Talk:Yemen

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment in Fall 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Fioreclaudia, Cnlegaspi02 (article contribs).

GDP PPP

The GDP PPP calculations are far off . Would someone be able to edit that please? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.88.227.242 (talk) 08:06, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Ethnic groups

Hi Mr.user:Kleuske can you tell me where did these percentages come from? Do you have a source? Or you just assumed it? SharabSalam (talk) 13:30, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

It's Mrs. Kleuske, thankyouverymuch. The onus is on you to provide sources for the change. Kleuske (talk) 13:40, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

See Demographics of Yemen. Kleuske (talk) 13:43, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

http://www.worldstatesmen.org/Yemen.html

Moroccansoldier (talk) 15:00, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Watching CSPAN about Yemen. Lots of chatter - no real news. I didn't know that Yemen was mineral, gas and oil rich. Shows how dumb I am - a war in the Middle East should have tipped me off. 75.68.248.198 (talk) 21:27, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Infant mortality section

We have a new essay style section added yesterday for a class assignment that's clearly undue for this overview article and is horribly sourced. It should be removed until it's fixed. This is not the place for class assignments adding so much detail as such a minor topic to this overview article. I have normally been creating new articles with these essays but in this case the sources are so bad that it's not possible. --Moxy (talk) 00:13, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

@Cnlegaspi02: @Fioreclaudia: Moxy is correct in that this is off-topic for Yemen. It is much better suited to Health in Yemen. Please move it there & make the WP:UNDUE, WP:INTREF, & WP:COPYEDIT corrections that Moxy flagged it for. Also there are manual of style violations. Infant Mortality Rate should never have been a 2nd level heading with 3rd level headings Disease, Foreign Assistance, & Current Standing under it. Those 3rd level headings belong under the 2nd level Health heading. Please rectify all this ASAP. Peaceray (talk) 00:45, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Minor point: it's not off-topic (which Moxy never claimed), it's just unduly long, which is correct. Either way, it belongs in Health in Yemen, as stated. See also "Health section" below. Mathglot (talk) 01:34, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Health section edit

We now also have this new edit by student editor Fioreclaudia (talk · contribs) that adds 7.5kb (well cited) to the #Health section, and adds three H3 and three H4 subsections under it. However at 223kb, the article is definitely within WP:SIZESPLIT territory, and this edit is also unduly large for one section in a summary style-article. This content seems good enough that it could be moved (or merged) to subarticle Health in Yemen, with a few sentences added to the Health section in this article summarizing the new content that was moved. Also, the section titling is in title case which is wrong, titles keep reusing "Yemen" which is wrong, and the H3/H4 section org is squirrely and should be redone. Mathglot (talk) 01:34, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Is Yemen transcontinental?

According to one source, the Socotra islands belong "administratively" to Yemen, "but geographically the island is a part or [sic] Africa." It falls short of saying "Yemen is a country on two continents", or similar, the way one could easily find for Turkey, or Russia, or even Spain, for that matter. Is this enough to support a claim of transcontinentality for Yemen? The current source is weak and wishy-washy about this; if it's generally accepted, there will be a source that says so unequivocally. I've tagged the claim as {{failed verification}} and WP:SYNTH until we can find a source that is clear on this point. Mathglot (talk) 13:07, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

I disagree that it constitutes Synthesis to note that, by definition, a country located in two continents is "transcontinental," but I'm not going to dispute the tag. I share your frustration that there don't seem to be sources on the Internet (apart from the Wikipedia article on transcontinental countries and articles based on that Wikipedia articke) that come out and say that Yemen (or other countries with territory separated by water, with the exception of Spain) are transcontinental, but I will search print sources to see if anyone has written at length about transcontinental countries. In the meantime, I've added a second source stating that Socotra is geographically part of Africa (specifically, it states that the archipelago is a continuation of the Horn of Africa). AuH2ORepublican (talk) 15:04, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

@AuH2ORepublican: Firstly, you have engaged in WP:3RR. secondly You have deleted sourced informations with no reason Here are some other sources that also support my claim [1]. Your source doesnt say socotra is located in the African continent in fact Socotra is considered as a Continental fragment [2] and FYI socotra was saparated since Gondwana [3](athough Daily mail isnt considered as a RS in wikipedia becuse of their lies about political issues but this isnt related to politics) and as I said it is geology accepted that socotra is more similar to Dhofar which was part of ancient Yemen and now part of Oman. Finally you have reverted me and Mathglot when we deleted a pure original reaserch which even you have said is not sourced. you also seem to not have enough knowledge about this topic and that you are trying to start an edit war I dont know why(it might be because of Talk:Ian Smith but anyway thats not cool.--SharabSalam (talk) 17:09, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

@SharabSalam, I will repost here my response to the similar accusations that you posted in my user Talk page, as I believe that they explain the situation fairly well:

