Talk:Mitrovica, Kosovo

Change the name from serbian name to international one (albanian included)

The name should be edited ASAP firstly its in independent state since 2008 recognized by 86 out of 193 states (44%) of all UN nations, 22 out of 27 EU countries or 81%, 24 out of 28 NATO states or 86%, and 27 out of 57 (47%) member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) have recognised The Republic of Kosovo and all the countries recongnize and call the city Mitrovica this is one of many reasons to change it but all major news international agency use the name MITROVICA not kosovska mitrovica serbian name, the UN recognize within Mitrovica name, same is used in municipality of mitrovica and the last and most important one the name should be used how the demographic of ethnic population lived and lives in municipality or city which it means name should be and is Mitrovica cause great majority are ethnic albanians. And kosovska mitrovica should be invalid name anyways cause the name was put in yugoslavian regime where serbs hold it the most of power and changing it how the want it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Illyrian88 (talk • contribs) 19:27, 21 January 2012 (UTC) I changed the names expect the title which i cant change it, the one who disagree with international name(albanian incl.) should give a prove or the good reason to change it again but i mention again the name kosovska mitrovica is invalid for the simple fact the serbian regime change it only to serbian. Its recognized by all country with name Mitrovica so wiki should respect the international rules and not playing the role of lawyer of serbia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Illyrian88 (talk • contribs) 16:21, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree after having conducted a Google Test that this page needs to be renamed. A number of methods can be used to identify which of a pair (or more) conflicting names is the most prevalent in English.

• The Google test. Using Google's advanced search option, search for each conflicting name and confine the results to pages written in English; also exclude the word "Wikipedia" (as we want to see what other people are using, not our own usage). Note which is the most commonly used term.

• International organisations. Search for the conflicting names on the websites of organisations such as the United Nations, NATO, OSCE, IMF, etc.

• Major English-language media outlets. Use Google News and, where possible, the archives of major outlets such as BBC News and CNN to identify common usages. Some media organisations have established style guides covering naming issues, which can provide useful guidance (e.g. The Guardian's style guide says use Ukraine, not the Ukraine).

• Reference works. Check other encyclopedias. If there is general agreement on the use of a name (as there often will be), that is usually a good sign of the name being the preferred term in English.

Mitrovica passes the Google test hands down.

Results 1 - 10 of about 2,460,000 for Mitrovica -Wikipedia. (0.13 seconds) Results 1 - 10 of about 540,000 for Kosovska Mitrovica -Wikipedia. (0.22 seconds)

And this is exluding Wikipedia - as is advised by Wikipedia when conducting the Google test - Ottomanist (talk) 23:53, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

• It's not really surprising that there are more Google hits for 'Mitrovica' than for 'Kosovska Mitrovica'; every hit for 'Kosovska Mitrovica' is also a hit for 'Mitrovica'. (Also note that Mitrovica has other meanings apart from this city.) A more thorough research is needed.

  It's not out of question that Mitrovica is used more often internationally than the (official?) name Kosovska Mitrovica. For instance, take the Czech city České Budějovice - from 1920, the official German name was Böhmisch Budweis, but the longer name was not popular among Germans. - Mike Rosoft (talk) 17:51, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Wiki Project Albania?

Can someone explain to me why is this article a part of the Wiki Project Albania?-109.92.117.132 (talk) 11:26, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Per albanian population in town. It is related to the WP Albania per that. --WhiteWriter^speaks 12:23, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Being part of a project means simply that it is of interest to the participants of that project. Alæxis_¿question? 09:19, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but then why doesn't every Serb town in Bosnia have Wikiproject Serbia written all over it? 23 editor (talk) 19:44, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. 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: Moved. As usual we wish to follow WP:COMMONNAME. The supporters of the move, especially User:PWilkinson, had the most convincing analysis of the Google results, which favor using Mitrovica without the Kosovska. The opponents had an uphill fight against the Google results and had trouble coming up with good reasons for their position that were based on policy. EdJohnston (talk) 19:27, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

