Talk:East Timor

Racist name

The current name of this article is racist and inaccurate. The moderators who are upholding this are themselves engaging in systemic racism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.140.192.45 (talk) 04:29, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Edit: I see that this article is written in British English. Timor Leste is not and will never be a British (or Australian) colony, but this article is being written for the benefit of those people, not the world. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.140.192.45 (talk) 04:33, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Regardless of any issues with the title (which have been discussed about 1 trillion times already - go and peruse the Talk page archives), the fact this article uses British English has no significance regarding colonisation. The variety of English used on an article is almost always just the native variant used by its original author, with subsequent edits being required to maintain consistency per sitewide policy. Timor Leste, being a Tetum- and Portuguese-speaking country and having no distinct variety of English of its own (as far as I'm aware), has no strong national ties that would give reason to favour it over AmE or any other. LetterC (talk) 15:20, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

This accusation of racism is ridiculous. We don't have to follow what the government of a country decides. OTherwise we should call Italy "Italia" and Greece "Hellas", oh and Croatia "Hrvtska". But besides this, what kind of craziness makes you think this is racist??????--190.80.244.132 (talk) 23:24, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

name of article

Just came here. Am shocked. The country calls itself Timor-Leste in English, the article provides a whole list. East Timor in English would be the eastern part of the island of Timor where today the country of Timor-Leste is. Naming this article 'East Timor' is as arrogant as the article about the USA called 'United States', while Mexico, which is also called "United States" doesn't get to use its own title. --142.163.195.187 (talk) 17:28, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

If you look near the top of this page, you will see that this issue has been discussed multiple times, most recently in December 2020. None of them have resulted in a consensus to move the article to a new title. There are links to the past discussions up there, you can review the arguments that people made there. Ultimately, the article's name will only be changed if there is consensus amongst editors to change it. GirthSummit _(blether) 17:38, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

The "eastern part of the island of Timor" would be "eastern Timor". Just like the difference between "West Virginia" and "western Virginia".--Khajidha (talk) 19:29, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

You're contradicting yourself when you say East Timor in English would be the eastern part of the island of Timor where today the country of Timor-Leste is. It makes as much sense as saying that Timor-Leste is wrong because Timor-Leste em português seria a parte oriental da ilha de Timor onde fica hoje o país de Timor-Leste ("Timor-Leste in Portuguese would be the eastern part of the island of Timor where today the country of Timor-Leste is"). Because, in case you didn't know, "leste" is Portuguese for "east".

Also, "United States" is not the full name of the United States of America. But, on the other hand, the short form "United States" was in use for some time before there was a United States of Mexico. Largoplazo (talk) 23:53, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

The best English translation of the long-form name of Mexico is "United Mexican States" not "United States of Mexico". Regardless, should we go over to the Spanish Wikipedia and demand that they move their article from "Estados Unidos" to "United States"? Rreagan007 (talk) 02:53, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Article Name

I know this discussion has had before, but I want to open a new option Considering its official English name as stated in the article, and seen here http://timor-leste.gov.tl/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Constitution_RDTL_ENG.pdf

I think that the most reasonable option is to change the name of the article to East Timor (Timor-Leste), such has been done similarly to Myanmar where the article is named Burma (Myanmar) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:EmilePersaud 21:42, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

No, it's named Myanmar. (CC) Tbhotch^™ 21:44, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

There is no such thing as an "official English name", as there is no regulatory body with the power to set standards for the English language. If you mean the "English form preferred by the government of the country", we don't give a shit. Never have. Never will. The only reasonable option is what we are already doing, using the form most commonly used in English. If you can show that East Timor is not the most commonly used form in English, do so. Unless and until this is shown, the article stays where it is. --Khajidha (talk) 19:05, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Usage counts, nothing else. Based on what we have found in Ngram ("East Timor" still dominating as of 2019) and the "News on the web"-corpus ("Timor(-)Leste" dominating since 2016), it will be worth digging into this again in 2023 or 2024. For this year and 2022, it's a waste of time and energy. @Khajidha: Talking about so-called official names, have you been aware of this one? –Austronesier (talk) 19:56, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Note that this also affects the Wikidata part, to which on their d:Talk:Q574, @UWashPrincipalCataloger: told us a lot of sources say "Timor Leste". --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 10:17, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

