Talk:Myanmar

Presidential republic?

Sure, the military junta officially dissolved but the de facto ruling party still supports it... and the National League for Democracy is illegal. 216.105.64.144 (talk) 01:04, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

There's no official confirmation that the SPDC still de facto exists. There is no evidence to suggest that the so-called State Supreme Council actually exists, and the NLD being illegal has nothing to do with the government type. The infobox describes its constitutional government type. We're not here for rumours or speculation.--Tærkast (Discuss) 11:49, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Requested move: Burma --> Myanmar

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move article at this time. If we were purely head counting, it's 37 (counting the nominator and one chap who tossed a coin) in favour of moving the article, and 37 in favour of not moving the article (counting one person who just said "Oppose" with no rationale). Of course, we don't purely headcount, we wake into account the weight of arguments, and here both sides do make reasonable arguments, and it is very hard to see a common thread in favour of one name or the other. Which is the more-commonly used name differs by country and by publication. As there is no clear consensus one way or the other, in such instances on Wikipedia the status quo remains, so the article will not be moved right now. I suspect there may be other move requests in the future, depending on what happens politically in the country, and there's no prejudice against such a discussion down the line arriving at a differing verdict. fish&karate 14:39, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

---

Burma → Myanmar – It's been three years since the last discussion on the title of this article and it is time to see if consensus has changed. Per WP:COMMONNAME, I think this article should now be at Myanmar. Three years ago, there was a strong case that the common name of that country was Burma but the world has changed since then and Myanmar has increasingly entered the common lexicon. The New York Times, for example, no longer even bothers mentioning the name Burma in its articles on Myanmar [1]. (Note: I strongly opposed the previous move request - on the grounds of common name but now support it for the same reason.) regentspark (comment) 13:55, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Should the article currently titled Burma be retitled Myanmar? Kauffner (talk) 13:49, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose I strongly oppose any move. We have had this whole debate before and there was never any consensus to change, and I do not see what is suddenly different now. I am from the UK, where the official name of the country in English is 'Burma', the historical name is 'Burma', the Government uses the name 'Burma', the Media use the name 'Burma', and the Burmese people here use the name 'Burma.' Enough Myanmarification please.--Angstriddenyouth (talk) 14:28, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support. RegentsPark is right - Myanmar is the most common name used today in reliable sources. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:34, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

The most respected and listened to News source in the world, the BBC, uses "Burma", as does your government, by the way. Those news organisations which use "Myanmar" do so for political reasons.--93.34.14.12 (talk) 16:47, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support. The rebels have had 22 years to change it. An unbiased encyclopedia shouldn't be taking sides; it should support the facts... Smarkflea (talk) 17:11, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

"The Rebels??" I think you mean the Burmese people. If you checked your facts, I think you would find that the winners of the last democratic elections in Burma, the party of Aung San Su Kyi, use and promote the use of the name "Burma." And to use the term "rebels" to describe the majority of the Burmese people in one sentence, and then to talk about being "unbiased" in the next is so ridiculous it deserves nothing but contempt.--93.34.14.12 (talk) 16:32, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Neither Su Kyi of the common people are in control of the country... Smarkflea (talk) 18:07, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Support. The world has changed indeed. Lynch7 17:16, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

The world has changed indeed, MikeLynch, dictatorships and military governments are falling. And the days when an unelected junta can try and change the name of a country without the support of the people are limited.--93.34.14.12 (talk) 16:51, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose:

• "Burma" About 89,300,000 results
• "Burma 'also known as Myanmar'" About 570,000 results
• "Myanmar 'also known as Burma'" About 575,000 results
• "Burma (Myanmar)" About 7,560,000 results
• "Myanmar (Burma)" About 10,200,000 results
• "Burma Myanmar" About 32,600,000 results
• "Myanmar Burma" About 14,200,000 results

The New York Times use Myanmar, but the BBC, The Guardian, and several British sources use Burma. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:18, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

I'll personally be happy if the article stays at Burma but:

"Myanmar": [2] last one year 577 million results

Burma: [3] last one year 273 million results

Note that Burma is the historical name of the country, so any date unrestricted search is likely to show many more instances of Burma than of Myanmar. Also, English language sources outside the UK (and possible Australia) have predominantly moved to Myanmar. --regentspark (comment) 18:42, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Myanmar seems to consistently come out on top in those searches. How does that cause an oppose? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 22:29, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose - I agree that things are changing but I'm not convinced they've changed enough. English Common name is important but I've found in tennis articles here on wikipedia that even if English common name is used 99% of the time in English sources it will likely be ignored. How I see the Burma/Myanmar dispute right now is as follows:

United States official name: Burma

UK official name: Burma

Canada official name: Burma

Australian official name: Burma

In an English wikipedia those entities carry weight.

As for the press:

United States press: I would say it's 2/3 to 3/4 in favor of Myanmar now. A big shift from 3 years ago. NY Times, CNN and AP use Myanmar, LA Times uses Myanmar (with Burma mentioned). Washington Post, Time Magazine and Voice of America use Burma.

UK Press: from what I can see it's all Burma

Canadian Press: I could only find 2 or 3 newspapers. They all used Burma. No idea what gets used on the tv news.

Australian press: The newspapers I could find all used Burma. No idea what gets used on the tv news.

3 years ago neighbors I knew from the country itself said in the interior away from areas of importation they called it Bama, while those living in areas of high exportation used Manma. I have no idea if that's changed.

Based on these items I'm not sure a name change is warranted but my oppose is much weaker now. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:52, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Fyunck, to your list of usage by country, I'll add the following (under the assumption that English is a language spoken in non-western countries as well):

Singapore press: Myanmar (Strait Times) [4]

Indian press: Myanmar (Times of India) [5]

Hong Kong press: Myanmar (South China Morning Post) [6]

New Zealand press: Myanmar (New Zealand Herald - not sure if this is a major newspaper or not). [7] --regentspark (comment) 13:22, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

(As an aside - the NZ Herald uses both! See [8] and, from just yesterday, [9]. On other NZ media sites, Burma is significantly more common - eg stuff.co.nz, the Dominion Post, etc.) Orderinchaos 22:10, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't think much weight should be given to countries whose language is not English as it's main language. Just like spelling and grammar they have their own agenda. Heck Thailand seems to use only "Burma" but I didn't list it when I originally was searching because I found it useless info. New Zealand is reasonable since I assume English is their primary language but then what is New Zealand's gov't stance on the matter? Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:10, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Am amazed that Thailand uses Burma rather than Myanmar - shows how little I know! No idea about official stance of NZ but official stances should not really matter. I do think we should include English language speakers everywhere because en.wikipedia caters to all English speakers regardless of what the main language is in their home country. Of course, English is the main language in Singapore and is the main language of many Indians (more, probably than the populations of the UK and Australia combined), so those two countries definitely carry weight. In the US, I think the pendulum has swung toward Myanmar (with the Washington Post the main holdout).--regentspark (comment) 18:30, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

When I started pulling up articles from "The Irrawaddy" I was surprised too. But almost every country uses some English so do we include them all just because the newspapers are translated. I think no, though I didn't say don't include it, I said I give it little weight. That's why we have multiple Wikipedias to cater to the different languages and their cultural differences. An article in Chinese will be written with a completely different point of view than one from Canada. I've been told by many here at wikipedia that when spelling a tennis players name we can't give much weight to how Wimbledon, the WTA (Womens tennis association) or the ATP (Association of tennis professionals) spell the players' name because their forte is not in spelling or academics. Well those other countries forte is not English, it is how their gov'ts perceive Burma/Myanmar, and their language comes first. It gets translated to be sure but not with the same weight as UK, US, Canada and Australia. It also does matter what the policy of these states are. They are primo English sources for the official name and places like the UK and their state dept say that Myanmar does not exist. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:05, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

That explains it. You can't use The Irrawaddy as representative of usage in Thailand. The Irrawaddy is run by Burmese democracy groups and uses Burma exclusively. I'm one of the few remaining subscribers of the now quarterly magazine but wouldn't use it to figure out the common name of Burma. I think it is a mistake on your part to give short shrift to non-Western English speaking countries like India and Singapore. En wikipedia is not primarily for English only speakers but serves an English speaking audience everywhere. I don't believe in counting population numbers but we shouldn't focus on official policy in western countries as a handy rule for decision making and shouldn't overstate commonality by looking solely at common usage in those few nations. That's my take on this anyway, hopefully the Baron will return and sort us all out :)

But I also didn't list Thailand. There were other sources from Thailand (mostly magazines and journals) that used Myanmar/Burma and Burma/Myanmar and others that were run by democratic organizations that also used Burma. What is it with all the democratic publishers in Thailand? I read two South Africa news articles that used Burma. I do not think it a mistake to downplay non-English first nations. Everyone at wikipedia when expressing opinion has sources they find strong and sources they find weak. It's argued about all the time here because no one agrees on anyone elses sources. The same thing here I would guess. I will never give an English version of an Icelandic newspaper the same weight as the Toronto Star, as far as an English sourcing goes. I know others will disagree but that's why we have the ability to support or oppose. And official policy does come into play because as it has been pointed out it's not just about "common name." Its official name, what it's called by the indigenous population, common usage, exonyms, etc... all these things get looked at. Everyone here will give different weight to different categories. I may think you are dead wrong in giving so much weight to a Chinese paper written in English, but it's your opinion, and you will use it to determine whether to say yea or nay here. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:22, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

• OPPOSE - per some of the common name and official name facts stated by Fyunck. Also, what is the language that is spoken in that country? What does one call someone from that country? Answer: Burmese. Not Myanmarese (or something else). Roxi2 (talk) 02:44, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I think that they are called Myanmas. Tbhotch.^™ Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions. 03:18, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

In counter, adjective for Holland or the Netherlands is "Dutch". We also still hear of Peking ducks, and I know a number of folks who would describe their culture as "Persian". -BaronGrackle (talk) 15:25, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose Per Names of Burma. Although "Myanmar" is the official and the common name in the world, this is the English Wikipedia and, as per Fyunck, Burma is the "common name" in English. Tbhotch.^™ Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions. 03:18, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support. I still am stunned when I hear somone say Burma, which I don't hear or read very often. I do hear it on BBC, but that is the exception for me. Although I have read the reasoning for the above votes, I still think the real reason individuals prefer Burma is a political stance against the current government and yes it is still petty. It never ceases to amaze me that if I call myself Mike and everyone else prefers to call me Jerk, do I have to be called Jerk because they prefer it? That makes no sense; my name is Mike; use it. The name of Myanmar is Myanmar; get over your preferences and call the nation by the name it has chosen. -^StormRider 19:11, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

