Talk:List of sovereign states

Ripples of this article

User:Spesh531 has been going around all sorts of country lists and changing them so CI and Niue are undistinguished from fully sovereign states (forgive my semantics). I think this is inappropriate considering the undetermined consensus over Niue here, but am bringing the matter to this page instead of mass reverting in case I'm terribly wrong. CMD (talk) 00:26, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't have any objection to their inclusion anywhere but as long as it's done carefully and with a caveat noting their status (like we do with any disputed state). So this is probably okay in my eyes, but this probably not. And it's important to understand that some lists, like this one use a single source and we should present them in the same way the source does. Nightw 04:32, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the indiscriminate nature bothers me. I did revert this one. Also, I don't think "claims independence" is a good qualifying note, they seem as happy to keep the status grey as anyone else. CMD (talk) 10:23, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Also here, another removal on the basis that "and niue claim independence". CMD (talk) 15:38, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Other articles have different inclusion criteria which may cause the Cook Islands and Niue to be excluded. And I also note that lists based on ISO 3166-1 can fairly easily do whatever is done for Taiwan.

At present, of course, there is no consensus that Niue is a sovereign state. IMO implementing a consensus that does not exist is not appropriate. Pfainuk talk 18:03, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

This has made up all of Spesh531's latest edits. CMD (talk) 21:44, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Alerted Spesh to this thread. Nightw 11:46, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I edited some to change their notation from that of being a state with limited recognition, but left associated state notes when they were there. That was what I read the consensus here to be. CMD (talk) 16:31, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi, CMD I just left a little note on your talk page. Fill me in...I must be missing something. You're correct on geography about 99.9% of the time. So what am I missing on Niue and Cook Is.? I have to agree with other editors ....The World Factbook , National Geographic Society, every atlas that I've seen, about 95% of independent states, and the NZ govt. all consider them not to be fully sovereign....not independent states. Should they be on the list, of course. Fully sovereign?...That's WP: Fringe, yes? No authorities seem to think so. Membership in a few UN committees is something Palestine has, but we're not proposing full (bold, non-italic) status there. What am I missing? (This of course affects other pages, but I propose that we continue to use this site.) DLinth (talk) 18:39, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

/Cook Islands and Niue will fill you in completely. That 1.5 year of discussion lead to the thread at the bottom of that page. It has also informed me that the New Zealand government is happy to consider them fully sovereign independent states. Apparently. My edits to the other pages were mostly following Spesh531's edits to stop the CI/Niue being presented in the same vein as Abkhazia and Kosovo (as it is a completely different situation). I'm still not a fan of how they're presented in this table (and that'll probably apply to others) but there was some sort of (perhaps tenuous) consensus here, which I'm following until I or someone else calls it into question. CMD (talk) 19:02, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. As always, concise, well-informed, even-handed CMD logic, editing. Yes, nothing like Abhazia, etc., but that's ok because they're in a "catch-all", "other" category on this and most lists. There's no problem IMHO (as most at /Cook Islands and Niue say) with inclusion of these two on various lists......as long as they are not portrayed as fully sovereign/independent. As you know, there is a wide consensus among international geographic institutions, publishers, cartographers, the UN, The World Factbook, atlases, etc. that they are not fully sovereign/independent. WP is a compendium of those sources, not a mini-UN Gen. Assembly...Of course, WP does not override published sources and international authorities (UN) by a 6 to 5 "consensus" vote (at /Cook Islands and Niue. Yes, both entities have some level of sovereign status, as with the Faroe Islands and Greenland and others, but are certainly not fully sovereign/independent (yet), as you know.

BTW, NZ may say (below) that "they're fine with that" or "are happy to consider" or "sovereign this, sovereign that", just, as you know, the UK said that "they'd be fine with" any number of states in the '50's, 60's gaining full sovereignty (many eventually did, some (Bermuda, various Caribbean islands) did not.) But, ironically, any NZ statement would not be terribly relevant other than an actual "NZ has today granted to and recognized full independence by Niue/Cook Is.") statement...which we've not seen....then followed by similar recognition by international authorities, the UN, international authorities, etc....which we're not even close to seeing. DLinth (talk) 19:45, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

One of the relevant points in the discussion was actually recognition by other states, based on the stated inclusion criteria. There are clear statements of recognition for the Cook Islands, but the point was debatable for Niue. (I'm surprised to see Niue actually on the list, since by my reckoning there wasn't consensus for change in that case.) It was argued that these two states' full membership in certain UN organisations does constitute recognition, but this was not a determining factor. The determining factor, as documented in /Cook Islands and Niue, was our own rules for inclusion as stated by the article.