"@SharabSalam, if you check the record, you'll see that I made a constructive edit regarding the geographic location of Socotra and how it makes Yemen a transcontinental country (which is a subject of longtime interest to me, as is how small portions of Georgia and Azerbaijan are north of the Caucasus and thus are in Europe, making such countries transcontinental), and I was reverted by @User: Mathglot because he understood my statement not to be "generally accepted" and to constitute "original research." I resubmitted my change with a source for Socotra being geographically in Africa and with an explanation that Yemen has long been listed as a transcontinental country in the Wikipedia article on the subject, and Mathglot let the change stay but with a tag regarding "Synthesis," and with an entry in the Talk page, because, while Socotra can be considered geographically part of Africa, the second part (that that makes Yemen a transnational country) doesn't necessarily follow. I responded in the Talk page by noting my disagreement with his conclusion, but agreeing to keep the "Synthesis" tag while further research regarding "transcontinental countries" may be conducted.

It was at this time that you jumped in, ignoring the Talk page discussion, and reverted the portion of the edit that I had made and that Mathglot had agreed to keep (albeit with a tag) for the time being, calling my edit "unsourced." You explained your edit with the non sequitur that "being part of the African plate doesnt (sic) mean being part of the African continent," which is apropos of nothing given that (i) I never argued that Socotra was part of Africa because it's on the African plate (as someone interested in the concept of continents, I am well aware that tectonic plates are but a tiny part of the analysis of continental boundaries), (ii) the Socotra archipelago isn't on the African plate, but on the Somali Plate, and (iii) it was *you*, not I, who presented evidence of rifts from tectonic plates as "evidence" that Socotra is part of Asia. Your reading of the source that you provided (of which I only have been able to read the summary, as the article itself is not publicly available) is inconsistent with the widely held belief among scientists that Socotra separated from Gondwanaland around 20 million years ago; I suspect that the source's author's findings are more nuanced than what you presented. (I have since read more about it, and the Somali Plate--which includes the Horn of Africa, Socotra and other African areas, and which I presume was part of Gondwanaland back then--separated from the Arabian plate between 23-34 million years ago, and Socotra separated from the Horn a bit later.) For this reason, I reverted your reversion of my edit and added a second source (World Wildlife Fund, which has studied and written extensively about Socotra's geography) stating that the Socotra archipelago are part of Africa (to be precise, that it is a continuation of the Horn of Africa).

You then reverted me a second time and said that I should discuss the change in the Talk page, ignoring the fact that it was *you* who had reverted the edit (which I had made and Mathglot had modified) without bothering to check out the discussion in the article's Talk page. Given that your source spoke about tectonic plates, and not whether Socotra is in Asia or Africa, it is irrelevant to the discussion. And since you messed up the paragraph by getting rid of spaces between sentences, deleting the link to the World Wildlife Fund source (but inexplicably keeping the Socotra Z.S. Society source), and eliminating the Synthesis tag that Mathglot had placed on the conclusion that Yemen is a transcontinental country, I described your edit as "sloppy" when I reverted it.

As for your statement that "I hope you arent doing this behaviour because of Ian Smith article" (sic), I honestly can say that I've had my current views on the boundaries between continents for years and that the same were not driven in the slightest by the fact that you've made spend so much time protecting the Ian Smith article from vandalism. And I can tell you that I do not believe that the reason why you are insisting that Socotra is part of Asia is because I stopped you (with assistance from the neutral third party that you requested and obtained) from adding an improper category to the Ian Smith article; I know from your Wikipedia page that you are a native citizen of Yemen, and it would be odd if you *weren't* interested in issues involving Yemen's territory. I actually am agnostic as to matters related to Yemen (other than praying that the cycle of violence ends soon) and am editing the page solely because of my interest in geography; while the fact that you are Yemeni by no means disqualifies you from editing Yemen's article (on the contrary, it gives you insights that someone like me never could obtain), you should consider whether your patriotism or Pan-Arabism (to which you, like all people, are entitled) is allowing you to analyze issues involving the status of Socotra (even if unrelated to politics, as is the case of to what geographic continent it belongs) in an unbiased manner.

So, in conclusion, I do not believe that I am engaging in an edit war by protecting an edit that already had been modified by another editor and which is the subject of discussion in the article's Talk page. As you may know if you've read my discussion in Talk pages for other articles, I have two daughters, and I strive to make Wikipedia an encyclopedia on which they and other children (and adults, for that matter) can count to provide factual, relevant and unbiased information. My understanding regarding Socotra is that it generally is considered to be part of Africa, which is why I made the edit that is the subject of this discussion. If some geographers believe that Socotra is part of Asia (which could be the case; heck, some geographers believe that North and South America should be considered a single continent and that Afro-Eurasia is a single continent as well), then maybe the way to go is to include both positions and state that, if Socotra is deemed part of Africa, Yemen is transcontinental, but if Socotra is deemed part of Asia then Yemen is not transcontinental."

