Talk:Abkhazia

Split article

Following successful separation of Kosovo article, i propose split on the same way. As this article now covers 3 different subjects, Republic of Abkhazia, Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia, and Abkhazia, region disputed between two sides, i propose split into two new articles.

• Republic of Abkhazia, independent state, recognised by 5 UN members and 2 non UN members, de facto independent state, with its own infobox, post recognition history, Government and administration, etc
• Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia, part of Georgia's territory, with its own infobox, government, related history, Administrative divisions, etc.
• Abkhazia, with its own region infobox, region disputed between two entities, with its history up to modern "problems", demographics, geography, climate, etc.

This system look to me near perfect, as in Kosovo, China, and other examples, vandalism was minimized to its minimum possible extent, and like that articles and subjects can "grow" without any national pretensions or anything else, as each side have its own POV, but in a NPOV manner. Although Kosovo and Abkhazia examples are not quite comparable in its problematic sense, similar pattern can and should be used, as those will only be useful to this Wikipedia subject. --WhiteWriter ^speaks 12:53, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

• Strong Support We will be able to have three rich encyclopaedic articles on three very different articles. IJA (talk) 09:22, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

• Support splitting according to proposed topics sounds good to me. AgadaUrbanit (talk) 07:10, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
• Support, but note that there are POV accusations going on at Talk:Kosovo following the split. These are inappropriate and misguided in my view, but perhaps we should wait to see what happens there before making big changes here. I assume you also propose a similar split for South Ossetia. Bazonka (talk) 07:17, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. Splitting is not a solution to POV disputes. It is far more reader-friendly to keep all relevant information together on one page. The Kosovo split is not a good model to follow; that split never was a good idea either. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:20, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

  I am sorry, but that is only your opinion. Majority of users on that page compares that split with liberation. --WhiteWriter ^speaks 11:30, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. I've already written regarding a similar proposal: "a flow of the history section would be interrupted, and such related sections as History and Demography, Geography and Administrative division would be in different articles". Also, the edit warring here has been minimal for last few years so the problem the split aims to deal with seems made up to me. Alæxis_¿question? 06:52, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. I agree with Alæxis, there is not a lot of vandalising at this page, and it is not of the type that would go away after a split (I frankly don't see how splitting would be a good remedy against any type of vandalising). Furthermore, I want to point out that Kosovo and Abkhazia are fundamentally different cases. I don't know a case on Wikipedia where we have separate articles for a political entitity and a geographical territory which corresponds exactly to the geographical extend of that political entity. Note that the Republic of Kosovo does not control all of Kosovo, whereas the Republic of Abkhazia does control all of Abkhazia. sephia karta | dimmi 13:17, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. Unlike Kosovo or Libya, Abkhazia is no longer controlled my multiple entities, the Republic of Abkhazia has had full control of the area since the 2008 war. We shouldnt split articles just because there is a government in exile (are we going to do this with Belarus?). Also, the infobox change should NOT have been made without a clear agreement. Vuvuzela2010 (talk) 09:19, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. Abkhazia is fully controlled by the Republic of Abkhazia, so we don't need three articles. Perhaps there is some sense in making Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia a separate article, but three articles are redundant. GreyHood ^Talk 09:38, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose The duplication problems between each article would be huge. Demographics, History, Culture, Economy, Geography, etc. would (well, should) be identical in all three articles. Furthermore, by creating the proposed diametrically opposed Republic of Abkhazia and Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia, WP:NPOV would basically automatically be broken by giving each article a clear de facto POV. Much better for NPOV and for the readers if Abkhazia stays as it is, with a description of the conflict in the relevant sections (eg Politics). Also noting that an issue raised in the recent attempt to move the Kosovo page to Kosovo (region) was that wikilinks would end up pointing to the wrong page. If that argument holds, who will go through with the checking of every wikilink? We'd end up with the problem we currently have with China, where IPs and New Users wikilink China when they should wikilink to the PRC. Per Greyhood though, I would not be opposed to the creation of a Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia article that would cover the status Georgia asserts to the region. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 16:47, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support. The current infobox is pushing a POV (that Abkhazia is an independent state), which is not true, especially for the majority of the English speaking readers. Hence, a separate Republic of Abkhazia article needs to be created in order to reflect that point of view, without misleading the readers that Abkhazia = Republic of Abkhazia. Kouber (talk) 13:55, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

