Talk:Member states of the United Nations

Listing each resolution for Taiwan

Background

• I commented out the entire list (this edit)
• @Koavf: added it back as a note (this edit)
• I reverted them, pointing out how it looked (this edit)

Appearance

• To see how it looks included in the references section: ref #23
• To see how it looks included in the notes section: note #30

I don't think these should be included, in either location. --DannyS712 (talk) 07:18, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

I have no objection to removing them entirely but I don't see the value of including a huge paragraph of invisible text. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:24, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

@Koavf: Then I don't mind if you want to delete the text, but I left it there so that, if down the road someone else decides they wanted to include them, or just see them, it would be there. We could move it to the talk page? --DannyS712 (talk) 07:45, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

@DannyS712: Sounds good to me--thanks. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:46, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Where does the Brookings source support the claim that they made a submission every year? I can't find anything saying that. Also, other details in the paragraph are not supported by the new source, but are by the original resolutions (ie parallel transitional vs independence, the name used).

Even if this was in the new source, I think there is value citing the resolutions themselves when the article is specifically discussing them. Certainly supllementing them with secondary sources is worthwhile though. TDL (talk) 19:03, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

@Danlaycock: Yes, but I don't think we need to cite each WP:PRIMARY source from every single year. Also, take a look at the current notes section with these included. It dwarfs everything else, and looks out of place --DannyS712 (talk) 19:10, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

I've dropped the titles from the refs, hopefully that addresses your concern? TDL (talk) 00:57, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

@Danlaycock: not really, it takes up an entire column. --DannyS712 (talk) 01:37, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

References are there to verify data, not look pretty. I really don't see a problem with a column of references. TDL (talk) 01:50, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Individual resolutions:

References

Resolutions without titles

References

Country names....official vs. informal/common usage

Why is Bolivia listed as "Plurinational State of Bolivia" and not just "Bolivia"? And why "Republic of Moldova" and not "Moldova"? There are many, many others.

I ask this especially because other countries are listed with their informal names and *not* their official names, such as Afghanistan (and not Islamic Republic of Afghanistan), Albania (vs. Republic of Albania), Algeria (vs. People's Democratic Republic of Algeria), Andorra (vs. Principality of Andorra), etc. You get the picture.

I've been looking at several Wikipedia pages in the last several days, and it's amazing the lack of standardization, sometimes with "good reason" and explanation, and other times without either.

I would suggest that any Wikipedia page that has lists of countries (capitals, current leaders, UN join date, etc.) should standardize on the names. Either the names that people actually use, or the official names, but not both in the same list and the same across different pages. Zonker.in.geneva (talk) 08:28, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Because these are the names used by the UN. CMD (talk) 22:28, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

But...do they *really*? See this image from the UN General Assembly. There are other examples for Gambia and Bahamas and others. The two Congos and two Koreas obviously must be differentiated, but for Bolivia and Venezuela, they use the common names. And while I'm on the subject, the UN link you provided lists Bolivia as "Bolivia (Plurinational State of). So, why is it written on this page as "Plurinational State of Bolivia"? It's not the way the UN listed it. But the general point is that it's not consistent across pages. And if the reason given is, "We got it from this source," then even that is not accurate, as shown in the case of Bolivia. Zonker.in.geneva (talk) 08:33, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

That's a good question. It probably varies for each individual country. Russia certainly almost always uses "Russian Federation". Maybe Bolivia has some nameplates from 2009 or earlier that it never bothered to get rid of, or uses just "Bolivia" when they want the name to be larger (neither of these look great: [1][2]). All the entries that use brackets in the UN are written out here fully (albeit with the original alphabetical order). If you feel they should also use the brackets here, that's a different discussion. CMD (talk) 09:04, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

You're not the first person to be confused. I'll change the edit notice and maybe that will help. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:09, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

It's not that I'm confused. It's the lack of consistency. I've written a script to scrape data from four different Wikipedia pages (UN Members, World Capitals, TLDs, World Leaders) and the largest part of the script is normalizing the names of countries from the different sources so that I can collate the data into one dictionary. It's ludicrous. Imagine opening up an old copy of Encyclopedia Britannica to find information on Bolivia. But, no, it's not listed under "B" because it's under "Plurinational State of Bolivia." Sure, that may be the official name, but no REAL PERSON calls it that. Not even their citizens or their leader. Maybe in official meetings, but not in every day usage. I recognize the need to be accurate according to official records, but there should be some consistency across pages. Perhaps it would make sense to have a Common Country Name field in these and any other pages that have tables with countries for each row. Zonker.in.geneva (talk) 08:27, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