I am not sure article names here have much affect there. Wikidata is a separate project, it may have different naming criteria. CMD (talk) 12:03, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

I came here from a separate page (ISO codes) but admit my surprise, having not heard of this country being called anything except "Timor-Leste" for many years. I would suggest that it is being held back because some fear that agreeing to change now would imply they were wrong to argue against the name change in the past (they probably had a point in 2005, but now?). We have changed a number of country titles since Timor-Leste became the official title - North Macedonia, Eswatini, maybe Myanmar (don't know when that was switched) - so why is this particular one being held back? Who still calls it by its old name? 110.33.28.251 (talk) 10:22, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

In one of the yellow boxes at the top (you have to click "About the page" in mobile view), there is a pointer to the last discussion in Dec 2020. Who still calls it by its old name? Answer: many[1] (although this search might contain some false positives which actually refer to the province during Indonesian occupation). While I'm absolutely in favor of renaming the page, corpus evidence is only slowly building up to get a stronger point than in 2020 (the elephant in the room is Google Ngram which only includes sources until 2019). And as you can see from the many non-arguments in the move discussion, even corpus evidence will quickly be dismissed unless it is overwhelmingly in favor of the new target. –Austronesier (talk) 11:33, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Timor Leste

The article seems to insist the English pronunciation of 'Leste' in 'Timor Leste' is "Lesh-tay," but I've never heard it that way? It's always been pronounced "Lest" or rarely "Les-tay." To clarify, this is from an Australian pronunciation perspective. I've never heard 'Leste' with a 'sh' sound. KesshouRyuu (talk) 03:04, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

I agree with you. The English pronunciation would be "les-tay". It definitely shouldn't be anything like "lesh". Rreagan007 (talk) 19:50, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Pronunciation should be like “lest”, this is the most proximate to the Portuguese pronunciation (not to mention the most used pronunciation by Angolophone people who actually have gone to Timor). Cristiano Tomás (talk) 21:09, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

English speakers generally treat Portuguese vowel letters as they do the same vowels in Spanish. For example, English speakers pronounce Portuguese names ending in -o with /oʊ/ rather than /uː/ on the end. We'd pronounce your first name the same whether we thought you were from a Spanish- or Portuguese-speaking country. Largoplazo (talk) 23:42, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:East Timor/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Ovinus (talk · contribs) 05:54, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

I'll review this one; excited to learn something new! Given the exceptionally high readership and importance, I want to be careful, so this may take a while to review. I'll make copy edits as I go through; I won't feel strongly about them, so revert as you please. Ovinus (talk) 05:54, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments and edits, a slower review is not a problem. Will think about the comments already given and reply when I have fuller time. CMD (talk) 07:26, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Hi Ovinus, this has actually caught me at a busy time, so I haven't had as much time yet as I need. I have had some time though to look into some of your history questions, and I am having difficulty finding answers. There is very little information about the early History of the island, even during the early Portuguese era. Even where information does exist, I have found on occasion contradictory dates in different reliable sources. I suspect this is why many sources keep their information quite general for this period. CMD (talk) 18:16, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Do take your time; I actually have finals next week, so I'll be busy too. That's interesting that information is scant; I think the more important part is defining terms like "sacred house", "dyadic", etc. or using simpler terms. That shouldn't be too hard. Ovinus (talk) 19:10, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Those will certainly be done. Frankly, in the long term Sacred house needs its own article. CMD (talk) 01:32, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Content

Nominator has written the vast majority of the prose, which is good to see. I'll be referencing Canada, a well-maintained FA about an admittedly bigger country, but with good ideas on organization.

