not. Ireland the country and Ireland the State and Ireland the island are all the same thing. There is an article on Northern Ireland. MitH see this here -- Domer48 'fenian' 22:33, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
MitH, Ireland the country and Ireland the island are the same thing. There is the state of Northern Ireland on the island of Ireland. Are you saying that we need disambiguation between Northern Ireland and Ireland? Is the difference not obvious? Is this on the top of the article not enough For the constituent country of the United Kingdom, see Northern Ireland? -- Domer48 'fenian' 22:50, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
26 counties are part of the sovereign state Ireland, while there are 32 counties on the island 6 counties are in Northern Ireland. The island and the sovereign state are the same depending on context. Therefore disambiguation is obvious, Ireland / Northern Ireland depending on context. Is this on the top of the Ireland article not enough For the constituent country of the United Kingdom, see Northern Ireland? Please try to remain calm. -- Domer48 'fenian' 23:24, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
We have certain core principles, they are WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR and editors must accept them before being allowed to contribute here. Please read what the Irish government see as the Irish Nation. The Irish government accepted that unification would only come through "the consent" of the people in both jurisdictions in the island. Now BritishWatcher you are correct there is an Island called Ireland and a country called Ireland. As Masem has pointed out "Ireland" is the most common name applied to both the island and to the 26-county nation" and "the nation… is recognized internationally as "Ireland." I'm encouraged that both editors are now suggesting we use evidence to support our opinions, and this should be welcomed and seen as progress. Could editors now provide evidence to support their view that "Ireland" in the English speeking world is considered ambiguous. Once again I would ask editors is this disambiguation hatnote on the top of the Ireland article not enough For the constituent country of the United Kingdom, see Northern Ireland? -- Domer48 'fenian' 07:44, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
There are two 'countries' called Ireland? No, there is only one and that's an internationally recognized state. Thanks for the ref, but it does not support your comments. Thanks again, -- Domer48 'fenian' 09:42, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
I thought we were going to support our comments with evidence and not just offer opinions. Bastun articles Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution of Ireland which are replaced with the principle of "consent" in the Irish Constitution, so I can't see the point you are trying to make, but you are using Diff's and that is to be welcome. Now could one of you please provide a link to were there was agreement that there is two islands called Ireland. WE all agree then that there is only one Irish State that is an internationally recognised state. Rannpháirtí anaithnid you appear to be going off in the wrong direction, we don't need a defination of the words, we need a sourced reference saying that there is two islands called Ireland or Ireland is ambiguous according to...? But thanks again for starting to use references very positive efforts. Once again I would ask editors is this disambiguation hatnote on the top of the Ireland article not enough For the constituent country of the United Kingdom, see Northern Ireland? Thaks -- Domer48 'fenian' 13:06, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Sorry Bastun, if you feel I have misrepresenting what people are saying please show me and I'll correct it stright away. Could I ask you is this disambiguation hatnote on the top of the Ireland article not enough For the constituent country of the United Kingdom, see Northern Ireland? Just so we can move on from it. If it is not could you explain why? Thanks again, and sorry if there is any misunderstanding, -- Domer48 'fenian' 13:21, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Rannpháirtí anaithnid you ask why do we need a reference to say that Ireland is "ambiguous"? Because we rely on what's known as WP:V, a core policy of wiki. A group of editors just agreeing on something with any supporting evidence is not enough. Editors "are saying that there are two "Irelands" - there is a state of that name and an island (or two!)" I'm asking the editors to support this view with a reference per WP:V. Now even Masem says that "country" and "state" and "nation" are terms that are used synonymously with each other in this discussion. Nor is there a difference between Ireland the country and Ireland the state. Some editors say there is, so provide sources? Hope that helps, -- Domer48 'fenian' 14:37, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
STOP.
We're going to be here forever if editors keep insisting on reiterating over minor points and trying to rule-broker the situation.
It is very clear (without a need for sources) that two topics have nearly equal claim as the "most common English use" of the word "Ireland" - the island and the 26-county nation. As to which has the "most", we'd be here forever trying to justify some metric that swings one way or another. The core of this dispute needs to start at the fact that it is impossible to assert that the island or the nation is the most common use of the word "Ireland", so the resolution is to find some other means to determine that.
