Talk:East Timor

Etymology section

... provides no explanation whatsoever of the meaning of "Leste". Presumably it's "east", but that should be explicitly mentioned. --202.28.179.5 (talk) 05:45, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Also ugly nonstandard title. The anchorlink deals with functionality issues, but I'll still note my distaste for the clunky thing that just got replaced. — LlywelynII 15:31, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Requested move: Timor-Leste

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (non-admin closure) Jenks24 (talk) 04:39, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

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East Timor → Timor-Leste – The proposed name is the UN member and sovereign state name of this country, as you can see here and here, respectively. Much of the notability of this entity is a result of it’s status as a UN member. It must be admitted that “Timor-Leste" is not the most common form of this country's name in English. But an important function of a title is to establish proper normative usage. Hence we have article titles at Mumbai, Kolkata, and Côte d'Ivoire, even though Bombay, Calcutta and Ivory Coast are the more commonly used English-language names. Many countries have made name changes upon independence or other status change. For example, Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, South-West Africa became Namibia, and Annam became Vietnam. The name “Timor-Leste” was selected upon independence and therefore falls in this catagory. Kauffner (talk) 17:01, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

OK, so nobody’s heard of “Timor-Leste”. But the name “East Timor” doesn’t exactly get top billing anywhere either. It is conventional to follow local usage in the case of lesser known locations. Britannica splits the difference with the title East Timor (Timor-Leste). Meanwhile, Huffington Post, The Economist, The New Zealand Herald, the Jakarta Post, and the CIA's World Factbook all use “Timor-Leste”. Usage of the official name has increased dramatically in the last few years, so I will use very recent data. For Google News since 2005, I get 18,700 results for Timor-Leste, and 15,300 results for East Timor. Kauffner (talk) 17:01, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

• Support. This has been debated extensively (see above) and I am not sure that the mood has changed. For what it is worth, I support the change. danielkueh (talk) 17:56, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose, since as Kauffner says, "'Timor-Leste' is not the most common form of the name in English", and that is the rule we follow (if, on the other hand, it can be established that "Timor-Leste" is now more common in reliable sources, I'd be happy to support a name change). If "Mumbai", "Kolkata", and "Côte d'Ivoire" are not the most common names in English, those articles should be renamed, not this one. That the UN calls the country "Timor-Leste" is not decisive; we're not calling Vietnam "Viet Nam" either, even though that is the name used at the UN. Ucucha (talk) 22:57, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

  Vietnam is of course quite notable for reasons unrelated to its UN membership. And "Timor-Leste" does get more news hits in the last few years. Kauffner (talk) 01:01, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

  So is East Timor. Or do you think Somaliland, Western Sahara, and Kosovo are not notable? Ucucha (talk) 01:19, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

  East Timor is a country run by UN agencies. The UN had the security mandate until March of this year. You have heard of this place before, right? A large percentage of the coverage is related to UN peacekeeping and to political status, with UN membership used as a way to certify full independence from Indonesia. Before independence, East Timor was known as Noam Chomsky's hobbyhorse, so it was quite distant from mainstream interest. Vietnam became a UN member in 1977, an event that had no significant impact on the level of coverage that the country received. Kauffner (talk) 02:21, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose per Ucucha. "Mumbai", "Kolkata", and "Côte d'Ivoire" are all controversial title on Wikipedia precisely because it is doubtful whether they are the most common names in English; the question of which variety of English applies is (in all three cases) a political question. Here it is not quite so political; the government chose to be "Timor Leste" in all languages, and English usage has not followed anywhere in the world. Evidence to show that has changed is welcome. This ngram suggests that East Timor still dominates in English as a whole, and the journalistic use of datelines is exceptional; presumably as a response to government pressure. Even if not, we should stay with the established name until the other becomes dominant; as with Mumbai, the political choice could change at the next election. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:06, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose per the overwhelming discussion a year ago, the archive of which I post below --Merbabu (talk) 08:36, 27 September 2011 (UTC):

• Support This pops up every six months or so, and will probably continue to do so until the article is moved. While it doesn't look like this attempt will be successful, I stand by my comments in the above archived discussion (eg, that Timor Leste is the name now used by most national governments and major organisations) and that as a result it's what we should use as the correct encyclopedic name for the article and choose to ignore WP:NAME in the process). Nick-D (talk) 11:58, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

  Which will happen under one of two conditions:

  • There is consensus to use a name nobody but a diplomat has heard of instead of one English-speakers have.
  • English-speakers have come to call this country Timor-Leste.