In the vast majority of pages across Wikipedia, countries are listed by whatever their article title is, aside from exceptions where the article title is somehow disambiguated (eg. Republic of Ireland, Georgia (country)). In some pages, such as this one, there may be variations, usually (hopefully) for good reason. I'd be interested to know what variations you have found. Wikipedia pages are designed for reading rather than data scraping (note how Bolivia is under B alphabetically on this page despite the longer name), but if data scraping could be improved without harming readability that might be worth looking into. CMD (talk) 08:40, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

East Timor vs. Timor-Leste. Côte d'Ivoire vs. Ivory Coast. Obviously, both are correct, but on a page that's written in English, it should be the English version. "Congo" vs. "Congo, Republic of the" vs. "Republic of the Congo". This last is sorted under "R" not "C" when the table is sorted by Country Name. "Iran" vs. "Iran (Islamic Republic of)". Fully sixty lines of code are to normalize country names I've read. The rest of the code is about 60 lines, too.Zonker.in.geneva (talk) 08:55, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Would you be able to set your code to read the wikilink rather than the displayed name? CMD (talk) 09:04, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Map edits

• I replaced the first map by the version of the same map that's in United Nations, where it is presented in a way that is faithful to the source. The version that was here before includes the following statement in the footnote: "Territories of states not recognized by the UN are not excluded due to the UN's position that they are part of some UN member state, including, for example, the territories governed by the Republic of China (Taiwan and other smaller islands), as the UN members voted to consider the People's Republic of China as the only lawful representative of China at the UN and the UN chooses not to question its claim that Taiwan is part of China." This is inconsistent with the UN's own statement on the map that's used as the source, namely: "The designations employed and the presentation of material on this map do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or any area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries." According to WP:SYNTH, "do not combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source." A Wikipedia editor was telling readers to interpret the map in a way that was based on a different statement or action by the UN. However, the UN explicitly tells readers not to over-interpret the coloring of the map. The version of the map in United Nations does not have the problematic statement and does include a disclaimer from the source.

• I removed the third, historical map because it is inaccurate and misrepresents the source. A map is a questionable way to express the history of UN membership because of the complexities of shifting boundaries, territorial disputes, and countries coming into and out of existence. For example, Germany is shown on the map as it is today, but it is color-coded as joining the UN in 1960-1989, during which time a unified Germany did not exist. Rather, East Germany and West Germany were admitted in 1973, and after reunification became a single member state in 1990. The source for this map is not a map at all, but rather the UN's year-by-year listing of admission of countries. That list has many footnotes explaining the complexities in certain cases. If the UN did not see fit to publish this information in map form -- presumably because of the difficulty of doing so without being misleading -- then neither should we. It is not proper to attribute an over-simplified and misleading map to a source that did not choose to present information in such an inaccurate way. NightHeron (talk) 00:44, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

  NightHeron, WP:BRD and also you are having the same conversation in multiple places, which is not helpful. Your edit explicitly saying in the text of the article that the map is inaccurate is at best POINT-y and at worst actual vandalism (why would we have inaccurate information in our encyclopedia?). I suggest centralizing all conversation, since the points are the same. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:25, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Koavf Please read what I wrote before accusing me of vandalism, and try to observe WP:AGF. The words you're objecting to are taken word-for-word from United Nations, see [a] under the map. If you don't want them in the text, feel free to move them to a footnote, or simply replace them by a direct quote from the United Nations source saying basically that the map is not to be interpreted as an accurate reflection of UN policies. That's called a "caveat" or a "disclaimer"; it's not vandalism to include that. As for "multiple places," for a while I was participating in a discussion on the NPOV noticeboard, but when I realized that my concerns were much more issues of accuracy than of NPOV -- and I didn't want to get involved in a debate about Taiwan's status -- I thought that my edits on the maps should be discussed on the talk pages of the two articles containing the maps. I did not put the above comment at Talk:United Nations because the version of the first map I'm objecting to is only on Member states of the United Nations. Let's just work together on this, no need for anger. Thanks. NightHeron (talk) 01:54, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

