Template talk:Asia topic

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[edit] Purpose of Template

Please read Wikipedia:Categories,_lists,_and_navigational_templates and Wikipedia:Template standardisation. This template falls under Wikipedia:Navigational templates and our focus should be navigation rather than trying to decide which countries are independent or not, or which peoples belong to which other peoples. Readin (talk) 14:53, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Both the PRC and ROC fall under China and should be located there in brackets. Tibet should not be listed at all. It is violating WP:NPOV to list any other way. --Joowwww (talk) 21:28, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
That may be one of the most racist thing I have ever heard?!
Why is listing Tibet a violation of NPOV? Nowhere does it say on the page "Tibet should not be listed at all."--Jerrch 21:59, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
Please assume good faith, which ironically, is your userpage's motto of the day. I didn't mean to be racist, I meant that this template strikes me as a template for countries, which Tibet is not. --Joowwww (talk) 22:02, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
How was Joowwww's comment racist? I think he's very wrong to say that having Tibet listed violates NPOV, particularly since Hong Kong and Macau are listed, but how is it racist? Saying it is racist seems out of line. Readin (talk) 23:11, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
I can understand Hong Kong and Macau being listed as they are territories of the PRC. Tibet isn't, it's just a province. If the argument is made that it's included as a geographical area, then why isn't Siberia? Turkestan? Caucasus? Manchuria? Ural? and the many others? --Joowwww (talk) 10:16, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
I don't think anyone would have an NPOV problem if those territories were included on the list. Those aren't on the list simply because they don't have enough articles.
Hong Kong and Macau are on the list not just because they are SARs. Tibet should be included on the list because it has a lot of sub-articles (history, culture, people, economy, etc).--Jerrch 22:41, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

This template does not serve as a list of sovereign states or entities, etc. It is a navigational template which connects related articles. Asia isn't a sovereign entity itself, it is merely a geographic and cultural term for the continent. Therefore, the most neutral thing to do would be listing geographic/cultural entities located in Asia, in my opinion.--Jerrch 22:44, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Maybe there should be some criterion for non-sovereign entities to be included in this template. Maybe e.g. the territory in question should have a certain amount of key articles. Another proposal would be to split this template like it is done on the Template:Europe topic where non-sovereign entities are clearly separated from sovereign entities. --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 06:53, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
If there were wide agreement as to which states are sovereign, and indeed which places are states, that might work. I could see some benefit in breaking the list into smaller pieces that are more easily searched. However with Asia such a division will see no end of arguments. Are Hong Kong and Macau "states"? Then where do we put them? Is Taiwan a state? Is it sovereign? Is the Republic of China sovereign? Is Northern Cyprus a state? Is it sovereign? South Ossetia?
This should be a simple list. If we need to break it down into categories, we should pick a way that is less prone to argument. Perhaps we could do it geographically, with sections for East Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia, Middle East, etc.. There might be some disagreements as to what fits where, but I doubt they'll be as emotionally charged and intractable as arguments about who owns who and who should be allowed to control their own destinies and who shouldn't.
I agree that we should use some criterion other than statehood or sovereignty for inclusion in the template. The amount of interest and the number of articles would be criteria to use. Readin (talk) 13:53, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

If a nation state exercises actual control over a specific piece of territory, there is a good reason for including that territory under the broader definition of the scope of the nation state in question. The People's Republic of China does not control one single square of the Island of Taiwan, and never has. Hence, they are not of the same nation state.

If one wishes to get into broader definitions than the nationstate, such as "Greater China" or some arbitrary definition of "China," then it is necessary to drop the references to national entities. At least, that's my view. DOR (HK) (talk) 00:58, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Request for third party input.

I've requested neutral third party assistance from Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard. I hope it helps us sort thsi out. Readin (talk) 21:47, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to politely remind you that as one of the WP:Five pillars, NPOV certainly does "trump" ease of navigation. Regards, --Joowwww (talk) 21:49, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] seeking concensus

Jhattara's suggestion (as an editing comment) that we work to find concensus rather than simply bowing to his version of things would hold more weight if he had shown any willingess at all to compromise or were actively taking part in this discussion page. As it is, the current edit war is between his preferred template structure, and a compromise version that recognizes both his POV and the POV of those who disagree with. I would remind Jhattara that Wikipedia is a collaborative effort in which NPOV is central and that Template:Asia topic is not his personal property.Readin (talk) 14:09, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Edit warring isn't the way to reach consensus either, Readin. You should take a look at WP:Bold, revert, discuss to see a more accepted way of doing things and remember it for the future. Regards, --Joowwww (talk) 15:06, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
Well, I've been trying to stay in the conversation when something new comes up. My only POV is to keep this template stable and include all entities which have major autonomous functionality in politics, sports and other larger topics. Mainly sovereign states, HK and Macau. I don't personally care if Tibet is there or not, I don't care if is Taiwan listed in two places or not. That's not a point I would start an argument about. But it seems that adding Tibet and adding Taiwan there twice opened yet another political can of worms. There was a short edit war concerning other territories. Maybe this template should be expanded like Template:Europe topic to add a separate section for non-independent territories, which could be made visible where appropriate. --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 19:27, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, I did overreact. The immediate situation is you had suggested we reach consensus on discussion page but didn't put anything on discussion page at that time. However, I over-stated the case when I said you were unwilling to consider compromise. That wasn't you. Readin (talk) 13:39, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Unneutral Edit!

My topic here is deleted.

Why do people edit User:Jhattara's edit

Copy my second topic form User talk:Jhattara:

Oh, your view is remove all those additional information. I support you. My view is all these disputed area should be treated the same. I'm confused when I see "Undid revision 233292453 by 虞海 (talk)" in that I don't know you did extra changes. --虞海 (talk) 13:19, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

So my view is: If Taiwan is on the model, Sikkim should be on the model, too. If not, it's not neutral. --虞海 (talk) 10:59, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

How many Sikkim articles there are on the Wikipedia? How important is Sikkim considered by people around the world? Is sikkim such a notable territory that it should be mentioned along with sovereign states? Then ask the same questions about Taiwan. When doing the simple search of "of Sikkim" and "of Taiwan" from Wikipedia the first returns 1240 topics. Taiwan returns more than 10 times that amount. And I'd guess that when asked which is more notable almost 100% would answer Taiwan. So, I don't see any grounds why including Taiwan in this template would imply that Sikkim should also be included in this template. --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 11:24, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
I first learned of Taiwan's existence when I was about 7 years old. I still don't know what Sikkim is and I won't know until I look it up. Taiwan is the world's 14th largest economy. Where does Sikkim fall on the list? Readin (talk) 13:58, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
I looked up Sikkim. Population 0.5 million. That is significantly less than Taiwan's 23 million (Taiwan has more people than Australia). And it looks like Sikkim is a small state in India. Taiwan is a whole country. Even if you just count the island Taiwan, it is close to 99% of the nation-state.
Is "famous" the standard to measure one's importance? Or "population" is the standard to measure one's importance?! Native Sikkimese are going to be ignored and their culture are going to be finished if we don't care about them. Traditional Sikkim culture is a culture at large now! However, there's no any cultural problem in Taiwan. Also, people in Taiwan themselves say they're living in Republic of China. So "China (People's Republic of China [Hong Kong · Macau] · Republic of China [Taiwan])" is enough, we needn't "· Taiwan ·" on it. --虞海 (talk) 06:49, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

It appears that Readin is at it again, after failing to gain consensus on the Taiwan issue. This time, he simply makes the disputed edits without bothering to discuss, for perhaps he does recognise that he will fail to gain that consensus if he tries again. Tibet has absolutely no place in this template which is about independent states, or territories with at least some international recognition as one, with the exception of Hong Kong and Macau which receive special treatment as per conventions in numerous published lists of countries in third party sources, as well as in the United Nations. Attempting to pull in Tibet, and questioning the existance of HK and Macau is Readin's way of basically trying to promote the international status of Taiwan. This attempt to push a political POV after the current stable version having been the result of a very extended discussion amongst other editors should be reverted unless a new consensus involving more individuals, especially those from the East Asia region, is found.--Huaiwei (talk) 14:37, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

in this template which is about independent states, or territories with at least some international recognition as one, with the exception of Hong Kong and Macau which receive special treatment as per conventions in numerous published lists of countries in third party sources, as well as in the United Nations
Perhaps the problem is that the template is misnamed. Suggest we rename the template to "Template:independent states, or territories with at least some international recognition as one, with the exception of Hong Kong and Macau which receive special treatment as per conventions in numerous published lists of countries in third party sources, as well as in the United Nations" Readin (talk) 05:41, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
Well there's no need to get sarcastic. I think the only way this will ever be settled is to limit the template to its original usage of countries and dependent territories. That way there won't have to be constant argument over what constitutes a notable inclusion. --Joowwww (talk) 12:21, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
Actually, Readin can be as sarcastic as he likes, for that is precisely what the template is about, and that is also precisely the same entries which usually appears in independent sources.--Huaiwei (talk) 18:05, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
I was responding to a post that started "It appears that Readin is at it again". It was a personal attack. Sarcasm seemed appropriate.
In a more serious vein:
If the purpose of this page is to list countries and dependent territories and definitively say which is which, then it should be deleted as it is a duplicate of information already contained in List of sovereign states and List of countries and this page contains less information.
My understanding is that the page is for navigation, an example of a template:navbox. If that is the case, then we do need criteria for inclusion. A list of countries is a fine way to do it. A list of soveriegn states works too, but we need to be clear whether we're using common names or formal names. If we say countries and dependent territories, then we need to be careful because an awful lot of places can be described as dependent territories.
Regardless of what criteria we use, we need to find a way to do it without taking sides in disputes. Some suggestions:
1. List all the items alphabetically without trying to group them, as the groupings are subject to dispute.
2. If an item's membership in a group is disputed, list it both within the group and outside the group.
I think the key thing to remember is, as others have pointed out, the template is about navigation, not about settling territorial or sovereignty disputes. Readin (talk) 21:23, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
Pointing out that you have again disregarded consensus and sidestepped the consensus-building process cannot be considered a "personal attack".--Huaiwei (talk) 18:05, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Point 2 is only so you can have Taiwan listed separately. If this happed then China would also have to be listed, as it is also disputed, meaning the list would go "China, People's Republic of China, Republic of China, Taiwan", not including other countries, and also not including "mainland China" as a possible fifth entry, and I would say causes more confusion than anything else. And dependent territories aren't really that disputable, either they are or they aren't. Hong Kong and Macau are, as special administrative regions, Tibet and Sikkim aren't, as a province/state of the PRC/India, respectively. I don't think geographic areas should be listed, as this template is widely used for "x of country" articles, and geographical areas don't have economies, foreign relations, militaries, etc. --Joowwww (talk) 21:47, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
The articles are not listed based on their political status. Tibet should be listed, it is not just a province, or any political division. Tibet is a geographic entity, just like Taiwan and China. It makes no sense to not list geographic areas for this template, as this template is intended for geographic areas.--Jerrch 01:02, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Which is exactly my point. How do you define a geographic area? This will create endless debate which is why I suggested only using political areas. My garden is a geographic area, should that be included too? --Joowwww (talk) 09:50, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Your garden does not has a long history, a claim by somebody and a certain culture. --虞海 (talk) 10:22, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
That wasn't my point. My point was that it is impossible to define what constitutes a notable entry as a geographic area, and will only lead to consensus-less debate. My garden has a history of 110 years, before that it was a field, and before that, woodland. --Joowwww (talk) 11:53, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Well, the history of your garden is not specific enough to list here, and the culture of your garden is not specific enough, too: It's similar to other part of your country. --虞海 (talk) 07:39, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Joowwww, by your standard that we only list sovereign states and dependent territories, we would need to toss out the China and Korea entries as neither points to an article on an existing sovereign state or dependent territory. Readin (talk) 14:36, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
meaning the list would go "China, People's Republic of China, Republic of China, Taiwan
The way I see it, it would be "China, China (People's Republic of), China (Republic of), ..., Hong Kong, ... , Macau, ... , Taiwan, ..., Tibet, ...". No POVs would be pushed as to which thing is part of China and which is not. No POVs would be pushed as to which areas are independent, dependent, or sovereign. If someone were looking for an article, they could just go alphabetically and not have to know whether to look under some other subheading. Readin (talk) 14:47, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Listing "China" and "Taiwan" as distinct entities is in itself POV pushing, so quit claiming that your preferred version is NPOV. The discussions has long acknowledged that each method of presentation will inherently be POV-pushing, but the one which is the most NPOV remains in the format China (People's Republic of China [Hong Kong · Macau] · Republic of China [Taiwan]), without "Tibet" and without "Taiwan" appearing again in the list.--Huaiwei (talk) 18:09, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
If Hong Kong and Macau are also listed separately, that establishes the pattern that parts of the whole can be listed separate from the whole (unless you think some people believe HK and Macau are not part of China), so a simple listing of Taiwan neither implies that it is part of China (other countries are also listed separately) nor does it imply that Taiwan is not part of China (parts of China like HK and Macau are also listed separately). So how does treating Taiwan exactly the same as Hong Kong, Macau and Japan imply that Taiwan is or is not part of China? Readin (talk) 18:59, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Readin. Listing China and Taiwan together is also POV pushing. But if we list all of these entities (Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan) separately, there would be no implications of Taiwan not being part of China. This would be the most neutral proposal by far.--Jerrch 19:13, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Then why not list all provinces in your country here? Why not list Sikkim, here? If Sikkim and some part of your country was listed here (if you think that would be the most neutral method), I don't care if you list Taiwan here. Otherwise, I agree with Huaiwei. --虞海 (talk) 07:31, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Sikkim is an undisputed state of India. Fujian is a province controlled by the PRC but also claimed by the ROC. Taiwan is an island, a province and a different province controlled by the ROC but also claimed by the PRC. --Joowwww (talk) 09:50, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Sikkim is an disputed State of India. Fujian is a province controlled by the both PRC and ROC (click this to know more). Please find more information before you say something. --虞海 (talk) 10:18, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Sikkim joined India in 1975 after a referendum showed a 97.5% vote to join, and is now an undisputed part of India after China recognised it as such in 2003. If it wants independence than it is secessionist, not disputed. Perhaps you should read things too. --Joowwww (talk) 11:53, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
I think you should know 90% of Sikkimese is not Native Sikkimese (at least) now. They're Nepali. So that vote represent Nepal people only, doesnot represent Sikkimese people. --虞海 (talk) 09:59, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Sikkim isn't an independent entity culturally, politically, or economically, it is only a state of India.--Jerrch 22:39, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
They have their own culture, but I'm afraid if it's distoried (Just as you said, became a state of India and lost their culture). --虞海 (talk) 09:54, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sikkim