---

Kosovska Mitrovica → Mitrovica, Kosovo – More commonly used. Ujkrieger (talk) 09:20, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Google books

• 'Mitrovica': [1] 95,400 results
• 'Kosovska Mitrovica': [2] 11,900 results

• Support - Per WP:COMMONNAME. An advanced google search for English Language only Books produces these results. "Kosovska Mitrovica, Kosovo -wikipedia -ucl" = 196 Books compared to "Mitrovica, Kosovo -wikipedia -ucl" = 417 Books. It is by far the common name of the city in the English Language. Not only this, but all mainstream English language media from English speaking countries now use "Mitrovica" over "Kosovska Mitrovica". BBC [3] [4]. The Guardian [5] [6] The Independent [7] [8] The Telegraph [9] [10] CNN [11] [12] Fox News [13] [14] The Times of India [15] IJA (talk) 11:49, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose - this is another case of presenting false search results to support particular position in renaming Kosovo toponyms.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 13:37, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Could editors please restrain from making baseless arguments and instead try to contribute to the discussion. Ujkrieger (talk) 16:38, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

• @ Antidiskriminator - Where is your argument? You've just dismissed all the evidence because it doesn't fit in with your POV. IJA (talk) 20:00, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose There are some oder towns named Mitrovica, Sremska, Mačvanska, Kosovska, so Only mitrovica is not the right solution to have. If we have full name, why to use only Mitrovica (Kosovo), that is wrong. --Ąnαșταη (ταlκ) 17:15, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
• @ Ąnαșταη - That isn't much of an argument, there are lots of places with the same name all over the world. "Mitrovica" is the common name for the town in Northern Kosovo in the English Language and we should follow Wikipeida guidelines and use the common name of the Common name instead of a foreign name. IJA (talk) 20:00, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
  • I dont agree, proposition is not in follow Wikipeida guidelines, and its not foreign name. It looks like you just dont agree with everyone, and try to make arguments wrong. Same with user below. We have common name as Kosovoska Mitrovica, and should use that instead of Mitrovica (Kosovo), as Mitrovica is already occupied. --Ąnαșταη (ταlκ) 16:11, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
    • If "Kosovoska Mitrovica" is the common name as you have stated, then why does all the evidence suggest otherwise? Please prove me wrong. "Mitrovica" is occupied as disambiguation page but "Mitrovica (Kosovo)" and "Mitrovica, Kosovo" are not occupied and are both suitable titles for accommodating this article's title per Wikipedia:Disambiguation and WP:COMMONNAME. IJA (talk) 17:00, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
• Strongly Oppose This is a divided town. South of Ibar its called Mitrovica but north its called Kosovska Mitrovica. On all oficiall papers I have at home it says Kosovska Mitrovica on them even on the english papers who commes from Nato or UN. The town has not changed the name sence it changed from Titova Mitrovica to todays. Albanians calls it Mitrovica but that is only on the southern part. On the cars it still says KM nothing else. Lets take Sri Lanka for example. Isnt the most common name for that part of the world in english Ceylon? What does google books say. Ceylon 10 milion+ Sri lanka 7,7 milions. Google books can be very unprecize. What I am trying to say one can not change the names of a town into english just based upon how many books are wroten about the town especially not this town. Before the war not many outside Jugoslavia had any idea this town even existed and the main reasson people are interessted in the town today is becose of it being the main front between serbians and albanians and also the only divided town in Europe today. Changing the name into the one used on the south side will only resolt in someone asking to change back. As a last reasson I can also say after the election of 2013 based upon the agreement between the republic of serbian side and kosovo albanian goverment side the town will stay divided but the north part will stay autonom. In that agreement the town in both english and serbian is called Kosovska Mitrovica while only in albanian version its called Mitrovica.Stepojevac (talk) 15:25, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

The north has its own article. --Λeternus ^(talk) 10:52, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