I also will take the opportunity to post, for everyone's edification, what the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) wrote about Socotra's geology in its May 2008 technical evaluation report for the nomination of the Socotra archipelago as a World Heritage site: "Geology: Socotra is an island of continental origin, a block of Precambrian Gondwanaland. It has an igneous and metamorphic basement of schist and gneiss extensively overlaid by sandstones, marls and limestone deposited in Cretaceous and later Eocene seas, though the Precambrian Haggeher granite was probably never submerged. It lies on an undersea platform block that extends from the tip of Somaliland. The block finally separated from the Arabian plate during the rifting which began to open the Gulf of Aden in the Oligocene to Miocene epochs some 34-23 million years ago."

As I wrote below, I have no problem with an alternate view of continental boundaries being presented as well if there are sources that state that Socotra is part of Asia, but it is relevant and properly sourced that Socotra is generally considered (or at the very least considered by many geographers) to be part of Africa. Politics shouldn't trump geography to the point that it silences it. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 20:37, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Hi AuH2ORepublican I cann't read this long message right now because its too late here (I will reply to you tomorrow).I did a scan reading the message and I saw the link you provided I just wanted to let you know that you should not post that link because its a local link. it only works in your computer because you have the file in your computer. I don't know if sharing that link publically safe for your privacy because it expose your user name.(BTW this like the first time you post a source in talk page while arguing with me)--SharabSalam (talk) 21:15, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out that the link to the PDF was not viewable by others. The IUCN technical evaluation of the Socotra archipelago may be found at this link, starting on page 13 of the PDF, with the section on Socotra's geology found in page 2 of the technical evaluation (page 14 of the PDF): https://whc.unesco.org/archive/2008/whc08-32com-inf8B2e.pdf AuH2ORepublican (talk) 21:51, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

AuH2ORepublican, regarding this comment of yours above:

I resubmitted my change with a source for Socotra being geographically in Africa and with an explanation that Yemen has long been listed as a transcontinental country in the Wikipedia article on the subject...

This part of your argument, at least, has no bearing one way or the other on how this is eventually resolved. See WP:WINARS. You need to cite reliable sources that support your position, not other Wikipedia articles. Mathglot (talk) 21:34, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Duly noted. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 21:52, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

@Mathglot, I haven't been able to research print sources in libraries, and the transcontinentality of countries is not something to which many news and history articles devote space, but these are the online sources that I have found that specifically refer to Yemen as being "transcontinental," "bicontinental" or otherwise encompassing two continents.

I found these in English:

• "The UN presented on Tuesday at a donor conference its financial requirements for what it considers "the worst humanitarian crisis in the world" and that amount to almost 3,000 million dollars. It is Yemen, a small bicontinental country between the Middle East and Africa." https://tech2.org/colombia/un-calls-for-donors-for-the-worst-humanitarian-crisis-in-the-world/

• "By official count, there are eight countries that straddle two continents. More than two-thirds of Russia lies in Asia, though about 75% of population lives in the smaller European part. Most of Turkey lies in Europe, but a tiny piece (about 3%) lies in Asia across the Bosporus Strait. While most of Egypt is in Africa, the Sinai Peninsula is physically a part of Asia. Socotra Island, which lies off the Horn of Africa, is part of the West Asian republic of Yemen. Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla are physically parts of Africa. Similarly, Portugal’s Madeira Island group is physically part of Africa rather than Europe. Indonesia consists of 13,700 islands. The eastern islands (including Papua, formerly known as Irian Jaya) are counted as part of Oceania rather than Asia. The US also lies on two continents – the state of Hawaii is part of Oceania." http://www.herebeanswers.com/2012/11/which-countries-are-geographically-spread-over-two-continents.html

• "Yemen - It is a bicontinental country, located between the Middle East and Africa. It shares borders with Saudi Arabia and Oman. Its capital is Sana'a and the current state was formed following the unification of the Arab Republic of Yemen (Northern Yemen) and the Democratic People's Republic of Yemen (South Yemen) in 1990. Since their union, the country has suffered civil wars." https://www.lifepersona.com/the-25-most-peripheral-countries

• "The Republic of Yemen is a bicontinental country located in the Middle East and Africa. Its Asian part is located in Mashreq, south of the Arabian Peninsula, surrounded by the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, in Asia. The island of Socotra is in Africa. It shares borders with Oman and Saudi Arabia." https://educalingo.com/en/dic-es/yemeni

In Spanish (in which I am fluent):