When it comes down to it, we have just had a round of this discussion. May I suggest that we wait a while before we start another round of it? Pfainuk talk 19:57, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Sovereignty dispute column

What's the criteria of this column again? Written, it states, "only states that are claimed in whole by another sovereign state are mentioned". Palestine would not qualify, since Israel does not claim Gaza. Nightw 12:54, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Can we accept the fuzziness here? Israel does something with Gaza. It used to claim it, now I have no idea, and I doubt Israel has a clear idea either. CMD (talk) 03:27, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Meh. I guess so. Nightw 04:21, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Someone changed the sovereignty status for Israel to "Not recognized by 33 states, including most Arab states." This does not seem to fit the criteria. Or does Palestine claim the whole of Israel (maybe the Hamas government in Gaza)? Grioghair (talk) 07:33, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Hamas certainly does, but there's no connection yet between the State of Palestine and Hamas. Nightw 15:14, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Israel. What a pain. It feels that Israel fits perfectly into what should go into that column, although our chosen wording isn't that good. The wording was chosen to show that it wasn't just minor territorial claims, but the entire state in question. Israel's entire statehood is unrecognised by these countries. Is it enough of a problem to rewrite? CMD (talk) 16:21, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Really, what ever items are on this list I would expect to see in that column, since I thought that was what it was for. So I would agree with a rewrite. Nightw 16:52, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I also agree with the need for a rewrite. Israel is just too significant for us to ignore. Outback the koala (talk) 21:14, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Cyprus is also not recognized by Northern Cyprus and Turkey and should possibly be made red in this column. And what about Armenia..? I would however not like to see a much more lenient criteria, because that would probably result in many more ambiguous cases. The criteria are very clear at the moment, only the implementation is vague. Grioghair (talk) 21:41, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

An IP has removed it. Sigh. How about "Only states whose entire sovereignty disputed by another state are listed." After all, if Israel doesn't meet the requirements, neither does Palestine. CMD (talk) 16:13, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok. Better then inconsistency... Grioghair (talk) 16:58, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree that we should aim for consistency in the sovereignty disputes that we list. So if we've listed South and North Korea, we should also list Armenia and Cyprus. Like User:Grioghair I think the current criteria seem sensible and we shouldn't weaken them to include examples where there is only a territory dispute, rather than one of sovereignty. Are there any other examples besides Armenia, Cyprus and the other states we have listed? SP-KP (talk) 17:01, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

I've decided to be bold and make the change. If consensus is against me, this is the diff should anyone want to change things back. SP-KP (talk) 17:08, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

I've alo changed the criteria in the article for the sovereignty dispute column. Grioghair (talk) 07:26, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

If you want to bring into this column not only claiming, but also not-recognizing, you need to add information about non-recognition also for states such as Kosovo, Palestine, etc. If Your change will remain, it is necessary to supplement the information to all other not recognized states. Personally, I'm inclined to return to the original, because claiming and not recognizing is very different. Claiming in principle threatens the existence of the State (as South Ossetia), non-recognition only weakens the position of the State (as Armenia) on the international arena. Jan CZ (talk) 07:47, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Most of the information of non-recognition for other states is already in the More information column, where there is plenty of room for further notes. I also did not like it that states that only lack overall recognition where added, but it was necessary to come to a consensus on the Israel/Palestine problem. You also cannot ignore that there is a Sovereignty dispute for a state with only non-recognition. Using "None" for these states is just not correct. If it should be only about claiming, then the column should be renamed to something like "Claimed by". Grioghair (talk) 07:11, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Image?

The top of the page now looks bare. What do people think about adding a map or something to lighten it up. An blank grey map with political borders or even something with labels like this or this. Any thoughts? Nightw 13:00, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Statistics Table as the intro

Where did this table above the list come from? Its extremely confusing and out of place. I was going to just remove it but I thought I'd come here first. Anyone know whats up? Opinions? Outback the koala (talk) 22:50, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

My thoughts were pretty much the same. "Widely recognized" is back, it seems... Nightw 09:34, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree. Too much statistics. Grioghair (talk) 20:31, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Removed. It's difficult enough trying to classify all the grey cases without turning everything into statistics. CMD (talk) 08:07, 8 March 2012 (UTC)