Talk:Macedonia naming dispute

"Ratification"?

Current edits on this article present the most recent news of what the Macedonian parliament did on 11 January as "ratification" of the Prespa agreement. Is this wording accurate? I thought the legal ratification of the treaty was already done in June, and what happened yesterday was a vote on changes to the constitution? Can somebody clarify please? Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:50, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Fut.Perf. honestly I don't know to answer you on this with certainty. Since the international media used the term "Ratification" to describe the January's completion of the procedures, I reflected this on the article. Here some examples of sources calling it a ratification:

• Daily Mail: "Macedonia passed a constitutional amendment Friday ratifying the June deal" [1]
• Macedonian Information Agency: "[...] adopted Constitutional amendments needed to ratify the Prespa Agreement" [2]
• The Guardian: "the Greek parliament must also ratify the accord" [3]
• Meta.mk: " the Prespa Agreement comes into force completely i.e. as soon as it is ratified in Greek parliament." [4]

From what I understood, the deal was signed in June by the two Prime Ministers, but is being ratified now by the two Parliaments. A signature by the PMs do not constitute automatic ratification. For that, it requires the parliamentary procedures (voting amendments, etc) to be completed first. Which is exactly what is happening now this January, and not in past June. --👧🏻 SilentResident 👧🏻  ^{(talk ✉️ | contribs 📝)} 17:30, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Since the ratification is a noteworthy event on its own, shouldn't this be on its own sub-section in the article? --👧🏻 SilentResident 👧🏻 ^{(talk ✉️ | contribs 📝)} 17:33, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

SilentResident is correct. "Ratification" is a term reserved for the approval of legislative bodies, not for the signatures of negotiators or even heads of state. In this case there were three legislative steps involved as I recall: initial vote by Macedonian legislature to proceed with terms of deal, vote by Macedonian legislature approving changes to the Constitution required by the deal, vote by the Greek parliament approving the deal. Technically, the first and the third steps are ratification of the Prespa agreement. The second step (the one that just occurred) is ratification of a change of name in the Macedonian Constitution, so it's not technically ratification of the Prespa Agreement, but is a requirement of that agreement. We all know that the technicalities of English legal terminology are often lost in mass media reporting. --Taivo (talk) 17:43, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

SilentResident: if you want to show that the 11 January vote was a "ratification", why are you now citing 4 sources of which 3 quite obviously aren't calling it that (while the 4th is the Daily Mail, of all things)? And Taivo, sorry, but if your are yourself saying that the 11 January vote was "not technically ratification", why are you saying that "SilentResident is correct" in claiming that it was just that?

To refresh your memories: The ratification of the treaty on the Macedonian side occurred in June and July. We are citing reliable sources to that effect in this very article. Remember, it was that vote which President Ivanov tried to boycott by not signing it into force, and then it had to be repeated and entered into force when the president of the parliament sidestepped Ivanov and had it printed in the official gazette on his own authority after the second round. That was the ratification; it's been completed and legally in effect since then. Then came another vote on initiating the further legislative proceedings, and votes about the referendum and all sorts of other things. What happened now was a political prerequisite for ratification to also happen on the Greek side, but it has technically nothing to do with the ratification process as such. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:16, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

My apologies, Future perfect, I didn't imagine the term "ratification" would be questioned, thought it was kinda obvious. Otherwise I would have added these sources as well. Now that you raised this, I can happily add them as well. About your arguments... I don't know if the events you described that occurred in the past, do constitute a ratification by itself, because according to media, the voting of the amendments is part of the ratification's completion... Unless a state can ratify an agreement without passing the amendments it is obliged to, by that Agreement? From personal experience - and I had the impression - Greece ratified the Istanbul Convention of the Domestic Violence against Women the very same day it passed the law that envisioned further protection measures against violence against women. But whatever you mean that ratification of an Agreement as being a progress of its own, independent of the progress of adopting the Agreement's provisions, then perhaps you better ask someone else, as I don't know for certain, nor I thought this to be a possible case. All I did is to reflect on what the world media do call it. --👧🏻 SilentResident 👧🏻 ^{(talk ✉️ | contribs 📝)} 18:54, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Are you still claiming the four sources you just cited here are calling this thing a ratification? Learn to read. They quite obviously aren't. (Except for the Daily Mail one, which is probably typical of the quality of that publication, which is why Wikipedia has decided to never use it as a source.) What's so difficult to grasp about the simple fact: Whatever they are doing now can't be a ratification because the ratification was already done half a year ago? Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:12, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Yes, Future, I was writing my response and realized that the 11 Jan vote wasn't ratification of the Prespa agreement, but forgot to amend my first sentence. But there are still two ratification votes required. One by the Macedonian parliament and one by the Greek parliament. The Macedonian parliament voted to ratify last summer, but I didn't think that the Greek one had voted yet--they were waiting for the constitutional change in Macedonia as I recall (I'm working off memory here so I could be mistaken). --Taivo (talk) 19:56, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

