Talk:Taiwan

Spelling

@Phlar: Prior to my edits, the article used mostly British spellings: colour, centre, defence, neighbour, behaviour and kilometre. Per MOS:CONSISTENCY, the spellings should be made consistent. Szqecs (talk) 13:14, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

It's plainly not true that "the article used mostly British spellings." Here's a summary of the situation in this 27 June version prior to your edits:

Word	British occurrences	US occurrences	Comments
authorised/authorized	0	1
behaviour/behavior	1	0
colour/color	1	0
centre/center	3	5	"center" appears another 9 times in non-Taiwanese proper names and citations
characterised/characterized	0	1
criticised/criticized	0	3
defence/defense	9	4	"defense" appears another 9 times in non-Taiwanese proper names and citations
democratis- / democratiz-	0	7
formalised/formalized	0	1
industrialise/industrialisation / industrialize/industrialization	0	5
labour/labor	2	3
labourer/laborer	1	1
liberalis- / liberaliz-	0	2
metre/millilmetre/kilometre / meter/millimeter/kilometer	3	0
neighbour/neighbor	2	3
organised/organization / organized/organization	0	10	there are another 12 instances of "Organization" in proper names
programme/program	0	9	"programme" appears once in reference to a non-Taiwanese proper name: Programme for International Student Assessment
polarised/polarized	0	2
privatis- / privatiz-	0	2
publicised/publicized	0	1
recognis- / recogniz-	0	8	I did not count two instances of "recognised" in the infobox field labels
sinicise/sinicisation / sinicize/sinicization	0	2
stabilis- / stabiliz-	0	3
theatre/theater	1	0
Total	23	74

If you want to make them consistent, I suggest standardizing on US spelling. Phlar (talk) 16:15, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

What I meant is that there are more words, not instances of words, spelled exclusively British. There isn't much significance if the word "program" gets repeated 4 times in section Economy and industry to bump up the numbers in your criteria. Also, 'center' only appears once non-proper. Szqecs (talk) 16:58, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Also you missed metre, millimetre and theatre. Szqecs (talk) 17:01, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

I've added metre, millimtre & theatre to the table. My point is that the article does NOT predominantly use British or US spelling, it uses a near 50-50 mix. The more important question is, does one spelling style actually prevail over the other on the ground in Taiwan? Phlar (talk) 17:20, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

I don't see how that's important. Barely anyone in Taiwan reads English Wikipedia, and most people don't prefer one over the other. The MOS only considers English-speaking countries, which Taiwan is not one. Szqecs (talk) 17:30, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

It is very important how that country handles its version of English. When we handle tennis player bios, we use the style of English that's prevalent in the player's country. Here we have an article on Taiwan and in Taiwan the preference is American English. I pulled some articles and blogs here, here, here and here as an example. I'm not saying to use these as article sources, just to show the general attitude of the population of Taiwan. I'm sure there is some mixing of spellings in the country but it is surely mostly American style English that is taught, so why would we use anything different in the article. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:06, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Because Wikipedia is international space and prefers no variety over the other per MOS:ENGVAR. What you said about tennis players only applies to English-speaking countries. Szqecs (talk) 03:09, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

And to countries who teach English a particular way... as Taiwan does. If Taiwan prefers American English, why on earth would you want British English in its Encyclopedia article? It is more MOS:TIES warranted than MOS:Engvar. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:02, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

And what about people who were never taught English? Why should they be represented as speaking the American variety? Also none of the sources you cited actually looked at the education system and the word choices. Szqecs (talk) 16:21, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

I've added stats (see table above) for the "-ise/-ize" words. It's looking heavily slanted toward US spelling.... Phlar (talk) 20:01, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

-ize is not American. Szqecs (talk) 02:50, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Note that Oxford spelling uses "-ize", but otherwise uses British spellings, so these words are not a clear discriminator. Kanguole 23:01, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Standard British spelling uses -ise, not -ize, Oxford Spelling is just one variant that isn't even accepted at Oxford University. Anyway, if you take the -ise/-ize words out of the table, it's still 23 instances of "Oxford" spelling vs. 25 instances of US spelling. I agree with Fyunck(click) that we should be using US spelling here, because it predominates in Taiwan. Phlar (talk) 14:34, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