• A labyrinthine first sentence. Thoughts on putting non-English pronunciation/translation into footnotes? Ovinus (talk) 06:16, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

I shifted them into Etymology, as well as the references, let me know if that looks cleaner. CMD (talk) 11:55, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Me likey, thanks

Etymology

• "in Indonesian, Timor Timur" I'd put this as a separate sentence, and same with the fragment in the next sentence. No need to be too "elegant" when we're just listing translations, and I find this currently very hard to read Ovinus (talk) 06:16, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

  Spread it out a bit

• Any information on who actually first called it Timor, perhaps in Portuguese? Ovinus (talk) 06:16, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

  I've looked for this and haven't found an answer. My OR is that presumably the Portuguese started using the name while controlling Malacca, as at that time they did receive trade from Timor. Whether the name was a mistaken translation of a Malay direction, or traders really did call the island East, or the name had split from East already within Malay during some earlier period of thalassocratic empire, I am not sure. I certainly will add it if I ever find it. CMD (talk) 12:04, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

• Anything sourceable/important on usage differences between East Timor and Timor-Leste? From the current text it seems Timor-Leste is preferred by the international community? Ovinus (talk) 22:23, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

  Timor-Leste is preferred by the Timorese Government, and formal diplomatic use flows from that. East Timor was the ubiquitous name prior to independence, and has remained in use despite the official preference. Some writers use "East Timor" to refer to pre-independence and "Timor-Leste" to refer to the independent country, but this is not a universal practice. Oddly hard to find a good source on, although I don't think there is much more to say than the name officially being Timor-Leste in English. CMD (talk) 17:40, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

History

• "The first is described by anthropologists as people of the Veddo-Australoid type" – Is this a controversial enough description for the hedge of "described by anthropologists"? Also, the linked article claims that this racial classification is outdated; is that true?

  I've tweaked, the ways that linked page describe the classification as outdated are unfortunately unhelpful to the topic of migratory waves, as they relate to present populations.

• "sacred house" What is a sacred house? A little sacred dwelling, a bloodline, ...?

  I'm having trouble rewording this, as it's literally a house that is sacred. The sources note it is a community and religious centre with a lot of symbolic importance as well, but it is actually a building.

• "dyadic" "temporal" Please dumb it down for me – this should be broadly understandable

  Edited

• "source of tribute" What kind of tribute?

  The source notes it was just on a list of tributaries, it might not be known what various items were given at various points.

• What made sandalwood attractive to Europeans and other traders?

  Added earlier in the paragraph.

• "Early Portuguese presence on Timor was very limited" When did the first Portuguese land? Indeed, who was the first European to set sights on the island, let alone land? This information appears to be omitted

  Presumably traders landed in what is now Oecusse in the 1510s; different reliable sources give different dates, so I assume there is a significant lack of documentation.

• "before that was lost to the Dutch in 1652" What is "that"? Kupang, or the west, or?

  Kupang, tweaked.

• "Effective European occupation in the east of the island only began in 1769" What did the Europeans impose? Were traditional ways of life still tolerated?

  To the extent they could, the Portuguese imposed taxes. They entirely lacked the capacity to do much more at this time, even if they wanted to, and they were stuck in Dili. There is a bit more detail in Portuguese Timor, particularly how control began to expand following the 1861 revolt and subsequent military campaigns, and the 1895 military campaigns which along with other issues culminated in the East Timorese rebellion of 1911–1912, which the Portuguese defeated. This is alluded to in the "until the late nineteenth century" sentences, let me know if more is needed.

• "drove the last of the Australian and Allied forces out" When did the war start and end?

  Added.

• "Portuguese, Indonesian and Catholic Church data estimated 200,000 deaths" Were these data compiled as a joint effort between these groups, or did each of them estimate 200,000 on their own?

  Great question, per the source, it is an estimate generated from all that data combined. The source does stress the uncertainty of the numbers, so I have added that caveat.

• "improvements in infrastructure and services" What improvements? Were there any?

  Primarily health and education services, which I have added. There were economic changes too, but these mostly benefited Indonesians, and disappeared after 1999.

• "The 1991 Dili Massacre" Who killed whom and how many

• Added; a sad topic.

• "Fretilin resisted the invasion, initially as an army, holding territory until November 1978, and then as a guerrilla resistance." Maybe this should go a couple sentences earlier, before the elaboration on living standards?

• Moved it right to the start.

• "The following year, Gusmão declined to run for another term." Did his resignation follow from the unrest and violence, or were they unrelated?