The nation has made chosen it? No. The gang of criminals currently running it has chosen it. I understand the desire to avoid taking political sides in Wikipedia, but to say the nation has chosen the name is just a gross distortion. --Trovatore (talk) 09:52, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

I'll point out again that the "gang of criminals" forms the list of leaders and political information for the infobox we use in this article. We list the leader of this nation as Thein Sein, not Dr. Sein Win. We list its government center as Naypyidaw, not Rockville, Maryland. -BaronGrackle (talk) 15:25, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

As Nippon gets Englishized to Japan, and US gets changed in South America. Happens all the time. Munchen to Munich, Genova to Genoa, Deutschland to Germany, Novak Đoković to Novak Djokovic. So if 90% of the major English speaking countries call you Jerk StormRider, and you become famous, you can pretty well bank on it that you'll be listed as such here:-) Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:22, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Alas, how many decades need to pass before minorities accept the name? If we used your standard would the USA be the USA? Would China be China? We are 30 years into this nation being Myanmar. Wikipedia is not a political judge for the world; the nation's name is Myanmar. Keep your protests to personal blogs or as a nation maintaining a political agenda. Wikipedia is neither.-^StormRider 11:30, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Burma is not an Englishized Myanmar. The English term for Myanmar is Myanmar. That is just pure silliness; and it is a terrible excuse for a red herring. -^StormRider 11:30, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support It's claimed that Burma is a more common name, but the statistics above and the ones gathered post election on one of these talk pages seemed to show that the balance had tilted in the direction of Myanmar being the common name. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 22:55, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support It is a fact that the government of this country officially changed its name from Burma to Myanmar more than 20 years ago. This change was also recognized by the United Nations. So Wikipedia should reflect this. In my opinion, it seems that the persistent usage of the old name "Burma" is due to political reasons. AlexCovarrubias ^{( Talk? )} 07:11, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. "Burma" is certainly more common on Google Books, according to this ngram. It's the more common search term in all the English-speaking countries, including Britain and the U.S.. It is the usage of the CIA,Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Bangkok Post, BBC, Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail. This is an odd time for an RM. The country just got a new president who is likely to change the name again soon, at least according to this article: "Myanmar is Becoming Burma". Kauffner (talk) 07:28, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

  Let's say it wouldn't be as surprising as it would have been a year ago if Myanmar changed to Burma. However, that's something that can be dealt with if and when it happens. Meanwhile, this has been a niggling issue on the talk pages of the article and I think it is always worth revisiting consensus after a reasonable period of time, whatever the outcome. --regentspark (comment) 12:38, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

  I think we do not title article based on "the most common search term". Obviously, shorter search term is more preferable than the longer one. I do search using "Burma". If you compare United Kingdom and UK, number of searches using United Kingdom is almost non-existent. But that doesn't mean we have to title UK rather than United Kingdom. SWH^talk 17:32, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

  You think that readers are typing in "Burma" rather than "Myanmar" because they want to reduce the number of keystrokes from seven to five? Reducing keystrokes is certainly not as obvious a reason here as it is in the case of "UK" for "United Kingdom". "Burma" the most common search term readers in English-language countries use to refer to this subject and it doesn't really matter why. Unlike "UK", "Burma" also works as a formal name. Kauffner (talk) 04:26, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

  I just wanted to give one example of what might influence on search term usage. And it does matter because search term, unlike webpage, is not a tenable source. For their own reasons, many people, myself included, might use Burma in searching although they prefer Myanmar in writing. WP:AT states that prefers to use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources. I performed English language search, Myanmar without Burma 183,000,000 results. Burma without Myanmar 107,000,000 results. SWH^talk 10:49, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

  You realize that Web pages do not count as RS? Kauffner (talk) 12:09, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

  Sorry. Spelling errors. Excuse my English. I mean Search terms are not tenable sources to title an article. I think English-language reliable sources do not include search term. SWH^talk 14:13, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

You haven't read that article properly. It doesn't say that Myanmar is considering changing its name back to Burma. The title is using the names as a metaphor to allude to democratic reform. Nightw 21:11, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

I just noticed the bug on the top that says, "This article is written in British English". That seems an odd thing to put on an article that has that very little to do with Britain. But if we are taking that seriously, "Burma" is British usage over "Myanmar" by a decisive margin. Search term usage is 11-5, The Times is 2065 to 192, and the BBC is 3,329 to 653. Kauffner (talk) 16:38, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Just an aside on the British English thing — this probably relates to the WP:RETAIN section of WP:ENGVAR. There are no "strong national ties" to Britain, but it's not desirable to have editors fighting back and forth between different linguistic varieties, so articles are supposed to remain in the variety they're written in unless there's a consensus to change it for some reason. Someone put that tag there just to document which variety it was in. I'm not sure why there's not a corresponding template for American English. --Trovatore (talk) 17:54, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support as it's the country's current name. GoodDay (talk) 19:02, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support Per regentspark. I think we shouldn't compare usage of specific news agencies. Country by country comparison can also be misleading since it ignores the fact that Wikipedia titles articles based on English sources rather than sources of English speaking countries. Since general search results are already in favor of Myanmar, I perform searches within each country. Although I can't search for results from specific country, my searches based on country code top-level domain show in favor of Myanmar for all countries.

• Myanmar .ca domains -103,000 results
• Burma .ca domains -33,700 results
• Myanmar .au domains -351,000 results
• Burma .au domains -166,000 results
• Myanmar .uk domains - 1,520,000 results
• Burma .uk domains -797,000 results
• Myanmar .sg domains - 133,000 results
• Burma .sg domains -24,000 resultsSWH^talk 17:32, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

I deghosted the Myanmar site:*.ca number and it went from 103,000 (above) to 304. Deghosting Burma site:*.ca gives you 378 results. There is a limit of about 450 deghosted results, so you can't deghost the larger numbers. But "Myanmar" obviously hasn't really been mentioned on the Internet anything like 577 million times in the last year, pace regentspark. I did the Web numbers for the last month (instead of year) so that the result would be deghostable. I get 37 English-language results for "Myanmar", and 43 for "Burma". Kauffner (talk) 19:23, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Why did you deghost? What function did you use for that? I can't find it in Advanced Search. SWH^talk 10:49, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

How Google arrives at these numbers is a trade secret, but the common assumption is that their software is focused is on producing a page of useful results, so the result numbers they give may be wild guesstimates. It is unlikely that Google counts to 600 million in 0.25 seconds of computing time. Our guidelines recommend using Google Book results, not the Web numbers. Of course, these are ghosted too, but at least that method doesn't yield these multi-million result figures that don't seem to correspond to anything real. (I used the ngram above, which deghosts automatically for you.) As far as how you do deghosting, pull up the result screen and look at the bottom where there are sequential numbers, for example 1 to 10. Then click on the last number. Do this repeatedly until you get to the end of the series. Kauffner (talk) 11:55, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your explanation. But I get somewhat dissimilar results compare to yours. For Canada, Myanmar site:*.ca returns 425 results. Search for Burma returns 424 results. It seems unlikely in that there are only 425 results for Burma in .ca domains. I think the low number of results may be caused by results limit for each query. Google acknowledges that the numbers of results are estimate. But I don't see any reason why Google would make a huge error so that total number of Myanmar results which is about three times larger than that of Burma, can be overtaken by total number of Burma results.

I also like to use book results. But most books are quite old and therefore, only mention Burma, the previous official name.SWH^talk 15:41, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

For Google Books since 2000, it's 20,700 English-language hits for Myanmar Yangon OR Rangoon compared to 48,700 for Burma Yangon OR Rangoon. Since 2009, it's 1,160 for Myanmar, 2,680 for Burma. Kauffner (talk) 01:30, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Update I searched within each English speaking country. Results are below.

• Canada 8,040,000 results for Myanmar 2,930,000 results for Burma
• United States 136,000,000 results for Myanmar. 63,300,000 results for Burma
• United Kingdom 20,500,000 results for Myanmar 14,000,000 results for Burma
• Singapore 2,570,000 results for Myanmar 686,000 results for Burma
• New Zealand 1,330,000 results for Myanmar 883,000 results for Burma
• Australia 5,000,000 results for Myanmar 3,450,000 results for Burma SWH^talk 11:16, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Update (reliable sources) My searches in English language news, scholar, books, .gov domains, .edu domains and .org domains return the following results. I set time frame from 2009 Jan 1 to 2012.

• News Myanmar - 43,000 results. Burma - 21,800 results
• Scholar Myanmar - 16,100 results Burma - 16,000 results
• Books | Myanmar - 16,200 results | Burma - 24,200 results
• .edu domains Myanmar - 103,000 results Burma - 71,200 results
• .gov domains Myanmar - 143,000 results Burma - 143,000 results
• .org domains Myanmar - 24,100,000 results Burma - 17,200,000 results SWH^talk 07:24, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support and I think everyone knows why. If this doesn't happen, then I'm hoping someone parodies this until it does. Thylacinus cynocephalus (talk) 21:40, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

  Well now there's a nice reasonable approach to things. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:36, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support per commonname and pretty much everything I've posted in these discussions over the years. Timrollpickering (talk) 00:22, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose I think COMMONNAME still favours Burma, at least in the UK. Absconded Northerner (talk) 07:57, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

• Strong oppose. Nothing has changed since previous discussions. This is en-WP, and the name change is not diplomatically recognised by English-speaking governments, eg. [10], [11], [12], [13]. Whatever the limitations of using google hits, it is clear that they do not support a case for Myanmar as the common name (e.g. I get 13.8 million hits for "Burma" in Google Books and only 1.8 million for "Myanmar".) --FormerIP (talk) 01:19, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support Since when does Wikipedia march in lockstep with the diplomatic decisions of governments? Ultimately, the reality of the situation is that the government in control of the state in question changed the English name of the country more than 20 years ago. Whether they're good or bad people, or whether they're supported by this or that government, is irrelevant--Wikipedia should reflect reality. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.229.202.4 (talk) 07:14, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

  Wikipedia does try to reflect reality, which is why we prefer common names over official ones. Your premise that an official name reflects reality is an incorrect one. --regentspark (comment) 09:33, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support – quite simply, the current government of the country call the country “Myanmar” in English, so that name should be preferred over “Burma” on an encyclopedia that should be stating pure facts and nothing else. MTC (talk) 07:24, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

  Note that it is also a 'pure fact' that the country is known as Burma therefore this is a weak argument for supporting the move. Wikipedia has a clear policy on using common names rather than official ones, therefore the discussion should revolve around what the country is commonly known as in English rather than around what the current government calls it. --regentspark (comment) 09:29, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support - My rationale being that either Myanmar is more common a name in English, or that both names are used so commonly that we must refer to other criteria. And if we must use other criteria, I'd go with official self-identification. But while Burma generally wins the Google Books searches (as the historical name in English), it seems that Myanmar shows up more often on any other search engine or online encyclopedia. Even when you look to the United Kingdom (the English-speaking region in which Burma is most often used), consider that Encyclopedia Britannica uses the name Myanmar. (Or I could summarize my thoughts by finding that old quote by Timrollpickering, from years ago.) -BaronGrackle (talk) 15:25, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

strongest possible support WP is not based on how many views a google word search gives, its based on NPOV and the country is officially and by UN STANDARDS (as is the norm) mentioned as Myanmar. Because a couple of western readers and exiles dont see as such doesnt distort the facts on the ground. We dont like in a Rhodesian lala land

"burma" is merely the ANGLOPHONE version of the name!