• "En muy pocas ocasiones se puede hablar de un país bicontinental, es decir aquel cuyo territorio se encuentra repartido en dos continentes diferentes. Y ese es el caso que me he encontrado al investigar acerca de dónde está Yemen y cuáles son sus características. . . .Yemen está situado en el Oriente Próximo y como te dijimos anteriormente, es un país bicontinental, estando su territorio asiático en el Mashreq, completamente al sur de la península de Arabia, justamente al frente del mar Arábigo, el golfo de Adén y el mar Rojo. Ahora bien, la parte Africana de Yemen, es insular, pues la isla de Socotra se ubica en la plataforma continental de este continente." https://donde-esta.org/yemen/

(Translation (using Google, with my corrections): "Very rarely can we speak of a bicontinental country, that is, one whose territory is divided into two different continents. And that is the case that I have found when investigating where Yemen is and what its characteristics are. . . . Yemen is located in the Near East and, as we said before, it is a bicontinental country, with its Asian territory being in the Mashreq, completely to the south of the Arabian peninsula, just in front of the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. Now, the African part of Yemen is insular, because the island of Socotra is located on the continental shelf of this continent.")

• "Yemen o Yemén, es un país entre dos continentes situado en el Cercano Oriente y en África. Con un territorio 3 veces el de Uruguay, es el país más pobre de la Península Arábica. Con una población cercana a los 25 millones de personas. Su parte asiática está situada en el Mashreq, al sur de la península de Arabia, rodeado por el mar Arábigo, el golfo de Adén y el mar Rojo, en Asia. La isla de Socotra está en África, y forma parte del territorio del país, y atención con esta isla yemení, porque tanto Estados Unidos en el 2010, como Arabia Saudita en el 2015, han intentado poner bases militares allí, para darle "más poder a su aliado Yemen", en realidad lo que quieren es controlar el tránsito tanto de petróleo como de productos chinos que cruzan por el golfo de Adén, hacia el Mar Rojo y luego al Mar Mediterráneo." https://www.taringa.net/+info/que-sabemos-de-yemen_t2n0l

(Translation (using Google, with my corrections): "Yemen, or Yemén, is a country between two continents located in the Near East and in Africa. With a territory 3 times that of Uruguay, it is the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula. With a population close to 25 million people. Its Asian part is located in the Mashreq, south of the Arabian Peninsula, surrounded by the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, in Asia. The island of Socotra is in Africa, and is part of the territory of the country, and pay attention to this Yemeni island, because both the United States in 2010, and Saudi Arabia in 2015, have tried to put military bases there, to give it "more power to its ally Yemen"; in reality what they want is to control the transit of both oil and Chinese products that cross the Gulf of Aden, to the Red Sea and then to the Mediterranean Sea.")

• "Yemen es un país a caballo entre dos continentes: la mayor parte de su territorio, la ubicada en Oriente Próximo, pertenece a Asia, pero también es propietario de la isla de Socotra, en África. Sus fronteras limitan con Omán y Arabia Saudita y está igualmente rodeado por el mar Arábigo, el golfo de Adén y el mar Rojo." http://www.saberia.com/cual-es-la-capital-de-yemen/

(Translation (using Google, with my corrections): "Yemen is a country straddling two continents: most of its territory, located in the Middle East, belongs to Asia, but it also owns the island of Socotra, in Africa. It borders Oman and Saudi Arabia, and it also is surrounded by the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea.")

Now, these sources aren't exactly the Encyclopedia Britannica, but, as I noted, few people seem to care about whether a country is transcontinental. If and when I can get to a library I will search print materials, but as of now this is what I found, and it isn't nothing. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 00:04, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Due to the urging by User:Mathglot on the Talk:List of transcontinental countries page I have come to briefly join in on the discussion. I will start by stating that Yemen is a country with a clear majority of its territory on the Asian continent, and a portion of it (the island of Socotra) clearly not on the Asian continent (an island). However, the question remains if this constitutes a "transcontinental country" or not. I will now point out that there are two kinds of transcontinental countries, as according to our List of transcontinental countries article. Those that have a "contiguous boundary", which are considered generally to not be under dispute, and those which have a "non-contiguous" status, which are essentially ALL under dispute, and for pretty much the exact same reason. This reason being; Can one consider 'islands' to be distinct from their associated 'continents'? Generally speaking, sources are not clear on this subject, and this concept is a matter that is clearly in dispute. Yemen is not unique in this regard, identical questions could be raised about Greece, Denmark, Italy, Columbia, etc. The only thing that is stated for certain is that Yemen is not a transcontinental country, like Russia, Turkey, or Egypt, all of which are clearly contiguous and have sources clearly defining them as such, but it most likely is a non-contiguous one, based on the geology of Socotra as described by sources. However, to be perfectly frank, this discussion does not really belong on this page, as such discussions do really belong on the List of transcontinental countries article, since matters on this subject concern additional states with disputed status' other than just Yemen. I will now propose that this discussion be terminated here, and be continued in the Talk:List of transcontinental countries#Is Yemen transcontinental? section instead (obverse to the proposal made by User:Mathglot), so that further discussion on the matter can be captured on the relevant article's talk page. - Wiz9999 (talk) 04:26, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Wiz9999, thanks for your comments. Afaic, I grant pretty much everything you say about the noncontiguous circumstances, but from where I stand, it's completely irrelevant to how this particular issue about Yemen should be resolved, one way or the other. The problem I see in your discussion, is that you're trying to address the logic of the situation directly, arguing, for example, "... and a portion of it (the island of Socotra) clearly not on the Asian continent", or, "Can one consider 'islands' to be distinct from their associated 'continents'?" That's not at all the proper role for a Wikipedia editor. As editors, we do not discuss what is "clearly on the Asian continent" and we do not "consider islans distinct" (or "not distinct"); that is Original research. What we, as Wikipedia editors do, is assemble the reliable sources who have something to say on this question, and then we summarize them in the content of the article. That's it—that's our role as editors, in a nutshell. This even extends to what happens when the majority of reliable sources get it "wrong" (in some editor's opinion): we still report what the reliable sources say. (Hopefully, over time, other reliable sources that get it "right" would get published, and as they do, the Wikipedia article would change in consequence.)

