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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Daeron (talk | contribs) at 20:25, 24 September 2020 (→Official English name). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Former good article nomineeWestern New Guinea was a good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
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On this day...Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on December 18, 2005, and December 18, 2006.
Current status: Former good article nominee
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Official English name

The title "Western New Guinea" as oppose to its legal "West New Guinea" English name, "Irian Jaya" common name from 1973 to 2001, or "West Papua" common English name since 2002 is a Wikipedia invention by editors driven by political agenda and edit war instead of objectivity. BOTH the Indonesian and Netherlands governments used "West New Guinea" in their joint international agreement, https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%20437/volume-437-I-6311-English.pdf Daeron (talk) 20:25, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Official Indonesian name

The article has no information on what the official Indonesian appellation for the "region" has been since it was split into two provinces. Perhaps official sources simply refer to "Papua and West Papua" without attempting to coin an umbrella term covering both. Perhaps they avoid mentioning them together at all. FWIW, the Bahasa Indonesia Wikipedia article is called "Papua Barat (wilayah)". It might also be worth pointing out that Regions of Indonesia are not official (or even well-defined) units in the way, say, Regions of Denmark are. jnestorius(talk) 15:26, 3 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Introduction text

The article currently starts with the text "West Papua or Western New Guinea was annexed by Indonesia from the Netherlands in 1969". - So the logical question is what was the territory from 1962 to 1969? The Dutch left in 1962, Indonesia was administrating the territory, so who was Indonesia administrating it for, and from whom did Indonesia annex the territory in 1969? Daeron (talk) 03:58, 9 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 05 November 2016

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. As has been discussed below, the naming of this region is quite controversial, and there are several valid ways of referring to the western half of the island of New Guinea. However, for the purposes of Wikipedia, and where 'West Papua' has been shown to be quite ambiguous in a way that 'Western New Guinea' is not, it makes sense to follow the guidance provided by WP:NATURAL and use 'Western New Guinea' as the title of this article. The question of whether 'West Papua' is a more common name in English for the region (as opposed to the province) has not been conclusively decided, but, in any case, WP:NATURAL suggests to us that it is right to use 'an alternative name that the subject is also commonly called in English reliable sources, albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title'. Therefore, as various editors have suggest below, 'Western New Guinea' serves as a neutral descriptive title that avoids the need for parenthetical disambiguation, and as our policies and guidelines suggest this approach, it makes sense to follow it. Moreover, because of the controversial nature of this discussion, WP:TITLECHANGES suggests that a move to 'West Papua' would only result in an unproductive cycle of requested moves that would provide no clearer determination on the 'correctness' of either proposed title than this one has. For these reasons, I find that consensus as expressed in this discussion, rooted in our policies and guidelines, can only suggest a retention of the status quo. (non-admin closure) RGloucester — ☎ 18:12, 15 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]


Western New Guinea → West Papua (region) – See Talk Page agreement in May 2010, until a new editor without explanation moved the article while alleging it was a "minor" edit on 1 May 2016 – Daeron (talk) 00:02, 5 November 2016 (UTC) --Relisting. Bradv 00:06, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is a contested technical request (permalink). Feinoha Talk 02:16, 5 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The new name doesn't seem much easier to find than the old one. Perphaps we should get a more recent discussion to see if consensus is still for moving the page? Feinoha Talk 00:16, 5 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

My preference for English titles would be to use "West Papua" for this article, and "Papua Barat" for the "West Papua (province)" article.