Fyunck/FormerIP: the english wikipedia is NOT the word of the govts of the uk/usa/aus/can, or any govt for that matter. (if that was the case then the whims of italy and other countries would be followed by WP to CENSOR) thats where your understanding of WP is off.Lihaas (talk) 17:49, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Nor is it the whim of the UN. There are many factors that go into what the country is called by others as has been pointed out in the past. 3 years ago the majority of people living inside the country didn't call it Myanmar. I don't know what the majority there call it today. 3 years ago it was..if thugs took over the state of Kansas and renamed it thugville shall we call it thugville until order is restored? No, we call it what the US calls it...Kansas. Now has the situation changed in Burma/Myanmar... I think it has, but has it changed enough? That I'm not so sure of. If the vast majority here at wikipedia wants to change the name to Myanmar I will abide by that consensus as I do all consensus rulings. That's how things work around here. But your understanding of this issue is the thing that is way off. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:01, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Also, for Lihaas, Burma is not the anglophone version of Myanmar. Burma is derived from the colloquial Bama and not from Myanmar. The region has, for example, been called Barma by Indians for millennia, long before the arrival of the anglo people. Best to read up a little history before making categorical statements in uppercase. --regentspark (comment) 19:12, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support. I've been waiting for this for years. The idea of not calling a country by an official name it has had for over 20 years is an abuse of language and common sense, regardless of a political point of view. And frankly, for those political activists, it hasn't worked very well in any case, has it? I live in Chiang Mai, Thailand and the Myanmar people call it Myanmar and sometimes Burma, but they are not being political when they do that. For them it is the sense of calling the US either US, USA, the United States, the United States of America, or America. But the Wikipedia article should represent some form of current official reality. Jeffmcneill (talk) 15:37, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

  Articles on wikipedia are not titled by official names of entities but rather by their common names (see WP:COMMONNAME). That is one of the strongest policies on wikipedia and is one of its greatest strengths. If you wish to argue that Myanmar is the common name of that country in English, then this is the place to make that argument. If you wish to replace the "common name" policy by an "official name" policy, then the right place for that is Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles. Meanwhile, perhaps it would be better not to suggest that opposers have arguments that have not been explicitly made (such as political ones). --regentspark (comment) 20:45, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

  My argument is regarding common names, and others have indeed made the political argument suggested in my reply. Not all opposers are doing so for political reasons, but some certainly have. This debate is wide ranging and I wanted to lay out a few suggestions. Jeffmcneill (talk) 10:45, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

  I can't really see a single oppose !vote that is for political reasons above but never mind. I'm afraid that your stated reason "not calling a country by an official name ...." is not a WP:COMMONNAME argument. If you believe that Myanmar is the common name of the country, you need to show evidence that supports that. The fact that it is the official name chosen by the government does not make it a common name.--regentspark (comment) 13:05, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose The change of name has not received international recognition and therefore is not in the same league as for example Siam and Persia now being called Thailand and Iran. TFD (talk) 05:39, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

  Yes it has by the UN and many others. See discussions above. Jeffmcneill (talk) 10:45, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose British English is Burma, American seems to be Myanmar. We don't switch without reason.--Kotniski (talk) 08:37, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

  There are reasons to switch, well debated above. This is the English Wikipedia and not British English. Granted this is more complicated and nuanced, but just because the article is using British English does not mean that the title of the article is determined by that version of English. Jeffmcneill (talk) 10:45, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

  Well even if for some bizarre reason the title is allowed to be in a version of English which is different from that used for the rest of the article, there's still no reason to switch, either for the title or for the article.--Kotniski (talk) 11:00, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

  I'm not sure ENGVAR applies here. This isn't like truck/lorry, where words are used differently based on cultural background. It's more political for Burma/Myanmar, and both words are used in both countries. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 11:28, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

  American usage is either split or 2-1 "Burma", depending on how you measure it. The editors claiming that "Myanmar" is the common name are counting non-English Web use. As far as ENGVAR goes, this RM will create a new consensus. Anybody can put an ENGVAR bug in a header. We aren't bound by that. Kauffner (talk) 12:05, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

  ENGVAR is a double edged sword here because the article was originally at Myanmar (first non-stub version is the default according to WP:ENGVAR). FYI. --regentspark (comment) 13:57, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose per common-name, but without prejudice to revisiting in a year or so. Also note that Google counts (although I use them myself) should be taken with a pinch of salt, preferably two - for example I get "About 50,300,000 results" for the M word and "About 83,900,000 results" for the B word, however (if anyone can check) neither of these numbers are likely to be the real number of hits. Similarly the half a billion news hits claimed for the past year (for each name) are likely to be grossly inflated. Rich Farmbrough, 10:50, 20 October 2011 (UTC).
  
• Comment Straight Google hits are entirely irrelevant and any comments based on those should be ignored. What we want to know is what do reliable sources do? What do the top media sources do, lets list 10-15 at least (and seriously you'll waste far more time arguing about it than you will finding those sources), and what do academic sources do. When we have the answer to that we know which title we should pick between the two. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:52, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose—I think if usage is only slightly in favor of Myanmar that it doesn't really justify changing a longstanding title; especially if the current longstanding title is more common in some English-speaking regions. I don't think we want to give to much weight to "official" sources like what nation recognizes the title or whether the UN uses which title. The UN is not the arbiter of our titling, usage in RS should be. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:46, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

  Please don't oppose just for the sake of status quo. This title is not really that longstanding and has never been stable; there's considerable controversy on its title move to Burma in 2007 (just look at the list of archive pages immediately following). Let's decide this as if it were fresh. And Burma might be more common some places, but Myanmar is more common in arguably more. -BaronGrackle (talk) 20:05, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

  There are plenty of good reasons to oppose. I'm just saying that the bar probably ought to be higher than 51% of usage. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:25, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support. This is a close one. So I flipped a coin. I have no problem with it being renamed. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 00:50, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

  lol... some days that's as good a reason as any around here. Fyunck(click) (talk) 03:01, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. I wasn't sure if I was allowed to vote twice in order to neutralise that last vote. So I did. --FormerIP (talk) 01:06, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

  I don't know of any circumstance where a user is allowed to vote twice in order to "neutralize" another user's vote. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 02:28, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

It's when they toss a coin. I'm sure its in the guidelines somewhere... --FormerIP (talk) 13:47, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Not an issue at all. It's not a vote anyway and a clearly visible second !vote should be perfectly fine. Given the situation, this is probably the best solution anyway! --regentspark (comment) 13:53, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

It's in the guidelines that if someone states that they decided by flipping a coin, another user is permitted to vote in the opposite way to "neutralize" the original vote? I'd have to see that one to believe it! It sounds like something that would have showed up on a WP humor page. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 02:03, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support - Per nominator. Adrian (talk) 08:19, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support - Myanmar is the common name. It's important to look at current results, such as Google News, as opposed to old results, as Burma is obviously the historic name of the country. --Globe-trotter (talk) 08:43, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support - Per nominator. Currentusage Agathoclea (talk) 19:38, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose Burma seems best as the common name. Warden (talk) 19:55, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. Wikipedia does not prefer the politically correct version. The claim above that "burma" is merely the ANGLOPHONE version of the name! (made in support of a move, their capitalisation) is actually an argument against it. English usage has not changed. Andrewa (talk) 20:07, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Actually, the politically correct version is "Burma", in the sense that it ignores reality to push an anti-government POV. Both authoritative and colloquial English usage in Anglophone countries has evolved to Myanmar independently of the US and UK governments, as User:Soewinhan demonstrated in his search of reliable sources. Quigley (talk) 20:30, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
    • Disagree, obviously. This seems to be a restatement of the POV already quoted in my rationale. Andrewa (talk) 21:26, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support per WP:COMMONNAME and Soewinhan's data provided above, particularly the recent news sources. (Google scholar and book sources will also include articles discussing the history of Burma/Myanmar, which was formerly--and indisputably--Burma, so there will be false positives.) If double the recent news sources are using Myanmar, we should be using Myanmar too. Calliopejen1 (talk) 20:23, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I did some Google Book searches where I tried to restrict the search to contemporary politics, but that only increases the advantage enjoyed by "Burma." Compare here and here. Kauffner (talk) 04:52, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support. Wikipedia needs to stop playing internet revolutionary and start reflecting reality. Quigley (talk) 20:30, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. To start with, the largest broadcast news organization on the planet (which happens to be in the English language) is the BBC including the BBC World Service (sources: http://news.bbc.co.uk/aboutbbcnews/hi/this_is_bbc_news/default.stm, https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/BBC_World_Service). The BBC uses "Burma" 100% of the time. Aside from the 60-odd million people the domestic BBC broadcasts too, the World Service has an English-speaking audience of 188 million people. This utterly eclipses eg. the New York Times (31mil) and most others. My reason for mentioning this is that proper weight needs to be assigned to the size of each organisation taking a position, and to ignore this aspect is to be misleading. It seems all that has changed in the past 3 years is a few small (relatively speaking) American news organizations switching their position to Myanmar, not anywhere near enough IMHO to warrant a name change. It would have to be a large swing to Myanmar in the past 3 years to overturn the previous result to keep Burma, and the numbers just do not support this when properly weighted as above. C 1 (talk) 20:53, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support, with the exact same reasoning as last time: "the official short English name is Myanmar. At such time as Suu Kyi can take rightful control of the government, then rename it Burma." --Golbez (talk) 20:57, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support. A government chooses upon its name and this particular administration, popular or not, has its governance universally recognised leaving the insult "Burma" confined exclusively to sources whose coverage is wholly unfavourable toward the system. The demonym "Burmese" is fine however. Evlekis (Евлекис) (argue) 21:03, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Strongly Oppose Burma remains roughly twice as common. Furthermore, this is one of the few cases where a reliable source (the BBC) has an assertion on which name is more recognizable; the BBC was using Burma (without Myanmar), within the last 24 hours. Ignore all arguments that we have to use Myanmar "because it's the official name," which remains a demand that WP adopt the POV of the Burmese Government. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:43, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. Burma is the most common and the most correct name. —Nightstallion 21:45, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