The right question to ask, imho, is your next comment: "Generally speaking, sources are not clear on this subject, and this concept is a matter that is clearly in dispute." That is exactly the issue we should be addressing, here. In cases like this, WP:WIKIVOICE and WP:DUEWEIGHT should apply: if there is near univeral agreement (not the case here), we can make the statement in Wikipedia's voice. If not, the written content should reflect the majority and minority opinions on the subject, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources, and may be attributed, to avoid presenting disputed statements in Wikipedia's voice. But we should be careful to avoid WP:OR and WP:SYNTH, and thus to avoid statements such as "clearly on the African [or, Asian] continent" that are our own opinion based on looking at a map, or by some other means.

As far as where to hold this discussion, it started here because of edit warring on this page, and has had considerable back-and-forth already. Rather than splinter the discussion, I would be opposed to moving it now, and it should continue here, where it started. The link to this discussion from Talk:List of transcontinental countries#Is Yemen transcontinental? is sufficient to land people at the right place; it worked for you. Mathglot (talk) 05:49, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

I had one other comment for AuH2ORepublican: where you said, "Now, these sources aren't exactly the Encyclopedia Britannica," I think you hit on exactly the issue that crops up when you search for the result you wish to document; you find some sources that say what you want, but maybe you don't find the EB. In this case, what you don't find, is indicative of something, which is exacty the matter in dispute that Wiz9999 alluded to above. It might be worth listing a few more "standard references" that are as good as the EB, and see what they have to say about it. I may try to do that, in the next couple of days. But I think that comment of yours was telling, in its own way. Mathglot (talk) 05:54, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Here is an example of where WP:SYNTH comes into play. The "Lists" article (rev 881816243) says this:

content of the Asia and Africa section at the "Lists" article
Yemen: Although mainland Yemen is in the southern Arabian Peninsula and thus part of Asia, and its Hanish Islands and Perim in the Red Sea are associated with Asia, Yemen's national territory extends to the archipelago of Socotra, which lies east of the horn of Somalia and is much closer to Africa than to Asia. References

I actually have no problem with the running text in this version; on its own, it makes some assertions, all properly attributed to reliable sources. So far, so good. If this content were in an article about Geography of Yemen, I would have no problem with it; it doesn't actually say anything unsupported by the sources, afaict. But that "If", is absolutely key. The problem arises, because this is from an article entitled, "List of transcontinental countries", and by including that content in an article with that title, we are implying that Yemen is a transcontinental country, even though none of the sources listed said that. Because this content is from a section entitled, "Asia and Africa" we are implying that Yemen is a country that is partly in Asia, and partly in Africa, even though none of the sources said that. That is why I added inline tags in the next version, so it now looks like this, with the tags.

Ideally, I would like to see reliable sources added to the "Lists" article which clearly state that Yemen is bicontinental with pieces in Asia and Africa, or similar. Failing that, the "Yemen" section should be removed from the "Lists" article. Mathglot (talk) 06:25, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

You said, "such discussions... belong on the List of transcontinental countries article, since matters on this subject concern additional states with disputed status' other than just Yemen." No; this discussion concerns only Yemen, and belongs here. We cannot force a false consistency among different countries by declaring the issue to be about "contiguous" or "noncontiguous" states, and then oblige them to all come out the same depending which category they're in; Wikipedia doesn't work like that. Whether we should say in this article that "Yemen is bicontinental" or not, should depend entirely on what reliable sources have to say about Yemen. Discussions about Greece, Denmark, or Italy might turn out completely different, and the only way to find out, would be to look up sources for those countries; those discussions should take place on their respective talk pages. This is Talk:Yemen, and it is eminently the proper place to have a discussion about how to improve the Yemen article. See WP:TALK. Mathglot (talk) 11:14, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