Sikkim is only a state of India as oppose to Tibet or Taiwan, which are cultural/geographic entities. Tibet and Taiwan are not listed because of their level of autonomy. Sikkim doesn't even have an economy article, I do not see how it is significant enough to be listed.--Jerrch 17:31, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree. The Chinese situation is unique and its conventions should not be applied to other states. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 19:58, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
"Sikkim doesn't even have an economy article": That means you should write one. --虞海 (talk) 03:34, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
How do you prove "The Chinese situation is unique"? If so, I can also say the Indian situation is unique. Give me a reason. --虞海 (talk) 03:11, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
The Chinese situation regarding HK, and Macau is hardly unique. Throughout history empires have exercised various levels of control of their regions. The situation with Tibet is also not unique. Many countries have been swallowed whole by neighboring empires.Readin (talk) 17:19, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
As a matter of fact, the HK/Mcau situation is far more unique than that of Taiwan. There has been countless states which were displaced from their original homelands and moved en mass to other lands throughout the history of mankind. On the other hand, how often do we have territories changing hands in accordance to a century-old treaty, and which also allows that territory to enjoy very high levels of sovereignty, including even representation in numerous international bodies accredited by the United Nations?--Huaiwei (talk) 18:48, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
The Taiwan situation, however, is unique as far as I can tell. In what other situation has an independent sovereign government moved so that the new area controlled is almost complete different from its earlier territory? And that government claimed that the new territory was always the same country as the old territory even though when the government "united" the country of the old territory it didn't include the new territory (ROC united China in the 1920s, but did not control Taiwan).Readin (talk) 17:19, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
To say that the Taiwan situation is "unique" because "an independent sovereign government moved so that the new area controlled is almost complete different from its earlier territory" suggests unfamiliarity with the Taiwan situation. Taiwan has been formally part of the Qing Dynasty since 1683, until the Japanese occupation in 1895. The Japanese surrendered the island to the ROC in 1945, who has occupied the island ever since. Considering Taiwan was already in the control of the ROC prior to their retreat from the mainland, it was more of a drastic reduction in their area of control, than one suggesting that they moved to a new location which was previously unoccupied.
I am also astonished at how the ROC is being credited for "uniting China in the 1920s". The ROC inherited what the Qing Dynasty controlled at that point in time, when Taiwan was already lost to the Japanese as a result of the Sino-Japanese war. Credit to the last entity in unify a divided China goes to the Yuan Dynasty about 700 years ago. Your theory appears to be off by 7 hundred years!--Huaiwei (talk) 18:48, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
And the government continued to claim the old territory and had those claims accepted by most of the world. (ROC continued to claim China and those claims were accepted by most until the 1970s.)
And the new government of the old territory claimed to be the ruler of the new territory, despite never having controlled the new territory, and despite this lack of control most countries around the world pay lip service to these claims. (Most countries and international organizations do not have diplomatic relations with the ROC).Readin (talk) 17:19, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Most countries today do not merely "pay lip service" to the claims of the ROC. They officially do not recognise it.--Huaiwei (talk) 18:48, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
And the old government, finally allowing free and democracy in the new territory, allows the world to see that many people of their new territory consider themselves different and separate from people of the old territory (Taiwan Independence has been around for a long time, but was largely suppressed by the KMT government until the late 1980s). Readin (talk) 17:19, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
This sounds like material lifted off the Pan-Green campaign material. Taiwan did not experience true democracy until the 1990s, and doing so haven't told the world anything about the supposed "difference" and "separation" from the mainland. If so, we would be arguing that the Taiwanese people has suddenly found themselves "similar" to the mainland Chinese thanks to the results of the last general election. This is highly simplistic and politically-skewed. The situation of Taiwan's aborigines is no different from the Red Indians in North America, the Orang Asli of Malaysia, or the aborigines of Australia, each eventually dominated by a "migrant race". For this dominant migrant race to claim genetic links with these aborigines at the expense of any genetic links with the mainland amounts to nothing more than political gimmicks unsupported by scientific evidence.--Huaiwei (talk) 18:48, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Some of the pieces described above may not be unique, but taken as a whole it is a unique situation. Perhaps the biggest oddity is that so many years after the facts on the ground have established two separate nations, many of the world's nations and organizations pretend this reality doesn't exist. While some may reasonably argue that Taiwan is culturally part of a single country called "China" just like N. and S. Korea are part of a single country called "Korea", N. and S. Korea are still formally recognized as two separate nation-states. That the reality of Taiwan's independent political status has been studiously ignored for so long is pretty unusual. Readin (talk) 17:19, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
To put it simply, since when is it wikipedia's business to resolve this "unusual situation" that you point out?--Huaiwei (talk) 18:48, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
The Chinese situation is completely different from the situation in India. In China there are two de facto independent nations, which both (at least officially) claim to hold sovereignty over the regions that are de facto under the other nation's control. In addition there are multiple regions that have serious aspirations for independence. And finally two semi-independent special administrative regions. Politically China is a very complex entity and reaching a full consensus on the situation is next to impossible. --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 07:47, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
So that you can't call it "Republic of China (Taiwan)" because there is Fujian Province, Republic of China. You shoult call it "Republic of China (Taiwan & Fujian)" and ther shouldn't be a "... · Taiwan · ...". --虞海 (talk) 10:09, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Taiwan is a commonly used name for ROC as whole. --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 10:26, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Just to show how complex the China situation is, even Jhattara's good faith attempt to lay out the complexities in an unbiased way showed bias. He said "In China there are two de facto independent nations". Others would say that there are two independent nations using the word "China" in their formal names, but only one of them is in fact in China. The other is in Taiwan. One of the complexities is that the situation used to be viewed as bipolar. There were the Communist Chinese in mainland China, and the Nationalist Chinese in Taiwan, with both claiming to be the sole legitimate government of all of China, including Taiwan. But with the introduction of free speech and democracy in Taiwan, it became clear that the many native Taiwanese who were voiceless during the time of repression had yet another view, that Taiwan is separate from China and that the Nationalist Chinese were another colonial government like the Japanese. And as in any good democracy where free speech and debate allow people to form their own opinions, there are many beliefs in between. Readin (talk) 14:31, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
"Others would say that there are two independent nations": Not two nations, two regimes I think. --虞海 (talk) 09:58, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
"Taiwan is a commonly used name for ROC as whole.": "Common" is not "should", anyway. --虞海 (talk) 09:58, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
So you're saying that Taiwan should not be the common name of the ROC? Well, you can work on that yourself, I believe Wikipedia is not a site for you to seek "political justice".--Jerrch 16:11, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Well, nor is Wikipedia a place for you to use "commonly used name": it's a professional encyopedia. Nevertheless I was finding "neutral" not "political justice". --虞海 (talk) 07:35, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia is indeed a place to use "commonly used names". We list "Russia", not "Russian Federation". We list "Burma", not "Union of Myanmar". Readin (talk) 14:44, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Well, it's not: "Russia" is the short of "Russian Federation" officially; also, "Burma" is the short of "Union of Myanmar" officially. --虞海 (talk) 09:03, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
"but only one of them is in fact in China. The other is in Taiwan.": That's only your opinion. Just like something is only my opinion, your opinion is not the same as "Wikipedia neutral view". --虞海 (talk) 10:01, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
"Wikipedia is indeed a place to...": This sentence has been moved upward since it's the answer to my reply before this. --虞海 (talk) 09:01, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

The most serious problem of Sikkim is not economy, but culture. After occupied by India, the Economy of Sikkim is better, but their culture is in danger. --虞海 (talk) 03:39, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I believe it is not Wikipedia's job to save a certain culture.--Jerrch 22:36, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
If what you said is right, we shouldn't place Tibet here. Nonetheless Tibetan culture is well protected here. At least it is Wikipedia's job to record every certain culture. --虞海 (talk) 07:44, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] East Timor

I've removed Timor-Leste from the template. This isn't out of POV or anything, but simplicity: all Foo of Timor-Leste pages should redirect to Foo of East Timor pages while the title of the country's main article remains East Timor. Consensus from the "Burma/Myanmar" dispute maintains that all articles and categories follow whatever the country article's title is at that time (with the exception of proper names like Myanmar Armed Forces). Does anybody mind my application of the same principle to the East Timor/Timor-Leste dispute? --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 20:08, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I mind the fact that you have removed both Myanmar and Timor Leste from the template. I would not consider "simplicity" as a strong argument in this case.--Huaiwei (talk) 17:57, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal for a solution

I see that we are not progressing anywhere. I still think that the main part of this template should be reserved for sovereign entities. What about looking for an example from the Template:Europe topic and put a separate area for non-sovereign entities, no matter what their level of sovereignty is.

Dependencies, autonomies and other territories: Hong Kong, Macau, Tibet, Taiwan, China, Korea, Northern Cyprus, Palestinian territories.

Sovereign states (above the former entry): the rest

That way only disputed entry in the Sovereign states part would be that of the Republic of China, but as it is the official name of a previously widely recognized nation that hasn't been dissolved and still has a moderate de jure and wide de facto recognition, I think it should still be among the sovereign states. --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 09:27, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Problem still exist: will Sikkim and Taiwan be together? How about South Tibet? --虞海 (talk) 10:18, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
I think Sikkim would still be excluded because it doesn't have [to my knowledge] any kind of special status within India when compared to other Indian states. To South Tibet I have no comment other than I think it's too minor region to be included in this teamplte. --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 10:47, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
The special status is that Sikkim is disputed by Palden Thondup Namgyal, the emperor of Sikkim. Also, "Sikkim joined India in 1975 after a referendum showed a 97.5% vote to join" because 90% of those are Nepali. So the vote is still disputed. --虞海 (talk) 09:13, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
"it's too minor region": Vatican is even smaller, but it's in Template:Europe --虞海 (talk) 09:13, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Support: The proposed solution sounds good and fair. Especially with regard to Taiwan, it is very similar to what the common Wikipedia solution has been when listing sovereign states. The "Republic of China (Taiwan)" is listed in the 'T' section and the "People's Republic of China" is listed in the 'C' section. See Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(Chinese)#Republic_of_China.2C_Taiwan.2C_and_variations_thereof for details.

Generally following the established convention of alphabetizing countries under their common names, the Republic of China (i.e. Taiwan) should be alphabetized under "T" while the People's Republic of China should be alphabetized under "C". The former can be listed, depending on context, either as "Republic of China (Taiwan)" or "Taiwan (Republic of China)".

We can, of course, keep the footnote saying that the ROC's sovereignty is disputed. Readin (talk) 14:51, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Once again, our dear Readin decides to follow a convention whoes NPOV has remained disputed to this day.--Huaiwei (talk) 05:14, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template without ambiguous and contentious "geographic areas"

[[Template:|v]] • [[|d]] • [[[:Template:Fullurl:Template:]]e]
Asia
Sovereign
states
Afghanistan - Armenia - Azerbaijan - Bahrain - Bangladesh - Bhutan - Brunei - Cambodia - People's Republic of China - Republic of China 2 - Cyprus - Georgia - India - Indonesia - Iran - Iraq - Israel - Japan - Jordan - Kazakhstan - North Korea - South Korea - Kuwait - Kyrgystan - Laos - Lebanon - Malaysia - Maldives - Mongolia - Myanmar - Nepal - Oman - Pakistan - Phillipines - Qatar - Russia - Saudi Arabia - Singapore - Sri Lanka - Syria - Tajikistan - Thailand - Timor-Leste - Turkey - Turkmenistan - United Arab Emirates - Uzbekistan - Vietnam - Yemen
Dependencies,
autonomies,
other territories
Abkhazia 1 - Akrotiri and Dhekelia 1 - British Indian Ocean Territory - Christmas Island - Cocos (Keeling) Islands - Guangxi - Hong Kong - Inner Mongolia - Iraqi Kurdistan - Macau - Nagorno-Karabakh 1 - Ningxia - Palestine (Gaza Strip - West Bank) - South Ossetia 1 - Tibet - Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus 1 - Xinjiang
Italics indicates an unrecognised or partially recognised country. 1 = Some territory could be argued to be a part of Europe or Asia. 2 = Commonly known as Taiwan.