It is also very clear that as of this moment there exists only one nation/state/country of Ireland, that being the 26-county one, regardless of what other connotations that those words may mean personally (as in one's homeland) to people or to Ireland's past history. Under what name that that country resides at is the issue of contention. Or, to be clearer: there are two countries on the island of Ireland: the country/nation/state of Ireland (consisting of 26 counties) and a portion of the United Kingdom called Northern Ireland. None of these means are synonymous with each other. Again, that's fact, not an opinion, but a fact nevertheless that we need to build from, not argue indefinitely.
Now is not the time to be bickering over details; everyone had their chance to argue their preferred choice during the Statement phase; now is the time to progress forward and figure out how we are going to figure out the preferred solution. -- MASEM ( t) 15:13, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
MASEM I agree with a number of the points you have made such as “‘Ireland’ is the most common name applied to both the island and to the 26-county nation that covers most of that island” and that “for the nation, it is recognized international as ‘Ireland.’” There can be no argument there, however supporting references should be applied. I disagree however when you say that on “the naming aspects, we have no policy or guidelines to really follow." We do, and it was provided by by ArbCom themselves under the title titled naming conventions.
I also disagree when you say “[I] claim that we'd have to invoke OR for the island and nation - well, not really.” The point I would make is one you yourself made, “there's no simple answer to say which of these is the most common use.” As you pointed out above “‘Ireland’ is the most common name applied to both the island and to the 26-county nation that covers most of that island” and that “for the nation, it is recognized international as ‘Ireland.’” In the absence of supporting references WP:OR is the only option, which you are willing to accept by saying “we do need to nix choices that are not supported by literature.” You are also willing to in the absence of sources to “use a simple poll to deal with that factor once and for” in order to find “a solution as fast as possible.” This is not “the last option we have,” because there is one wiki option which has never been used. That is to ask editors to provide references to support the view that we need to make a distinction between “which of these is the most common use…either the island or the nation.” Who else in the international community supports the need for this distinction.
You go on then to say that “both [the island and nation] cannot co-exist at that same page because there is a very defining line between that content. They are two separate articles and thus the goal here is to find two separate article titles here for them.” However you contradict this by saying “I don't see anything that says there is - "country" and "state" and "nation" are terms that are used synonymously with each other in this discussion. Nor is there a difference between Ireland the country and Ireland the state” But then say you have “no desired outcome of this moderation save to see it to its end.” Based on this I do understand when you say “Maybe I'm confused, but I don't see a difference between "the state of Ireland" and "the country of Ireland - from everything I can read, they seem to be the same, speaking to the 26-county nation. But if there is a difference, please explain this.” Your final point to me is the most important, because that is exactly the question I’ve been trying to have addressed, without any look.
Your summing up under the “stop” title “It is very clear (without a need for sources) that two topics have nearly equal claim as the "most common English use" of the word "Ireland" - the island and the 26-county nation.” I would suggest they have an identical claim, and to try to differentiate between the two is futile, as you say, the “terms that are used synonymously with each other” and that there is no “difference between Ireland the country and Ireland the state.” It is not for us to “determine” this at all because it is “very clear that as of this moment there exists only one nation/state/country of Ireland, that being the 26-county one.” It is obvious what the article title should be based on your observation, “it is recognized international as ‘Ireland.’” On the island of Ireland you have “Ireland” and “Northern Ireland” and “none of these [names] are synonymous with each other. Again, that's fact, not an opinion, but a fact nevertheless that we need to build from, not argue indefinitely.”