  The "correct" name is what the country says is it's name, the country says it's name is Myanmar and thus that is the correct name. The other countries who disagree do so for political reasons. TJ Spyke 21:50, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support For one, it's the name of the country, there is no disputing that. As a result, it is commonly used by many reliable sources. From what i've seen, most news sourced that use Burma do so because their country considers that the name and they go by what their country says. TJ Spyke 21:50, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose. Most people say 'Burma'---for one thing they all know how to pronounce it; the new one has several pronunciations. Rothorpe (talk) 21:58, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:COMMON. Links such as [14] and [15] from the Australian government are but one example. One doesn't eat Myanma food, one eats Burmese food. One doesn't speak Myanma, one speaks Burmese. Google searches are only useful for certain things, and there's a huge margin of error - if it was 90/10, that would be a reasonable basis, but most of these are only either side of 50/50, so you could just be getting multiplicity of links or Google selectivity getting in the way. For possibly the first time ever, I find myself in agreement with Pmanderson - this is essentially a POV issue (we should stay politically neutral, basically - it's a cornerstone of Wikipedia). Orderinchaos 22:07, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:COMMON and Names of Burma. There is clearly no consensus for the proposed move. Moonraker (talk) 22:17, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Strongly Support, because that's its name! Also, convince me that Myanmar will never ever become more commonly used internationaly, and I'd reconsider. Moriori (talk) 22:24, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

• Very weak support Given that the arguments here are exactly the same as last time, it's not worth another dramatic interlude. Both Burma and Myanmar are transliterations of the same name, so the only difference is which political authority we accept. I'd rather stick with the more modern transliteration. Common usage is split, official usage is split, and while I think Myanmar is where it will end up eventualy, I don't see any value in a sixty megabyte flamewar over which is the redirect and which is the article. We could spell it out in IPA and make both Burma and Myanmar redirects to drive home the point that they're really the same, but that would be silly. SDY (talk) 22:34, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose per [16]. As soon as those two lines cross, I'll vote support. Kaldari (talk) 22:43, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. Both names are used, but it isn't at all clear that 'Myanmar' has overtaken 'Burma'. Leave well enough alone. —WWoods (talk) 22:47, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose Per WP:ENGVAR, we should use the name used by the English-speaking country with the strongest national ties to the subject. That is Great Britain, which has a strong consensus among sources for "Burma". --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 00:08, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. I can't speak on behalf of the whole world and haven't done the research like some people have done above but within Australia the common name is still Burma. The above Google hits and newspaper sites research also seems to suggest Burma is more commonly used. As for bias, I think both names are politically biased. Whether you are from Burma/Myanmar or from another country, if you are pro-government then you will prefer Myanmar and if you are anti-government you will prefer Burma. Neither name is devoid of bias unfortunately. Gizza^{Talk ©} 00:45, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose per COMMONNAME. I basically agree with what people have said above and also think that "Burma" is more common in the US in common parlance. Obviously purely anecdotal but people are slow to change (especially to something so awkward for the Anglophone tongue as "myanmar") even though i agree that media orgs are starting to tilt in that direction. InspectorTiger (talk) 01:30, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

• oppose. "Burma" is the name in the English language. "Myanmar" might be the correct transliteration of what the Burmese call their country in their language, but the article on that big country in central Europe is Germany, not Deutschland. Just because in the past few years, a few more people have decided to be pretentious or politically correct and call Burma by its endonym does not mean that Wikipedia should follow suit. Most material published about the country still refers to it as Burma, and privileging the more recent use over older use, when there's been no significant change in the country to warrant a change, is recentism, and should be avoided. Argyriou (talk) 03:47, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support. Myanmar is the correct name. Everyking (talk) 04:01, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support It's not clear which is more commonly used (Myanmar seems to be more common in the United States, while Burma seems to be more common in the countries currently ruled by Elizabeth Windsor), so in this case, WP should use the country's official name which has been recognized by the United Nations, ASEAN, every other international organization, and the vast majority of national governments around the world. --Tocino 04:56, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support - as with quite a few claims of 'common usage', and as with everytime we discuss the issue on Myanmar/Burma, all the evidence suggests there's no clear cut common usage, it depends how you spin the sources. What is still clear, as it always has been is both are used extensively in English sources. Arguments like we don't call it 'Deutschland' are flawed, no one has every suggested the country should be called Deutschland in English except for those who try to make the argument and definitely the government of Germany does not. I don't believe we should ignore countries just because their English usage is not so common, particularly when they often have far greater involvement in Myanmar then where it's called Burma. Arguments concerning the denonym are moot, we aren't discussing whether to change the denonym. As others have said, both names clearly involve a lot of political issues, although it's clear choosing to use the name Myanmar doesn't necessarily mean the party involved supports the current government, simply that they recognise the current reality. By comparison, it's clear when it comes to governments, most who are choosing to stick with Burma are doing so because of rejection of the government (compare Timor-Leste where most of the government still using Burma have embraced Timor-Leste). Taking all this in to consideration when it comes down to it, there's no clear cut choice. Normally this means we stick with WP:ENGVAR and follow the first contributors choice (which was Burma). However while no guideline explicitly supports this concept, I suggest that when the current government of a self defining entity has expressed a clear preference for a English name of that self defining entity and when many other bodies have chosen to accept that preference then I think we should too, when we can't make a choice by some more logical means then 'first contributors choice'. And yes this applies both ways, if the government makes an about turn and starts to ask to be called Burma in English there's a very good chance we should be moving back within a year or 2, just as most governments will. Some may dislike this chopping and churning but that's one advantage of being an online encylopaedia anyone can edit, we don't have to be fixed for a long period when it isn't necessary. And as I've already said, when there's no clear cut common usage and no other good arguments to stick with one over the other, going with what the government and many other bodies actually call the country makes more sense then whatever name the first contributor happened to use. Also I should mention I would strongly oppose the outcome of this discussion being used as an excuse to change the name in other articles en-masse. Most likely stuff like 'Outline of Burma' should change if this article changes but this would need to be discussed properly first (probably in bulk). If we stick with the status quo, there's even less reason to change an article without discussion since there is obviously some reason why the name is used which probably wasn't changed by this discussion. P.S. I do thank Fyunck for notifying me. Nil Einne (talk) 05:07, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support, and even though it is less obvious then the page for Thailand not being "Siam", or the page for Iran not being "Persia", Wikipedia simply should not keep it at this name. It does not make sense for a usually well-written source. Thylacinus cynocephalus (talk) 06:47, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support - Because all the reliable stats linked above disprove the political-based myth that Burma is more prevalent. Hooper (talk) 10:29, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support - I think we need to use the official names, otherwise there can be no standard of naming and we are open to accusations of political bias. Thanks, ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 13:41, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose, because the area has always been Burma and the name can not be changed with every regime change. The official name of the state is Republic of the Union of Myanmar, but name of the country is Burma. H2ppyme (talk) 13:51, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose - Burma is the common English name. Temporary usage changes by the media do not represent an accurate note on the use of the name. Burma carries historical significance and reference. Such as the Burma Road. Alyeska (talk) 15:55, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose Per all the opposes but more specifically PMAnderson/Septentrionalis. Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 16:09, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose as per all opposes above. Specifically, I'd like to address the second comment in favour for the change by User:Smarkflea, who states that the "rebels have had 22 years to change it. An unbiased encyclopedia shouldn't be taking sides; it should support the facts..." Let's get this straight; the NLD are not rebels. They legitimately won the 1990 election in Burma which were free and fair (confirmed by Western monitors), only to be illegally denied power by the military junta. The fact is that the name change from Burma to Myanmar has not been endorsed by the NLD, which are (legally) the legitimate government in the country chosen by the people. This is not called taking sides; this is called respecting the wishes of the rightful and lawful government in the country, who have been unjustly impeded from taking power since 1990. The only prominent groups to support such a name change in Burma are the military junta and their cronies who "won" the 2010 elections, which were declared fraudulent, demonstrating that their government is de facto and carries no legitimacy whatsoever among Western & English-speaking countries, which have respected the wishes of the NLD in calling the country Burma. Wikipedia should do the same. Bloom6132 (talk) 18:03, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

  The nld is not in charge of the country. The military is, and has been for a long time, and it's time for you to face facts. The NLD is nothing but the opposition, and they have no official say in this... Smarkflea (talk) 17:46, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

  Get off your soapbox. The fact is, if the military had real legitimacy (both from the Burmese people and the English-speaking countries internationally), why can't they overturn the numerous foreign embargoes slapped right on the country, while Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD can? Bloom6132 (talk) 17:11, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

• Wholeheartedly support, per supporters above. I, too, had been waiting for this for a long time. Wikipedia should be documenting things as they really stay. As demonstrated above, which one of the two names is more common depends on how you spin the sources and how you define their weight, and even if "Burma" turns out to actually be more common than "Myanmar", the margin will be a very narrow one and the COMMONNAME rule will have to be applied way too literally. Of course the government of a country can change its name whenever it wishes to do so; all the rest is irrelevant. If "Burma" were a universal English "translation" of "Myanmar", then the bolded official name in the opening sentence would be stating "Republic of the Union of Burma", instead of "Republic of the Union of Myanmar". --Theurgist (talk) 01:26, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. Several users have shown above that quality sources still favour "Burma". This combined with a wider general familiarity of "Burma" over "Myanmar" supports the current title. If this changes, I will reconsider. —  AjaxSmack  02:17, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support. I find myself typing Myanmar far more than Burma these days, and the name is unlikely to change again in the short term. UN recognition is important, though not absolute, as is our common name rule, which resulted in a controversial move of the PRC to "China", even though I could not see any clear consensus for that move. Not a direct comparison to this one, but nonetheless, as I said during that move, which applies here equally, the end result will not satisfy everyone. Will there be consensus for this move? We are likely again to get a mixed consensus, but I now support the official name of Myanmar.--Tærkast (Discuss) 10:32, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose: really, who knows what the "correct" name is? But that's irrelevant. Wikipedia uses the most common name and the name which is most immediately recognisable by the most number of people - Burma. that's all. --Merbabu (talk) 11:26, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support We can argue all day about which name is more commonly used (in my area, it's Myanmar), but the fact is that there is considerable regional variation. What to do? The logical thing would be to call the nation by the name that the nation typically calls itself, or the appropriate anglicized variant thereof. Buddy431 (talk) 01:08, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support The country's name is Myanmar. The fact that the US and UK governments refused to use its new name out of protest is irrelevant.--Guerillero | My Talk 05:16, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