1st level autonomous areas only, as per Template:Europe topic. I've missed loads of autonomous areas but you get the idea. Obviously this isn't the final code. PRC and ROC listed under "C", as per List of Asian countries. --Joowwww (talk) 12:56, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out, I'll see if I can get it fixed. Readin (talk) 17:04, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
Wouldn't mind this solution either. I'm not that fond of China and Korea entries, although both have extensive amounts of articles, that just cannot be squeezed to PRC/ROC or NK/SK articles. --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 13:05, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
Well if anybody wants to make a "Template:Geographic areas of Asia" then by all means proceed. Let's keep this one to sovereign and non-sovereign. --Joowwww (talk) 13:14, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm willing to try, but, just so I understand correctly, if the new template were {{Asia region topic}}, what kinds of links would it carry? I'm thinking that if {{Asia topic}} then became more like {{Europe topic}}, i.e. with the separate sovereign and non-sovereign sections, would {{Asia topic}}'s non-sovereign section be "Dependencies and autonomies" not "Dependencies, autonomies, other territories" because the "other territories" would fall into {{Asia region topic}}..? Sardanaphalus (talk) 14:40, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
Well "other territories" refers to administrative territories as opposed to geographical ones, see Territory (administrative division) for clarification. For a non-sovereign entry to appear the area should have its own degree of autonomous self-governance, so I suppose it depends on its political status. Tibet would be listed on {{Asia topic}} under autonomous area as the Tibet Autonomous Region but not as the larger historical area of Tibet, which isn't governed by a single government, as it's in exile. Likewise Siberia as a whole has no government so it wouldn't appear on {{Asia topic}}, but it would appear on a geographical area template. --Joowwww (talk) 16:34, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
While this approach may show a logical consistency, it would not well serve people looking for information on Taiwan or China, which are two nations (and those are the names most people know them by) that people are likely to be interested in, particularly the latter.
The purpose of the template is navigation, and that's what it should facilitate.Readin (talk) 17:16, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
Here we go again. Readin, NPOV always comes before ease-of-navigation. The sovereign states are called "The People's Republic of China" and "The Republic of China". It doesn't matter what they are commonly called, NPOV is a non-negotiable Wikipedia policy. It is one of the five pillars. I don't understand why you are having such a hard time realising this. Calling the PRC "China" and the ROC "Taiwan" is clear POV. This is the reason that the China article isn't about just the PRC and the Taiwan article isn't about the ROC. --Joowwww (talk) 17:26, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
Who decided that this had to be a list of sovereign states? That's what I'm saying the problem is. Feel free to make a template {{Asia sovereign state topic}} or {{Asia sovereign state and dependent territory topic}}. Those aren't the name of this topic so it doesn't have to be a list of sovereign states. It is a navigational template, and if navigating by sovereign state and dependent territory only makes it impossible to support both NPOV and navigation, then we should change how the navigation is supported.
We don't have to take a position on what China and Taiwan are (sovereign states, geographic regions, dependencies, whatever) but we should find a way to include them in the topic as they are something people will look for.Readin (talk) 17:37, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
Then perhaps you'd like to discuss template titles, content and use with the editors over at {{North America topic}}, {{South America topic}}, {{Europe topic}} and {{Africa topic}}. Like I said, feel free to make a new geographic area-based template, but Template:Continent topic templates cover sovereign states. --Joowwww (talk) 17:53, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
The {{Europe topic}} template has been adapted to deal with a particular issue they have - the United Kingdom being composed of the well-known Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and England. So it isn't completely consistent with the other templates. We have a different set of issues and may adapt differently. As you've pointed out, NPOV is more important than consistency. If the {{Asia topic}} has to choose between NPOV usefulness and NPOV consistency with the other templates, I think we should choose usefulness. Readin (talk) 20:39, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure what your point is. How is the choice of including UK home nations on the Europe template relevant to this discussion? It's still a template of sovereign states and autonomous regions only. --Joowwww (talk) 20:50, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually I think it would be better for this template to follow Template:Oceania topic, which sorts the entities geographically. "Asia" is a geographic term, not a political one, so why are we sorting the entities politically?--Jerrch 20:58, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

That would be quite hard to accomplish, I think. There has been and is still heavy debate over certain countries' geographical locations. Is Afghanistan in Central Asia, South Asia or the Middle East? Besides, the Oceania template is also based on political entities, and a layout like that would make it difficult or confusing to list autonomous areas, especially if a state could be said to be in three different regions. --Joowwww (talk) 21:11, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
And whether we arrange this template like Europe topic or like Oceania topic, it would still include only sovereign states or special regions within those sovereign states. Only difference would be in telling which specific region of Asia each entity would belong to. And IMHO ease of navigation is better accomplished by alphabetizing all the entries, instead of making several separate alphabetical lists. --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 22:54, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
I still think sovereign and non-sovereign should be kept separate. It would be confusing to list them together. --Joowwww (talk) 13:24, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
How would it be confusing to list them together? People shouldn't be looking at this navigation box as a source of information as to which entities are sovereign and which are not. They shouldn't be looking at it as a way to tell which entities are democracies and which are not. listing sovereign and non-sovereign together is no more confusing than listing democracies and non-democracies together, landlocked and coastal and islands together, or industrialized and non-industrialized together. Whether an entity is sovereign is only one characterteristic of it. Why should we assume that people trying to navigate will be confused by having entities with different characteristics listed together? Readin (talk) 05:03, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Well, I wasn't talking about keeping sovereign/non-sovereign together, but rather about keeping western asia and eastern asia together. In Europe topic (which I would prefer) the distinction is made by whether the entity is sovereign, and in Oceania topic the distinction is made by which region of Oceania the entity is in. --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 14:04, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
My mistake, then we are in agreement! :-) --Joowwww (talk) 14:43, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

The biggest problem with the above format is when you start to list an entry in the first tier, and when the second. Why, for example, is Abkhazia, South Ossetia and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in the second tier when the ROC is in the first? What level of "autonomy" is required do we begin to grant an entry in the second tier? Aceh? Jeju? Muslim Mindanao? And are we going to start listing the republics, krais, autonomous okrugs and autonomous oblasts of Russia which fall within geographic Asia? I feel sticking to the status quo is still the best foot forward. As much as it needs constant debates with those clamouring to include or exclude entries, sticking to one primary criteria helps to resolve most disputes.--Huaiwei (talk) 05:24, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

ROC is a very special case, not really comparable to the other territories. Although it's de jure mostly unrecognized country, de facto several nations (including e.g. US) recognize it unofficially. Abkhazia, South Ossetia and TRNC on the other hand are breakaway regions recognized only by the nation that with military force helped them to break away, and all of them are completely dependent of their patron. In the second part can be listed e.g. all disputed areas, areas which have a special level of autonomy and those that have serious aims for independence. From Russia e.g. that would mean either none or the most autonomous subdivisions. Aceh, Jeju-do and Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao e.g. seem like good additions due to their status, although I suspect that none of those would have many articles. --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 06:12, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
"Special cases" or "levels of autonomy" should be determined not by criteria established by wikipedians, but by looking at conventional norms in third party publications. The identity of these recognising states, or the circumstance surrounding their status, should and must not be used as a determining factor as long as we follow the principals of NPOV. As a matter of fact, I am heavily critical of Russia's actions in Georgia, but this doesn't mean I attempt to twist inclusion or presentation criteria to suit my political inclinations or opinions by giving them differing treatment. A template which attempts to list every entity which aspires to be independent is obviously going to run into serious trouble very soon. I would therefore state that I oppose the above proposal strongly, for the sake of ensuring we ultimately have a reasonably stable template which confirms to NPOV.--Huaiwei (talk) 08:46, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
Exactly. And in third party sources that I have seen Republic of China is almost always handled as an independent state, while TRNC is almost always handled as an illegal breakaway area belonging legally to Cyprus. I wouldn't mind including South Ossetia, Abkhazia and TRNC in this template, as long as it is made 100% clear that they are not generally considered as de jure independent states. --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 09:20, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Added "Sikkim" and "South Tibet & Tawang / Arunachal Pradesh" like this. See what I said at Template_talk:Asia_topic#Proposal_for_a_solution, 09:13, 30 August 2008 (UTC). --虞海 (talk) 08:30, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

And there you go. A live example of the very problem I just discussed above.--Huaiwei (talk) 08:46, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
Not really a problem. 虞海, Sikkim is not a disputed country just because some people think so. Some people think Cornwall should be independent from England but it doesn't mean it's disputed. That's why it doesn't appear on the Europe template. See List of active autonomist and secessionist movements for the complete list.
Well, then, don't place Tibet here since Tibet is also not a disputed reigon just because some people think so. Even Indian map places Tibet as a part of China. --虞海 (talk) 03:13, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Tibet isn't listed as a disputed region, it's listed as an autonomous area. Sikkim has no autonomy. --Joowwww (talk) 17:40, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
A degree of common sense should be applied here in deciding what goes where. Not everything is black and white. That's what consensus is for. --Joowwww (talk) 10:10, 31 August 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Levels of autonomy?

Why are we using the levels of autonomy as a criterion to determine which entities should be listed on this template?