I don't know how you counted but 'center' only appears once non-proper, so it's 23 vs 21. As I said, there is no policy to use the variety of English common in non-English speaking countries because there is no significance. For example, most people in Taiwan don't put a space before brackets. Most people don't distinguish between plural and singular, or past and present tenses. Does it mean it is a style that the article should follow? Szqecs (talk) 16:15, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

It does appear that American English predominates. Per MOS:RETAIN we should standardise to that spelling.--Hazhk (talk) 16:44, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

@Szqecs: We are talking about spelling here, not grammar. The official English names of many Taiwanese organizations use US spelling: Centers for Disease Control, Ministry of National Defense, Ministry of Labor, National Theater and Concert Hall. Why should we go against this apparent standard? Phlar (talk) 15:20, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Most countries and most people in the world use commonwealth English. So for a non English speaking country, I don't see why using the American variety is so appealing, especially when the audience is international. Szqecs (talk) 04:02, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

@Fyunck, @Phlar So, it seems there is a consensus here. Do we go ahead and MOS:RETAIN to American English in this article? Also, I found similar modifications toward British English is taking places in various articles including: Kaohsiung, Taichung, Hsinchu, ISO 3166-2:TW, List of Taiwanese flags, Taiwanese Electric Flower Car, List of Taiwanese inventions and discoveries, Culture of Taiwan, Outline of Taiwan, List of political parties in Taiwan. Fizikanauk (talk) 19:37, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

I think we should standardize on US English for this article. Not sure about the other articles—wouldn't that require a broader, Taiwan-related-article-wide discussion & consensus? Phlar (talk) 02:03, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:33, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

There's no consensus here, so we should just leave it as is. Szqecs (talk) 14:55, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

@Szqecs: @Szqecs1: I see you've gone on a real bender over the past few weeks, changing well over a hundred Taiwan-related articles from US to British spelling. In the few pages that I checked (Taiwanese Mandarin, Huayu Enrichment Scholarship, Taiwanese Sign Language, Wild Lily student movement) you appear to have violated MOS:RETAIN: An article should not be edited... simply to switch from one variety of English to another. Please tell me why these changes should not be reverted. Phlar (talk) 19:59, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

And if you include all the date format changes done to Taiwan related articles, it's probably closer to 1000 articles this year alone. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:14, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

I didn't see that sentence. Feel free to revert them. By the same rule then, this article should not be standardised. Szqecs (talk) 03:39, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

That’s well over 100 bogus edits you made. Would you please revert them yourself? Phlar (talk) 05:39, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

They should be if it's true. And have any been done since this conversation started? Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:33, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes, many. See user contributions for Szqecs1. Phlar (talk) 21:18, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

I have reverted a bunch of these edits, and warned Szqesc against using AWB for this type of controversial edits. —Kusma (t·c) 09:42, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

@Kusma: @Phlar: More from Szqecs today: Taoyuan, Kaohsiung. CaradhrasAiguo (talk) 17:47, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

I changed back some of the ones I came across today. One article Special municipality (Taiwan) Szqecs changed all the date formats to British style and he reverted my revert. He had done the same in a 2017 edit. Not sure what to do in this case. Fyunck(click) (talk) 02:25, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

@Fyunck(click): I changed the date format because there is MOS:DATEUNIFY, and it is much easier to unify across the board than to look at every date in every article. I chose DMY because most dates on Wikipedia are DMY and most countries use DMY. When I unified Taiwan to DMY, no one said anything. I don't get why you are so triggered over this.

As for spelling, the policy says articles shouldn't "simply" be changed for spelling. I made other changes including corrections. By reverting them, you are the one making articles worse, not me. Szqecs (talk) 05:59, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Look, you were asked to revert the non-consensus changes yourself. You didn't seem to do it. I found some of your incorrect changes and fixed them manually, word by word. In this case you changed a date format that had been in place for years and years. It got reverted once when you did it in 2017 and I just reverted it as part of your problem edits mentioned above. There was no real reason to change this particular article to dmy when all was fine with mdy. I actually happen to like dmy better because I don't have to add a comma, but in tennis articles we use mdy for American tennis players, dmy for British tennis players, and whatever form any other country uses for their players. Taiwan uses American style English but I actually have no idea what their date format is. What I objected to was your brazen changing of the format for no reason at all, especially with all the other English conversions you did that have had to be corrected (and still need correcting). Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:09, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

note - per google and our own wikipedia article at Date format by country, Taiwan never uses DMY. They generally use YMD and sometimes MDY. They identify with American style English. So one thing we shouldn't be doing is going through all the Taiwan related articles and changing them to DMY. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:18, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