"Burma" is the official name of the country in the UK and the US, and should be used in those countries. If you wish to use the name "Myanmar", I suggest you learn Burmese, and go and live in Burma, where the military Junta will force you to use the name "Myanmar" anyway. Good luck with the freedom of speech.--93.34.14.12 (talk) 17:56, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Do the UK and US get to determine what countries are called? Should we not take into consideration the views of the United Nations, a global body, and other countries who do use the name "Myanmar"?--Tærkast (Discuss) 20:28, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

WP should be basing the country name according to what English-speaking countries call it, since this is English Wikipedia, not French or Chinese Wikipedia. The last time I checked, the UK, US, Canada and Australia (which make up the majority of the world's English-speaking population with more than 369m) all recognize Burma as the official name, so their opinion takes precedence to that of non-English speaking countries or the UN (which has 6 official languages). And just a side note, even French Wikipedia uses the name "La Birmanie," even though the French government utilizes the name Myanmar. Bloom6132 (talk) 17:37, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

The sources in discussion below seem to suggest otherwise. In anycase, I still believe the article should now be at Myanmar.--Tærkast (Discuss) 17:50, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose: I use Burma in everyday conversations, and people (including ones from other countries) understand where I mean. They don't tend to understand Myanmar. I suggest Burma to be the most useful name. (How many English Wikipedia users will not be familiar with Burma when they are familiar with Myanmar and vice-versa? Any data on which name is looked up more often?) Allens (talk) 17:42, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

  Does the most-looked-up name mean it's most commonly used, or does it mean it's least recognizable and therefore must be looked up when seen? Methinks some folks might change their answer, depending on which name it is. :) -BaronGrackle (talk) 17:54, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose: I keep seeing Burma everywhere but Myanmar nowhere. Myanmar, what's that? Furthermore, someone listed a source above telling that several large important English-speaking countries recognise the country as Burma instead of Myanmar. (Stefan2 (talk) 21:27, 24 October 2011 (UTC))

  Willful ignorance is a terrible reason to vote. --Golbez (talk) 22:10, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

  One, this is a poll not a vote. And two, willful ignorance never stops people from voting in UK or US elections. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:21, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

  One, yawn. Two, we have the benefit of whoever closes this having the ability to discard useless votes, unlike in the UK and US. --Golbez (talk) 22:32, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose for reasons already given. The Jade Knight (talk) 21:48, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. —MJCdetroit ^{(tell me)} 01:19, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Discussion related to the above move

Where should this move be advertised

user:Fyunck(click) notified me of this discussion asking where it should be advertised. As it aroused so much community interest last time, I think the request should be widely advertised. I would suggest that all those who took place in the last requested move should be informed of this request. That an RfC is notified for the length of time that this RM is active and that general form such as project groups and village pump are informed. Does anyone want to volunteer to take on any of these tasks? Or have any other suggestions? -- PBS (talk) 05:58, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I just posted an RFC notice. Kauffner (talk) 12:53, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I went through as many old discussion/poll/cabals as I could find and sent a message out to those participants about the poll here. God I don't ever want to go through all those names again so I made a list of the editors just in case :-) It should take a day or two according to the bot. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:13, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Note for closing admin: Fyunck(click) is manually notifying editors who have contributed to this discussion in the past. Please consider keeping this discussion open for (a lot) longer. --regentspark (comment) 21:09, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I think I got everyone. Whew... time for some visine. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:06, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

User:Soewinhan This move has to be discussed and decided on the usage in reliable English language sources not unreliable sources. Unreliable sources tend to be retuned by a general Google search. Your Google surveys to date in this RM are not useful as they include both reliable and unreliable sources. I suggest you try doing things like restricting them to government domains in English speaking countries and other similar searches that will return a highet number of reliable sources and fewer unreliable ones. -- PBS (talk) 05:58, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion. I performed searches accordingly.SWH^talk 06:53, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Genearl searches on org or Edu do not return a preponderance of reliable sources. What makes you think that .org is any better than say *.uk or *.com? Edu contain many student and advocacy pages. A better search for reliable academic sources would be searches of Google scholar and more generally Google books since 1986 (although again one has to check the books returned as many will be travel books and books about the Burma Campaign etc). You will find similar problems with scholar. Also .gov and .edu are US sites the equiv for the UK is .gov.uk and .ac.uk and there are similar one for Australia New Zealand etc, but .ac.uk will suffer from the same problem as .edu. -- PBS (talk) 21:03, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Taking .gov.uk as an example (why that domain? It was the first one I tried!) There is a tendency for it to include many local government sites which in the case of international relations can not be seen as very reliable. In fact looking at the first page or returns on a Google search of the gov.uk domain, for Burma -Myanmar site:gov.uk, -Burma Myanmar site:gov.uk and Burma Myanmar site:gov.uk the first ten retuned by the last search seem to be a sample of the more reliable British Government papers (eg the departments of foreign office and treasury). To see whether the papers lead with one or the other as this article will do will have to be done by viewing the papers (or some clever regular expressions) . -- PBS (talk) 21:03, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

the brit govt is ot the global barometre and the empire is dead.

not much more RS tha thisLihaas (talk) 17:53, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

PBS. Why do you think government sources are reliable? No government would say "We should call it Burma because it is the most used term in English". They say the government is a military junta, not democratically elected, therefore, the gov doesn't have a right to rename the country. .Edu contains student activist groups. But, most activists prefer Burma rather than Myanmar for the same reason that western governments do. As well, since I have already included .gov domain, I have to include .org domains. Although it can be registered by anyone, prominent international organizations such as UN, use it exclusively. (UN and its programmes pages use Myanmar) As far as I see, only Books tend to use Burma over Myanmar. But unknown number of books are reprinted books. Google also has deals with several online publishing groups that scan for pdf version of old books. SWH^talk 11:10, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

You have got to be kidding me. Which part of this sprawling mess of a debate inspired the solicitation of yet another round of unstructured, uninvolved, single-line opinions on a blank sheet? Surely some people must be less interested in editorial progress than having the same long-winded arguments over flimsy logic over and over again. Bigbluefish (talk) 16:16, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

To focus this, can we look at the numbers SWH posted above? It's the part above with the phrase "My searches in English language news, scholar, books, .gov domains, .edu domains and .org domains return the following results." When I look at this list, it seems that GoogleBooks is the only place where Burma is the obvious majority. I think we should focus on whether this information is accurate, and if it is, then whether it has solid weight over which name is commonly used. And if it does not have solid weight, then can we agree on what does? -BaronGrackle (talk) 20:34, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Of those addresses, I'd say only books and scholar are worth looking at, and they show Burma to be the common name. News will contain a lot of blogs, a lot of hyper-minor sites and a lot of syndicated content (so that if, for example, AP has a particular house style, that will get massively overrepresented in the results). I was going to say the .gov, org and edu sites are country-specific but okay that's not true. What I have noted, though, is that there are a lot of Burmese English language sites included, which surely ought to be excluded if that is possible. --FormerIP (talk) 21:04, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, I do agree that the Associated Press's house style results in Myanmar getting way more exposure than it would otherwise. But I wouldn't see that as a reason to exclude it as evidence; I'd see it as further evidence itself. WP:Commonname places GoogleBooks and GoogleNews on relatively equal platforms. Is there a reason in this scenario to prefer one over the other, as more indicative of what's in common use? -BaronGrackle (talk) 22:14, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, as just stated. A hundred articles produced by the New York Times, the Guardian and and Sydney Morning Herald gets you a hundred returns on Google News. But a hundred articles produced by AP, FP and Reuters could get you thousands of returns. So, lets say the first three prefer "tomayto" and the second three prefer "tomahto". Google news would tell you that "tomahato" wins by many hundred percent. But that's not a real reflection of the reality that the sources are split fairly evenly. It's actually a wildly unreliable place to look, at least in cases where house style is likely to be an issue. I might just go and copy-paste this comment over on the commonname talkpage. --FormerIP (talk) 23:42, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

OK I did that on the Search Engine Test page and at commonname. --FormerIP (talk) 23:56, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Remember also these are guidelines, not rules. From numerous battles in tennis articles I've found that one persons great source is another persons Paparazzi blog. It's also not just a numbers game. If 80% of the English speaking country population and sources say it's one name you might think it's a slam dunk. But if countries 1-20 all favored one name while country 21 was the only one favoring another name and that country #21 had 3x the population of the other countries combined, it would be a lot blurrier as far as common name. Sort of like a house vote vs a senate vote in the US. From the books and magazines and news I get from the UK I don't doubt that Burma is more common. For the US I also don't doubt that Myanmar is more common. The other two big English language areas, Australia and Canada, I don't read enough on a regular basis to know what is taught in schools and how the general population feels. The newspapers in both seem to favor Burma. Published magazines and books in Canada and Australia/NewZealand I really don't know about. We don't even know really what people in Burma/Myanmar use on a day to day basis from the coasts to the interiors... 3 years ago they seemed to use other names more frequently than either Burma or Myanmar. We pretty much had to throw out common name last go around because of this uncertainty so other sources like official gov't agencies came to the forefront. That's why we talked UN or UK official recognition. I said before that I think Myanmar has gained considerable usage in three years, but I'm not convinced from these posts "thus far" that we require a change. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:54, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Okay. In all our years of arguing, can we agree on these things?

(1) official names don't matter, neither the UN, the English-speaking governments, nor the way its government identifies itself. And,

(2) both names are commonly used, and finding the "most common" is dependent on the type of source and the part of the world it comes from.

