Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries

Another move request at Burma

Surprised this wasn't mentioned here. Please join a move request discussion at Talk:Burma. Nightw 03:46, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Etymology vs toponymy

Project guidance is that an etymology subsection should be created under history if there is sufficient material. Should this actually be a toponymy subsection? --Biker Biker (talk) 13:00, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

It's placement under history is never followed in practice, so I'll change that. Also in practice, not all the sections are named Etymology, and not all countries have this section. See East Timor, which has the section titled "Name", or Rwanda, which doesn't have one as information doesn't actually exist (so I'm told). In the end it depends on the information in there, but if the name is change, there should be an anchor to Etymology {{Anchor|Etymology}} (see East Timor again). Chipmunkdavis (talk) 16:35, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

OK, but what about etymology vs toponymy? The latter is the correct word for the origin of place names (and anchoring to etymology is easy to preserve existing links) --Biker Biker (talk) 16:39, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Depends I suppose. Often the information goes beyond basic toponymy into the origin of the actual words, which I wouldn't personally classify as just toponymy. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 17:24, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Move discussion: ROC > Taiwan

Within this ongoing discussion, it is proposed that Republic of China is moved to Taiwan, and Taiwan is moved to Taiwan (island). Output from additional editors is welcome. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 10:30, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Malaysia FAC

Malaysia is up for FAC at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Malaysia/archive3. All comments welcome. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:27, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Comments requested at Flag of Western Sahara

Hello - Your comment is requested over at Talk:Flag of Western Sahara; there is an RfC underway there to help decide what the article contents should be. If you can take some time to share your opinion on the matter, it would be very much appreciated. --Tachfin (talk) 09:42, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Sound links removal by Jamaican IP

I encounter, by chance, for already quite some time one hopping Jamaican IP editor, who preferentially edits infoboxes of country articles, mostly tweaking wikilinks and removing all and any internal links to ogg files, sometimes adding external audio links instead. Recent example [1], but there are many more (he/she usually makes a dozen of edits and then hops). This is an example of their edit pattern 69.160.101.134 (talk · contribs) - wikignomish tweaks, yet systematically removing any ogg links on the way. Some edits are sort of misguided, like using language stats for ethnic stats. Any feedback? Materialscientist (talk) 23:13, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

There's a couple of IPs which gnome around on infoboxes, removing oggs and adding wikilinks, although I have no idea if they're all the same. If you think oggs should stay in, then I suppose we'll have to revert. We can't block them (hopping), and semiing all country articles would be unfeasible. I haven't noticed any language stats for ethnic stats myself, that's a problem. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 08:09, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Example on ethnic stats. Can't verify those edits easily, but saw a lot of such from that user recently, all unsourced, but not looking suspicious. I wrote because it is a not a random user, but a "wikipedian", editing every day, for months. Don't know about ogg, but some are "featured sounds", and [2] is an FA on anthems. Materialscientist (talk) 08:22, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Ah yes, 184.170.61.53. I haven't seen anything bad, I spotchecked their recent Malawi edit, and their ethnic group figures were taken from the CIA, and were different to the language figures. That Switzerland edit was also simply taken from the CIA, so if any error is present it's the CIAs fault not the IPs. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 11:19, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

RFC on coordinates in highway articles

There is currently a discussion taking place at WT:HWY regarding the potential use of coordinates in highway articles. Your input is welcomed. --Rschen7754 01:40, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Listing of dependencies on country lists

[3] Should dependencies such as Puerto Rico, Hong Kong, Greenland, Bermuda be listed with their own sections? 116.48.173.15 (talk) 14:05, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Austria 20th century editing

There is a few wrong stuff here, for example Adolf Eichmann was not Austrian, he was German born by nationality.

Secondly, "Austria was incorporated into the Third Reich" the better term would be "annexed" not "incorporated".

"Two days later native Austrian Hitler" then he is mentioned again as an Austrian origin, that is going twice over yourself.

It is a country also, not a state

I have edited it to how I think it should be and also the speech he gave when in Vienna.--Vincentnufcr1 (talk) 23:15, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Use of International Futures in Country Pages

Hello all,

I've come in contact with a source that I believe would be a tremendous addition to Wikipedia pages dedicated to countries. The project is called "International Futures" from the Pardee Center for International Futures at the University of Denver. International Futures is a long-term forecasting and global trend analysis project that has gained credibility and international notoriety in the policy community.

Their work has been sourced in some very credible projects that I've come across.