You either didn't read or didn't understand my comment. your brazen changing of the format for no reason at all. As I said, the reason is that there is a policy for consistency, MOS:DATEUNIFY. There were thousands of inconsistent articles, and it would be a lot more effort to look at every date in every article than to just unify all of them. Taiwan never uses DMY. They generally use YMD and sometimes MDY. By your argument, we should be using YMD then. We don't because that's not how it works. What you said about tennis players does not apply to non-English speaking countries. Szqecs (talk) 07:29, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

MOS:DATEUNIFY says a couple things... 1) "Dates in article body text should all use the same format." It already did and you changed them to another format. It also says "Access and archive dates in an article's citations should all use the same format" and "Publication dates in an article's citations should all use the same format." And this is PER ARTICLE... not across all of wikipedia as you seem to think. So you must be reading MOS incorrectly. 2) Just below that it says "Articles on topics with strong ties to a particular English-speaking country should generally use the date format most commonly used in that nation." Taiwan has strong language and date style ties to the USA. It looks like you want things a certain way so you have done mass changes to hundreds of articles. Administrators have asked you to stop, and I'm asking again. Revert yourself on all those articles you changed and if for some reason you won't do it then stop complaining when others do it for you. Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:54, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

And this is PER ARTICLE... not across all of wikipedia as you seem to think. How many times should I say this? I know it is per article, but it is a lot more effort to go through every date in every article and skip the consistent articles, especially when most articles were inconsistent. Articles being consistently MDY or consistently DMY have no difference in quality, so I don't get why you insist on reverting. Taiwan has strong language and date style ties to the USA. You misunderstood the policy. I'll cite it again. "Articles on topics (e.g. Special municipality (Taiwan)) with strong ties to a particular English-speaking country (Taiwan) should generally use the date format most commonly used in that nation (Taiwan)." Special municipality (Taiwan) has no ties to the US and Taiwan most commonly uses YMD, but it is not English-speaking, so it doesn't apply at all. As for admins, they told me to stop using AWB for this, which I have. There is no policy against making edits others don't agree with. Szqecs (talk) 09:41, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

But you have also been told that "Controversial changes done manually instead of by AWB isn't going to help." This has been discussed here and you don't seem to care about any consequences if you keep doing it. I would be careful about taking that path as I would assume that someone will eventually bring it to AnI. As for it taking "more effort" to do it correctly.... well that's just the way it is sometimes in life. Fyunck(click) (talk) 10:02, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

As for it taking "more effort" to do it correctly.... well that's just the way it is sometimes in life. Except there is a policy for that too: WP:IGNORE. I am improving the articles by making dates consistent using a method much more effective than one strictly following rules. You on the other hand are not making any improvements by reverting. Szqecs (talk) 10:18, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Wow, This conversation appears to be pointless. I guess we'll just see what happens if you continue to change everything to British spelling. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:23, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

American. ....as its what the text books use there.--Moxy (talk) 06:26, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

While I personally dislike MDY dates and mostly use British spelling, my general and mostly unverifiable perception is that most people not in the Commonwealth either don't really care or use American English spelling. If the article was originally mostly in American English it should stay in American English, or alternatively all of the words with variant spellings could be replaced or abbreviated to avoid the issue. Jc86035 (talk) 17:12, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

@Szqecs: I don't care either way about the date format as long as it's consistent within each article (you are not improving wikipedia by changing it across articles). But regarding spelling, when you took articles whose spelling was predominantly or 100% American and changed them to British, you were in blatant violation of MOS:RETAIN. The only way your action could be justified under MOS:ENGVAR would be if either (1) there were a consensus among editors that this specific article should be changed, or (2) there were a general consensus for standardizing the spelling style for a specific set of articles, such as all Taiwan-related articles. We currently have neither (1) nor (2), so you should stop globally changing spelling from American to British, unless the article already uses predominantly British spelling. Phlar (talk) 17:39, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

@Phlar: Refer to my previous comment. I made thousands of articles with inconsistent dates consistent within the articles (including Taiwan, and no one said anything). That is improving by your definition. It's just that some articles that were already consistent also got changed in the process. Unless you have an equally effective way to edit thousands of articles, I believe this is a legitimate situation to apply WP:IGNORE. Szqecs (talk) 03:39, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