Can we agree on that? If not, we can keep at the Common Name debate. But if so, then we need to find a policy on what happens if there are multiple common names in English. I don't think Wikipedia has one for that. The Multiple Local Names guidelines give Liancourt Rocks and Londonderry as examples, but those solutions don't seem to apply here. At this point, I think I'd be able to handle "Burma" if the decision were made in a way that could be described as an example on one of those guideline pages. I'm not sure if any other Myanmites agree, of course. -BaronGrackle (talk) 23:12, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

When we are talking common name I agree that #1 doesn't matter. But if common name fails then we have to look for other things according to wikipedia. They want us to be "concise" and use "precision" and come to a consensus. What are we going to use to do that barring common name? If you start saying Encyclopedia Britannica says Myanmar then certainly we can also say things like the UK State dept and all official records say Burma. So depending on what's being argued #1 can be valid or invalid. Fyunck(click) (talk) 02:58, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree with item 1 above. This debate should focus solely on common name. However, I do think that English language sources of all sorts matter and disagree that we should be looking largely at sources from the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. We should also be looking at English language sources from India, Singapore, Hong Kong and other parts of the world that have vibrant English speaking (and reading and writing) communities. I also think that FormerIP is correct and we should give a little more weight to books than to google results. But, there are a couple of caveats to that. First, we should only be looking at books and articles published recently (I'd say 2007 - 2011). Second, and this is the big problem, we need to exclude books and articles that talk about the historical Burma (because they don't refer to the modern nation) (unfortunately for my !vote above, jstor brings up 1258 Burma articles since 2007 versus 859 Myanmar articles - I'll scan them to see how many refer to the historical entity). So, here are my three principles:

1. Official names don't matter (stolen from BaronGrackle)
2. The search for the 'common name' should include English language sources from all English speaking parts of the world
3. Books, academic articles, and major news/media sources should be weighted slightly more than google searches but we (somehow) need to separate references to the historical entity from the current entity).--regentspark (comment) 13:46, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

For some reason I didn't think #2 was in line with our policy, but I suppose I was mistaken (I thought it was something about English being a minority language, even if it is "official"). With #3, you compare books and academic articles against google searches, but you don't mention news/media sources one way or the other. -BaronGrackle (talk) 14:47, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Good point. I've added major media sources above. About #2, WP:COMMONNAME refers to English language reliable sources. I assume that The Straits Times, South China Morning Post, The Times of India all qualify as English language reliable sources. I'm not sure about #3. The purpose of using the common name is because it is recognizable and natural, in which case we should be over emphasizing news and media sources and under emphasizing academic ones. --regentspark (comment) 15:37, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

There's a lot of leeway as far as English language sourcing as I've seen in countless debates around wiki. Everyone's entitled to weigh things as they see fit. I will never give weight to the South China Morning Post as to being an English source. Almost all countries learn English but they are not reliable in that they will follow the mindset of the non-english population of the area and will simply be a rehash written in English. And if you are going to use an academic article I will certainly use something written by the UK State dept. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:41, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

What do you mean by "following the mindset of the non-english population" of the SCMP? Do you mean to say that Hong Kong, despite English being an official and widely spoken language, is not a legitimate (for Wikipedia) producer of English language material because its people are not ethnically English? Quigley (talk) 20:47, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

SCMP is certainly a major English-language paper, 100,000 circulation. Bangkok Post has 75,000. This "mindset" stuff sounds pretty snooty to me. Kauffner (talk) 22:47, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I think "official names don't matter" misses the head of the nail. Clearly they can matter. Consider Republic of China and Republic of Ireland, for example - a rule-based approach blind to official naming would give us "Taiwan"/"Ireland" per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, and then "Taiwan (island)"/"Ireland (island)". In this case, in the hypothetical scenario where all world governments suddenly decided "Myanmar" was the way to go, we should probably change quite quickly and not wait for Google Books to catch up with the new reality. All that said, I don't think its likely to ever be decisive for this article, so maybe the discussion is academic.

I think any English language sources from anywhere in the world where there is a significant English FL population not only can, but should be included in considerations. However, there is a need to be sophisticated and flexible in weighting. Obviously, the Trinidad Guardian should not carry as much weight as the Manchester Guardian. I also think we should be slightly wary about countries such as China, where house styles may be decided by state bureaucrats (particularly if we are, on the other hand, avoiding official naming conventions). --FormerIP (talk) 21:17, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Just plain "Ireland" is official.[17] The Irish government does not appreciate being called "Republic of Ireland". But pro-IRA Irish opinion and anti-Irish British opinion combine to trump both common and official name. There an active RM here. Kauffner (talk) 22:47, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Ah, OK I stand amended, although it should be noted that the official name really is Republic of Ireland: [18]. In any event, the example shows that the approach generally taken does not simply follow commonname with blinkers on. Here we have two other factors being cited: official name and the politicised nature of the naming debate. --FormerIP (talk) 23:47, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

There have been a lot of links to Google Books in the votes and comments made above. Could someone respond to RegentsPark's musing that "The purpose of using the common name is because it is recognizable and natural, in which case we should be over emphasizing news and media sources and under emphasizing academic ones."? Because right now I'm more sympathetic to the argument that British media has a global influence, as opposed to the argument about Google Books. And it'd be really cool if this thing could end in something other than "No consensus, so no change." -BaronGrackle (talk) 22:52, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I actually think we would ideally look at new usage, academic usage, diplomatic usage and so on and make a reasoned judgement, rather then looking at any one thing in particular. The problem with news, though, is that I don't think we have a reliable way of assessing it with metrics. For the reasons I gave above, Google News is reliable way of assessing commonname. --FormerIP (talk) 00:16, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Someone mentioned above that Gbooks is used instead of just general Ghits because of technical limitations of the Ghits counts which make the actual numbers of dubious utility for these kinds of discussions. SDY (talk) 23:00, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Our guidelines say to follow the RS. But you prefer popular use, Google Insights tells you what our readers are typing in. Kauffner (talk) 23:22, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

That's interesting, because it seems to suggest people search for Burma, except when it is in the news, then they search for Myanmar. How is that explained? --FormerIP (talk) 23:47, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

AP style is "Myanmar", so that's no mystery. When Americans see the name in the news, they wonder, "Where is this country Myanmar?" So they Google it up. Kauffner (talk) 02:37, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

The AP

• has reporters inside Burma
• knows that the Burmese junta is petty, spiteful, and determined
• and so has reason to believe that if they don't comply on datelines, their reporters may be expelled, and not impossibly jailed.

Their position is inglorious, but reasonable; if the Burmese news is valuable enough to the world, it may even be ethical. But it does not create American usage; the advantage of being a tertiary source is that we don't have such pressures. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:39, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

or you are making assumptions of the reasons for their choice without evidence. (It seems fairly obvious they wouldn't say that since if they really were afraid, they would be afraid to tell people they only chose the name because they were afraid.) I could just as well say that the BBC and those who use Burma are afraid they will lose their contacts with Burmese anti-government groups if they use Myanmar. Heck I can cast the net wider and say that they are even afraid alienating other non Burmese groups and people sympathetic to the cause of the Burmese anti-government groups and those who reject the legitimacy of Burmese goverment, which there's a lot more then those sympathetic to the Myanmar government. (Even those like say the Chinese government who are close to the Myanmar government aren't going to be much different to you solely because of you choosing Burma over Myanmar.)

BTW I somewhat agree with FormerIP here. In particularly as I pointed out in the discussion I see the common usage argument as rather flawed since the evidence all suggests it's impossible to clearly demonstrate either way, it depends on how you spin the sources. Really it seems to me a lot of people when saying either one is 'common usage' are mostly just going by their own preference. Therefore we can either go by first contributors preference, which is the stock answer for when we can't decide by other means or we can go by official English usage which IMO is a more logical way to decide things then first contributors preference.

Nil Einne (talk) 05:28, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Adopting "official usage" is adopting the POV of the officials (and the POV that they are the proper officials, also a significant issue here). Anybody who supports that opposes WP:NPOV, and should be treated accordingly. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:25, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Another thing I would add for consideration is that we may well have a situation where Myanmar has a slight advantage in the US (and possibly elsewhere) but is very rarely used in the UK (and possibly elsewhere). Surely there's a case for saying is is parsimonious that we should go with the version that is universally understood, rather than the version that will leave some corners of the globe confused, even if it is the most commonly used (although it appears to me that is isn't in any case). --FormerIP (talk) 00:16, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

And Myanmar has an advantage in AP datelines; that's not at all the same thing. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:25, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

A little on POVs

Reading the move discussion above, I think it might be good to think explicitly about what is not relevant to the decision.

We know that some think the country should be named Burma, and others that it should be named Myanmar. These are both POVs, and irrelevant.

And we also know that some are putting forth these POVs as arguments one way or another. But that's not relevant either. I mean, just because someone argues that it should be called Burma and we discount this argument, that doesn't itself count as an argument for naming the article Myanmar. And vice versa.

What we're interested in is simply the best title to enable readers to find the information they want. It's an article title. No more, no less. Andrewa (talk) 00:52, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree. The discussion should hinge around common name (and other ancillary policy or guideline based arguments if common name is ambiguous). I'm bemused by the number of 'official name' or POV !votes (oddly, mostly on the support side). Both Myanmar as well as Burma come with their own POV baggage so I don't see the point of those !votes. The way I see it, the move boils down to:

1. Burma is the clear common name in English language usage
2. Myanmar is the clear common name in English language usage
3. Neither is the clear common name in English language usage and so we should stick to Burma because that's where the article is or that's the recognizably English historical name of that nation
4. Neither is the clear common name in English language usage and so we should move to Myanmar because that's what is recognized as the official name by most nations the government of that country chooses to call itself in English or because Myanmar is where the trend is going

Those are the possible choices that we face here and the discussion should focus on providing evidence for whatever option a !voter believes is correct. --regentspark (comment) 02:16, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I disagree a bit on your choices 3 and 4. In choice 4 if you use the phrase "recognized as the official name by most nations" then to be fair you should also add into choice 3 the fact that it's recognized by English speaking nations as the official name (not just historical). I understand what you are trying to do in simplifying it for everyone, I'm cool with that, but I don't quite agree it's as simple as you just made it. I do think that pov votes have always been a part of wiki and probably always will be but any good admin who reads the pros and cons of this poll before closing it will weed out what is truly useless. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:53, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I clarified in my phrasing that we're only interested in English language usage. I don't want to use 'English speaking nations' because the definition of that is a bit unclear.