  I'm sure it was related, but I'm not sure how that might be expressed. The period included political infighting between Gusmão and the PM at the time (Mari Alkatiri). Alkatiri resigned, and was replaced by Ramos-Horta, who as noted in the next sentence then become President. Gusmão then ran for PM, and managed to win after some coalition building which I feel is too detailed for inclusion here, although I added his party name there instead of later.

• "an attempted assassination" Maybe "assassination and coup attempt"?

  I am unsure if it is accepted as a coup attempt.

• "AMP" is introduced as an initialism before it is defined

  I've edited that paragraph quite a bit to clean it up and smooth its flow, and removed the coalition names. Hopefully it can eventually be rewritten to be a more general history rather than purely political.

• "Jose Maria de Vasconcelos, known as Taur Matan Ruak" How relevant is his real name? (What do English-language sources tend to use, unqualified? Do they usually introduce him under both names?)

  Cut to just the common name. Both are used, but I would say the de Vasconcelos name is always qualified with the note he is usually called Taur Matan Ruak. CMD (talk) 14:34, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Politics

• "in practice the executive has maintained control of the legislature, under all political parties" This definitely deserves elaboration. Have there been any efforts to fix this imbalance?

  The source states that this is "a pattern typical of emerging democracies" (which sounds accurate to me), and later says "Once the pattern of executive dominance

has been established, it is difficult for the legislature to later assert its independent powers." I have not read anything on changes to this balance, but I have added that this imbalance reflects the dominance of individuals leaders (tying in to later text on political parties).

• "Despite political rhetoric, the constitution and democratic institutions are almost universally respected" By whom? This seems redundant with the last sentence of this paragraph

• The first sentence refers specifically to politicians, whereas the last is for the public. I have tweaked the first and added context from the source.

• "and turnout is high" Average numbers would be nice

• Not in the existing sources, so I added a range from [2].

• The two consecutive paragraphs (one starting "Formally", the next starting "The head of state") appear to largely overlap. Certainly the second is a better way to introduce the role of the president. Maybe they could be merged

  Great idea, merged.

• "Political parties or political coalitions must receive at least 4% of the total votes to enter parliament" 4% or 3%, as stated earlier?

  Well, given those sources disagree, perhaps I am missing some nuance in the 4% one. Going with 3% per this primary legislation.

• "Most parties are based on personality, rather than policy" This seems like far too broad and controversial a statement. Maybe add some more sources and elaboration. (Similar problem as the "maintained control of the legislature under all political parties" part I mentioned)

  I have shuffled the text to hopefully link this statement more clearly with the discussions of the old guard who are the major personalities. I also added more context about CNRT together with a focused source on Xanana Gusmão as an example. CMD (talk) 18:12, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

• Regarding the participation of women, which I partially reverted a copyedit on, I wrote to emphasise the role the law played in parliament. The English translation of the law is particularly striking: The lists of effective and alternate candidates shall include at least 1 (one) woman candidate for every group of 3 (three) candidates, under pain of rejection..

Administrative divisions

• The municipalities are: Aileu, Ainaro, Atauro, Baucau, Bobonaro, Cova Lima, Dili, Ermera, Lautém, Liquiçá, Manatuto, Manufahi, Oecusse, and Viqueque.

  Done.

• "customary units" what does this mean (compare customary units)

  Took a stab at an explanation.

• "a structure that was only put in place in 2016" – is "only" necessary here? I see it as mild editorializing

  Reworded. CMD (talk) 00:40, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Foreign relations and military

• "seen as mutually exclusive" by whom?

  By Ramos-Horta at the time. The source notes this was expressed as an Indonesian position at the time, presumably Ramos-Horta had specific insider diplomatic info. I have tried to reword it without going into undue detail. CMD (talk) 03:21, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Spotchecks

Relative to Special:Diff/1130484202

• [7]: Good
• [15]: Good. Interestingly, the source uses the name "Oecussi"—do you know what that's about?
• [16]: Good
• [17]: Source claims four waves rather than three as stated in the text.