Hong Kong, Macau, and Tibet are not listed because of their levels of autonomy, but because of their own cultural/economic/historic distinction from other entities. This is the reason why Taiwan should also be listed. None of these entities are sovereign states, but they are in fact separate entities (i.e. they have their own culture, history, economy, languages, music, etc).--Jerrch 16:37, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Taiwan is listed as the Republic of China. --Joowwww (talk) 16:43, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
It shouldn't, it should be listed by itself. Taiwan should not be listed as a common name or a province, it should be listed as an entity. It could be clarified in the footnote area that its status is disputed, but it needs to be on the template.--Jerrch 17:50, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
Are we talking about the template as it is now or the proposal above? --Joowwww (talk) 18:43, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm talking about the proposed template, which does not have Taiwan listed at all.--Jerrch 23:20, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
The proposed template doesn't list geographic or cultural areas. It lists sovereign states and their autonomous areas and dependencies. The Republic of China entry has a footnote that it is commonly known as Taiwan. --Joowwww (talk) 09:57, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I noticed that Taiwan as it stands has 2 entries: "ROC [Taiwan]" and "Taiwan" by itself. This is so confusing. Can we have a footnote next to both Taiwans and say "Taiwan's status is disputed. See Political Status of Taiwan."--Pyl (talk) 07:34, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
It is not confusing because this template is a navigational aid and no inferences about sovereignty are made by it. The reason Taiwan appears twice is because of its disputed status and the fact that some people will look for it under "C" for "China" while the overwhelming majority of people will look for it under "T" for "Taiwan". To the extent that anyone would make judgements about Taiwan's membership in "China" (sovereign state or not) based on this template, we are following the NPOV principle of providing all POVs by listing Taiwan both as part of China and as independent of China. Readin (talk) 05:11, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
As I said it is confusing. I have given reasons earlier and in short it makes people think that Taiwan and ROC [Taiwan] are two different countries. I think the current proposed template below (but with the ROC sorted under the letter T) is a good compromise. There is a footnote saying the ROC is commonly known as Taiwan then people will find it.--Pyl (talk) 07:03, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I just noticed Joowwww's latest comment. I agree with him. The list as it is doesn't list geographic or cultural areas. It really lists political divisions. It makes no sense that Taiwan is listed by itself as a separate entry when ROC [Taiwan] is already listed. The dual entry for Taiwan is really confusing. It can suggest that ROC and Taiwan are two different countries.
  • The State which Taiwan resides in is called the "ROC". The ROC is commonly known in the English speaking world as Taiwan. There are countries in the world that recognise the ROC as a country, but no country recognises "Taiwan" as a country. Taiwan as a country is a political view, not a neutral view. No government or legal document in Taiwan, whether it is under KMT government or DPP government, says Taiwan is a country. Taiwan is a common name for the ROC but it is not the official or legal name for the ROC. That's a neutral fact.
  • I think we should point out the fact that the political status of Taiwan is disputed but neutrally speaking, "Taiwan" shouldn't be listed as another separate when ROC [Taiwan] is already there.
  • There are people whose political belief is that Quebec is a separate country from Canada or Scotland is separate from the UK, but neither Quebec nor Scotland is listed as a separate entry. The neutral fact is Quebec is governed by Canada and Scotland is governed by the UK. Taiwan is governed by the ROC.
  • If there are people who aren't comfortable with Taiwan being part of China, then
instead of the following:-
China (People's Republic of China [Hong Kong · Macau · Tibet] · Republic of China [Taiwan])
maybe we can do the following:-
People's Republic of China [Hong Kong · Macau · Tibet] · Republic of China [Taiwan]
This way, there is no suggestion that Taiwan is part of China and, at the same time, it doesn't suggest that Taiwan is not part of China. This is neutral.
  • Alternatively, we can do what Africa, Europe, North America and South America do which have separate entries for sovereign states and dependencies, autonomies and other territories. I don't see why Asia should be layed out as is, which is illogical and different from the majority.--Pyl (talk) 10:47, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Excellent points Pyl. I think that all we really have to decide is (1) whether to keep or discard the super-entities Korea and China and (2) whether to separate non-independent entities from sovereign states or not. If the non-independent entities are separated it makes room for more such entities, than in a list where they are mixed with sovereign entities. --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 11:18, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Agree. Ditch Korea and China, and separate sovereign from non-sovereign, as per the proposal above. --Joowwww (talk) 11:32, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I noted Jerry said the following earlier:-
"I cannot accept the first proposal you have. To list Taiwan under ROC would be POV regardless of whether ROC rules Taiwan or not, because we are forcing the readers to accept the view that Taiwan is part of the Republic of China politically, culturally, economically, etc. Let alone the fact that the ROC is only part of the Taiwanese history."
  • I don't think this view is sound. Taiwan *is* part of the Republic of China politically, culturally, economically etc. We are not forcing readers to accept that. That is a fact. The states of the United States of America, Commonwealth of Australia, Dominion of New Zealand etc are also only part of the histories of these places. By that logic, should we all link all entries to places instead of the political states? I think that has taken the argument too far. As I said earlier this list is an inherently a list of political divisions, not general geographic areas--Pyl (talk) 11:52, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Taiwan is not the same as the ROC culturally, economically, or historically. It is not a fact that Taiwan is only the common name of the ROC. Taiwan already existed before the establishment of the ROC, and developed its own culture, economy, and history without the ROC.
The situation of Taiwan/ROC should not be compared with the US or Australia. The ROC underwent territories so dramatically that its pre- and post-1949 almost do not overlap. Also, I don't see why Hong Kong, Tibet, and Macau should be listed if Taiwan isn't.--Jerrch 23:31, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Also, please note that Tibet is not listed because it is an autonomous region of China, but because it is an independent entity. This template should not be organized politically.--Jerrch 23:33, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
The indigenous people of North America, New Zealand and Australia also developed their culture, economy and history before the USA, the Dominion and the commonwealth. I don't see why Taiwan is different from those places.
I don't see why the change of ROC territory has any relevance to this issue. Even if it is relevant (which again I don't see), you will note that the US and Australia also experienced an drastic change in their territories. By that logic, we should treat places like Calfornia (acquired from Mexico, and earlier conquered from the indigenous people), Hawaii, Northern Territory of Australia, etc etc differently like Taiwan too.
Hong Kong and Macau should be listed because they are SARs of the PRC. I personally don't think that Tibet should be listed unless all automonous regions of the PRC are listed. If we make an exception only for Tibet, then we are ignoring the special cultural positions of other regions. Taiwan is not listed because it is legally Taiwan province of the ROC. There is also a Fukien province under the jurisdiciton of the ROC too. Taiwan is a common name for the ROC but it is not the formal name.
I believe that saying Tibet should be listed because it is a different entity overlooks the uniqueness of other regions. I find the indigenous people in Taiwan, the US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, etc pretty unique too. For example, the Indigenous Taiwanese had their special culture, hisotry and economy before the Han Chinese came along. In Taiwan, I have heard that some indigenous Taiwanese want their area to be independent of the ROC. By that logic, we should have a separate entry for those areas too.--Pyl (talk) 01:46, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
There are articles on the history, economy, education, culture, music, languages of Taiwan. The template is supposed to serve as a navigational aid that lists entities that have those distinctions. Taiwan is merely listed as a common name of the ROC. It is really not just a common name.
Again, Hong Kong and Macau are not listed because of their political status or levels of autonomy. They have a lot of sub-articles, which should really be the criterion to determine whether an entity should be listed or not.--Jerrch 22:30, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
I agree with you Jerrch, but NPOV is more important than getting the purpose of the box right or including everything that should be included. The compromise that was reached at least is pretty close to NPOV (it would be closer if "Republic of China (Taiwan)" were used instead of having the "Taiwan" information in a foot note). Given the stridency of some of the editors and the numbers against us, I think this was the best we could hope for.
If you want to continue the battle for making this template fullfill its purpose as a Navbox, you should probably first take it up somewhere else like Wikipedia_talk:Navigation_templates. If you can get clarification of the purpose of navigational templates from a neutral crowd, perhaps that will carry some weight here. As for me on this page, I'm glad to give it a rest. It was taking too much of my time. Readin (talk) 04:20, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
earlier Jerrch said :-
"Taiwan is merely listed as a common name of the ROC. It is really not just a common name."
This sentence has been repeated numberous times but I haven't yet seen a reply to my subsequent arguments to that. You raised historical, economic, educational, cultrual etc arguments but there were no arguments made to distinguish Taiwan from North America, Australia, etc before the respective states were created in those places. As I said, the indigenous peoples of those places are as special as those in Taiwan.
I appreciate that Taiwan as an island has it's own related articles separate from the ROC, by clicking on the "Taiwan" link the readers will be referred to these articles. But this table as well as most others list entries by their political identities. Currently, the ROC is that identity relating to Taiwan. If that changes, wikipedia can change that accordingly.
I support the movement to let the world know that Taiwan exist and it is not merely just part of the PRC, as the PRC government makes it. But, by doing that, it doesn't mean Wikipedia has to give undue weight to political pushes that:-
  • is controversial even within Taiwan itself;
  • has no consensus within Taiwan; and
  • has no official or legal authority.
I believe the HK and Macau are listed because they qualify under "other territories". Taiwan is listed under sovereign states as the ROC. That is correct, because Taiwan is the common name for the governing state but it is not the correct name. I believe it is patronising to the readers to list Taiwan instead of the ROC. The readers are entitied to know the correct thing (which is the official name) even though it is not commonly used internationally. Alternatively, by listing Taiwan and ROC separately, as I said numberous times, creates a false impression that they are different countries.
Readin I think there is a misunderstanding. My statements which you relied to above was written before the current table was agreed to.--Pyl (talk) 06:49, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I think you are still missing my point, Pyl. The political or legal status of Taiwan or any other entities does not matter for this template. Just because Taiwan is not an independent state does not mean it is not an independent entity. I am not taking a stand on whether Taiwan is part of China or not (or any other ROC/PRC disputes) at this point of discussion. I am only concerned with the POV issues caused by the inclusion of Taiwan as only a common name.--Jerrch 22:35, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal with working code

Edit here. --虞海 (talk) 10:04, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Like {{Europe topic}} it lists republics of Russia, and I've added autonomous areas of Indonesia. --Joowwww (talk) 12:15, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the proposal. The list doesn't say whether Taiwan is part of China. And it also gives a footnote that the Republic of China is commonly known as Taiwan.--Pyl (talk) 12:39, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

This looks pretty close, although it's missing at least Egypt. But generally the template is very good. --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 16:35, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out, I've added Egypt. --Joowwww (talk) 17:38, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Again, Taiwan should not be listed merely as a common name. It should be on the template just like any other entities.--Jerrch 23:24, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with it by the reasons I gave above. Taiwan is a common name for the ROC but it is not a formal name. As I mentioned numberous times, "Taiwan" as country is a political push and has no legal or governmental backings. Where do we draw the line if we are not going to rely on the legal or governmental authorities? I don't think it is appropriate for Wikipedia list Taiwan because there are strong beliefs that Taiwan is a country (instead of or in addition to the ROC), although there are no authorities to rely on. Some people believe strongly that Quebec or Scotland is a country too.

I noted that you mentioned earlier that Ma said "Taiwan is a sovereign state" during his election champaign. He did. But he used Taiwan as a common name for the ROC. I never saw him using Taiwan as the formal name of a country in any context. I never saw the DPP government used Taiwan as the formal name of a country either. The DPP official say it in their political speeches but they never put it down formally on government papers.

If the DPP government draw a line with Taiwan being the common name for the ROC but it is not the official name, I don't see why Wikipedia should push it further than them. That, in my view, is really in violation of the NPOV policy.

Since Taiwan isn't a formal name of a country, please let me know why Quebec, Scotland or other similar regions shouldn't have a separate entry but Taiwan should.--Pyl (talk) 02:14, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

This proposal will be acceptable if we follow established precedent, protocols, policy and especially NPOV by listing the Republic of China under "T" and clarifying that it is what most people know as "Taiwan". The "People's Republic of China" is listed in the 'C' section. See Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(Chinese)#Republic_of_China.2C_Taiwan.2C_and_variations_thereof for details.
Generally following the established convention of alphabetizing countries under their common names, the Republic of China (i.e. Taiwan) should be alphabetized under "T" while the People's Republic of China should be alphabetized under "C". The former can be listed, depending on context, either as "Republic of China (Taiwan)" or "Taiwan (Republic of China)".
I realize there is a strong desire to deny the reality that Taiwan is the name most people know ROC by. But that's reality, and it is a neutral reality. The official POVs you mention are also realities. Both must be recognized. It is not our job to push the POV of anyone, not even governments or sovereign states. They may have their POV. Heck, the official POV of the Republic of China is that even Mongolia is governed by it.
The note about the disputed status of the ROC/Taiwan is fine and necessary if we are to make this an article about the sovereignty and political status of states and territories in Asia.
I'm willing to accept that compromise, but that doesn't make it right. This should not be an article. Articles have lots of text and room to explain the subtleties of various points of view. This should be a navigational aid. But if we must make it something it shouldn't be, we must at least be neutral about it.
The ongoing attempts to portray Taiwan as a part of China and only a part of China are breaking the spirit of NPOV. Readin (talk) 05:05, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
I appreciate your reluctant support. I can accept the alphabetizing convention.
I am not denying the reality that Taiwan is the common name for the ROC. In fact, I think for article where the ROC is not defined, we should say "(commonly known as Taiwan)" for the readers. The reality is, if we don't say that, most readers think the relevant article is about the PRC.
Countries make claims and they can be seemed to be quite unreasonable. Mogolia and the ROC is an example. I think it is the position of wikipedia to mention the position without making any judgements on it. The judgements should be made by the readers. In this case, there is no official position which states that Taiwan is the name of the country. So we don't say that it is.
I am not making an attempt to portray Taiwan being part of China or otherwise. My personal belief is that the people of Taiwan should be allowed to choose their own future. However, the current reality is that Taiwan is part of the Republic of China, and Taiwan is a common (but not the interchangeable) name of the ROC. As I mentioned earlier, if one day the people of Taiwan decide to change their constitution or relevant laws to make Taiwan name of their country, I would be quite happy to accept that. But in the meantime, I don't think we should state things in wikipedia that aren't backed up by official positions or relevant laws when it is about the name of a country. In which case, I would consider it misleading to the readers.--Pyl (talk) 06:59, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
So basically we seem to agree with the format above with the small modification of alphabetizing ROC in T? If no one protests to this new format I think we could make the change in a few days. --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 09:11, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
No, I don't agree. Not "basically". We should use official name. --虞海 (talk) 07:05, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


Please change "Commonly known as Taiwan. But there's also Fujian (ROC)" to just "Commonly known as Taiwan". The ROC (including both provinces of Taiwan and Fukien) is commonly known as "Taiwan".
Also, I believe the consensus is that "Republic of China" should be sorted according to "T" alphabetically. Thank you for the work.--Pyl (talk) 10:57, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
If you do so, it'll confuse people if there's only Taiwan in ROC. Then it should be marked as Template:Weasel. --虞海 (talk) 06:57, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
  • No it doesn't. To do so will be making a mistake that is so marginal which makes it unreasonable. In day to day usage, Taiwan is a common name for the ROC which includes both provinces. That's the neutral and accepted usage. To make a distinction, in my view, is playing politics, which is also in violation of the Wikipedia rules.
  • I also object to the proposed unilateral moving of the ROC from being sorted by T alphabetically to by C. That is against the consensus cited by Readin above.--Pyl (talk) 07:29, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
For the first point, it's only puting a label on me because Pyl didn't say the reason why it's unreasonable. I agree Taiwan is a common name for the ROC which includes both provinces, but common name is never official name. --虞海 (talk) 06:01, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
I note that you conceded that "Taiwan is a common name for the ROC which includes both provinces".
I never said it is the official name. Why is that sentence even relevant here? "Taiwan" as a common name for the ROC (including both provinces) is important enough to mark so readers don't get confused. Does the common name "China" for the PRC really mean PRC controls the whole of the histroic China? It is not an accurate common name, is it? "Common name" means that's the name most people know it by, but it is not necessarily correct.--Pyl (talk) 06:46, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
I did never agree that "common" should be "incorrect". --虞海 (talk) 07:17, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
For the second point, I've replied at "I've read Readin's...". --虞海 (talk) 06:01, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
I refer you to my previous comments, in particular those made on 2-3 September 2008.--Pyl (talk) 06:46, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I think that's all issues sorted out. I'll request the template to be changed. --Joowwww (talk) 12:14, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

To replace {{Asia topic}}'s existing code with that located at (link to sandbox removed), with the addition of the following code at the end:
<noinclude>
{{pp-template|small=yes}}
{{documentation}}
</noinclude>{{#if:{{{2|}}}{{{suffix|}}}|[[Category:Region topic template using suffix]]}}

Many thanks. --Joowwww (talk) 12:14, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes check.svg Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:58, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Taiwan

Should Taiwan also be on this template as a navigable entry? If so adding it to the list of "Dependencies, autonomies, other territories" would probably be most appropriate, or? --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 09:04, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I thought we were done with this subject. Please leave the template relating to Taiwan/ROC as is.