United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Reports - here's the latest http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2011/papers/HDRP_2011_08.pdf

The African Futures Project with the Institute for Security Studies - http://www.ifs.du.edu/assets/documents/Africa%20Futures%202050%20ISS%20Pardee%20IFs.pdf

The UN's Global Environmental Outlook - http://www.unep.org/geo/geo4.asp

The US Institute for Peace - http://www.usip.org/publications/vulnerability-intrastate-conflict

The US National Intelligence Council, Global Scenarios 2025 - http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2025_global_scenarios.html

And their work is hosted by Google's Public Data Explorer (Although I've been told that this data is not as current as their website) http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=n4ff2muj8bh2a_

It's difficult to find independent sources that verify their work, but I think that some of their clients and projects may speak to the quality of their work. I've been in touch with International Futures to get a list of some of this recent work, so if there's any other questions regarding their work I can contact them easily.

I've posted a few external links to country pages, but it has been brought to my attention that I should start a conversation on this message board to seek consensus. I think that it's a tool that has a great deal of utility, and the forecasts add something new and interesting to country discussions. International Futures is the world's largest integrated and endogenous model for global forecasting. As far as I am aware, this is the only place where these policy planning tools are freely available and open source. This project seems to place significant emphasis on transparency, which is part of the reason that I place such value in it. I believe it's a great addition, and I'd like to see these forecasts on more country pages. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

The web based version of the model can be found at http://www.ifs.du.edu/ifs/Ifs.aspx (Shredder2012 (talk) 22:01, 24 January 2012 (UTC))

I must admit I find it fascinating, but does it help readers to understand the country? Also, what links are you adding? Just the homepage? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 02:20, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response! I’ve found that International Futures is an excellent place to start for learning about a country. If I could, I’ll give you the example that I first encountered that has led to one of my current interests. I placed an external link to Ukraine’s “Key Development Forecasts” from International Futures on Ukraine’s country page.

http://www.ifs.du.edu/ifs/frm_CountryProfile.aspx?Country=UA

I think from just a brief look at this page, you can learn a great deal. For instance, the population forecasts go from 45 million in 2012 to 27 million in 2060. Clearly, this represents long and dramatic demographic transition. To me, these forecasts serve as a great launching point for further research. And examples like this are abound, just from this Country Page – from health or governance indicators to economic variables. Additionally, the model has many more capabilities, including scenario building and analysis of historical variables.

I first started experimenting with Wikipedia putting these Development Forecast pages in external links and using model-generated forecasts to do some in-text edits on country pages. I also used International Futures to generate a population pyramid for 2012 for Ukraine, which replaced an outdated pyramid on the country page. The external links that I have done previously are direct links to country-specific information. I’d definitely like to see this continue – I just haven’t seen anything quite like this project. Do you think this is something that would be a good addition to country pages? (Shredder2012 (talk) 04:57, 25 January 2012 (UTC))

There's a lot of information in those pages. As the pages also show some historical and some current information, I think they definitely fullfill the purpose of an EL. The Ukraine pyramid looks like an improvement to the article. I suppose you can definitely feel free to add them to the relevant pages, assuming they get their historical information from somewhere reliable. Just be sure to justify the addition on the talkpage if it ever comes into question. Cheers, Chipmunkdavis (talk) 11:34, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

That's excellent news, thanks so much for reviewing this source. I want to contribute in a meaningful way to Wikipedia discussions on countries and international relations, and I'm glad to see that we're in agreement. I look forward to working with you in the future, and please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any project ideas. (Shredder2012 (talk) 18:35, 25 January 2012 (UTC))

Categorisation of Hong Kong and Macau

From what I observed, many Hong Kong and Macau categories are subcats of the corresponding by-country parent categories (by their status of dependencies), and are subcats of the corresponding China or PRC categories with a <spacebar>Hong Kong or <spacebar>Macau catsort (in some cases an asterisk is used instead in place of the <spacebar> tho). When I apply it to other categories, SchmuckyTheCat (talk · contribs) undid them en masse.[4] Can anyone help look into the problem? Please respond at Wikipedia talk:Categorisation. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 17:09, 13 February 2012 (UTC)Blocked as sock

United States GAR

An article that you have been involved in editing, United States has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the good article reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Cambalachero (talk) 18:27, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Statesman's Year-Book, now in Wikisource

For historic information (1871, 1899, 1913, 1921) on the countries of the world, see the announcement at s:Wikisource:Scriptorium#Statesman's Year-Book. --LA2 (talk) 21:14, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Rwanda FAC

Rwanda is up for second FAC. Please comment at WP:Featured article candidates/Rwanda/archive2. Thanks!  — Amakuru (talk) 10:42, 25 February 2012 (UTC)