  I'm having to think about this one. The current source notes 3 clear wave, and a fourth potential wave. This all hinges not only on who arrived, but how a wave is defined. The peopling of the region is an active area of research, so at the moment I'm leaning towards going more general and just noting the arrival of multiple waves. CMD (talk) 10:28, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

  Fully replaced and re-written. CMD (talk) 10:53, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Just noting I haven't forgot about this; sorry for the delay. I'll have more comments soon. Ovinus (talk) 23:46, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

No issue on my end, hope 2023 is working out so far. CMD (talk) 01:41, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

I won't be able to complete the review so I will mark this for a second opinion. Ovinus (talk) 09:33, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Second opinion

I'm starting where Ovinus left. Not going to double-check the above review.

Geography

• East Timor shares the island with Indonesia, which separates the main part of the country from the Oecusse exclave -> I find this sentence difficult to understand. It's mentioned more clearly earlier on in the article, so you may want to omit the second half of the sentence.
• The capital, largest city, and main port is Dili, and the second-largest city is the eastern town of Baucau. citation?
• I've made a small edit to the climate change sentence, but I'm not sure if you could describe a 0.8C raise as a small increase. It's slightly under the global average, but that level of warming can still have a significant effect in a tropical climate (which usually see more stable climates, and hence less resilience to warming).
• The northern coast is characterised by a number of coral reef systems that have been determined to be at risk. -> 2010 source is quite old. Coral reef has been changing rapidly over the last 13 years. Still at risk?
• If you're planning to go for FA, you may want to limit WP:PLUSING: Example: There are around 41,000 terrestrial plant species in the country, with around 35% of the land being forested in the mid 2010s. Slightly ambiguous, as forested can mean the act of planting forests or being occupied by forests. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 11:29, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Economy

• "The economy of East Timor is a market economy, which used to depend upon exports of a few commodities such as coffee, marble, petroleum, and sandalwood." When I see "used to", I expect as the next sentence how that has changed.
• Of those of working age, around 23% are in the cash economy, 21% are students, and 27% are subsistence farmers and fishers -> wikilink or explain cash economy. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 11:29, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Demographics

• I would relink Fretilin here; as it's a long article, and people usually don't read every section.
• "Ethnic background and linguistic group do not clearly define Timorese communities, with many communities within these broad groupings and many areas with overlaps and hybridisation between ethnic and linguistic groups" can you write more clearly, had to reread a few times
• East Timor's adult literacy rate in 2010 was 58.3%, up from 37.6% in 2001. I usually expect the most recent numbers in the first sentence. Later the article names the 2016 numbers. Do we need all three? —Femke 🐦 (talk) 11:29, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Culture

• Ancestry was an important component of leadership, with ancestors being an important part of cultural practices -> could be simplified to "Ancestry was an important part of cultural practices and leadership"?
• Impressively written. Those sections I always find exceedingly difficult to write. It looks a bit underlinked. example: internal migration. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 11:48, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
• "A strong oral history is highlighted in individuals able to recite long stories or poetry. This history, or Lia nain, passed down traditional knowledge" Link oral history. Consistent tense (either both past, or both present) would make sense here. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 11:48, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Images

• Not a GA thingie, but alts seem to be missing for most. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 11:31, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

  Thank you Femke for taking this up, and especially for your kind word on the Culture section. Writing about Culture is also traditionally not my forte, so it is encouraging to hear I managed some coherence despite the lack of wikilinks. I have worked through the suggestions you have made, let me know if the fixes suffice. Best, CMD (talk) 09:21, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

  Looks good! And again thanks for working on an important topic like this. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 17:07, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 6 January 2023

East Timor → Timor-Leste – Firstly, it's the official name used by the country as a short English form in pretty much every context. There were a handful of past discussions that got relatively strong support for a move. Secondly, it anecdotally seems to be used a lot by sources from outside the country with close connections to the country, such as https://www.oxfam.org/en/what-we-do/countries/timor-leste-east-timor. Finally, Google Trends is all over the place but seems to show there to be roughly equivalent amounts of both names, meaning that this isn't some place where an officially correct usage is contradicted by common practice (https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%203-m&geo=US&q=timor-leste,east%20timor,timor%20leste). Also, if it is upheld, all other articles referencing East Timor should be moved. Mcavoybickford (talk) 02:34, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Comment: Going by a look at Google News for the past week, [3] [4] (excluding one site, eturbonews.com, that comes up repeatedly, but only because it displays links for all the countries of the world on the right side of the browser, not because the country is mentioned in the text), the two names get forty-something hits each. If other meaningful indicators that people bring here are similarly neck-and-neck, I'm gonna support the move. Largoplazo (talk) 03:24, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