虞海's proposals on this subject are in obvious violation of the established Wikipedia policy/consensus by the reason I gave above. In relation to his other suggestions, I have no opinion at this moment. --Pyl (talk) 09:16, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Just to point out that Readin's description of that particular guideline as "policy" was inaccurate. --Joowwww (talk) 09:53, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
How so?--Pyl (talk) 10:21, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
There's a difference between "policy" and "guideline". At the top of the Chinese naming conventions it says it should "be treated with common sense and the occasional exception".--Joowwww (talk) 12:43, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
It is not common sense in the English language to sort "Republic of China" according to T alphabetically. I personally think it is playing politics, but I don't think I would at this stage advocate for "occasional exception" in this matter. I think there are people who feel strongly about this.
To point out the obvious, Taiwanese independence can't be achieved by having Taiwan listed away from China. At the same time, Chinese reunification won't happen by putting Taiwan right next to China either. It is disappointing Wikipedia in this case becomes a playground for political movements, instead of just telling facts as neutrally as possible.--Pyl (talk) 13:08, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

"Taiwan" is neither a sovereign state, a dependency, nor an autonomous area. "The Republic of China" is listed under sovereign states, and has a footnote saying it is commonly known as Taiwan. Why do we keep having to have this discussion? --Joowwww (talk) 09:48, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I think we should use "Sovereign states or regimes": There're lots of people think both PRC and ROC are 2 regimes of China, which is a country. Also, some people think N.Korea and S.Korea are 2 regimes of Korea, which is a country. --虞海 (talk) 05:40, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
How many is a lot? There is a reasonable portion of the world population who doesn't agree with your position. Therefore, to be neutral, Wikipedia says nothing and takes no position.--Pyl (talk) 06:23, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
Yes, that is a weasel word. But do you get this: Country is a subset of regime, and writing "Sovereign states or regimes" does not imply Korea is one country. As a result, both your group and my group are satisfied. --虞海 (talk) 06:54, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
No, it is not. The article never said things like "some would say.....", "most believe....". As I said below, I think you have made an incorrect interpretation of the weasel-word article. Yes, by putting Korea there it means Korea is "Sovereign states or regimes". I don't believe Korea is reunified yet (and maybe they never want to) so it is unnecessary to note that. To do so, Wikipedia will be taking a position that is not neutral--Pyl (talk) 07:07, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
Yes, there IS a kind of weasel word called Some people say that weasel words are great! However, here's another kind word(word with WP:D) also leads unneutral: just like what you said: "Taiwan is part of China = Taiwan is part of the PRC". --虞海 (talk) 07:23, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
No, not at all. "Commonly known as Taiwan" doesn't assert that the ROC is in fact Taiwan. It just guides the readers how to find the right entity. As I said, please re-read the article on this subject.--Pyl (talk) 07:58, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
1. "doesn't assert" is only your opinion; 2. A new weasel word appear: some people say that ROC is commonly known as Taiwan (with a inconvincing interior reference). --虞海 (talk) 03:51, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Let's just give this a break.--Pyl (talk) 10:21, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Give something a break is a method for those who're always satisfied with status in quo. So I disagree because it's unfair to those who always want to improve things. --虞海 (talk) 05:40, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
I appears to me that you are making a personal allegation against me for being "unfair to those who always want to improve things", because I said we should give this a break. This is a baseless allegation. I find this offensive and I ask you to withdraw.
Taiwan's legal position has been on the status quo since about 1949. There is nothing to change or "improve", otherwise we can be described as making stories. This is an encyclopedia, not a political forum. If one wants to "improve" things, he or she should join a political party and go from there.--Pyl (talk) 06:23, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
Well you didn't get my idea: When something is disputed, someone (is) satisfied and someone not satisfied. Those who're satisfied of course want to stop talking and sleep at home. It's unfair to those who're not. --虞海 (talk) 06:48, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
I don't believe that a sentence like "Well you didn't get my idea:" constitutes a withdraw of a possible personal allegation. I await your withdraw.
For the rest of your paragraph, I don't think I "want to stop talking and sleep at home" or being "unfair to those who're not". I believe this verges onto the territory of another possible personal allegation. I believe I am writing replies to your comments so I am not ignoring you.--Pyl (talk) 07:00, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
Ok, if you really do think so, I withdraw all those. But I'll throw a new sentence: You shouldn't ignore anyone's reply, or else it's either you "want to stop talking and sleep at home" or you want to have a relax and during the relax you need to endow other with ability to edit the article (till the time you reply). --虞海 (talk) 07:13, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] (Bookmark)

I've read Readin's "I realize there is a strong desire to deny the reality..." but I didn't get his idea. Why "is a neutral reality"? Why "Heck, the official POV of the Republic of China is that even Mongolia is governed by it."? Why ... "The ongoing attempts to portray Taiwan as a part of China and only a part of China are breaking the spirit of NPOV.": But it officially portrayed themselves as a part of (R.O.) China: they said Taiwan (as well as Fujian) is a province of ROC. What you need to warn is not to say any sentence like "Taiwan is a part of PRC", in order to avoid POV. --虞海 (talk) 05:42, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The fact that the government of Taiwan officially calls itself "Republic of China" has been pointed out many times. There are many reasons this is not a sufficient argument to say Taiwan is part of China. What is a name? A silverfish is neither silver nor fish. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is not democratic.
It is very important to understand that "official" is not a synonym for "neutral". For a long time, Stalin was officially a great leader of Russia. Mao is officially still a wonderful guy. The Indiana state legislature in 1897 nearly made pi officially 3.2 (the Indiana House approved the bill by 67 to 0).
For many years the debate was portrayed as simply between the Chinese of the PRC and the Chinese of the ROC who argued over which government was the legitimate government of all of China including Taiwan. Democracy and free speech have since come to Taiwan and a third view is now heard from the Taiwanese - that Taiwan is not a part of China. Taiwan is divided over the issue so changes to the "official" position are difficult to make, but that fact that the legacy official position is still around doesn't mean that it reflects the points of view of everyone or even most people in Taiwan. Readin (talk) 20:20, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
I mention the official name of ROC because the official name was given by the official people in Taiwan. So it represent that most people there agree Taiwan is a part of China but they fear it confused people because some people [who?] think China = PRC. As a consequence, some/most of them revolt saying "Taiwan is a part of China". However, when we add "(not be confuse with PRC)" or "(but there's also ROC)", it's better, nevertheless still not (most think) neutral. --虞海 (talk) 08:47, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
That the official name of the ROC remains "Republic of China" doesn't reflect what most people think. The legacy name "Republic of China" reflects a political system in which the KMT's money, patronage system, and legacy bureaucratic control give it a huge advantage in legislative elections and it reflects pressure from nations like the United States that Taiwan relies on for purchasing defensive weapons. In fact, in latest poll numbers I can find, 2004, 6.3% of Taiwan's citizens consider themselves just Chinese. 45.4% consider themselves Chinese and Taiwanese. 45.7% consider themselves just Taiwanese. Taipei Times A Ministry of Foreign Affairs poll taken in 2001 "found 70% of people would support a name change to "Taiwan" if the island could no longer be referred to as the Republic of China." BBC Readin (talk) 03:47, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the spirits of your view above but I wish to also add that points of view of people are very fluid and they can change very drastically. Opinion polls change on a daily basis. So is the official position. The acceptance of the "1992 Consensus" means the ROC government has reclaimed itself as the government of the whole of China. The ROC government didn't beat the drums or make a big fuss about it, but that was what the act meant.
So is Taiwan now part of China? It is according to ROC law. It is according to PRC law. It is according to international law (except for some legal technicality over the treaties that gave rise to arguments that the soverignity wasn't properly transferred from Japan to China). It is according to the UN. It is according to official PRC position. Now, it is again the official position of the ROC. It is not, according to supporters of Taiwan independence but no one knows their exact number.
It is important to note in this case, we are not talking about moral issues such as "democratic" "great leader" or "wonderful guy" or scientific questions like pi. We are talking about countries and territories, which governments and laws are qualified and are inherently designed to define. Those examples you used aren't sound.
My hesitation for not calling Taiwan part of China is simple: China is not a clearly defined term. China is a common name for the PRC and calling Taiwan part of China = calling Taiwan part of the PRC.
The categorisation of "Chinese in Taiwan" and "Taiwanese in Taiwan" in your statement was unnecessary. Many people in Taiwan identify themselves as both Chinese and Taiwanese. Also, Chinese can support Taiwan independence and Taiwanese can support Chinesee reunification.--pyl (talk) 08:03, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
Pyl always mentions "calling Taiwan part of China = calling Taiwan part of the PRC". I've already say I don't use it by itself. I use "Taiwan part of China (not be confused with PRC)" and "Taiwan part of China (but there's also ROC)" and now it a good sample to tell you the feeling of hearing "commonly known as Taiwan" by itself. --虞海 (talk) 08:36, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] (Bookmark)

So many "whys" and bald fonts. I personally find this a poor form of speech. It is rude and unnecessary.
I can't speak for readin or for the official position of the ROC. You are welcome to refer your enquiries to them directly. As far as I'm concerned (as just a Wikipedia editor following the established rules), Wikipedia points ROC's claims out without making an endorsement. That's neutral. Readers are entitled to know but they aren't supposed to be told whether it is right or wrong.
Have you considered the following possible interpretaion:-
  • China is a common name for the PRC; and
  • Taiwan is part of China = Taiwan is part of the PRC.
Therefore to be neutral, wikipedia shouldn't simply just say "Taiwan is part of China".--Pyl (talk) 06:23, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
Well, I don't think China is a common name for the PRC because the Wikipedia article China does NOT redirect to PRC. However, if you think so, you can write: "Taiwan is part of China (not be confused with PRC)." to avoid Template:Weasel. So what you said is easy to solve. --虞海 (talk) 06:37, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
I refer you to the 3rd paragraph of the "China" article which, for your convenience, I will reproduce here, as follows:-
"The last Chinese Civil War has resulted in two political entities using the name China: the People's Republic of China (PRC), commonly known as China, which controls mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau; and the Republic of China (ROC), commonly known as Taiwan, which controls the islands of Taiwan, Pescadores, Kinmen, and Matsu."
For the rest of your arguments, I repeat what I said on this subject previously, in particular, the possible interpretation that "Taiwan is part of China = Taiwan is part of the PRC".
A common name to aid readers is not a weasel word. I believe your interpretaion of the weasel word policy is incorrect. Please re-read the article.--Pyl (talk) 07:00, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
Well, just as you said: common name Taiwan confuse people just like the "Taiwan is part of China = Taiwan is part of the PRC" confusion. As a consequence, I suggest use "Commonly known as Taiwan, but there's also Fujian (ROC)" and "Taiwan is part of China (not be confused with PRC)".
Write "Commonly known as Taiwan" is just like write "Taiwan is part of China". --虞海 (talk) 07:27, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
It actually clarifies, instead of confuses people. When you walk down the streets outside Chinese speaking societies and ask people about "Taiwan", you are likely to get a very valid response. This wouldn't happen with "Republic of China". So here, we list the accurate name in the right place and footnotes it with "commonly known as Taiwan" so people can find the relevant information.
When you add "but there's also Fujian (ROC)" it just confuses people into thinking the "Taiwan" they think they know isn't the "Taiwan" wikipedia says it is. As you conceded earlier Taiwan is a common name for the ROC (including *both* provinces). So, by that logic, "Taiwan" (the common name) includes both places and there is no need to point it out again.--Pyl (talk) 07:41, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
Why do you keep drawing Fujian into this? There are several examples where one part of an entity has the same common name as the whole entity. Should all those include a statement that the entity includes also the other entities, except the one that has the same name? --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 07:48, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
My point exactly.--Pyl (talk) 07:53, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
I didn't get the opinion Pyl said, but I understand what Jhattara means. Well, I think those examples should include a statement, in order not to confuse reader. For example, we use "Taiwan is part of China (not be confused with PRC)" or "Taiwan is part of China (but there's also ROC)". --虞海 (talk) 03:11, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
No.
Wikipedia should not be taking a position on the question of whether Taiwan is part of China as that is a subject of great dispute. Readin (talk) 20:25, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Of course we shouldn't be involved into that. But if you merely say "commonly known as Taiwan" you're involved into it. I mean: Or you place ROC here in regimes and do not merely say "commonly known as Taiwan", or you place Taiwan in "Dependencies, autonomies, other territories". "Taiwan is part of China" is a good example to solve the problem so it should be used here. --虞海 (talk) 07:39, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
No one disputes that the ROC is a functioning self-governing political entity. No one disputes that it is commonly known as "Taiwan". However, the question of whether Taiwan is part of China is very much disputed. Many people will find your opinion that "Taiwan is part of China" every bit as objectionable as you would find the statement I believe is true that "Taiwan is not part of China" and in fact to the extent that China controlled Taiwan we should say "Taiwan was a colony of China". But of course I don't get to write what I want either because I have to respect the NPOV that says that no matter how nutso or evil a position is (like the nutso and evil imperialistic position that Taiwan should rightly be ruled by foreigners in Beijing who don't respect them simply because those foreigners practice a similar culture and have similar DNA and their ancestors conqured the island at one point in the past), that position has to be given equal treatment if a large number of supposedly serious people hold it. Well guess what, a lot of serious people, including at least one former President of Taiwan, hold the position that Taiwan is not part of China. No matter how nutso or evil you may think that position is, under NPOV you have to give it due respect. That's Wikipedia. Readin (talk) 03:36, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Here I agree with Readin. You got to respect the views of people who don't agree with you. That's the NPOV policy I kept talking about. "Taiwan is part of China" is highly disputed and we shouldn't put that in the template. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pyl (talk • contribs) 11:12, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Taiwan as an entity

      • Why do we talk Tibet here? I've made a independent section. --虞海 (talk) 07:23, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Why are you guys bringing politics to this? It is not that complicated. If Taiwan were to be listed, it would not be listed as a common name, a state, or a province. Like Tibet, it would be listed as an independent entity.