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Official languages

This silly edit warring over languages is getting tiresome.
This article must maintain a neutral point of view. NPOV is a keystone of Wikipedia. Abkhazia must be represented as being both a part of Georgia, and an independent state, with no preference given to either view. Therefore the official languages given in the article must be those recognised by both independent Abkhazia and by Georgia. We can add notes to indicate which entities recognise which languages if necessary. Bazonka (talk) 09:52, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Can someone provide a reference that shows the official languages of Abkhazia from the Georgian point of view. Then the info box should list them all, not relegating any to a footnote; and the lead should give the name of the country in all the official languages. —Coroboy (talk) 11:28, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Tricky situation. The infobox should really have the full name of the state in it, which it currently only has in English. There wouldn't be an official Georgian name for the state at all. As much as we try to accomodate all views, NPOV is also about not overstating certain views. Abkhazia exists. The government in control of it is not the Georgian government. On a side note, independently of this page, a Georgian official name should be placed on Government of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 13:33, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

This is the constitution of Georgia: official name of the entity is the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia. Official languages in the region are Georgian and Abkhaz (p. 3, Article 8).--Kober^Talk 13:43, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

"Abkhazia exists..." Well, that's definitely not the fact Georgia denies. "The government in control of it is not the Georgian government" - this is not the reason to remove the Georgian name from the lead section. --Kober^Talk 13:47, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Abkhazia as in the country. Anyway, Georgian is still in the lead section as a translation for Abkhazia. The infobox as I said should have longform names, of which there wouldn't be a Georgian one. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 13:55, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

That is, POV stays there. Congrats! --Kober^Talk 14:53, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

According to the WP article Official language, "An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction."

Article 6 of the Constitution of Abkhazia says "The official language of the Republic of Abkhazia shall be the Abkhazian language. The Russian language, equally with the Abkhazian language, shall be recognized as a language of State and other institutions."

That means that although the word "official" is applied directly only to the Abkhazian language, the Russian language is also an official language of Abkhazia. If we are quoting this constitution as our source, both languages should be listed as official in the infobox; neither should be relegated to a footnote. —Coroboy (talk) 11:07, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

The official languages of both independent Abkhazia, and Abkhazia within Georgia must be mentioned, in order to maintain NPOV. It does not matter if Georgia has no control, or if the Abkhazian government is illegitimate, both points of view must be given. So, as I understand it, we should list Abkhazian, Russian and Georgian. Bazonka (talk) 12:36, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

We have the Georgian name in the lead to show that title. Even if we accept that the opinion of an entity that has not controlled anything more than a tiny sliver of land in Abkhazia for about two decades should be presented as equal to the government that has controlled it, just having a name in another language doesn't make any particular POV assertion, and there is no proper name for the Republic of Abkhazia in Georgian. What would make better sense would be to combine the first three paragraphs of the lead to present all the views there, but far more concisely than they are now. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 13:04, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Err, I thought we were talking about the official languages, not the name of the country. But in any case, I'm sure the Georgians have a name for Abkhazia and a word for Republic - just because they don't recongise its legitimacy, it doesn't mean they can't say "Republic of Abkhazia". Bazonka (talk) 20:18, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Likewise; I was addressing only the point of what languages are "official", not the names of the country/region. And I was addressing the fact that Russian was not being listed despite a reference from one POV showing that it is an official language. As Bazonka said above, Georgian should also be listed from the other POV that Abkhazia is part of Georgia. —Coroboy (talk) 22:30, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

The point of the languages in the infobox is to show the countries official native names. It's weird we haven't got a long form for Abkhaz or Russian (if someone can find them that'd be good). At any rate, I would have thought having a Georgian translation of "Republic of Abkhazia" would be a huge POV against Georgia, as no doubt some would construe it grants legitimacy etc. The best place to have the Georgian translation is in the first sentence of the lead (the very start of the first sentence) where important translations are given. Georgian, a very important translation, is shown here properly. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 20:54, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Include all three as all three are considered official according to different bodies. Also having "Republic of Abkhazia" in Georgian doesn't legitimatise Abkhazia's independence, that's ridiculous and non-logical. IJA (talk) 09:27, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

You'd be surprised at some of the logic I've seen at various articles like this. Mixing up two points of view in an infobox is not a good idea in terms of clear information presentation. We've established very clearly that Georgia claims Abkhazia, and that Abkhazia's recognition is very limited. It would be impossible for readers to miss this (and even in the infobox there's still the map which shades Georgia in). With that in mind, having the facts as they lie on the ground in Abkhazia seems perfectly reasonable. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 16:19, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

"The Abkhazians in Turkey are almost exclusively Sunni Muslims."

I want to learn what is the basis for this ? Interesting fact from Ottoman archives is, most of the Abkhazians have brought Pigs(or boars) with themselves in 1864, contradicting the Sunni Muslim hypothesis. in following 150 years, many have become Muslims but most are only on paper. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.244.181.72 (talk) 15:10, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

"thousands of Abkhaz, known as makhadjiri, fled Abkhazia for Ottoman Empire "

This phrase is not true, nobody "fled" their homes willingly, they were deported by Imperial Russia. Shouldn't this page be an independent source for information? It looks more like a Georgian apologist version. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.244.181.72 (talk) 15:20, 20 February 2012 (UTC)