So, ratification or post-ratification implementation, the ball is on the other side now. What remains is for the Greek side to ratify it before it goes into full force. According to local media, this will happen this or the next week if everything goes as planned. --👧🏻 SilentResident 👧🏻 ^{(talk ✉️ | contribs 📝)} 20:13, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

@TaivoLinguist and Future Perfect at Sunrise: good news, the majority in the Greek Parliament is secured, and the Prespa Agreement will pass this week (precisely: Thursday 24 January) with more than the required votes for ratification. Not that I am supposed to inform, just a heads up.

And if you like, would really appreciate your opinion in the Talk Page: Splitting the article into 2 smaller ones, or re-ordering content? section, as well. --👧🏻 SilentResident 👧🏻 ^{(talk ✉️ | contribs 📝)} 13:05, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Can the article explain why 'Northern Macedonia' is an improvement?

I just added the following at this article's latest ITN nomination:

• Comment- Re article quality, I fail to see any explanation in the article as to why the new name is an improvement (as distinct from a logical disimprovement that is being welcomed for other short-term reasons). Perhaps there are no reliable sources to explain this (possibly because it makes little or no sense to add a longer name, and one that logically implies that Northern Macedonia should try to reunite with the rest of Macedonia, which is seemingly at least partly why the Greeks objected to the old name in the first place, only the new name seems to make that problem worse). I suspect I may not be the only reader who is thus a bit confused and dissatisfied with article quality.

This may become an issue if and when a nomination looks likely to succeed at ITN (perhaps after a ratification by the Greek Parliament, or perhaps earlier). I know too little (and have too little interest) to try to fix the matter myself (per WP:NOTCOMPULSORY and WP:BNO). Indeed I'm not sure whether the necessary Reliable Sources even exist to allow it to be fixed. But I just thought I'd mention it here, just in case there are other editors around who are willing and able to try to address the matter. Tlhslobus (talk) 10:13, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

In theory at least, it comes with the implication that the Republic is quitting any Irredentist claim towards the rest of the Macedonia region. At least that is what the current Greek and Macedonian governments are claiming. In practice, we will have to wait and see. Dimadick (talk) 15:37, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Splitting the article into 2 smaller ones, or re-ordering content?

If the Prespa Agreement is successfully ratified by the Greek Parliament next week (the vote will occur between 20 and 26 of January month, as stated by the Greek authorities), then how about re-organizing the article or splitting it?

An idea would be: to reorganize it and divide it into 2 large super-sections: one super-section about the history of the Naming Dispute, (and merge to it the Greek and Macedonian positions which currently are on their own, at the bottom half of the article), and one super-section about the deal itself. This is suggested with the future developments in mind, which, as time passes, more information is being added to the article and is marking the the Prespa Agreement section much larger than originally expected. This pushes further down the sections about Greek/Macedonian positions, which I feel they are better (makes more sense) to be placed BEFORE the Prespa Deal, or at least, near the beginning, and certainly before the negotiations section. Readers would like to be updated on the views of the two parties, as part of their reading about the dispute's history, instead of reading about them after the the developments and negotiations (which are influenced by these national positions in the first place). (currently, the national positions are placed after negotiations/Prespa Agreement sections, which make no sense at all).

However, I think we should consider an alternative to the above idea: having the article split into 2 smaller ones: one for the Prespa Agreement (if and once it is finally ratified by both sides), and one about the Naming Dispute. Moving the Prespa Agreement to its own article solves more problems than it causes, such as easier navigation, and smaller article sizes, etc. That would allow us in adding freely more content and information about the developments relating more to the Prespa deal than to the Dispute. And to not mention, giving the Prespa Agreement its own article, would somewhat alleviate the current article from the sheer amount of information added to it due to the post-Prespa developments... What do you think? --👧🏻 SilentResident 👧🏻 ^{(talk ✉️ | contribs 📝)} 01:10, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

There are certainly issues with the current article structure. I agree that Prespa agreement should be a stand-alone article, but that won't fix the issues here; we'll still need about as much content on that agreement in this article. The year-by-year timeline is certainly the least important part of the article; I'd be inclined to move almost all of it (between FYROM and Prespa) to a subpage. power~enwiki (π, ν) 01:35, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