If Hong Kong and Macau are listed because of their high levels of autonomy, then they should not be listed. This article serves as a navigational aid to connect Asian topics, it is not a list of autonomies. If there are a lot of topics about some unknown territory that is not a country, it should still be listed. That is the whole point of this navigational template.--Jerrch 20:43, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Tibet isn't an independent entity. --Joowwww (talk) 20:49, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Tibet does not refer to the autonomous region controlled by China. For example, the History of Tibet is not the history of the TAR. In fact, a small proportion of Tibet is part of India. The same thing apply to Taiwan as well. And if we list Taiwan merely as a common name, it'd be confusing because the history of the ROC is not the same as the history of Taiwan.
Asia is not a region defined politically, that's why there are transcontinental countries. We should not list the articles politically either.--Jerrch 21:14, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Discussion has already started about changing the Tibet links to Tibet Autonomous Region. I have already said that if you want to make a template based on geographical areas, then you go ahead, but {{Asia topic}}, just like {{Europe topic}}, {{North America topic}}, {{Africa topic}} and {{South America topic}}, will list political entities. Perhaps you would like to have this discussion with the other templates' talk pages too? --Joowwww (talk) 21:46, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Changing Tibet links to TAR would be unacceptable. Apart from what I've been saying about not listing entities politically, TAR does not have any sub-articles, which does not fulfill the purpose of this template.
I am talking about this template, and this template only. Why should I bring the discussion to the other templates? Asia is the biggest, and therefore the most complex continent. It also has a longer history than most other continents. My point is, the central discussion set for this template is right here, not anywhere else.--Jerrch 22:30, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
“ Since Joowwww said "Tibet isn't listed as a disputed region, it's listed as an autonomous area." I'll change "Tibet" to "Tibet Autonomous Area ”
Do you mean that this template should disputed region? Then place Sikkim here and then I will agree using Tibet . --虞海 (talk) 07:23, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
I think there are several valid reasons for bringing the discussion to a place where the templates can be discussed as a group.
  • First, some level of consistency is useful between the templates. I don't think it should override NPOV or following what should be the purpose of this template - navigation - but consistency is useful.
  • The current layout is neutral and consistent. This result is as good as it gets.--pyl (talk) 06:35, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Second, if the other continent templates are also misusing the navbox style to make political statements about sovereignty and dependency, they should also be corrected.
  • Third, we've already had an exhaustive discussion here. A compromise was reached (though no one was truly satisfied, any compromise would have the same problem). Some of the editors are strident enough in their views that no further progress toward NPOV can be expected anytime soon. Some other editors, who I believe are acting on good faith, honestly believe that the template can and should be organized neutrally along political lines, consistent with other continental templates. They are strong enough in number and convinced enough of their correctness that we're not going to have any success persuading them otherwise. Which brings us to...
  • Fourth, you're likely to have more success bringing the matter to a crowd that is able to consider the issue without having strong biases on the Taiwan or Tibet question. In fact in doing so I would suggest not even mentioning the specific situation, but instead describe in general terms how the navbox is supposed to be for navigation and not for political definition, and ask if we should move away from trying to say which entities are sovereign, dependent, or whatever. Readin (talk) 22:50, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I sense a hint of allegation of bias here. I believe that is a big allegation to make and I would personally be more careful than the above when I give such hints, as such hints distract readers from the real purpose the above paragraph is trying to advocate.
  • People who protested at the Beijing Olympic Torch relays aren't necessarily "anti-China", and at the same time people who don't agree to list Taiwan or Tibet in a list of sovereign countries aren't necessarily "anti-Taiwan" or "anti-Tibet" either. These over-generalising labels are highly offensive and unnecessary.--pyl (talk) 06:35, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
Jerrch, please stop repeating your arguments without addressing my replies to your arguments. I find this very frustrating. One of my replies already said "when 'Taiwan' is listed as well as the 'ROC (commonly known as Taiwan)', people think they are two different countries"
I accept this template doesn't have to be about political divisions, but when you click on the links of the template, the browser takes you to the relevant political divisions instead of the generic geographic pages, then this template is implicitly telling you that it is about political divisions. I don't believe the concept of implicit representation should be overlooked here. This argument was made above but again no reply was given, so it is repeated here. Here I agree with Joowwww. If you want one that's all about the generic geographical locations, it is a good idea to make another template.
Otherwise, I can suggest a compromise: adding another section to this template entitled (to the effect of) "General geographic locations" and putting all those places there.--pyl (talk) 06:35, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
I believe my arguments are more relevant to this template than yours. I am not asking for you to put Taiwan under sovereign states, but territories. So there should be no confusion at all.--Jerrch 01:57, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
I seriously think that would cause more trouble than it's worth. I still feel that a separate template listing geographic areas would be more beneficial to their requests. It would keep the inevitable endless discussions about what constitutes a geographic area out of this template.
The world is split into political territories, and is administered as such, therefore political entities should take precedent. Like it or lump it, that's how the world is, and the template should reflect the current situation of how the world is run. --Joowwww (talk) 10:17, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Remember we have a consensus that it's a

“ Template without ambiguous and contentious "geographic areas" ”

. Tibet is a geographic area and Tibet Autonomous Region is an Autonomous Region.

I think redirect the article Tibet to Tibet Autonomous Region is unacceptable, but change "Tibet" to "Tibet Autonomous Region|Tibet" in this template is not only acceptable, but also necessary. The best way is when without perfix, use "Tibet Autonomous Area|Tibet", and when with perfix, use "Tibet". But there's a technic problem so I suggest using "Tibet Autonomous Area|Tibet". --虞海 (talk) 07:32, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Italics

Should't Taiwan be in italics, as it is not fully recognised by most states? --JensMueller (talk) 21:58, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

The PRC is also not recognised by some states. This was discussed before but it opened up a whole ugly can of worms. --Joowwww (talk) 12:14, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Tibet

[edit] Start: Moved from /*Proposal with working code*/

Since Joowwww said "Tibet isn't listed as a disputed region, it's listed as an autonomous area." I'll change "Tibet" to "Tibet Autonomous Area|Tibet". So do Xinjiang, Guangxi, Inner Mongolia, Macau, etc (Because of difference on definition). --虞海 (talk) 09:50, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Revert Xinjiang, Guangxi, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia and 2 SAR because the "difference on definition" occur on Tibet only. --虞海 (talk) 09:55, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
For this template to function properly it must use the short names of regions. There are some other links also that are ill defined in the no prefix and no suffix state. --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 10:13, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
I know it must use the short names of region, however, the short Tibet has become a parallel article, and it includes Qinghai. Qinghai is not a Autonomous Area though there's many autonomous prefectures in it. So we need to use "Tibet Autonomous Area|Tibet" instead "Tibet", or else list Sikkim here. --虞海 (talk) 06:57, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
That just like we instead Tuva as Tannu Uriankhai. --虞海 (talk) 07:05, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
That just like we instead China as Greater China, too. (I write this because nobody replies me.) --虞海 (talk) 06:01, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
Maybe we should add "Greater India" or "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" too? I don't see necessity of adding all those labels.--Pyl (talk) 06:46, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
Didn't you get I'm listing con-example? I was saying we shouldn't instead China as Greater China. For the same reason, we shouldn't use "Tibet" instead "Tibet Autonomous Area|Tibet". Don't make joke, please? --虞海 (talk) 06:59, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
Another 2 con-examples: when we should write Americas, because "it must use the short names of regions", you can write America to confuse readers. Or when we should write Republic of China, because "it must use the short names of regions", write China. --虞海 (talk) 07:06, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
I wasn't making jokes. I was just pointing out with examples why those labels dont mean anything. I don't think I have a position to take at this moment on Tibet. If you wish to pursue that further, please make a separate section, maybe below the following "Taiwan" section.
America is a common name for the country called the 'United States of America' and no one in their right mind will confuse the two, so there is no need to point out. This example can't be applied to China, Taiwan, ROC, PRC. This is a bad example. It is my view that pointing out mistakes that only a very marginal section of the society will make does not add weight to your argument.--Pyl (talk) 07:18, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Stop: Moved from /*Proposal with working code*/, start a new talk

To Pyl: Please mention the reason why "This example can't be applied to China". Also, I don't think "no one in their right mind will confuse the two": America is also a common name for Americas, see America_(disambiguation). --虞海 (talk) 07:37, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

This format I think is in a poor form. We should contain talks relating to Taiwan inside the original section. I was saying if you want to talk about Tibet (which I dont have anything to say about at the moment), you should make another section.

I think that's just the format you ask for. What do you mean by "relating to Taiwan inside the original section"? --虞海 (talk) 03:45, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
meaning, don't talk about Taiwan in a section called Tibet.--pyl (talk) 06:27, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, not only is Taiwan related to this topic, but Sikkim is related as well: if they don't change "Tibet" to "Tibet Autonomous Area|Tibet", they should add Sikkim into the template because that's a signal they agree disputed area should list here. As for Taiwan, it's a properly example. --虞海 (talk) 07:13, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

America is an ambigious word but normally people can tell what it means by context of the sentence. China, Taiwan, ROC and PRC can't really be clarified that way *neutrally* (that is, without offending people).--Pyl (talk) 07:52, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The relation between TAR and Greater Tibet is just between [the relation between Americas and USA] & [the relation between China and PRC, ROC, ETC.] --虞海 (talk) 03:45, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

虞海, what exactly are you proposing? --Joowwww (talk) 10:26, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I propose to change "Tibet" to "Tibet Autonomous Area|Tibet". --虞海 (talk) 03:13, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
I would have no problem with that, although one major issue is that there aren't as many "X in the Tibet Autonomous Area" articles as there are "X in Tibet" articles. --Joowwww (talk) 10:42, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
I know. That's only a technic problem. The best way is when without perfix, use "Tibet Autonomous Area|Tibet", and when with perfix, use "Tibet". But though there isn't that technic, we shouldn't use mere a Tibet to mislead people that "Qinghai, etc" is a part of Tibet. --虞海 (talk) 06:40, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
We can add an article Tibet (AR) redirect to Tibet Autonomous Region and then it's shorter. --虞海 (talk) 06:40, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Edit request to fix some 'the' issues

{{editprotect}} Could the template's code be replaced with the one found at User:Jhattara/Sandbox. Only changes are additions of 'the' to several entities that use it in their sub page titles. That page can be deleted when the changes have been applied. --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 08:39, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes check.svg Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:31, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Names of Asia template

For the "Names of Asia" template found on pages such as Names of China, Names of Japan, etc, the values for North and South Korea should redirect to Names of Korea, currently it is redlinked. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 04:05, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

EDIT: I have added redirects to the respective "name" pages; however I think the template topic should be "Names of Asia" and not "Name of Asia", which leads to many redlinks and misses many existing articles. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 04:10, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
Unfixable error: The link to Russia must be to Etymology of Rus and derivatives, however Name of Russia is a TV show. The template must be edited in some way. Alternatively, the Name of Russia should be either renamed Name of Russia (TV Project) or turned into a disambiguation page. An edit to the template should also be done on Name of Europe. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 04:21, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
I don't think the template can be fixed in that way, it only deals with a "Topic of Country" parameter, and exceptions can't really be made. All that can be done is redirects to the correct page. --Joowwww (talk) 11:52, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Disambiguate Papua

Hi. Would you please disambiguate the wikilink from Papua to Papua (Indonesian province). Thx -- billinghurst (talk) 08:49, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Seems uncontroversial. Seconded.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 17:21, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
I took a look, but this is a pretty complex template, so it's not as simple as just fixing a redirect. If someone wants to come up with the exact code changes that are needed though, please resubmit the request. --Elonka 21:44, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
(Done) Has been undertaken by a previous editor of template. billinghurst (talk) 13:21, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merge North and South Korea

Since there is only one article, Islam in Korea, covering the whole of Korea, the North Korea and South Korea entries needs to be replaced by a single Korea entry. Jagged 85 (talk) 11:38, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

That can't be done as this template just codes the "in Country" section and can't make exceptions for different topics. What can be done is a redirect to the correct article. --Joowwww (talk) 11:47, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Broken links

The links to Taiwan, Oceania, and Timor-Leste topics don't work. They point to the articles on the places/countries/regions/whatever you want to call them instead of pointing to the topical article. Unfortately the template is locked and can't be fixed. Why is the article still locked? Readin (talk) 11:57, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Can you give some examples? --Joowwww (talk) 12:38, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Go to the Art of Thailand page. At the bottom of the page, the navbox appears. If you click on "Jordan", the template directs you to the Art of Jordan page, just as it should. However, if you click on "Oceania", you are taken to the Oceania page rather than the Art of Oceania page.
  • For a second example, go to the Religion in Korea page. At the bottom of the page, the navbox appears. If you click on "Bhutan", the template directs you to the Religion in Bhutan page, just as it should. However, if you click on "Taiwan", you are taken to the Taiwan page rather than the Religion in Taiwan page. Readin (talk) 13:21, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
On further research, I'll retract the complaint about Timor-Leste as it is simply another name for "East Timor" and the East Timor links are working properly, and there don't appear to be any separate articles for Timor-Leste. Readin (talk) 13:21, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
The links in the bottom bar are just generic links to the area for disambiguation, they're not meant to link to topics. That's what the main section is for. Religion in the Republic of China redirects to Religion in Taiwan anyway. --Joowwww (talk) 13:55, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
I think this is just a case of misunderstanding how the template works. The links on the white background are "topic in (location)" style links, but the footnotes are not. Here's a copy of the template so you can see what I am referring to:
v • d • e
Religion in Asia
Sovereign
states
Dependencies,
autonomies,
other territories
Italics indicates an unrecognised or partially recognised country.  1 Sometimes included in Europe, depending on the border definitions.  2 Officially known as Myanmar.  3 Sometimes included in Oceania, and also known as Timor-Leste.  4 Transcontinental country.  5 Commonly known as Taiwan. 
  1. Taiwan is contained in the footnote "5 Commonly known as Taiwan." The topic link can be found at "Republic of China5" in the white area above. Although the article is actually named Religion in Taiwan, the template works because of a redirect found at Religion in the Republic of China.
  2. Timor-Leste and Oceania are contained in the footnote "3 Sometimes included in Oceania, and also known as Timor-Leste." The topic link can be found at "East Timor3" in the white area above. No topic links here for Oceania, as that is not part of Asia.
  3. Although you didn't mention this, it also applies for the footnote "2 Also known as Myanmar", where the topic link can be found at "Burma2" in the white area above.