  Can we table this until one of those two things happens? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:34, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

I gave a list of publications that use the term. The The Economist, the CIA, the regional press, international organizations, etc. They don't speak English? These are the people who deal most directly with this issue. If you want to know the name of a subatomic particle, ask a physicist. Name of a country? A diplomat might know! Kauffner (talk) 15:21, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Kauffner's sources are not a majority, let alone an overwhelming majority, of English usage; stare decisis. A diplomat is a honest man sent to lie abroad for his country; if he knows something, he is unlikely to tell you. That's how we get attestations for such country "names" as The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (alphabetized under T). So here; we do not have to adopt the POV of the current government, and we have policy not to do so; diplomats differ in both respects. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:34, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

In contrast to the Greek government's position with respect to Macedonia, the Indonesian government no longer holds a grudge with respect to the East Timor naming issue. The Jakarta Post switched from "East Timor" to "Timor Leste" earlier this year. Look at this JP headline: "Editorial: Bring Timor Leste in to ASEAN". The newspaper's office would have been burned down if they published that five years ago. In the East Indies, bygones are bygones and the days of big countries picking out names for small ones are over. It pretty standard for countries to change their names like this when they become independent. It was always malicious to refuse to do it in this case, and now even Indonesia no longer objects. Kauffner (talk) 02:21, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

• Support But, you know, not going anywhere. I propose we all be grudgingly satisfied with the existence of Côte d'Ivoire and East Timor, a pair at opposites, rather than continuously open new move requests. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 16:49, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. – ukexpat (talk) 18:58, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose this is english wikipedia for heaven sake, not portuguese. Come to think of it maybe back in wikipedia Indonesia the name Timor Leste should be turn back to Timor Timur. But here in Indonesia I heard there is an official diplomatic request from East Timor govt that the country should be refer as Timor Leste, the name Timor Timur (exact translation of english: East Timor and portuguese: Timor Leste) awfully reminds them to Indonesian occupation. So Indonesian govt want to be politically correct has agreed to refer the country as "Timor Leste", although IMO in proper Indonesian language it is lingusitically wrong, to put foreign Portuguese name ahead of our own Indonesian name. This naming issues is weird, East Timor tried to be an independence country but desperately clings to the legacy of their former ruler/colonizer. Just my two cents... (Gunkarta (talk) 19:23, 27 September 2011 (UTC))

• Oppose, because all manner of widely circulated newspapers in English prefer "East Timor", often by a healthy margin:

	Google hits for "East Timor"	Google hits for "Timor-Leste"
New York Times	8750	49
Washington Post	8260	5720
Wall Street Journal	314	38
The Guardian	50,900	1290
The Daily Telegraph	1080	36
The Independent	2930	26
The Globe and Mail	220	14
The Age	43,900	845
The Australian	3000	152
Sydney Morning Herald	9010	789
New Zealand Herald	8580	870
The Economist	1760	508

Now, it's possible the trend has been in the direction of "Timor-Leste"; I can't rule that out. But it does seem fairly clear that across the English-speaking world, based on newspaper articles published in the last few years, "East Timor" is by far the preferred term, and would be more familiar to our readers as well. - Biruitorul ^Talk 04:52, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

I checked these numbers and they are very heavily ghosted. The number of Washington Post results for "East Timor" drops from 8260 to 833 after deghosting. I can't check the higher numbers, but we may assume that these are even more seriously ghosted. Kauffner (talk) 12:49, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

The ratios are even more lopsided if you do this for Ivory Coast and Côte d'Ivoire, but that country gets its UN member name as an article title all the same. Well, I guess I contributed my Wikibyte, for what little it wa bs worth, to the cause of the Christians of East Timor, who have suffered so much from Muslim savagery over the years. Kauffner (talk) 09:59, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

The Ivory Coast/Cote d'Ivoire question and your (seemingly bigotted) opinions on East Timor's history are both irrelevant to naming matter. cheers --Merbabu (talk) 11:38, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

By this standard, I suppose Noam Chomsky would top the list as the biggest bigot of them all. Kauffner (talk) 13:01, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Totally oversimplify bigotted comments on East Timor history, what Muslim-Christian religious relations have to do with this East Timor naming issue? I would try to avoid further unnecesarry and irrelevant discussion. (Gunkarta (talk) 13:55, 28 September 2011 (UTC))

In fact, witnesses have come forward to testify that the Indonesian army arrived in East Timor prepared to enjoy high tea, but an unfortunate sequence of misunderstandings ensued. Kauffner (talk) 00:54, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