@Mathglot, I second what @Wiz9999 wrote. If WP:SYNTH is used to stifle the use of common-sense interpretations of sourced information, then we pretty much will have to get rid of all List articles in Wikipedia (or keep such articles but make them markedly less inclusive. Let's say that there's an article named "List of Deaf Music Composers." Maybe there are a few lesser-known composers that reliable sources have described as "deaf composers," but it certainly isn't something that encyclopedias or news articles generally do. If we interpret WP:SYNTH as prohibiting the inclusion of persons described as "composers" and separately as "deaf" then one would need to exclude Ludwig von Beethoven from the article because, while just about every work about Beethoven describes him as a composer, and thousands of sources note the fact that he went deaf while still an active composer (including the fact that he was completely deaf by the time that he wrote his Ninth Symphony), none of the most reliable sources use combine the two aspects of his life to call him a "deaf composer." I do not believe that WP:SYNTH was adopted in order to force editors to forgo common sense when the second thing logically follows from the first.

What I described in my Beethoven hypothetical could occur in any List article on Wikipedia, including the one listing transcontinental countries. Common sense tells us that if a person uses reliable sources to define "transcontinental country" and finds reliable sources that state that portions of a particular country are in different countries that there is no original research involved in noting that such country meets the definition of transcontinental. However, that a country is transcontinental is not exactly a hot topic of scholarship, much less of journalism, and it is very rare for newspapers or reference books to state explicitly tat a country is transcontinental apart from occasional mentions of how Russia and Turkey (and, more rarely, Egypt) are split between two continents.

That brings us to the case of Yemen. There are reliable sources that state that, geographically speaking, the Socotra archipelago is part of Africa. Given that mainland Yemen (and its islands just offshore) are incontrovertibly part of Asia (and that Yemen is described universally as an Asian country, with the exception of sources that mention that it is mostly in Asia but that Socotra is in Africa), there is nothing original about plugging that information into the definition of "transcontinental" and acknowledging that Yemen is a transcontinental country. There is no more "synthesis" there than if we use reliable sources for the height of each individual U.S. president and then list them in order of height in an article, or if we note in an article that Thomas Jefferson was taller than Ronald Reagan (despite the dearth of New York Times articles listing all 43 presidents by order of height). Of course, to the extent that reliable sources describe Socotra as being geographically (not politically; not culturally Asian, then it certainly should be noted that, if Socotra is deemed to be Asian, Yemen wouldn't be considered transcontinental (but WP:SYNTH should not be used to insist that we would need a reliable source that describes Yemen as not being transcontinental).

Even though we are discussing the particular case of the Wikipedia article on Yemen, the precedent set here definitely will inform the decisions made in other articles. My decision to edit the Yemen article to note the country's transcontinentality led to Yemen's entry in the List of Transcontinental Countries article to be tagged as being WP:SYNTH, and that surely will lead to other entries in that article to be tagged similarly. Frankly, unless a major magazine decides to write an exposé on transcontinental countries, the likeliest result of the road we're taking is the deletion of almost all entries from the article.

Few people in media or academia care whether Socotra is in Africa or Asia, and those that do (such as the Workd Wildlife Fund, which is fighting to save the Island's fauna and flora and notes that Socotra is geographically in Africa as part of its emphasis on its African biogeography) don't care that Socotra being in Africa makes Yemen a transcontinental country. The few sources that have made the connection (curiously, several in Spanish; there may be others in languages in which I am not fluent) tend to be nonacademic, such as travel websites and others providing general information on Yemen that decided to throw in a little trivia. I don't know whether the sources that I've found that explicitly call Yemen "transcontinental" or "bicontinental" otherwise states that it is in two continents will be deemed to be reliable sources, but, as I argued above, I don't think that we need such "magic bullet" to make the common-sense connection between Socotra being in Africa and Yemen being transcontinental, since the second logically follows from the first. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 13:27, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

@AuH2ORepublican:, thanks for your comments, but I think this argument falls flat on two points: the meaning of SYNTH, and the accuracy of your example:

• I believe you misunderstand what WP:SYNTH says. SYNTH does not prohibit "the inclusion of persons described as 'composers' and separately as 'deaf' ", when they are in one source. You can combine different parts of one source, as long as you do not reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source. Thus in your "deaf composer" example, there is no need to find the phrase, "Beethoven is a deaf composer" in one sentence in one source, in order to make that assertion in a Wikipedia article. If you are reading Lockwood's 2005 biography of Beethoven, for example, and you read on page 53 that he was a young composer, and about his deafness on page 111-112, you can say "Beethoven was a deaf composer" in the Wikipedia article because even though contained in different parts of one source, you are not introducing a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source. You don't need to forego common sense, but committed, serious, good-faith editors often disagree on when exactly one "thing logically follows" from another; I could point you to dozens of strident Talk discussions demonstrating this, but I'm sure you've seen them by the score. Best to follow what the reliable sources conclude, and not on our own conclusions.
• Much less importantly, but since you mentioned it, the example falls flat as well. Plenty of reliable sources, it turns out, do indeed use the exact term "deaf composer". In researching that, I also learned about one or two others, but by far the overwhelming number of results for the quoted-term search were about Beethoven. I don't doubt you could find a better illustration of what you meant, i.e. some quoted phrase were no source included it exactly, but where it was supported by combingin two parts of the book, but per the first point above, there would be no point finding such an example since that's a perfectly acceptable thing to do.