The name was most recently debated in 2010, see the top of this Talk page.
Some Google numbers using English preference with "-wikipedia -site:id" in the queries:
- "Papua Barat" 452,000; "West Papua Province" 98,000; "Papua Province" 389,000;
- "West Papua" 447,000; West New Guinea 324,000; Western New Guinea 149,000.
Also the top "Western New Guinea" response is www.sbs.com.au/news/social-tags/western-new-guinea that lists 6 stories.
But www.sbs.com.au/news/social-tags/west-papua lists 10 stories, and each of those stories occur in the Papua Province section of West Papua. So I submit the common usage in English 'West Papua' refers to the entire Indonesian administrated half. Daeron (talk) 17:19, 5 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
My top responses lead to wikipedia pages, so that is all dependent on the location from where you are searching and the pages you've visited in the past... Encyclopædia Britannica, which is usually the golden standard for Wikipedia, uses "West Papua" to refer to the province, not the region. --HyperGaruda (talk) 18:52, 5 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That is because Encyclopædia Britannica uses the title "Papua" instead of "Western New Guinea" fo this subject, see | Encyclopædia Britannica Papua. If you regard Britannica as the "golden standard" THEN you should REJECT the fictional "Western New Guinea" title that user:Wik created in 2004 because Encyclopædia Britannica does not use it and has never heard of it, see | Encyclopædia Britannica search.Daeron (talk) 10:31, 13 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, the Britannica article covers Papua province; there is no article on Western New Guinea as a whole. What is "fictional" about a descriptive term? The island is called New Guinea and the article is about the western half, hence Western New Guinea. Since the area now is neither an administrative unit nor a natural one (such as a full island), it is normal it doesn't have a proper name. Mewulwe (talk) 11:08, 16 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Also, all page moves are minor, so the fact that it is a minor edit is meaningless. Pppery 01:26, 5 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Merged discussions. (This discussion was already here, but the request wasn't taken off WP:RMTR. Steel1943 (talk) 02:35, 5 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per the preferred WP:NATURAL way of dismbiguating titles over using parentheses. Additionally, this source clearly states that West Papua -when referring to the entire western part- is a partisan name, ergo a violation of WP:NPOV. By the way, some browsing on GBooks indicates that "West New Guinea" gets double the amount of hits compared to "Western New Guinea". --HyperGaruda (talk) 11:51, 5 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Your own source uses the name "West Papua" not because the author is Papuan but because the author is writing in English. A fair and proportionate review of English texts would confirm most use "West Papua" and not "Western New Guinea".Daeron (talk) 17:19, 5 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
My own source says "While Indonesians now use West Papua to refer to the western province, Papuan activists continue to use West Papua to refer to the whole territory of western New Guinea." --HyperGaruda (talk) 18:52, 5 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
YES most English speakers asking about "West Papua" want the region, and not the province. Even when Indonesians hear "West Papua" they think a separatist is talking about the region, not the Indonesian province. Quoting Wikipedia Policy: "In some cases, the choice of name used for a topic can give an appearance of bias. While neutral terms are generally preferable, this must be balanced against clarity. If a name is widely used in reliable sources (particularly those written in English), and is therefore likely to be well recognized by readers, it may be used even though some may regard it as biased."; therefore the titles English sources use have priority over what Indonesian readers think is separatist bias. If a English speaker means either of the Indonesian provinces, they normally prefix it as "Indonesian province of West Papua" or "Indonesian province of Papua"; but when they only say "West Papua" they most often mean the region.Daeron (talk) 14:08, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I am a New Zealander working in PNG and I have travelled across both ends of the island; my wife is Australian and works in Jakarta. There is no consensus on either side as to what to call the Indonesian end of the island and the naming is an extremely sensitive political issue because of the separatist movement. West Papua is a province, so cannot be used, Papua Barat is just the Indonesian of the same thing and would serve to confuse, Papua cannot be used, despite Britannica, as this also is a province. Retaining West Papua (province) and West Papua (region) sort of works although its a bit clonky and invites many users to end up in the wrong page until they have read enough about it to make a discernment. The penchant for counting google hits just compounds group ignorance rather than attempting to get to the truth. New Guinea is an accepted name for the whole island so my recommendation is to use Western New Guinea because it is not a formal name but just a description, it's an adjectival subset of a recognised name. Not very satisfactory but maybe the lesser of several evils and is the most likely to steer folk to what they are looking for. Ex nihil (talk) 11:31, 14 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Support. "West Papua"

A UN document of 1969 refers to "The territory of West New Guinea (West Irian)" http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/past/unsfbackgr.html

However current practice of Pacific nations is to describe the Indonesian part of the island as "West Papua". See quotes of speeches at Radio NZ http://www.radionz.co.nz/international/programmes/datelinepacific/audio/201817600/pacific-leaders-raise-west-papua-at-the-un

or at the website of the Free West Papua Campaign "Seven countries support West Papua at the UN General Assembly! SEPTEMBER 27, 2016 History for West Papua was made at the United Nations General Assembly in September as a record breaking seven Pacific Island nations raised the plight and struggle of the West Papuan people." https://www.freewestpapua.org/2016/09/27/seven-countries-support-west-papua-at-the-un-general-assembly/

While nihil notes that "what to call the Indonesian end of the island and the naming is an extremely sensitive political issue because of the separatist movement". However I would support the use of "West Papua", as that is the name now used by leaders of Pacific countries, news media organisations (e.g. Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio NZ, BBC ...) and is likely to be the key search term used on Wikipedia or on search engines. MozzazzoM (talk) 07:22, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support. "West Papua" seems to be the most common name ([1] vs. [2]) and the one preferred by residents.[3] The latter source shows that while "West Papua" may be somewhat partisan when referring to the whole region, the present title of "Western New Guinea" is an out of date name.--Cúchullain t/c 18:19, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Western New Guinea is a neutral descriptive term. "West Papua" is the name of the independent state proclaimed by separatists but not internationally recognized nor effective, and can't be considered NPOV unless the article were specifically about the proposed state rather than the geographical area - but such article already exists under Republic of West Papua. Mewulwe (talk) 11:08, 16 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support more preferably West Papua (Indonesia) (thinking similar to Victoria (Australia)). "Western New Guinea" is now quite ambiguous, it used to mean all of New Guinea west of Papua New Guinea, before the Indonesian national government divided this remote place into the separate political sub-entities West Papua and Papua. "Papua" is a name of uncertain origin, is it quite ambiguous to most readers, and the disambiguation of "(Indonesia)" is most important. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:35, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. This is english wikipedia; the island's name in english is New Guinea, it is only natural to describe this geographic region as Western (half of) New Guinea. The move to West Papua (region) is valid only if the name of the island (in english) is also change to Papua as well. Gunkarta  talk  06:15, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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Contentious info on independence referendum presented as fact

The article says:

"The Act of Free Choice ... was truly the opinion of the West Papuan people without any external intervention."

This statement has no citation and seems to be in heavy dispute. For instance the British newspaper The Guardian calls the referendum:

"a UN-sanctioned but discredited ballot ... in which barely 1,000 West Papuan representatives selected by Indonesia cast votes under threat of violence."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/06/jeremy-corbyn-on-west-papua-uk-labour-leader-calls-for-independence-vote

I understand that a statement isn't removed just because it has no citation, but doesn't this need to be looked at again?

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