Your summary is very welcome, and I’d personally like to thank you for the effort and time you have put in. I may disagree with you on some points but in general you have tried to be pragmatic. I a little disappointed that the only response to your detailed comments was for editors to jump straight in with their preferred options. I am trying to formulate a proposal, but find it difficult to nail the problem editors have down. If they at least engaged with me and addressed simple straight forward questions it would help a lot. The incivility and stonewalling while it is something I’m used too, I’d like to think we could all move on in a more positive and productive spirit. Thanks -- Domer48 'fenian' 18:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
We are never going to resolve this matter if certain methods are used by some editors to waste time. What exactly are we all expected to do when some people refuse to even accept the fact Ireland is ambiguous. If someone cant accept this very simple fact which most people understand, how are they going to accept the outcome of this dispute? We are just going to go round and round in circles if this continues. BritishWatcher ( talk) 15:00, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Would any of you now like to comment on my post? -- Domer48 'fenian' 18:05, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
The fact that this project even exists is due to the fact there's ambiguity. In fact, it's part of the ArbCom findings of fact. Thus, I'm going to say here that any attempts to override this statement will be seen as hampering this process, and could result in administrative action if it continues. -- MASEM ( t) 19:58, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Hi HighKing, consensus is not the primary and foremost policy that trumps all others. Please read WP:CONSENSUS, consensus is not simple agreement; a handful of editors agreeing on something does not constitute a consensus. Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. Consensus is not immutable. Past decisions are open to challenge and are not binding, and one must realize that such changes are often reasonable. Thus, "according to consensus" and "violates consensus" are not valid rationales for making or reverting an edit, or for accepting or rejecting other forms of proposal or action. Consensus decisions in specific cases do not automatically override consensus on a wider scale – for instance, a local debate on a WikiProject does not override the larger consensus behind a policy or guideline. To ensure transparency, consensus cannot be formed except on Wikipedia discussion pages. In determining consensus, consider the strength and quality of the arguments, including the evolution of final positions, the objections of those who disagree, and existing documentation in the project namespace if available. Minority opinions typically reflect genuine concerns, and their (strict) logic may outweigh the "logic" (point of view) of the majority. Polls are structured discussions, not votes. Opinion has more weight when you provide a rationale during a poll, not just a vote. Convince others of your views, and give them a chance to convince you. Editors can easily create the appearance of a changing consensus by "forum shopping": asking again and hoping that a different and more sympathetic group of people discusses the issue. This is a poor example of changing consensus, and is antithetical to the way that Wikipedia works. Wikipedia does not base its decisions on the number of people who show up and vote; we work on a system of good reasons. -- Domer48 'fenian' 22:47, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
HighKing your example shows an incorrect use of the term Republic, that's all it does not support the suggestion that it's ambiguous. However here in this reference, we see Ireland being used as a "geographical name" and the name of the country. So 27 countries see nothing ambiguous about Ireland, but it is only on wiki and no where else is this discussion needed. I hope that answers both your comments above. -- Domer48 'fenian' 22:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
So we now have a clearly reliable source that now tells us that Ireland can relate to two different things (another clue is in Daly's use of the word also, which means in addition to). Since this supports the current situation which has been stable for years - we have distinct articles on the different things - the onus of on you, Domer, to provide a source that counters it. Its not good enough to give a source telling us that Ireland is the name of the state according to X,Y,Z; we already know that. Provide us with a source that tells us, explicitly, the state and the island are the same thing. Rockpocke t 02:23, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Rock: Per MASEM above, "arguing that there isn't any ambiguity between the island and the country...is going completely against the Arbcom-stated finding of fact." If MASEM says I can respond, I will. You could possibly help, if you provide both MASEM and myself a link to the discussion were consensus was reached on this issue, and on which ArbCom based their FoF, both of us are unable to locate it. A list of referenced sources which supported this consensus from the discussions would also be useful. HighKing raised the issue of consensus above and Per WP:Consensus To ensure transparency, consensus cannot be formed except on Wikipedia discussion pages. If your open minded and wish to be I'm sure I can provide a reasonable responce free of WP:SYN. I'll highlight editors names I'm addressing and responding to, since one can never get a responce with editors jumping in and the question being buried. -- Domer48 'fenian' 10:12, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
I have a proposal: if and only if it is determined that article about the 26-county State should have a name of the form "Ireland (blah)", it should be "Ireland (state)", as the Irish constitution refers to it by that term and no other state I can think of has a claim to that term. Anybody currently discussing actually disagree with this? (And if you want "Ireland" or "Republic of Ireland", just hush for now, that's not the question.)-- SarekOfVulcan ( talk) 15:36, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Ireland (Free State) is what it is known by in the country itself, north and south. -- De Unionist ( talk) 23:46, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
So you do know what The Free State refers to then...sort of proves my point.-- De Unionist ( talk) 00:13, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
See [16] for Irish Free State. -- De Unionist ( talk) 00:47, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
I just thought I would take a moment here to weep a bit. -- Evertype· ✆ 16:06, 10 June 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rannpháirtí anaithnid ( talk • contribs)