• @ Stepojevac - Your argument goes against what is said in WP:COMMONNAME. We don't necessarily use the "official" name (even though both names have official status), we use the Common Name in the English Language. We use the name which is most recognisable and identifiable to our readers/ audiences. I have produced lots of evidence to show that "Mitrovica" is the common name for the town and that "Kosovska Mitrovica" is not even half as common as "Mitrovica" in the English Language. The only evidence you have is some "oficiall papers" (sic) which you have at home supposedly. Your argument carries very little weight, lacks evidence and doesn't follow wikipedia policy/ guidelines. IJA (talk) 15:52, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
• Support - Per arguments provided by User:IJA and User:Ujkrieger. --Λeternus ^(talk) 10:52, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

• Comment - while difference in search results seems significant, if you try '"mitrovica" -kosovo' search, you will see only 67k results. Not all 'Mitrovica' searches relate to town in Kosovo. In other words, 'Kosovska Mitrovica' vs 'Mitrovica' is 1:2 ratio only. So this search results numbers argument for me doesn't work. 109.93.95.230 (talk) 15:51, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

similar is for web results '"Kosovska Mitrovica", Kosovo -wikipedia -ucl' vs '"Mitrovica" Kosovo -kosovska -wikipedia -ucl', although it is 2:1, the opposite. 109.93.95.230 (talk) 15:55, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

• Comment - Hits aren't really that important, it's more about how many books. For example if you had a book titled "Kosovska Mitrovica" the name ""Kosovska Mitrovica" is likely to feature thousands of times within that one book. So out of all them hits, lots of them will be from one book alone. This is why on google books searches, we see how many books use the name; not how many hits. Also you need to make sure google books setting is set to search for English language results only because we're looking for the common name within the English language. Of course the Serbo-Croatian language(s) books will use the Serbo-Croatian name of the town. IJA (talk) 11:35, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

• Support - On my GBooks searches, "Mitrovica" gets 97,400 hits, "Kosovska Mitrovica" gets 19,900 hits and "Mitrovicë" gets 16,400 hits. This doesn't actually help very much - the "Mitrovica" hits total presumably includes all the "Kosovska Mitrovica" hits, besides ones for people surnamed Mitrovica and other places called Mitrovica (mostly Sremska Mitrovica). Looking through the first few search pages for each term helps rather more, even though the evidence one gets is basically anecdotal. One thing to note is that once one has ignored the results for other Mitrovicas (including those which refer to Sremska Mitrovica simply as Mitrovica), quite a proportion of the ones dealing with this Mitrovica at least mention more than one of the names. Several specifically start by mentioning that the Serbian name for the place is Kosovska Mitrovica, that the Albanian name is Mitrovicë - and after that usually simply refer to Mitrovica (and can thus be taken to be "voting" for Mitrovica as the English name). Quite a number use both Mitrovicë and one of the other names (very often Kosovska Mitrovica, but sometimes just Mitrovica) every single time they mention the place - these ones should presumably be taken as refusing to commit to an English name by not choosing to decide between ones from both major local languages. Relatively few seem to use just Mitrovicë. Of the books only or primarily using Kosovska Mitrovica, many are from the 1990s or before - back then, this obviously was the common English name for the place but, outside historical articles, we would generally expect the current common English name to be the article title. And a number, though not all, of the more modern books using Kosovska Mitrovica seem to be by Serbians (or at least people with Serbian or similar surnames). Going through all this, it looks to me as if the usual name now used by English speakers who are from outside the contending communities and who are prepared to commit to a single name is Mitrovica, and probably by quite a large margin. We obviously still need to disambiguate this Mitrovica from other Mitrovicas and, if the majority population in the place as a whole was Serbian, if the place was fairly indisputably under Serbian control or if the apparent current consensus of English language writers was for the present title, I would regard it as an acceptable method of disambiguation. However, none of these seem to apply, so we should prefer disambiguating by adding the name of the region the place is located in to the end of the common English name for the place to produce the article title, as suggested by the proposer. PWilkinson (talk) 22:19, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

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