I don’t care either way about the date format. But you need to stop changing articles that use predominantly American spelling to British. Making other edits at the same time is still a violation of MOS:RETAIN. Phlar (talk) 04:11, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

The mass changes are now continuing at Taiwan related article by editor Szqecs. All date formats are being changed. Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:55, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

References

the fact that some people use americanisms in asia because of exposure to american media etc does not mean we shouldn't use standard English on a Wikipedia article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.96.14.189 (talk) 17:06, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Ethnic groups

In the infobox, the percentages of the various ethnic groups add up to more than 100%. It also lists new immigrants as a separate ethnicity, which does not make sense. According to government statistics [1], 66% of transnational spouses are from the PRC. The transnational spouses make up the majority of the new immigrants. So the chances are most of these new immigrants are of Han descent, specifically waisheng variety.

I will remove new immigrants as an ethnic group, and we could address this either in the demographics section or in the article of Taiwanese People Big Wang (talk) 09:13, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

China Territorial Issue

According to the PRC's OP(One China Policy), Taiwan is a province in People's Republic of China. Not a state named ROC. Please change the page "Taiwan(ROC)" into

"Taiwan Province". SevenMet (talk) 13:43, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

There's already a page for what you describe: Taiwan Province, People's Republic of China. Phlar (talk) 17:03, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Phlar, there is already a page for that so it is not nessersary. It would also not be NPOV as the status of Taiwan's statehood is famously controversial as I am sure has been discussed here many times before.--Discott (talk) 09:29, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 October 2018

oofergang vamdalism oiurhefioreiubvruiobfvbyvfvybirwbfvreihybvreuberuef Oofergan (talk) 15:06, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ♪♫Alucard 16♫♪ 15:13, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Please fix this problem

The main article of Taiwan, needs a good organization and a brief summary of the information; especially in the introduction, because it contains a lot of the enormous amount of historical facts that will confuse the reader of the article, especially if he is one of those who do not know the history of the island. Mr. James Dimsey (talk) 14:23, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

This article should mainly talk about the Republic of China, which de facto only controls Taiwan area from 1949. Thus, the irrelevant content of this article, like the history of Taiwan, should be deleted, but the relevant content of this article, like the history and other every aspects of the Republic of China, which de facto only controls Taiwan area from 1949, should be remained. In addition, this article's title should be changed to "Republic of China". My suggestions can make this article only reflect the Republic of China, which de facto only controls Taiwan area from 1949, and avoid the mixture of the Republic of China from 1949 and Taiwan.

User:123.124.233.241

10:14, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

I suggest you familiarize yourself with WP:RGW. Simonm223 (talk) 12:27, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

There is no problem with my opinions. What do you mean on earth?

User:123.124.233.241

12:38, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Please use ~~~~ symbol to auto generate signature, as illustrated in WP:Signatures. --Matt Smith (talk) 02:14, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Does WP:RGW says anything relevant about this specific case? I already suggested to rename the article to Republic of China and remove anything not related to the state.

I can't understand why the English speakers decided to mix the history of Taiwan between the history of the ROC. Most of the people here used the most common name, but nobody invoked the common sense when starting adding contents about Taiwan in an article supposed to be related to the ROC. Even if the title is kept as Taiwan, the Taiwan-specific contents should be moved to the relevant article, as "Taiwan" is an ambiguous term (the colloquial name of the ROC, a region if the ROC, a region of the PRC, etc), and the precise naming and common sense should supersede the most common name (as the Spanish Wikipedia community decided). --Amitie 10g (talk) 01:03, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

This isn't the Spanish Wikipedia. What makes sense to that community has no bearing on the decisions of this one. --Khajidha (talk) 19:00, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

This issue has been a long-term issue of the English Wikipedia. Using the colloquial name of the ROC as the article name has been making them confuse the history of Taiwan with the history of the Republic of China. --Matt Smith (talk) 02:12, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't get how one can think the history of Taiwan is irrelevant to the ROC. Szqecs (talk) 02:22, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

The history of Taiwan is not irrelevant to the ROC, but most of the contents should belong to the right article. --Amitie 10g (talk) 19:48, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