NightHeron, I didn't accuse you of vandalism and I'm not angry. I agree that we should work together. If the solution here is to delete the map off of Commons, that's fine but removing it one by one and then inserting text that says, "Here's a map but it's not accurate ¯\_(ツ)_/¯" is not the solution. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:56, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Koavf The UN's statement doesn't use the word "inaccurate," but rather says: "The designations employed and the presentation of material on this map do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or any area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries." Would you object to that disclaimer being in the caption (rather than an editor's caption that conflicts with it)? Ideally, an improvement would be to include the UN's own map [3], identified as such and viewable full-screen with a click. That map has labels and explanatory notes. But am I right in thinking that we can't do that because of copyright? Thanks. NightHeron (talk) 02:18, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

NightHeron, The UN does retain copyright as I recall (tho we have several of their resolutions at en.ws...) I'm not even disputing you as such: I just think this entire conversation should be centralized and have more input than just you and me on this one page. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:00, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Koavf Centralized to what page? I don't think it's an NPOV question, but just a question of accurately conveying what's in the source. Perhaps there's a place where we can ask what the general policy is or should be about editors creating maps that simplify a source and captions that are somewhat different from what's in the source. Perhaps that's harmless and even useful for topics (such as uncontroversial scientific ones) where simplification serves a pedagogical purpose. But, as we see from the long debates currently taking place on the NPOV noticeboard about Palestine, Taiwan, and the maps, when sensitive and controversial matters are involved simplification and editors' modifications of the source can be problematic. NightHeron (talk) 03:45, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

NightHeron, Talk:United Nations will certainly have more watchers and whatever is decided there is applicable here. There may be some relevant WikiProjects you can ping (e.g. International relations). Totally support you doing that and you have some good perspective to add. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:49, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Koavf, Will do. Thanks for the suggestion. NightHeron (talk) 10:21, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Member states of the USSR

I put back the information about Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania having been member states of the USSR, because that's a historical fact. Many people in those countries might regret that fact, just as some people in Hong Kong might regret the fact that Hong Kong is now part of China, and might wish that history had been different, but wishing doesn't make it so. NightHeron (talk) 11:20, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

I looked for the accession year of Ukraïne and found 1945. The text says it is the former Ukraïnian Sovjet Republic. But wasn't the USSR as a whole UN member, rather than the member states individually? The practical importance is that I suppose that sometime in the 1990's the newly independent Ukraïnian state decided to become a UN member, and I would like to know when. Rbakels (talk) 18:39, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Status of the non-member observer countries

Non-member observer states are recognized as sovereign states, and are free to submit a petition to join as a full member at their discretion. At present, the Holy See and Palestine are the only observer states at the United Nations,[1] although Switzerland also maintained such status until it became a member state. Among others the Sovereign Military Order of Malta also has observer status, although not as a state but as an entity

That being said, the mention of the Kosovo* in the section about observer and non-member states is highly misleading. All other mentioned countries and entities are in a way recognized as a "non-self governing territory" by UN itself or by some of the specialized agencies of the UN, but not Kosovo. Not a single UN agency has recognized Kosovo so it does not deserve to be standing as equal to those countries, territories or entities.

My suggestion is for the paragraph about Kosovo to be removed or corrected by starting it with the sentence that "Kosovo is not an observer due to it not being recognized as sovereign country by the UN or a single UN agency but there's been talks and negotiations yada yada..." Cvarkov1 (talk) 21:50, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Cvarkov1, You bring up a good point but this is also similar to the Republic of China which exists and is recognized by some UN member states and also has applied for membership in UN bodies, so in that sense it is similar to at least one other entry in this list. I'm still not sure how the text as it stands is unclear, tho: it seems like it's saying what you feel like it needs to say. I'll make a revision now and you tell me if you think it clarifies enough. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:51, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

I do not disagree with mentioning "Palestine" here but I am aware that for Israëli it is very sensitive to consider Palestine a country. But I don't think it is appropriate to emphasixe the opposite either - neutral wordings should be chosen.

I would consider Kosovo a country but I am aware this is completely unacceptable for some Serbians.

Rbakels (talk) 18:46, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Republic of Moldova

Someone else has already asked about this. Not only is Moldova designated in the UN in its full name "Republic of Moldova", but it's also in alphabetical order under R (for "Republic"), not M. Why is this exactly the case? August-54 (talk) 18:29, 5 February 2021 (UTC)