• Question The previous RM (Talk:East Timor/Archive 7#Re-name_Timor_Leste) was closed suggesting that a new move request be made alongside the presentation of good body of evidence, has this body of evidence been collected? What has changed since the last RM? CMD (talk) 03:42, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

  Here's some additional evidence:

  - GLOWBE, a major corpus of English on the web from December 2012, so a little out of date, gives 2525 hits for East Timor and 1308 hits for Timor Leste or Timor-Leste. This data would let us explore further regional variation if it seemed like it was warranted.

  - NOW, another web corpus that isn't broken down by country but contains more recent hits, gives 10460 hits for Timor-Leste or Timor Leste and 9750 for East Timor. Throwing in East-Timor doesn't really affect the data.

  - Since the last discussion of moving it (17 Dec 2020), Timor-Leste with the hyphen has slightly more hits on the NOW corpus than East Timor (1950 to 1915), while Timor Leste has 499 hits.

  - Since this article is supposedly written in British English, I pulled out the UK and Australian numbers from GLOWBE. The UK has 47 hits for Timor-Leste, 20 for Timor Leste, and 228 hits for East Timor. Australia has 412 hits for Timor-Leste, 154 for Timor Leste, and 1174 for East Timor. So for both of these it's a little more slanted towards East Timor, but not enough to justify overruling what the country actually calls itself.

  - The English-language citations and bibliography for this article show a mix of East Timor and Timor-Leste (plus the occasional Timor Leste). If I counted right, there are 69 hits for Timor-Leste, 6 for Timor Leste and 57 hits for East Timor, although this does include a few non-English sources, includes word forms of all of the above such as East Timorese, and doesn't take into account that some individual sources say the name of the country multiple times in the title.

  But all in all, the biggest features prompting this are that the article is being nominated for good article status and that there's been some time since the last review and Timor-Leste clearly has not lost ground.

  In my opinion the other question is what to do with articles with "East Timorese" in the title that refer to the country of Timor-Leste, rather than the region before independence. I can't quite figure out what the typical usage is in Timor-Leste, or, for that matter, anywhere else. Maybe some Wikipedian from Timor-Leste knows? My best guess is to use Timor-Leste in contexts similar to United States, for example 2016 United States presidential election but where countries with clearer demonyms would get the demonym, and use Timorese or maybe East Timorese elsewhere. Mcavoybickford (talk) 12:36, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

  Re ... but not enough to justify overruling what the country actually calls itself: The criterion is what a majority of applicable sources are using, not a majority of applicable sources minus an arbitrary margin to reflect what the country calls itself. We aren't overruling anything, as that implies that what the country calls itself is a factor at all. It isn't. Common usage is what we're tallying. If you want to characterize common usage as "overruling" what the country calls itself, that's fine, but common usage is, nevertheless, what we're going by. Largoplazo (talk) 13:11, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

• Support per nom, NAMECHANGES, Kyiv, etc.--Ortizesp (talk) 17:06, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose The English Wikipedia article has always been called "East Timor". That name is consistent with Wikipedia's "use English" policy. East Timor is a small, relatively insignificant country and its own use of the Portuguese version of its name is mainly for internal political reasons that are of little interest or relevance to English speaking readers of an English language encyclopedia. Over nearly 20 years (ie almost the entire life of the present day country), numerous attempts have been made to change the name of the English Wikipedia article, and none has succeeded. Various Wikipedia articles in other major western European languages (eg Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish) are not named "Timor-Leste". There has been no significant change in the statistics since the last attempted name change of the English Wikipedia article only 2 years ago. This latest attempt should be speedily closed. Bahnfrend (talk) 04:03, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose Language, including common names, is determined by usage. It is not determined by one government's decree. I don't see the common usage situation changing since the previous move suggestions. --Merbabu (talk) 04:07, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:UE and WP:OFFICIALNAMES. —  AjaxSmack  04:09, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per the general trend of the proposal(s) not taken from September 2005 (as listed at the top of this page) and the comments from User:Bahnfrend JarrahTree 04:57, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:USEENGLISH. The most common name for this country in English is the current title. Whenever RMs like this come up, I can't help but wonder if the French Wikipedia gets repeated requests to change the title of this article from Timor oriental, or if the German Wikipedia gets them to change from Osttimor. But perhaps the nominator can answer that question, as it appears that he can understand both French and German. Rreagan007 (talk) 05:41, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