I'll just note that the history chapter of the government's Republic of China Yearbook (appendix iv in the most recent edition, chapter 3 in older editions) has three sections: Birth of the Republic of China, History of Taiwan, and The ROC on Taiwan (1945– ). Apparently they consider all of these to be important parts of the history of the modern state. Kanguole 02:25, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

The history of Taiwan contains a period of the ROC rule; but it does not equal to the history of the ROC. --Matt Smith (talk) 02:34, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Sure. Those articles are not the topic of disscusion are they? We are talking about article Taiwan. Szqecs (talk) 02:52, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

They are mentioned here to help clarify the confusion in this article. --Matt Smith (talk) 03:06, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

There is no problem, there is no confusion. The article for any country will contain information about the history of its territory before the state formed. This one is no different.--Khajidha (talk) 18:57, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

People who really understand the histories of the two entities (Taiwan Island and the ROC) can easily spot the problem and confusion. That's why topics like this one are opened, and I'm sure this won't be the last time we see them. --Matt Smith (talk) 01:34, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

On the contrary, the article is quite clear. It is the complainers who are confused by their own nonsensical POVs.--Khajidha (talk) 19:21, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

So, you sistematically claimed the ones who want to rename back "China" and Taiwan to "People's Republic of China" and "Republic of China" are worng, but you never explained why. Several people claimed this is a mess, and I mentioned the Spanish Wikipedia as example how to do the things well, and the community provided very strong reasons to use the official names instead of the colloquial ones (see the whole discussion at the Spanish Wikipedia). If you believe you're right, don't claim others are wrong. This article is a messy mix of pears with apples, and you're the only who don't admit it; titles would be kept, but contents should be restructured. --Amitie 10g (talk) 19:48, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Don't forget or deny that your assertion is a POV, too. To people who don't agree with you, your POV is just nonsensical. --Matt Smith (talk) 02:25, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm still waiting on y'all to explain what the confusion is. The standing consensus is that this article and its title meets the standards of common name and common sense. Conversely, the approach at the Spanish Wikipedia seems to fail both of those (from my point of view) and would thus be a detrimental change if enacted here. Discussion HERE (not at the irrelevant-to-this-article Spanish Wikipedia) has decided that the reasons are stronger for this presentation. --Khajidha (talk) 12:18, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

The confusion had already been explained in this and the previous discussions. Again, it has been pointed out that the content mixed the histories of two different entities, Taiwan Island (geographical entity) and the ROC (political entity). In my opinion, the History section is making it looks like that the ROC was under Japanese rule, and that's ridiculous. --Matt Smith (talk) 12:40, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I fail to see how you come to that conclusion, as the ROC isn't even mentioned until the next paragraph, where the foundation of said state is mentioned. --Khajidha (talk) 12:46, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

The ROC is already mentioned in the very first line of the article. This article talks about the ROC, but the History section is talking about the periods of different regimes' rules to Taiwan Island. That's an obvious problem. --Matt Smith (talk) 13:12, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

And the United States article mentions that polity in its first line but starts its history section with the Bering land bridge 15000 years ago. It is standard format for country articles and doesn't seem to confuse anybody on any article other than here. Which is why I say that the problem isn't with the article, it is with those complaining. --Khajidha (talk) 13:17, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Both Taiwan (island) and the ROC are highly controversial entities with unusual histories and statuses, and the United States isn't a comparable example. If no one says the United States article has problems, it probably has no problem. But there have been people pointing out that this article has problems, and thus it apparently has problems. --Matt Smith (talk) 13:48, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

And every time these "problems" have been pointed out, discussion has determined that the article is as it should be. You are welcome to formally propose a specific change, but I do not expect the outcome to be any different. --Khajidha (talk) 14:28, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

The controversies here are no worse than many other country articles, which the history of the political entity and geographical entity are not exactly the same. Which is pretty much all of them to some extent. E.g. where I am is the United Kingdom but it is called Britain for many purpose - its people are British for example. But the British Isles are not the same thing. The language is English and many people call the UK England but that too is not the same thing. Other names include Great Britain, used e.g. a lot in sport though again it formally refers to something different. This is both confusing and at times highly controversial. Taiwan is pretty simple by comparison: apart from a few minor islands the island and political state are the same, and there is no confusion calling both "Taiwan".--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 14:31, 6 November 2018 (UTC)