A suggestion. Those block quotes in the Greek and Macedonian sections get condensed into a sentence or two as a summary. That should go to some way toward cutting content.Resnjari (talk) 13:48, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Thats an excellent idea. --👧🏻 SilentResident 👧🏻 ^{(talk ✉️ | contribs 📝)} 14:02, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Each new Nazi massacre that was discovered in eastern Europe after the war was news. However, with time the patterns emerged and histories of Nazi atrocities reduced 100 massacres into one representative one. As the events of the Greek trademark tantrum known as the "Macedonian naming dispute" fade into history, the daily log of "X said this" and "Y said that", etc. will become properly summarized into a few representative and most important events. That process could start as soon as the Greek parliament ratifies the Prespa Accord and Macedonia becomes North Macedonia (or will it be "Northern"?). That very act of summarizing might be enough (along with getting rid of the pointless quotes) to make the length of this article manageable. --Taivo (talk) 18:30, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

What you said, is true. Over time the X and Y details will have to go or be absorbed by summarizations. About the full name, the full name (well, only if the Agreement is ratified by Greek Parliament this week) will be "Republic of North Macedonia (Republika Severna Makedonia; Република Северна Македонија)" and the short name "North Macedonia (Severna Makedonia; Северна Македонија)". All institutions, bodies, and demonym will be "North Macedonian" (e.g. North Macedonian Presidency, North Macedonian Passports, North Macedonian Foreign Ministry) and, when referring to citizens, then "Citizens of North Macedonia" (however I didn't find clarification for the short term for that, i.e. North Macedonian Citizen) while the Slavic group will simply be called "Macedonians" as before, the Albanian group "Albanians" as before, etc, and the country's official language will still be called simply "Macedonian Language" as before. As for the North/Northern confusion, it is easy to remember if it is North or Northern, by looking at the examples of North Vietnam, North Korea, etc. --👧🏻 SilentResident 👧🏻 ^{(talk ✉️ | contribs 📝)} 22:50, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Now the Prespa agreement has its own article: Prespa agreement. I copied anything from here to there. But while I feel the information left here on the Naming Dispute article needs to be trimmed down, I am feeling undecided on which parts of the text do deserve a place here and which do not. International reactions? Debates? Political intrigues? Should they be removed or stay?--👧🏻 SilentResident 👧🏻 ^{(talk ✉️ | contribs 📝)} 17:37, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

SuperGuy212 (talk) 14:01, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

I kinda think that the Political intrigues should go, because if the International reactions and Debates part stays there, people could see what was happening during the debates and what other countries reacted to, and in the other sense, Political intrigues may not be that interesting to people. Just reply to me if you think this is a good idea or not?

Request at RfPP

I am moving said request for an edit here...this needs more eyes and discussion. No opinion on the request per se. Lectonar (talk) 06:23, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Macedonia naming dispute

In the photo displayed alongside the Signature subsection, Alexis Tsipras is on the left and Zoran Zaev is on the right, but the order of their names in the caption is reversed. Also, the location where the photo was taken is identified as being in [[Republic of Macedonia|Macedonia]]. That now redirects to North Macedonia. Once that is updated, should it be piped, as the country had not yet changed its name when the photo was taken? Or perhaps the words in what is now can be inserted in front of North Macedonia. —⁠173.129.59.223 (talk) 05:52, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
There's more: I only just now read the text of the Signature subsection. It says the agreement was signed by the two countries' foreign ministers in the presence of their prime ministers, but the caption of the photo implies it was signed by the prime ministers. —⁠184.207.65.109 (talk) 04:06, 30 September 2019 (UTC)"

Valid points. I've tweaked the image caption and removed some of the rampant over-linking and redundancies in the text. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:51, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Semiological confusion, and the first use of a past name

If the country has to be referred in a modern context by informing the readers about its past disputes with Greece, then the term North Macedonia suffices without further clarification in the first sentence of the article's lead paragraph. But if the editors want to change that sentence to refer to the country in a historical context, the first time this historical name is used, should be in its official form, Republic of Macedonia, instead of the short Macedonia. This is still per WP:NCMAC's historical context criteria while at same time eliminating any possible initial semiological confusion. The rest of the article does not require changes as the clarification is given already from the start. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 20:41, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

No. Our current guideline for historic contexts still continues the same principle as the old WP:Naming conventions (Macedonia)/2009, which stated that "'Republic of Macedonia' […] will be used in all contexts where other countries would also be called by their full official names", but that "'Macedonia', by itself, will be used to refer to the country in all other articles in contexts where this is practically unambiguous". It's quite simple really:

• We use the old name of the country in pre-2019 contexts. This is one such context, without any doubt.
• The old name of the country was "Macedonia", pure and simple. That was its name in exactly the same way as the names of its surrounding countries are "Greece", "Bulgaria", "Serbia" and so on.
• Each of these other countries also has a formal long name involving some form of "Republic" ("Hellenic Republic", "Republic of Bulgaria", and so on). But we use those only in special, rare situations. Since we're not saying "Hellenic Republic" in this sentence, why would we want to use the long form for the second of the two countries we're mentioning?
• The only other reason we habitually used to employ the "R. of" prefix somewhat more often was disambiguation. But disambiguation is already provided by the context of the sentence. Nothing could be more unambiguous than "the Southeast European countries of Greece and Macedonia" and "until 2019". No other of the many "Macedonias" was a country in Southeast Europe in 2019. How could any reader possibly be confused about which "Macedonia" this sentence is referring to? Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:54, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

You got some very valid points, but my points are as very valid too and I am sure you understand that. However, do you realize you are making changes without seeking WP:CONSENSUS? The name North Macedonia stayed like that for years and became Consensus. But if you want the old name for historical purposes, then we have to stick to the historic Consensus made for it, which, prior to 2019 it read: "The use of the name "Macedonia" is disputed between the southeastern European countries of Greece and the Republic of Macedonia". That's a compromise that will keep everyone satisfied and any concerns on disambiguation, soothed. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 21:03, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Changing the article into a historical tone, brings us more questions: What about the infobox? The map? As you probably noticed, prior to 2019, it was "Republic of Macedonia" not only on the lead sentence, but also on the Infobox and the Map as well. Now with your changes, the infobox and map refer to the country using a present tone, but the lead no longer uses present tone but past tone... --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 21:05, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

That old wording is of course no longer an option because it's out of date. And there are no concerns of disambiguation, because there simply isn't any ambiguity. Full stop. And no, you don't have any valid point at all, as usual. We'll simply apply the rules of WP:NCMAC (both the old and the new), which for some reason this article has so far failed to do. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:08, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

I firmly disagree with your changes, you ought to seek consensus if you want your edits to stay. Go WP:BOLD, not edit warring. This isnt helpful! NCMAC states that Republic of Macedonia can be used in a historical context. This was the term used there as well before we changed it to North Macedonia. Mind you, Republic of Macedonia was used for a very long time and none had objected to it, not even you. What changed now and you are disputing it? --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 21:16, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Stamping your feet on the ground and crying "but I don't agree" won't help your case. You have no case. Read the guideline, then read it again to try and actually understand it. You haven't. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:28, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

First of all, I was a participant to the creation of the updated NCMAC. Something which you forgot. Second, I am not stamping my feet there, I am merely explaining that your uncompromising attitude is leading no where. I have already tried to explain to you that there are 3 options: North Macedonia, Republic of Macedonia and plain Macedonia, and I am fine with the 2 first ones, which had already been used in that sentence for a very long time and are stable for obvious reasons explained above and for which you failed to acknowledge. The third option, the plain Macedonia, was never used in the first sentence and I do not understand why this sudden insistence of yours to ram it there despite my concerns. I am fine with the first 2 options like everyone here was, I would say, before you come and make disputed changes to it. The topic of Macedonia is very sensitive and its articles have long been controversial, for which you, as an Admin, are fully aware of. The safest course here is to be cautious and find consensus before making changes to such a sensitive article like that. Is it much to ask from you to try and be more grateful towards me (and any editors who may not agree with your views), for offering you a compromise, which is Republic of Macedonia? You know that the plain Macedonia will never be accepted into the top of the article without much-needed clarifications such as North (which was stable for 1+ year), or Republic of (which was stable for many more years before it was replaced by North). If you don't want a compromise, then we return the sentence to its present tone, that is "North Macedonia" and be done with it. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 21:56, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

As usual, Future Perfect is right about MOSMAC and Silent Resident is misinterpreting other Wikipedia guidelines to suit a particular narrative. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 04:14, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

As usual, this comes by Taivo, the disruptive edit warrior who started not one, not two, but FOUR edit wars across Wikipedia over the use of the plain "Macedonia" on various articles. Coincidence???--- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 08:15, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Sorry for being too busy in real life and not reporting sooner: The attention of an uninvolved admin has been requested at: [5]. Also the article has been reverted back to the last stable version before all this disruption started. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 18:07, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

And, for the record, here's what that uninvolved admin answered: "[WP:NCMAC]] should answer most of the questions." Yes, indeed, it does. SilentResident might take this as a hint to finally start dealing with the question how her preferred wording matches that guideline (which it quite obviously doesn't). A question she so far hasn't addressed with even a single word in all those hundreds of words of rambling aboe. If that explanation isn't given in her very next posting on this page, I'll revert it back to the guideline-conforming wording soon. In the absence of such an argument, there really isn't anything to discuss further here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:12, 4 June 2020 (UTC)