The phraseology "recognized as the official name" holds no water on either side. Governments only determine their own usage and even the US and UK don't go as far as suggesting that "Burma" is the de jure name for the country. The UN might be an exception, I'm not sure. Since the de facto is usually presumed in linguistic convention, one might say that "Myanmar" is not challenged by most states, but that's about it. Bigbluefish (talk) 14:52, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree with that. I've modified the statement above to clarify that 'official' really only means that this is a choice made by the Burmese/Myanmar government.

I personally lean toward the #4 above, along the lines of "Both are clear common names, so we should stick with Myanmar, which is what the article title was before the 2007 move that even admitted there was no consensus to move." But yes, I do have preference to the common name that has grown in English use and only continues to grow, as opposed to the former name whose common use comes mainly from history. And no, I don't have the same "passion" that so many of us had four years ago when this happened. But perhaps the festering mess that this article's title discussion has become will serve as an example to future administrators before they decide to Move articles, while still knowing that there is no consensus. Look at the archives above; your article talk page will turn into this. :-D -BaronGrackle (talk) 13:59, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Sources

Myanmar

• US Media predominantly uses Myanmar: Bloomberg, NPR, New York Times, CNN, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal.
• Channel NewsAsia, HQ in Singapore, broadcast in 24 Asian countries
• India: Times of India
• China: Xinhua.net
  • Hong Kong: SCMP
• Taiwan: Taipei Times, The China Post
• Singapore: The Straits Times, Today,
• Malaysia: New Straits Times, The Star
• Indonesia: The Jakarta Post
• Thailand: Mass Communication Organization of Thailand
• The Philippines: The Manila Times
• Jordan: The Jordan Times
• Agence-France-Presse: "Washington's new envoy to Myanmar arrived in the Southeast Asian country on Monday for his second visit in two months, aiming to further the US strategy of engagement."
• Aljazeera English: "Myanmar is a very insular country and it often takes a while for news to filter out to the rest of the world."
• AP Stylebook: "Myanmar. Use this name for the country and the language. Use Myanmar people or Myanmar for the inhabitants."
• Britannica: "Myanmar, also called Burma, country, located in the western portion of mainland Southeast Asia."
• Economist: "Myanmar and its neighbours: The eye of the Buddha"
• JSTOR results (2007 - ) (title only): Burma: 47 [19] Myanmar:60 [20].
• Lonely Planet: "Myanmar is a land of mystifying contradictions"
• Merriam-Webster: "Myanmar may be divided into five main regions: the northern mountains, the western ranges, the coastal plains, the central lowlands, and the Shan Plateau in the east."
• Reuters: "Thailand battled to protect the capital Bangkok from being swamped by water on Friday, with canals full to the brim after devastating floods across the region that sources in neighboring Myanmar said had killed at least 100 people there."

Burma

• BBC uses Burma. BBC
• Other UK media predominantly use Burma. (Guardian, Times, DT, Independent links here).
• Some US media use Burma. Washington Post, New York Post, Time Magazine, FoxNews-AP, ABC, Forbes Magazine.
• Thailand/Southeast Asia The Irrawaddy, Bangkok Post
• Ireland Irish Times
• Jakarta Indonesia Jakarta Globe
• Australia predominantly uses Burma. Sydney Morning Herald, Radio Australia, (Australia/India/Thailand news) Mizzma, The Australian, The Age.
• New Zealand. New Zealand Herald
• Canada. Canadian Union of Public Employees, The Epoch Times, Montreal Gazette, Edmonton Journal.
• India the Deccan Chronicle
• Jordan. MENAFN
• British Foreign Office: "The overall level of the advice has not changed; there are no travel restrictions in place in this travel advice for Burma."
• CIA fact book: "Burma in early May 2008 was struck by Cyclone Nargis, which claimed over 138,000 dead and tens of thousands injured and homeless."
• Financial Times: "Burma is to send a vice-president to China in an effort to soothe tensions after the suspension of a $3.6bn Chinese-backed dam in the country cast a shadow over ties between the normally close allies."

Discussion

The above discussion does not seem very productive, as the discussion is based on personal opinion instead of on sources. How about we take China as an example [21], and start making a table of sources with which name is used? --Globe-trotter (talk) 17:51, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Just to say, the PRC - China move was in itself quite controversial, and was ultimately decided upon by a three-admin panel. As I've mentioned in the RM discussion here, I didn't see any ultimate consensus either way, but the article was moved nonetheless. Still, doing a table of sources wouldn't hurt, at least then we'd know where the sources stand.--Tærkast (Discuss) 20:26, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

And in case you weren't aware that's how this name was originally chosen, by a three-admin panel. That was 3 years ago... time flies. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:30, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Ah, but it seems the PRC/China three-admin panel resulted in all three admins deciding for "China". The Burmyanmar panel resulted in one admin deciding for Myanmar, one deciding for Burma, and one deciding for "No consensus". Even a 2-1 decision would've been somewhat stable. But a 1-1-1 decision means the Mediation Cabal failed to mediate; it just appealed to that same controversial 2007 Move to Burma, which means a new round of fighting over this was inevitable. Heh. Fun times. -BaronGrackle (talk) 02:49, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. I just didn't know whether Taerkast knew that Burma also went to a panel. Fyunck(click) (talk) 03:31, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't think I did, or rather only vaguely. But thanks for bringing that up, now I know. Again, I still disagree with the PRC/China move and the consensus there, but we'll focus on this one now. I was also vaguely aware of the Mediation case for this.--Tærkast (Discuss) 14:45, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Doing a table would also make them easily accessible and readable. Millertime246 (talk) 20:34, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

How does the JSTOR search work? Does it search the text of the entire articles or just the titles? If it just searches text then I doubt it's conclusive either way. A publication could mostly call it Myanmar yet refer to independence as Burma or the British colony of Burma etc., a publication calling it Burma could note that the government calls it Myanmar and that would pop up in results. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:54, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Good point. I've included the title only results above (which favor Myanmar over Burma). --regentspark (comment) 16:09, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

You gotta be kidding with this list of sources. I find the sources for english versions of Al Jazeera and the French Presse useless here, and one of the sources is listed as a blog. The oecd is another French organization reprinted in English. This seems the sort of thing that could get out of hand with people adding things over and over in a source mess. Or people will append notes as to which are good sources and which are not. Do we really want to go here? Fyunck(click) (talk) 17:56, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what your problem is? If you don't want to base common name on a list of sources, what else would you want to base it on? Like AP and Reuters, AFP is one of the largest press agencies in the English language, and AJE is a major English language news source. The OECD, while its headquarters is in France, isn't a French organization. Please contribute to the list by adding more reliable sources. --Globe-trotter (talk) 18:14, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Listing every source would be monumental and require heaps of bandwidth. And I don't care two hoots and a holler what a Chinese or French source says about an English wikipedia, just because they happen to be written in English. They should be great sources for French wikipedias or Chinese wikipedias. Right now that list is a biased joke. As has been discussed above one persons reliable source is another persons Paparazzi blog. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:45, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

This is the English language Wikipedia, not the UK or US Wikipedia, so all English language sources are valid. If you think the list is a biased joke, like I said before, contribute to the list by adding more reliable sources. Of course, whether or not a source is reliable is debatable at some level, but it's obvious that press agencies, newspapers, international organizations, and science magazines should count as reliable, while Johny's Hobby Blog shouldn't. --Globe-trotter (talk) 19:17, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Well that's your opinion not mine nor everybody's. You can consider China, Qatar, France, Iceland, and Finland excellent sources for English nomenclature but many won't and when an admin looks at this whole thing he may throw most of that stuff out. I know I would. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:50, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Plus the meat of this debate is up above in the polling section. Most editors who came here to give opinion in the poll have come and gone. They aren't now going to come back and start editing this discussion and notice someone put up a funky list of biased sources. They expressed their opinions once already. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:55, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Third time I say this: this list is just a start, instead of complaining about it, complement it by adding your own sources. This is a wiki, it works by collaborative effort. This whole discussion should not be about people expressing their opinion, but should be about objectively finding sources from where we can extract the most common name for the country. Wikipedia should not have self-research or opinions, it should reflect other sources. The China article naming issue got solved this way, and we should aspire the same here. --Globe-trotter (talk) 22:33, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

In regards to "people adding things over and over in a source mess", should there be separate references for the governments of the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, etc. under Burma? I see there's the CIA World Factbook and British Foreign Office, but I wasn't sure if these were counted separately from the state position itself. In the China chart Globe-trotter linked at the beginning, one of the sources for "Republic of China" was the Vatican government, so I assume English-speaking governments would likewise be listed here in some form. -BaronGrackle (talk) 18:51, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps the sources could be collapsed into headings. For example, NYT, Washington Post, NPR, Bloomberg could be collapsed into "US Media" with each link serving as a reference. I'll do it above as an example. --regentspark (comment) 19:20, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure if that's an improvement. Generalising into US and UK media is superficial, as it's not as clear cut as it might seem at first. I was using China as an example [22], because there a list of sources has solved the common name issue. I think we should aspire here to make a similar list of sources, which would eventually show common usage in the English language as a whole, and not just per country. --Globe-trotter (talk) 22:58, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Possibly, but I notice that the China list has only THREE sources for the "Republic of China" option and only ONE for the civilization option. Cripes, if it were that unbalanced for Burmyanmar, I think finding Common Name would be a lot easier. And looking at your link, I suspect the PRC/China question was resolved mainly by the three moderators just making a decision, without one of them opting out. That being said, I'm not bashing the idea of a source list. I just predict what I think Fyunck is predicting: a lot of us already know where the sources fall. The English-speaking governments are going to favor Burma. The U.S. media will favor Myanmar; the U.K. media will favor Burma (I don't remember on the other nations). Online encyclopedias will say Myanmar, Google Books will favor Burma, and several of the other intelligent searches get divided down the middle. The BBC has an argument for dominating English-speaking exposure with Burma, as does the Associated Press with Myanmar. We have the numbers up above; we can write out the specific sources if that helps newcomers, but there are already more sources listed than "Republic of China" had, and there are lots more on both sides. -BaronGrackle (talk) 23:42, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Maybe it will turn out problematic, sure, but this is the ground work for being able to make a decision in the first place. This list should already have been made when this discussion started years ago. Without it, the whole discussion is based on original research. The reason why the admins at China came to a conclusion is because their list overwhelmingly shows that China is the common name for the PRC. Here it will be harder to make that decision, but that doesnt mean we shouldn't do proper research before voting. --Globe-trotter (talk) 00:26, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Just because no one made a list doesn't mean sources weren't given and continue to be given. proper research has been done in the past. And also just because sources point one way doesn't mean consensus will. As an example we had a personal name issue here on wiki. English sources that spelled out the name: spelling X=9 sources, spelling y=0 sources. Consensus was spelling y and that's where it sits today. And this happens all the time. Fyunck(click) (talk) 01:01, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