• I'll break the suspense: Once for the French article (in 2009), and never for the German article. In comparison, the French article has had two people (both over ten years ago) request that the country be relocated to Oceania, whereas I've seen that here only once. Largoplazo (talk) 11:38, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

"- Since this article is supposedly written in British English, I pulled out the UK and Australian numbers from GLOWBE. The UK has 47 hits for Timor-Leste, 20 for Timor Leste, and 228 hits for East Timor. Australia has 412 hits for Timor-Leste, 154 for Timor Leste, and 1174 for East Timor. So for both of these it's a little more slanted towards East Timor, but not enough to justify overruling what the country actually calls itself." So, actual English usage in actual English speaking countries is in favor of East Timor by a factor of 2 or 3 to 1 and you think that is evidence for changing to Timor-Leste? How does that make a lick of sense? --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:07, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose as a perennial request with no change in the underlying facts since last time. Srnec (talk) 21:34, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support per nom. ...Also, mentioned in one of the previous Requested moves, here are a whole bunch of credible sources referring to the nation as "Timor-Leste":

• The official site of the Government of Timor-Leste
• CIA - The World Factbook - Timor-Leste
• The World Bank - Timor-Leste
• The Guardian - Timor-Leste
• World Health Organization - Timor-Leste
• United Nations Development Programme Timor-Leste
• United States Department of State - U.S. Relations With Timor-Leste:
• Permanent Mission of Timor-Leste to the United Nations
• Japan International Cooperation Agency - Timor-Leste
• Asian Development Bank - Timor-Leste
• UN News Centre - UN peacekeeping mission ends operations as Timor-Leste continues on path to ‘brighter’ future

etc. Here's my thought process: if usage is evenly split between the two names, why not go with the official one? Paintspot Infez (talk) 23:12, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Comment: - except as has been shown, usage (ie, common usage) is not evenly split. It clearly favours East Timor. --Merbabu (talk) 23:16, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

If these sources didn't suffice before, why would they suffice now? To be clear about it, the criterion isn't the existence of a lot of sources, and certainly not the repetition of previously mentioned sources, but a preponderance of sources. While I did find them neck-and-neck with my search mentioned above from Google News, that's not what others are finding elsewhere, as the discussion shows. Largoplazo (talk) 00:33, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose for consistency as well, we use Ivory Coast for Ivory Coast as well, not Côte d'Ivoire. Also see WP:TRANSLITERATE.Ckfasdf (talk) 00:03, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

• If consistency were the criterion, then we'd have Thailand under "Siam", Sri Lanka under "Ceylon", and Beijing under "Peking". Titles can be changed to reflect updates in real usage. It's just that real usage doesn't always catch up quickly to official decrees. Largoplazo (talk) 00:36, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

• Support. Many ask: "what has changed since the previous move discussions?" It's simple: common usage. In the last discussion, I presented the following table based on the NOW-corpus which clearly illustrates the swing:

	East Timor	Timor(-)Leste
2010 – 2015	2762 (67%)	1354 (33%)	(= 466 "Timor Leste" + 888 "Timor-Leste")
2016 – 2020	5102 (43%)	6685 (57%)	(= 1994 "Timor Leste" + 4691 "Timor-Leste")
2018 – 2020	3047 (41%)	4400 (59%)	(= 1070 "Timor Leste" + 3330 "Timor-Leste")

This trend has been stable in the following years:

	East Timor	Timor(-)Leste
2021	714 (41%)	1027 (59%)	(= 466 "Timor Leste" + 844 "Timor-Leste")
2022	1187 (46%)	1387 (54%)	(= 312 "Timor Leste" + 1075 "Timor-Leste")

The change in usage is also observed in academia. Google Scholar searches will yield similar results. Note also that searches for "East Timor" can also contain false positive referring to the Portuguese colony or the Indonesian province, which inflates figures for "East Timor". It is thus even more significant that "Timor(-)Leste" consistently has outweighed "East Timor" over the last years. –Austronesier (talk) 13:43, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Add. And here's a bit from Google Scholar:

Google Scholar

	"of East Timor"	"of Timor Leste"
2015	882 (53%)	785 (47%)
2016	836 (51%)	794 (49%)
2017	845 (51%)	813 (49%)
2018	885 (50%)	873 (50%)
2019	857 (46%)	1010 (54%)
2020	779 (45%)	945 (55%)
2021	712 (41%)	1020 (59%)
2022	583 (39%)	921 (61%)

I've used the phrases "of East Timor" and "of Timor Leste" in order to ensure that the text appears in an English text and also to get more handy figures that allow for a quick look at all hits without introducing a bias for either of them (using East Timor" and "Timor Leste" as subject of "is" and "has" is another nice search "method"). Pinging for comments @Merbabu, JarrahTree, Srnec, and Rreagan007: who have explicitly opined that common usage hasn't changed without citing data, plus @Khajidha: who has dissected GLOWBE data in detail, data which unfortunately ends at 2012—the perfect corpus to get "Kiev" and "Swaziland" back :) –Austronesier (talk) 17:32, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Response: The figures for "East Timor" and "Timor Leste" indicate that the trend is currently towards "East Timor", and may also include pages in Portuguese. The figures for "of East Timor" and "of Timor Leste" are not figures for the present and proposed new names, but for phrases that may yield significantly different results, and that are in any event in Google scholar, which focuses on academic rather than general usage. Bahnfrend (talk) 04:49, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

The NOW corpus does not include pages in Portuguese. Upward gradients were rejected in previous discussions per WP:CRYSTALBALL, and only absolute figures seen as relevant. The same obviously holds for downward gradients that do no affect the numerical dominance of the proposed page title. Note also that the Google Scholar results for "East Timor" (whether by itself or in a phrase) have a higher potential of false positives, since historical articles actually might discuss the Indonesian province. A cursory glance at the 2022 results[5] immediately shows this. When pruned, the figures will lean even heavier towards "Timor(-)Leste". –Austronesier (talk) 11:30, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Well, I can report that my claim—no change in the underlying facts since last time—is basically correct, since last time was in 2020 and you state that this trend has been stable in the following years, i.e., 2021–2022. So, I reviewed my reasoning in 2020: Current title is of more wide application and thus superior. E.g., will Indonesian occupation of East Timor be moved if this move goes through? Simple nose-counting of online sources will not do for country names. Although I did't spell it out, what I mean is that there is no reason to treat usage as just a snapshot of the present moment. Sources from before 2020 (or 2000, or 1975) aren't going to disappear. They should still get a say, albeit of ever decreasing weighting. I made this same argument in the Kiev discussion at the same time and spelled out my reasoning in greater depth.

I'm not sure I'd regard a reference to the Indonesian province as a "false positive". Surely the Indonesian period is a part of the history of the country, just as much as the Portuguese period? Surely when Noam Chomsky wrote of East Timor he was writing of the country and not of any particular constitution. I have other concerns, as well. What is the correct adjectival form of Timor-Leste? I am genuinely unsure. What happens to articles with "East Timorese" in the title? I have a small personal interest in this, since I thought long and hard about the correct title for East Timorese rebellion of 1911–1912. —Srnec (talk) 00:37, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Strong Support for the reasons laid out above and for the fact that both common and official usage both support usage of Timor Leste. Cristiano Tomás (talk) 16:22, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Strong Support It's clear that more recent usage favours Timor-Leste and Wikipedia needs to reflect current not historical usage. Andrewdpcotton (talk) 17:28, 10 January 2023 (UTC)