So, no need to check your common sense at the door, but combining information from two dfferent sources, where neither one standing alone would support the assertion made in the article would be a violation of SYNTH and not allowed per no original research. Mathglot (talk) 23:57, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

I feel that you are the one mis-interpreting WP:SYNTH here. As the purpose of WP:SYNTH is not to prevent the synthesis in all is forms and in its entirety, but to prevent creation of UNSUBSTANTIATED or UNVERIFIED synthesised information, not information that is a clear logical statement of the RS's instruction. Please read this: WP:NOTJUSTANYSYNTH. - Wiz9999 (talk) 00:17, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Oh, you mean I should read that page which is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community? Yep, read it. Thanks for the link. In contrast, here's what the actual Wikipedia policy says: If one reliable source says A, and another reliable source says B, do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C that is not mentioned by either of the sources. One of us is misinterpreting which page constitutes Wikipedia policy, and which page is unvetted commentary about it. Mathglot (talk) 00:30, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

• I have left this discussion after I did a research and realised that the argument is more complicated than what I thought so I am not going to comment on this topic from now on. I agree with Largoplazo when they said there are actually multiple agreements as to the definition of a "continent" also there is lack of reliable sources and many other issues. Thanks--SharabSalam (talk) 06:04, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

Level of encyclopedic interest

Quoting Mathglot: "Now, these sources aren't exactly the Encyclopedia Britannica, but, as I noted, few people seem to care about whether a country is transcontinental." This. I've been casually following the torrent of words over this and found myself thinking exactly this. It leads me to think that while the rigors of meeting our notability guidelines certainly don't bear on whether any individual fact is mention in an article whose topic does meet them, it seems to me that if the entirety of literature has paid zero attention to a fact, then how is it of encyclopedic interest? Whether it falls afoul of WP:SYNTHESIS or not, should Wikipedia precede any reliable source in caring about whether a thing is true?

Continents are chunks of land that are internally related in such a way that people agree to call them continents. There are actually multiple agreements as to the definition of a "continent", so there are several different ways to organize the world into continents. All of them are somewhat arbitrary.

Then there are countries. Countries are often spread out, even over non-contiguous tracts of land within one body of land or spread over several (islands, for example). There isn't a single reason to expect countries to be contained within one one of those things we call "continents" to begin with, and to consider it remarkable when they aren't, any more than we make a big deal over whether a country includes one or more islands, or extends over more than one geographic plate, or contains more than one desert, or includes part or all of more than one mountain range, or contains more than one lake. The only reason, I believe, that anyone pays the question notice at all is that there happen to be only a couple of countries (Turkey, Russia) that most people really think of as occupying more than one continent. On top of it, there's no consequence of any kind from, say, Turkey spanning the divide that's deemed to exist between a continent known as Asia and a continent known as Europe. With all of that, I just wonder whether the universe needs for Wikipedia to have a stand on whether Yemen can be characterized by trivia buffs as "transcontinental", or even for Wikipedia to treat the subject as worth talking about in an article.

Feel free to flame me. Largoplazo (talk) 21:11, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

@Largoplazo: No flame, I heartily agree. Just wanted to give credit where credit is due: the quote you attributed to me, was actually me quoting AuH2ORepublican, here. I'll be back with bit more on your substantive points later (not a torrent, promise!) but just wanted to get this out there first. Mathglot (talk) 22:39, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Ack, of course, sorry, AuH2ORepublican, for the misattribution! And the invitation to flame wasn't directed specifically at you, just in anticipation of anyone who wanted to rake me over the coals concerning what's appropriate for Wikipedia. Largoplazo (talk) 22:58, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

No worries, I interpreted your 'flame' correctly; in my response, I meant to say, 'I won't flame you'; sorry for any misunderstanding! (Okay, we're tied, now; your turn to misunderstand if you're going to win this misunderstanding competition. ). Mathglot (talk) 00:02, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