Hope that helps clear things up. -- Zyxw (talk) 14:10, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

It does clear things up, thank you. However, for cases where the link goes to "Taiwan", the text on the page should say "Taiwan" as well. Of course when combined with the footnote, this would be confusing. Using "Republic of China (Taiwan)" would be clearer in all cases. The way it is currently structured, people looking for something in Taiwan will only know to look for "Republic of China" if they know Taiwan's formal name, which many people do not.

Also, this method only works when there is a redirect from a "Republic of China" page, which there often isn't because no one calls it that. This method places a burden on anyone who creates a Taiwan related page to remember to also create a redirect from a ROC named page, even in cases where it may make no sense because the topic is about something pre-1949 having nothing to do with the ROC.

Another problem is that the Republic of China page may hide the Taiwan page. A perfect example of this is History of Asia page which has no link to History of Taiwan. It also has no link to History of China which it should have because both the PRC and ROC history only cover a fraction of the total China history (just as the ROC page only covers a fraction of Taiwan's history). Readin (talk) 17:45, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Both China and Taiwan fall under geographical areas, which, as already established, aren't listed on this template. --Joowwww (talk) 19:07, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template configurabilty

I very seriously doubt whether there is any such thing as the "Coat of arms of the West Bank" or "Coat of arms of Gaza", which creates problems when this template is used for Template:Coats of arms of Asia. Is there any way to configure things so that these entries could be suppressed in the "Coats of arms of Asia" template? AnonMoos (talk) 08:19, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Technically it could be done, but excluding all such examples would make the template a bit too bloated. --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 10:26, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Build 3 Templates

These days, all problems we talked is about the name. (e.g. N&S.Korea,ROC/Taiwan,Tibet/TAR...) I think the best way to solve this problem is build 3 templates: Template:Asia topic, Template:Asian topic and Template:in Asia topic. In Template:Asia topic, use [[Tibet Autonomous Region|Tibet]], [[Republic of China]], [[North Korea]], [[South Korea]], [[Mongolia]]... And in Template:in Asia topic, use [[Tibet]], [[Taiwan]], [[Korea]], [[Mongolia]](Greater Mongolia), etc. And in Template:in Asia topic, those items shouldn't be list as countrys or dependencies, we use the phrase cultural entity. The Template:in Asia topic is used as "... in Asia(Somewhere)", Template: Asia topic is used as "Asia(Somewhere)" and Template: Asian topic is used as "Asian(Somewhere) ..." --虞海 (Yú Hǎi) (talk) 09:00, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I think three templates doing essentially the same thing would be highly redundant. --Joowwww (talk) 11:02, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. That would only give us an additional problem of determining which articles should use which template. --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 11:17, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
Anyway you must agree it can help us avoid many problems, won't you? --虞海 (Yú Hǎi) (talk) 13:25, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
It could avoid some problems, but it would also introduce a lot of new problems. --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 06:33, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
It avoids POV problems and introduces technical problems. However, technical problems are easier to solve. You know it's Wikipedian point to be strictly neutural and, as for the technic, unnecessary to be perfect. --虞海 (Yú Hǎi) (talk) 05:08, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
IMHO it avoids some POV problems but creates a new set of POV problems. Some people might argue that one template should be used in a place where others want to use a template with different contents. There are no actual technical problems associated with creating three templates, except for the increased workload of the editors. --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 09:05, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Abkhazia and South Ossetia should be marked with footnote 1

{{editprotected}}

If Georgia has a footnote that it is "Sometimes included in Europe, depending on the border definitions", these two entities should also have such note.--79.111.81.50 (talk) 21:23, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes check.svg Done Stifle (talk) 11:05, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

why was this "done" even though no kind of supporting evidence was presented? South Ossetia and Armenia are entirely in SW Asia. Azerbaijan and Georgia are transcontinental. Abkhazia should probably be considered as entirely within Europe. --dab (𒁳) 08:09, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Italicize "Republic of China"

{{editprotected}}

The template footnotes state that italics are for "unrecognized or partially recognized countries". As the Republic of China is only recognized by a handful of small countries, please italicize the name. Thank you.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 03:55, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

X mark.svg Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{editprotected}} template. Stifle (talk) 11:04, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
I could agree with that. It's a fact that many countries do not recognize ROC officially. --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 11:57, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
A bit of an issue as some countries that recognise the ROC don't recognise the PRC. --Joowwww (talk) 12:11, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
That's true though... Maybe keeping the article as it is would be the closest to NPOV. --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 12:39, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
Well, the reality is that it's a zero-sum game: there aren't any countries which recognize both. The PRC forces countries to choose one or the other. At last count I think there were only about 16 or 17 small countries (counting the Vatican) that recognized the ROC (this number is gradually shrinking). As for NPOV, there's nothing POV about the fact that the ROC is mostly unrecognized. If we're worried about offending people, then we should pick a consistent rule for the whole template.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 15:03, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
I think we should just leave the template as is. One interpretation of the word "partial" means not full (100%). The PRC, North Korea, South Korea etc don't have 100% of world recognition. Just to clarify, the ROC has formal diplomatic relations with 23 countries. But yes, all of them are relatively small. If we are doing italics, then we should do it to all of the countries with partial recognition (ie not 100%) in order to be neutral.--pyl (talk) 06:40, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but it deserves beating. This question of partial recognition wouldn't be an issue if we would just make this "navbox" a navigational aid and stop trying to make it a reference on which countries are sovereign and which aren't. Readin (talk) 13:53, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
It's already been said that you are welcome to make other templates based on geographical areas if you want to. But I don't see how this navbox template doesn't serve its purpose - navigation between the different sovereign states and autonomous areas/dependencies. The question of the ROC's recognition is exactly that - a question. One question doesn't warrant an overhaul of the entire Topic in Country template series. --Joowwww (talk) 14:20, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
If I were to make another template based on ease of navigation (no one said anything about "geographical areas"), what would I name it? Obviously I would name it after a region, like "Asia". "Asia" is not defined as a collection of sovereign states, after all. Why should the "Template:Asian Sovereign State topic" topic have exclusive use of the simple "Asia topic" name? Readin (talk) 01:22, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm not saying what a particular template should be called. This template is part of a series, and if one was renamed then they would all have to be too. And given that this is the only one where someone's claiming it should be, I doubt the idea of a series-wide move would gain much traction. --Joowwww (talk) 15:45, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
Given Pyl's insightful comment that "partial" means "not 100%", is there any support for just taking the italics out altogether? It seems to be a somewhat arbitrary line we're drawing with it.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 14:37, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
If it was discussed with the other Topic in Country templates and agreed to remove it across them all, keeping them consistent, then I would have no problem with it. Although some people probably would - in regards to places like South Ossetia - and I suppose deciding whether or not it is a country would be POV, with I think was the reason for the italics in the first place. --Joowwww (talk) 16:21, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
This sounds like something it's not really worth pursuing. :) I'll drop it. Cheers!--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 16:29, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Altai

Altai is a disambig page. Which Altai is in question? Bennylin (talk) 05:59, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

It's Altai Republic, but for technical reasons direct linking is not feasible. --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 13:06, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Actually I think it could be redirected as there are not many articles linked to Altai Republic. --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 13:10, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Foreign relations of Asia template

the template for Palestine needs to be added to this. I created one, while other bilateral pages are a [short-term] future possibility. Lihaas (talk) 18:22, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Altai => Altai Republic

{{Editprotected}}

Line [[{{{1|{{{prefix|}}}}}} Altai{{{2|{{{suffix|}}}}}}|Altai]]{{·w}}

should be changed into [[{{{1|{{{prefix|}}}}}} the Altai Republic{{{2|{{{suffix|}}}}}}|Altai]]{{·w}}

to avoid disambiguation. --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 13:12, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Wait, then line [[{{{1|{{{prefix|}}}}}} Tibet{{{2|{{{suffix|}}}}}}|Tibet]]{{·w}}
should be changed into
[[{{{1|{{{prefix|}}}}}} Tibet Autonomous Region{{{2|{{{suffix|}}}}}}|Tibet]]{{·w}}
to avoid confusion. --虞海 (Yú Hǎi) (talk) 13:32, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Yes check.svg Done. I did the Altai change. The Tibet change probably needs more discussion. Anything related to China / Tibet usually causes drama.... Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:24, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Autonomous areas of China

There's (3+1) levels of Autonomous areas in China, Autonomous region, Autonomous prefecture,(Autonomous county and Autonomous banner) and (Ethnic township & Ethnic sumu). You do only place Autonomous areas here, and that's a kind of discrimination to small ethnic groups here. --虞海 (Yú Hǎi) (talk) 13:34, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Every Autonomous area is of equality: or you list all of them, or you list none of them. You can also choose to list the former 3 because the 4th one is not real Autonomous area(Ethnic*). --虞海 (Yú Hǎi) (talk) 13:53, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Only Autonomous regions can be listed in here, because there are just too many of the others. --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 09:30, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Redlink titles

The Africa template has the following code that prevents redlinks in the titles: |title = {{#if:{{{title|}}} | {{{title}}} | {{#ifexist:{{{1|{{{prefix|}}}}}}_Africa{{{2|{{{suffix|}}}}}} | [[{{{1|{{{prefix|}}}}}} Africa{{{2|{{{suffix|}}}}}}]] | {{{1|{{{prefix|}}}}}} Africa{{{2|{{{suffix|}}}}}} }} }}

See Category:Bahá'í_Faith_by_country for an example of how these templates look side by side.

Could this be implemented here too please. Thanks AndrewRT(Talk) 23:57, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Military of Jakarta?

{{editprotected}} Military of Jakarta is a redlink in the Military of Asia template - but Military of Indonesia already exists (and is linked). I think this red link should probably be removed. There is an article (which is quite interesting) on Kodam Jaya which is the military region which includes Jakarta and it could have a piped link - but it is a sub article of Military of Indonesia above. Thanks Paxse (talk) 14:33, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Individual links can't be removed like that, the only thing that can be done is a redirect to Military of Indonesia. --Joowwww (talk) 15:24, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
Disabling request per Joowwww. Pagrashtak 20:44, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
Done. Thanks for your help. Cheers, Paxse (talk) 13:47, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Burma

{{editprotected}}

It is worth noting in footnote 2 as elsewhere in the encyclopedia that "Myanmar" is also the official name for the country. Could an admin please change it to "Also and officially known as Myanmar" or simply "Officially known as Myanmar". Also, linking to the redirect "Myanmar" isn't useful in this context. Bigbluefish (talk) 19:23, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Changed to "officially", as Burma lists it. Garden. 20:58, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Title

{{editprotected}}

v • d • e
Health care in South America
Sovereign states
Dependencies
1 Territories also in or commonly considered to be part of North America and/or Central America.  2 Territories also in or commonly considered to be part of Antarctica.
v • d • e
Health care in North America
Sovereign states
Dependencies and
other territories
1 Territories also in or commonly considered to be part of South America.
v • d • e
Health care in Asia
Sovereign
states
Dependencies,
autonomies,
other territories
Italics indicates an unrecognised or partially recognised country.  1 Sometimes included in Europe, depending on the border definitions.  2 Officially known as Myanmar.  3 Sometimes included in Oceania, and also known as Timor-Leste.  4 Transcontinental country.  5 Commonly known as Taiwan. 

I believe this template should show link to Health care in Asia only when the article exists.LincolnSt (talk) 11:38, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and it would if some kind admin would implement the change I requested under "Redlinks" above! AndrewRT(Talk) 20:07, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
Yes check.svg Done--Aervanath (talk) 07:16, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Many thanks! AndrewRT(Talk) 16:23, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Palestine

According to the footnotes, italics denote a country that is not internationally recognized (or only partially so). The lead-in sentence of Wikipedia's article about Palestine (specifically, the Politics of Palestine page) says:

Although the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) is not an internationally recognized independent sovereign state … (bold emphasis is mine).

Hence, the Palestine link in all Asia topic templates should be italicized. I'd also italicize the Gaza Strip and West Bank links as well, as they're sub-sets of the main "country"; particularly given that Hamas controls Gaza and Fatah controls the West Bank. But just italicizing Palestine should be acceptable. --MicahBrwn (talk) 07:07, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

There is no state of Palestine. In order to maintain a proper level of accuracy it needs to be changed to Palestinian Authority. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shamir1 (talk • contribs)
I agree with you that there's no internationally-recognized "State of Palestine". Yet, there is a political entity known as such. After all, technically speaking, there's no such country as South Ossetia, but that doesn't prevent anyone from including it in the template, yeah? Change "Palestine" to "Palestine Authority" if you must — lets just italicize how it appears in the template, okay? --MicahBrwn (talk) 07:14, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

There is no and has never been a state called Palestine, nor is their a political entity called such today. Please review this:

PALESTINE There is no independent state of Palestine today, although the stated goal of the peace process is to establish a state of Palestine alongside a state of Israel. So be careful with the use of the word "Palestine" as its meaning can depend on the context. For example, it can refer to historical Palestine or it can refer to a future state of Palestine living side by side with Israel as envisaged in the Roadmap.