What article was that, out of interest? RMs are always nightmares in my opinion, there's no such thing as a consensus on anything and it has to be hammered out one at a time on each page. At worst it gets into a slow-moving move page war where the article changes every few months and it's a lack of interest that leads to it petering out. I'd say this debate is about as hotly contested and passionate as the issues with China-PRC, Gdansk-Danzig, and FYR-Macedonia. hbdragon88 (talk) 05:32, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

The particular one I won't get into again, but others pretty much in the same vain are foreign tennis players with diacritics in their names. We have a player Ana Jankovic whose own English webpage is spelled Jelena Jankovic yet still it sits at the diacritic name here. Other less prominent players have their only english sourced spellings without diacritics and they are sourced at the ATP, WTA, Davis Cup, Wimbledon, US Open, etc... No English sources given spelled their names with diacritics. None at all. Polls were taken, 90% polled said use the diacritics regardless (as it was their Serbian or Swedish, etc... birthname), and there we are. My point was that sources aren't all they're cracked up to be around here. Consensus rules the day. Sure it usually needs to be 65% or more to change a title from an established name to a new name but it isn't simply add up the sources and put them in a list as Globe-trotter would have us do. I just added a bunch silly though it seems to me, and could have added 100s more. Some editors will weigh the BBC and London Times extraordinarily high. That's their right here. Some will say we should count as equals Chinese newsprint translated to English. That's their right too as it is mine to pretty much discount it completely. Some will say to count the total US media as equal to the total UK media or Australian media. Some will say The US weighs more because of population, or that whatever India says goes because their population dwarfs the US/UK/Australia/Canada combined. It is not simply a number of sources game, nor even quality of sources game since we can't agree on what is quality or what is not. You're an admin and I'm not so I applaud you having to go through these on a regular basis. I wouldn't want to and luckily I can leave when it starts giving me too big a headache. At least most of the people who have participated in these Burma/Myanmar debates through the years have been informed by me, whatever side they're on, so that was my major contribution to this poll no matter the outcome. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:18, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

(od) I guess this is all moot now anyway and Burma it is for the time being. We should wait at least one year and some sea change in Burma before testing the waters again so let's wait and see which way the sources move. Fyunck, any chance you can figure out how to add a link to this move request to the header of Talk:Burma/Myanmar page so that the "why is this page at Burma?" askers can get an easy answer to their question? --regentspark (comment) 20:37, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

 Done - I just did it and updated this page's mediation history. I'm not sure if it's exactly correct at [Talk:Burma/Myanmar]] as I couldn't find the original rfc link, so I linked it to this talk page. When this page gets archived I'm not sure if the links will follow. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:02, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't think we'll need to revisit this anytime soon unless something big happens to the contrary. -BaronGrackle (talk) 13:28, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Or, possibly, to the country :). --FormerIP (talk) 14:12, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I oppose any move. Don't know where to vote as the above is closed. Beam 20:25, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Too late, but it was already closed as no consensus to move. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:36, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

A clear demonstration of what Wikipedia should not be

And so, the latest move request comes to another inconclusive close. I did not participate, for the patterns demonstrating the failure of this site to steer back to where it was meant to be again rears its ugly head. Critical policies again take the backseat, while contentious ones are given full airing.

Which critical policy was I referring to? NPOV, of course. Despite numerous "pro-Burma" advocates insisting their views were not influenced by what happens politically in that country wedged between India and Thailand, tell-tale signs that they were far from being politically NPOV were evident even in the closing admin's comment (or at least it was implied):

I suspect there may be other move requests in the future, depending on what happens politically in the country...

Fish and karate, [23]

Now, check out the comments made soon after:

• We should wait at least one year and some sea change in Burma before testing the waters again...[24]
• Yeah, I don't think we'll need to revisit this anytime soon unless something big happens to the contrary...[25]

It is indeed sad, that here in Wikipedia which is supposed to be reliant purely on NPOV sources, we are strategising pagemoves based on political events. As has been highlighted by numerous alarmed editors before me, the first move request away from Myanmar took place soon after the failed civil uprising, and now there is an attempt to move it back only when people are convinced that the "democratically" elected government is serious about reforms. Pro-Burma advocates insist there must be substantive change in "common usage" before a page move, yet one wonders where these people were prior to the 2007 protests. Did "respectable sources" suddenly change their reference of the country after the 2007 events to invoke that first move in Wikipedia? I doubt so. So why is it being used as an argument to resist a move in the opposite direction now?

And despite countless reminders that Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a democracy, we still have people trying to weigh their views based on numerical advantage rather than the strength of arguments. The closing admin may not see it, but while the arguments have not changed for the past 3 years, we are still seeing the two arguments boiling down to two main policies:

• Pro-Burma: Common Usage
• Pro-Myanmar: NPOV

I have mentioned it several times before, and I am saying it again. While the pro-Burma folks latch on to the common usage argument, the outcome has been inconclusive. But the pro-Myanmar plea that wikipedia must adhere to NPOV has remained sidelined, despite (and perhaps also because of) it being a far more important policy than common usage. Instead, some Pro-Burma folks have argued that conforming to usage by "majority English-speaking countries" is somehow more politically neutral than observing global English usage. This, despite the undisputed fact that there are now more English speakers outside the "majority English-speaking countries" than there are within it. Further, there is nothing in WP:COMMONNAME which supports the notion that native English usage should take precedence. It is a twist of facts to fit one's viewpoint. Unless one can show us a policy which suggests otherwise, that India and China uses the term "Myanmar" in their English-language publications should be of equal weight as a publication from the UK or the US.

Therefore, the above exercise has demonstrated several things. We have now proven that Wikipedia articles can be directly influenced by political events in a matter of months or even days after they have occurred, without bothering to look at sources first. When we do look at sources, we choose articles based on what kind of sources we think fits our agenda, and rejects others as "less respectable" just because they reflect contrary views. We have proven that numerical superiority is important, that you just need 37 people to say "As above" to count in critical decisions. We have proven that the native English-speaking nations should determine how the world calls their own country in English. And we have proven that in Wikipedia, common usage counts more than having a NPOV.

We have certainly done well.--Huaiwei (talk) 15:28, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

The reason I said that there'd probably be no need to revisit this until "something big happens", is because not much has change in the four or so years since the original vote. With a few exceptions, the same sources that used Burma still use Burma while the same sources that used Myanmar still use Myanmar. This probably won't change until something else changes, which means we aren't likely to reach consensus. Both names can appeal to NPOV, since there are two POVs at work here. And both names can appeal to Common Use, as this RM has pounded home. -BaronGrackle (talk) 17:32, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Great. Things don't go the way you want and you attack other editors, belittle the closing administrator's abilities and smack down the polling system that is used in countless other disputes here. Just because you have different priorities in what you deem good sources doesn't make your pov any more viable than anyone else's. Oh and the sources we pull from sometimes change in a matter of days not months so we have to be flexible. You were too cowardly to put your two cents in and have it challenged properly by your peers at the proper time so now you post a pompous, biased and very pov annotation. Yeah that's the way to do things at wikipedia. You work within the system and with the system. There are many times I'm at a loss as to how a mediated rfm etc. gets ruled on or how editors can be thinking what they are thinking. That doesn't mean that after the fact I attack everyone who disagreed with me like a little kid would. Every debate I've been in people give different weight to different sources just as jurors give different weight to different evidence. As a group we tried our best to lay out things for the closer. Sure some simply said yeah or ney and he didn't base his decision on those votes, as he said. So yes... I think we certainly did do well. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:42, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

More like

• Pro-Burma: Common usage
• Pro-Myanmar: NPOV and common usage.

Thylacinus cynocephalus (talk) 20:49, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

This from the person who voted TWICE in the last poll, so it wasn't even 50/50. Add NPOV and English sources to Pro-Burma and you got it down. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:40, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually I was just trying to make another point, not make another vote. Thylacinus cynocephalus (talk) 22:06, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Huaiwei, you reach the conclusion and now there is an attempt to move it back only when people are convinced that the "democratically" elected government is serious about reforms because you're looking at all this through a biased lens. The reality is that the name of the article has been largely decided on the principle of common name policy. The common name of an article is, roughly, the most recognizable and natural. Naturally, the salience of Burma or Myanmar depends on the presence of that country in the news of various English speaking countries and that only happens when there are events of significance in that country. That, essentially, was my logic for the one year or sea change comment - the one year because I believe that sources are generally drifting toward using Myanmar and the sea change because that will only increase the awareness of the name Myanmar. I think the present discussion was conducted in a civil and reasonable way and the conclusion, while not to my liking, is not unwarranted. --regentspark (comment) 23:01, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't appreciate your insinuation that anyone who opposed a move sucks as a Wikipedia Editor. Go look into my post history. I earned my stripes upholding NPOV in the Kosovo related article space. I was just interested in the Yugoslavia war one day, read some articles, made an edit and BAM I was all kinds of up in the gruesome online battle of wills and wits in the sad real life battle of the former Yugoslavia. What got me hooked and what intrigued me into being an editor was the fact that the Wiki had enough rules and "laws" to allow anyone intelligent enough to put any bias aside, as I put my personal subjective ideas and thoughts away when I edit, to edit any article to be "right" as far as that idea goes in this place. So, in other words, GTFO of here with that "you all suck because you think differently than me" crap. It's not needed and pathetic. Beam 00:58, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

What is this?

Do we need another article for the Union of Burma? Thylacinus cynocephalus (talk) 04:06, 01 November 2011 (UTC)

Do we have one? I didn't see it. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:34, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't think we need a separate article on the Union of Burma since the 1974 and 1989 name changes were mere name changes. --regentspark (comment) 12:40, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Just got back; universally Myanmar there, regardless of political views, which are now much more openly expressed

I went insisting on "Burma", came back mind changed. "Burma" is now a deliberate political statement on the part of the opposition, not a real name for the country. Interestingly, "Myanmar" is seen by people of all tribes, including the Bamar, as being more inclusive. Wikipedia's got this wrong. 198.240.128.75 (talk) 08:03, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

and you are? I haven't seen you post here before under this handle. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:02, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Not important, just someone who's actually been there recently. I don't really care to the level of the flamers on here but just my 2¢.

Wportre (talk) 11:31, 9 November 2011 (UTC)