@Largoplazo:What an incredibly short sighted way of looking at the situation. With that kind of attitude we might as well delete List of transcontinental countries! I will however object formally to that interpretation, as that article is linked to directly by over 1500 other articles in EN Wikipedia, not to mention the 31 links to similarly defined articles in other language Wikipedias. I feel your dismissive attitude towards what is clearly relevant encyclopedic information is disturbing. Your argument here has failed to take into account the fact that sources may be intentionally not describing the state with such terms/language, since it is a matter of some controversy. That does not make the information irrelevant and un-encyclopedic, just difficult to locate. In such circumstances we would normally turn to academic reliable sources on the subject, because they would tend to be far more descriptive than journalists who tend to always summarise a situation. However, there is a distinct lack of academics with regard to 'international geographical boundary law', a problem which has been noted in a handful of other wikipedia articles. This does not provide us with an excuse to flat out ignore information. - Wiz9999 (talk) 23:03, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

I'd like to recommend you not use the word "clearly" to qualify an assertion when the person you're saying it to has already made it clear that they don't agree with the assertion, let alone do they agree with the clarity that you're attaching to it. You can't move a discussion forward that way. I explained what criteria I was applying in discerning what I consider to be encyclopedic relevance, and you can see I came to the opposite conclusion from you.

In the remainder of your analysis, I feel as though you're acknowledging that coverage elsewhere is a consideration—and then you're rationalizing why you think it should be in the encyclopedia anyway. While I see your point regarding the level of interest suggested by activity within Wikipedia, it's a bit circular, because it leads me to wonder why it would be of such interest here if of no interest elsewhere. It's a bit of an undue weight issue: Wikipedia giving more weight to a detail than it receives in the outside world. It's interesting because it's interesting. It's like, what's that paradox, given the set of all uninteresting positive integers, the lowest positive integer in that set becomes ipso facto interesting, but then it's no longer in that set, and so it's no longer interesting, but then it rejoins the set and becomes interesting again? Largoplazo (talk) 23:21, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

I see your point, but I respectfully still disagree. You are also right about my use of the word "clearly", as this was not fair, what is clear to me is not necessarily the way you would interpret it.

I still maintain that something that is difficult to locate is not necessarily not relevant. Just because I close my eyes does not mean that my computer screen does not exist, just that the aperture between the object and the processing capacity of my brain is too narrow to acquire anything that can be interpreted. The absence of evidence is not proof that evidence does not exist. Similarly, the possible existence of the simplest explanation (that no one considers the existence of "transcontinental countries" relevant) does not mean that a more complex explanation might exist and actually be the correct explanation (that the existence of "transcontinental countries" is relevant and is hard to source due to heated emotions towards the subject). - Wiz9999 (talk) 00:04, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

@Largoplazo: Still mulling over my response to your substantive points above, but I found the number you were looking for. It's 1,730 1,7311,732. Mathglot (talk) 00:36, 6 February 2019 (UTC) dammit; updated by Mathglot (talk) 00:38, 6 February 2019 (UTC) dammit! updated by Mathglot (talk) 00:45, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Largoplazo (talk) 08:50, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Hopefully one thing we can all agree on, is that the lead summarizes the article. The lead contained more information about the islands off the Arabian peninsula, than the body of the article did, which is backwards. I've moved most of it out of the lead and into the Geography section. leaving a summary in the lead about "200 islands". All previously existing content remains (except for one duplicate statement) and the claim of transcontinental status remains, for now.

Whatever one thinks about the assertion about "transcontinental status" by WP:DUEWEIGHT it clearly does not belong in the lead. With it now located in the body of the article, we can discuss whether it should remain there in Wikipedia's voice as is, or be converted to an attributed minority view, or removed as a fringe opinion, which need not be convered at all, although in that case I wouldn't oppose a link in the See also section. Mathglot (talk) 05:03, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

Page history

Hi, while I was trying to look into the page history I saw that there was a huge spam that happened 3 days ago here and I can't open it using the mobile version. It keeps loading and loading and not opening. This might cause difficulty to those who want to explore the history of the article. SharabSalam (talk) 17:44, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

It wasn't spam, it was pure vandalism. It happened twice and was reverted in both cases. The first time, over 210,000 characters were added, and they may have been added in such a way that computing the diff is very complicated or time-consuming, so it may just be a timeout, but that doesn't rule out the possibility that this edit triggered a bug in the diff routine. The same thing happens on the desktop as on mobile, by the way. Largoplazo (talk) 18:07, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Well I think we need an editor who is able to remove the whole edit like how they do when there is pornography or copyright materials--SharabSalam (talk) 19:39, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

 Done — Maile (talk) 14:12, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

>>Repetition Repetition Repetition

This image is in the article twice. Perhaps somebody who knows which position in the article is the better one might want to sort that one out. Kelisi (talk) 02:04, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

I have changed one of the photos. Thanks--SharabSalam (talk)

Area size

Current area size can be found in the The World Fact Book, The World Atlas and many other authoritative sources. El_C 08:49, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure why two sources from 2002 should supersede current authoritative sources. El_C 08:56, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Removal of President

Since there is no official president of Yemen now, the name of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi should be removed from the article.Lordofhunk (talk) 18:38, 3 September 2019 (UTC)