The suggestions that your comments were unsavoury AND irrelevant, were not suggestions that you ramp up the rhetoric or continue down your tangent of irrelevancy. Please stop already. --Merbabu (talk) 08:41, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

So you go around accusing other people of being bigots and so forth, and then you wonder why they react. That's a nice hobby you've got there. Kauffner (talk) 11:59, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

I really tried to avoid irrelevant discussion here, but your cluelessness astounds me. Do you really think by leaving some irrelevant comments about other religion/civilization as savage and expect no reactions? and now wondering why people might think of you as bigots? Quite different sets of logics you have there. I suggest you to only write relevant subject, in this case East Timor-Timor Leste naming issue. Gunkarta (talk) 13:02, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

You ask for sympathy even as you call me a bigot again. I was not born yesterday, you know. Ini bukan Jakarta. Tidak ada kafir di sini. Kauffner (talk) 01:59, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Your consistent irrelevancy out of topic comments is really persistent. This is english wikipedia, and what your quote in Bahasa Indonesia really means? (I will translate your statement for non-Indonesian speaking editors to understand: Ini bukan Jakarta. Tidak ada kafir di sini. translate: "This is not Jakarta. No infidels here"). I know this is the internet, not Jakarta, and nobody accused anybody as infidel. All I did is gaving the reaction of your previous remark "Muslim savagery". And you constantly making remarks that can be considered as Ad hominem, I suggest you to be careful, please conduct editing and interacting with fellow editors in civility. Gunkarta (talk) 18:12, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:UCN (use common names) and WP:UE (use English). Wikipedia doesn't do official names. This hasn't changed since the previous proposals (here and here). Maybe we can finally move Coat d'Ivory to its English name, too. —  AjaxSmack  00:57, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

What happened to "correct spelling" and "don't dumb it down"? If a phrase appears 6000 times in the Washington Post, I think we can assume it's English. The Telegraph has a helpful article on how make the "Timor-Leste" Olympic team feel welcome when they arrive in London. So it seems that the name is making headway, at least in a sports context. Kauffner (talk) 04:40, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Which of East and Timor is incorrectly spelt?

Rather, this is "don't adopt the official view", which is one of the components of neutrality. Since Ivory Coast being incorrect was the platform of the now-deposed despot, it really may be expected to fade away soon. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:13, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose I don't think there's anything in Wikipedia naming conventions which says that the function of a title is to establish proper normative usage. In my view some of the other titles are mis-named. I have heard a bit about East Timor, I think I would have had to look up or at least consider where Timor Leste is. PatGallacher (talk) 00:27, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps some people come to an encyclopedia in search of information, in which case the title should be the most accurate form of the name, the name the country calls itself, and the name that those who deal most directly with it use. Of course, I took the opposite view in Côte d'Ivoire RM. But I think "Ivory Coast" is a much better established exonym than "East Timor". Also "Côte d'Ivoire" vs "Ivory Coast" is just question of French vs English. The continued use of "East Timor" reflects bullying by a neighboring country. Kauffner (talk) 12:49, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

• So far the vote for oppose won by a landslide against support. I say the public has spoken: keep East Timor. Gunkarta (talk) 18:12, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose 66.194.72.10 (talk) 21:15, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose per Gunkarta - Earth Wikipedian (talk) 00:19, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Citation to be Included

Hi, under the History section there was a citation request for the November 28 1975 declaration of independence. I did a quick search and found this page on the US State Department's website. Would this link be valid?

I wish you well. Tor...

Our usual reasons for avoiding websites should not apply to the State Department; it is a knowledgable source, as likely to be fact-checked as most major publishers, and officially produced. I would use it unless there is some question (I don't see what it would be here) of a US POV. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:33, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Non-English names

Infobox contains the following names besides English one:

• Repúblika Demokrátika Timór-Leste[1] (Tetum)
• República Democrática de Timor-Leste (Portuguese)

While Name section in the text says:

"The official names under the Constitution are República Democrática de Timor-Leste in Portuguese (pronounced [tiˈmoɾ ˈlɛʃtɨ]) and Repúblika Demokrátika Timór Lorosa'e in Tetum."

That seems to be in contradiction. Someone can explain or correct that? Ruziklan (talk) 10:56, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

The constitution says Repúblika Demokrátika Timor-Leste, so I changed names to follow that. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 12:03, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

HDI Index

Hi, Just before the contents section, East Timor is shown as being ranked 120th in HDI Index. In fact it should be 147th according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.209.224.177 (talk) 09:39, 19 February 2012 (UTC)