[1]

ALL and EVERY mainstream news sources and encyclopedias do NOT use the term "Palestine" to refer to the territories governed by the Palestinian National Authority.

To maintain accuracy this must be changed to Palestinian Authority. --Shamir1 (talk) 00:40, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Or Palestinian Territories. Chesdovi (talk) 13:35, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

It is the Palestinian Territories as there is no state of Palestine.Tallicfan20 (talk) 05:50, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} There is a clear consensus that the "Palestine (Gaza Strip / West Bank)" entry needs to be italicized. Please do that. StormWillLaugh (talk) 01:56, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

As there were no objections, I have now done this. I also removed the links to the West Bank and Gaza, as no other territory has subdivisions. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:32, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Too many territories

Territories such as Ningxia, Xinjiang, Altai, Yogyakarta, Buryatia, Guangxi are not countries to be listed. Others such as the BIOT are uninhabited except military and government personnels.

[edit] "Republic of China"

There is no article on languages of the Republic of China - it redirects to - and the article is about - Languages of Taiwan, which is hardly the same thing. For more information about the difference, please see Political status of Taiwan, Taiwan, and Republic of China. The article should be linked to as Taiwan. Taiwan is, whether under the laws of the Republic of China or the People's Republic of China, or under international law, a territory. (The Republic of China is the putative state that controls it, in addition to its other territories.) Please change accordingly.

If and when an article is written about languages in the Republic of China, that should be added to the top list under that name. As it is, it's a bit like an article called languages of England masquerading as languages of the United Kingdom. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 22:12, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

The country Taiwan covers nearly all of the area of the state Republic of China. If there were to be an article on Languages of the Republic of China, it would likely be nearly identical to the article on languages of Taiwan. There is no need for two articles. Given the non-political nature of the subject, it is natural that the article focus on the non-political entity, Taiwan, rather than the political entity, Republic of China. Further, as the Republic of China is, as you say, the state, if we were to be very precise in our naming, an article on languages of the Republic of China would talk about the languages used by the government rather than languages used in the areas it governs. We don't need to split hairs here. People looking for information on the languages of the Republic of China should be re-directed to the Languages of Taiwan article, just as people looking for Taiwan Military should be re-directed to Military of the Republic of China. Readin (talk) 22:33, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
My point is that there is no "country" of Taiwan, and that Taiwan is not all of the Republic of China. I dislike the splitting of hairs as much as the next man/woman, but we should at least aim for some precision while we can. It is simply misleading to list "Languages of Taiwan" as "Languages of the Republic of China" because the two are, well, different.
As to the "apolitical" point - whoever decided to list this as "People's Republic of China" and "Republic of China" inevitably made the matter political. If they'd stuck to Mainland China and Taiwan, the issue would be completely geographical.
In fact, to strike out on a tangent, this whole "sovereign states" and "non-sovereign territories" business is almost a deliberate attempt to land everyone in a minefield. Given how many territories are in grey status (Taiwan and Palestine come immediately to mind - there are other less noticeable ones) -- this is counterproductive.
We need to either use some objective measure to determine what is a "sovereign state" and what isn't, or just abandon any pretence o judgment and simply label them all as "countries and territories". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:46, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Saying there is no country of Taiwan is opinion. The question of how many definitions of country fit Taiwan is contentious, but I think it is not honestly disputed that Taiwan fits at least one and maybe more of those definitions. You are right that Taiwan is not the only territory of the Republic of China - it also controls some islands on the Chinese coast. However, Republic of China is a state with a history going back to the early 1900s and territorial claims encompassing both China and Taiwan. What would an "Economy of the Republic of China" article cover? Would it not cover only a smidgen of the ROC's claimed territory? But the Economy of Taiwan article is much more precise, even if it does include the tiny islands on the coast of China. Of course, from another POV, "Taiwan" in current usage actually does cover those islands.
An important point of compromise for a long time has been that political subjects use "ROC" while non-political subjects use "Taiwan". I think it is a good compromise. I think a better way of handling it would be to use the common name "Taiwan" as is done for other states, for example we use "Mexico" instead of "United States of Mexico". But a compromise between the various POVs on what is NPOV is necessary because there is so little common ground.
whoever decided to list this as "People's Republic of China" and "Republic of China". Are you willing to help me get that changed? I was involved in a long discussion where I attempted to get Taiwan listed. The eventual compromise rested on the fact that an attempt to reach an article on the ROC would forward to Taiwan if no article on the ROC existed. Readin (talk) 14:43, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Saying there is no country of Taiwan is opinion. That's my point. The opposite is true, as well: saying that there is such a country as Taiwan is opinion. The word "country" is a quagmire. Almost any "country" in the world can be challenged on one basis or another on its "country" status - and in the case of contentious places like Taiwan, even more so. I don't see any other "country" being listed under the full and official name of the state that controls it. Whether on the grounds of deliberate ambiguity, precision, or consistency, the current situation certainly makes no sense. It makes even less sense given the context of the current political climate, where both the ROC and the PRC governments have gone back to the "one China" principle politically, while acknowledging the practical reality of separate rule for the two areas.
For me, the ideal situation would be this: have a first level list of "countries and territories", under which all of the current "sovereign states", including Taiwan and including Palestine, would be listed geographically; thus, we would have "mainland China" and "Taiwan" as separate jurisdictions. The understanding is that this list should only list places which are completely self-governing. Thus, a federated republic of the Russian Federation, for example, would not belong in this list.
In the specific case of Taiwan, that would be understood to be "the Taiwan Area", i.e. the territories effectively administered by the ROC. Thus, where an "X in Taiwan" article does not exist, it should redirect to "X in ROC"; if both "X in Taiwan" and "X in ROC" exist, then it should direct to the latter, since the existence of both articles implies that the "X in Taiwan" article covers only Taiwan in the narrow sense.
Underneath, we can have "subsidiary regions" or some other wording that connotes that the territory in question is a subset of one of the first-level countries and regions. Hong Kong, Macau, Tibet, Kashmir etc - distinct places which are not completely self-governing can go in that list.
What do you think of that proposal? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:07, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure I understand why the complaint about Taiwan's status as a country is being made here. "Taiwan" isn't listed as a "country" in the template. The template is currently divided into "Sovereign States" and "Dependencies, autonomies, other territories", neither of which include "Taiwan" by name.
I very much like you're suggestion of listing "countries and territories" together. That would remove the need to debate whether Taiwan is a "country", a "sovereign state" or a "dependent territory". Right now, Taiwan isn't listed as "Taiwan" at all in the template, which seems completely wrong regardless of whether you equate Taiwan with Japan as being independent, or you equate it with Hong Kong as being part of China, since both Hong Kong and Japan are listed. Someone looking for information on Taiwan won't find it unless they are one of the few people who know that the official name for the state called "Taiwan" is "Republic of China".
I think trying to separate the Hong Kongs of the world from mainland Chinas will be difficult. Both mainland China and Hong Kong are territories of the People's Republic of China. What makes mainland China "self-governing" while Tibet and Hong Kong are not? Is it the mere geographical presense of the capital? Is Taiwan completely self-governing when it uses a Constititution written overseas for another country? Isn't Hong Kong self-governing? I think we and the readers would be better off if we just dumped all the areas and states together so readers can find what they're looking for by name rather than first having to know the geopolitical status. Readin (talk) 11:47, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I used "Mainland China" in the above in the sense that it is used in the Taiwanese context - i.e. including Hong Kong, including Tibet, etc. Taiwan is completely self-governing, because the government that rules the whole of Taiwan is not answerable to any other government. This is not true of Hong Kong or Tibet.
I would not be averse to the idea of just lumping everything together. However, it seems to conflate the list if we allow Hong Kong - and therefore things like the Altai Republic or Ningxia - to be listed alongsidde the first-level entities. I fear confusion for the reader. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 21:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
A Min Dong dialect is spoken on the Matsu Islands. Min Dong is spoken nowhere else in the Republic of China. It is not spoken in Taiwan, and the Matsu Islands are not part of Taiwan. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.218.131.15 (talk) 23:23, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

[edit] ROI

Can India be changed to Republic of India ? --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 10:30, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

No, because there's no other country called India, as there are two countries referred to as Korea (ROK and DPRK) and China (ROC/Taiwan and the People's Republic of China), to give two examples. --MicahBrwn (talk) 07:18, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
Well, when America can be called the US, why can't India be called the Republic of India? It is the official name...... --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 06:58, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
Because "America" is also the name of a continent. Three continents, actually. --MicahBrwn (talk) 06:54, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Anyway, I really don't ace about that now...but could someone look into the matter I mentioned below this? --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 11:18, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
History of India and history of the Republic of India aren't the same thing. 112.118.149.157 (talk) 19:34, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] India

The template links to Time in India, which in turn redirects to Indian Standard Time. Can an admin modify this? --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 14:34, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

No, this is a generic template, and the links have to be generic. If the redirect to Indian Standard Time is inappropriate, you can of course change the destination of the redirect or create an article under that title. If there is an actual problem with it linking to Time in India (not sure why there would be), the solution is to create a new template with the desired links. As it is, I can't see any problem with the implementation of the template as it is. Warofdreams talk 13:35, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

[edit] New section on road signs

"{{editprotected}}"

Can a new section be created for road signs? 4 Asian countries have their own page on Road signs, see Road signs in India Road signs in Singapore Road signs in Thailand Road signs in Malaysia.... So, I was thinking, maybe a new section could be created for tis, and I could help in creation of them. --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 10:04, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

BUMP --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 22:03, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Once again I ask... is there an admin here? --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 13:52, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

There's no need for an admin to do anything - if you want to add this template to the relevant articles, please go ahead - if you're not sure how to go about it, check the instructions transcluded on the template page. Warofdreams talk 21:02, 6 June 2009 (UTC)


Well, atleast that proves how smart you are.... I requested for an admin to consider adding a secton on Road Signs in Asia to this. I know how to add templates to articles. Next time before commenting....READ. --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 08:25, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, you can create a new template called {{Road signs in Asia}} and then call this meta template as follows:
{{Asia topic
|name   = Road signs in Asia
|state  = {{{state<includeonly>|autocollapse</includeonly>}}}
|prefix = Road signs in
}}

result:

v • d • e
Road signs in Asia
Sovereign
states
Dependencies,
autonomies,
other territories
Italics indicates an unrecognised or partially recognised country.  1 Sometimes included in Europe, depending on the border definitions.  2 Officially known as Myanmar.  3 Sometimes included in Oceania, and also known as Timor-Leste.  4 Transcontinental country.  5 Commonly known as Taiwan. 
Hope this helps. –xenotalk 12:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I'll have a look, thanks a lot. :D ... --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 15:56, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

@World of Dreams, soory for the previous comment, but you should have said something more informative....
@Xeno, I found a faster way to do it, {{Asia topic|Road signs in}}

So, I guess Template:Road signs in Asia can be deleted now? --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 09:21, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes check.svgY Deleted — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:17, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Requested for an edit be made to this fully protected page

In the "Capital punishment in Asia" template, please make "Capital punishment" a link to "Capital punishment".--Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 00:51, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

You should put in a redirect to the desired article. Altering this template in that way would affect its use in many unrelated articles. Warofdreams talk 01:41, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Indonesia = transcontinental

Can one of the admin mark Indonesia as a transcontinental country please? I think it has a better claim to this than East Timor, partly by virtue of control of part of New Guinea.--MacRusgail (talk) 17:27, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Use in several topics

User Sebwite justifies removing this template form Driving Licences in India, and the corresp. article on Pakistan stating that most of the countries had red links and replaced it with an incomplete list. PLease comment on this.

"I found several navboxes each listing articles for driving licenses in each continent. But most of them are red links, and there are only a handful of such articles that do exist. Therefore, I think it is better to list all these articles on the {{traffic law}} navbox, where there is plenty of room for them, and for plenty more, should these articles be created any time soon." -Sebwite


--Rsrikanth05 (talk) 10:35, 5 August 2009 (UTC)


[edit] Add sub regions

I like to add Northern Province Sri Lanka as sub regions category. will u please allow me to do so. thank you--BlueLankan 16:40, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Is it an autonomous region? --Jhattara (Talk · Contrib) 09:01, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] PLEASE ADD

To any 'Administrator's who see this message, please include Law school in South Korea in 'South Korea' section to be active in this Asian law school template called 'List of law schools in Asia', to put this template on that page. Only as an administrator can help, so I cannot add to improve this. If anyone who see this request, please help me and this template ASAP. Thanks Million. Peterhansen2032 (talk) 13:03, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Could you please add

|state = autocollapse

Could you please add this line to the template. (I think the line under the template name would be fine) I would like to collapse the template in some articles. Thanks IQinn (talk) 04:40, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Never mind. No need to add this line anymore. I got to do what i wanted without it. Thank's IQinn (talk) 04:52, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Indonesia

Should be classed as transcontinental. I don't see Papua New Guinea in the nav box. VEO15 (talk) 14:13, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

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