Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Macedonia/main articles

This page is for discussion of the page titles of the principal pages relating to Macedonia. All letters on proposals were derived from proposals made during the first phase of the discussion.

Please endorse only one proposal, and leave a (preferably) short comment if you wish. Direct any discussion of other users' endorsements to the talk page.

Statement of question

• What title should be used for the article about the country constitutionally known as the Republic of Macedonia?

• What should the article named simply "Macedonia" be about?

Proposal A: "Macedonia" solution

• Macedonia is the article about the country
• Macedonia (disambiguation) is the disambiguation page

Rationale

• The country is the primary topic of the term "Macedonia" in current common usage in English, in the sense of the WP:DAB guideline, as established through investigation of English-language corpora outside Wikipedia.
• The country article has far more readers than any other Macedonia article (5 times more than Macedonia (ancient kingdom), 10 times more than Macedonia (Greece), 20 times more than Macedonia (region), and 3 times more than all the other related pages together) (see statistics)
• The intention of the "primary topic" rule of WP:DAB is not to express value judgments about the historical significance of an entity and its name, but purely a pragmatic intention of making things more efficient for the majority of readers. Therefore, reader expectations based on present-day discourse should be the guiding criterion. WP:DAB defines no concrete cutoff point of how much more common a usage needs to be to qualify as primary, but the country leads so strongly in both page views and web/corpus counts it would qualify under any reasonable criterion.
• This solution is patterned on Wikipedia's existing treatment of other countries that share their name with a wider or neighbouring geographical region of the same name, notably Luxembourg (disambiguation), Azerbaijan (disambiguation) and Mongolia (disambiguation) and has the advantage of consistency with existing nomenclature on Wikipedia.
• Published encyclopedias, dictionaries and other reference works predominately list the country as the primary meaning of the term "Macedonia". The majority of readers will expect the country article to be at that name.

Envisaged impact on readers

• This proposal leads fewer people through the disambiguation page. The majority of readers will immediately reach the article they were looking for. A minority will be one click away from their intended target article, and a yet smaller minority have to navigate back to the disambiguation page through the hat note (currently fewer than 10% of those who used the dab page earlier.)
• Page view statistics show that the move of the disambiguation page from Macedonia to Macedonia (disambiguation) has not adversely affected readership of the other Macedonia articles.

Compliance with Wikipedia policy

• Compliant with WP:NPOV's requirement to use "the common English language name as found in verifiable reliable sources".
• Compliant with WP:NCON's requirement to use the English version of the country's self-identifying name.
• Compliant with WP:DAB's requirement to use the term indicated as the primary topic for the title of the article on that topic.

Why is this better than the previous status?

• Improved navigation - eliminates an unnecessary detour through a disambiguation page for the great majority of people who look for "Macedonia".
• Consistent with nomenclature elsewhere on Wikipedia (country as primary topic, further meanings at disambiguation page).
• Consistent with external nomenclature, where the term "Macedonia" is overwhelmingly employed in common usage to refer to the country, and therefore the best match with readers' expectations about the meaning of the term.

Arguments against proposal A

• The country may not be the "primary topic" in all domains of English usage, especially not in older academic discourse.
• The country's status as one meaning of Macedonia and possibly a primary topic is only a very recent historical phenomenon.
• Choosing the country as the main topic may be perceived by some as choosing a side in the political naming dispute, in favour of the stance dominant in most English-speaking nations.
• The semantics of choosing the country as the main topic may be perceived by some as taking sides with one POV coming from the Republic of Macedonia[1]

Users who endorse Proposal A

• Although I can accept a compromise (C over B), this is my preference since it 1) is more solidly based on policy than any other option, 2) is more NPOV than any other option, and 3) represents the article destination for the majority of Wikipedia users, thus wasting less aggregate time. (Taivo (talk) 15:24, 26 June 2009 (UTC))
• Let's be clear - this is the only proposal that meets the requirements of WP:NPOV#Article naming, i.e. "use the common English language name as found in verifiable reliable sources". "Republic of Macedonia" is a formal name, not a common name, and the great majority of verifiable reliable sources (as surveyed here) do not use this name at all to refer to the country. NPOV sets clear criteria for country naming. If we set those criteria aside in order to "reduce tension", as one editor has put it, we would be abandoning NPOV and verifiability in order to appease disruptive nationalists. That approach ignores encyclopedic consistency, violates two of our most fundamental policies and is unlikely to "reduce tension" whatever happens. As edits like this show, hardline nationalists do not even accept the country's formal name. We would not even be having this discussion if it was not for nationalist objections to our standing approach to naming. We are being asked here, in effect, to choose whether to go with the approach that we take for almost every other country in the world, or to carve out a special exception for this one country whose name is opposed by partisans of a neighbouring state. This proposal is the only one that does what we are supposed to do - ignore the external politics and follow NPOV. -- ChrisO (talk) 15:37, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
• Essentially per Chris. The body of evidence that the primary use of the name "Macedonia" is for the Republic of Macedonia, is simply too convincing for me to be willing to support either B or C, though I find neither one to be horrible. I also agree with Chris that the idea of us accepting any naming convention for the sake of easing tension is a concession to political concerns and has no place in Wikipedia. Our naming should be based entirely on encyclopedic consistency, correctness and simplicity, not what will offend people the least. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 15:57, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
• Per Chris explanation. I do think the other, C and B are kind of OK too, but they do have the clear disadvantage of directing most of the users to a disambiguation page. man with one red shoe 16:02, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
• Per ChrisO... I got all turned around. Striking my comment below. Hiberniantears (talk) 18:42, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
• First choice, as per ChrisO and Taivo, particularly Taivo's third point. Horologium (talk) 20:01, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
• Second choice. Macedonia is ambiguous, or we would not be having this discussion. I do not believe, and the statistical claims here do not suggest, that the Republic is much more common than other senses. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:24, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
• Proposal A is the only one that does not violate any Wikipedia policy or established practice. Look at its "arguments against" section, no WP policies are mentioned. This is the crucial thing for the referees to consider, because ARBCOM's ruling implies that policy compliance should be given the most weight when deciding. Proposals B and D both violate one policy or another (as documented in their "arguments against" sections) so compared to them Proposal A is a no-brainer. Proposal C does not explicitly violate any policy, however it does go against established Wikipedia practice since there is only existing country article that follows that scheme. On the other hand, the vast majority of country articles follow the scheme from Proposal A (i.e. the article about Germany is under "Germany", not under "Federal Republic of Germany"). --Grnch (talk) 23:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
• A -- Imbris (talk) 00:49, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Proposal B: "Republic of Macedonia" solution

• Republic of Macedonia is the article about the country.
• Macedonia is the disambiguation page

Rationale

• The country is not clearly the "primary topic" for plain "Macedonia", because in academic discourse, as documented in counts of Google Books and similar sources, referents other than the modern country (especially the ancient kingdom) have a comparably high prominence. Therefore the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC pattern should not be applied.
• If readers are taken straight to the country page from a wiki search on "Macedonia", some readers might not realize they are not on the most pertinent page, when the information they are really looking for might be more appropriately found at Macedonia (region) or Macedonia (ancient kingdom).
• Regarding the country article's title this convention is similar to Wikipedia's current treatment of such cases as:
  • Republic of Ireland rather than Ireland,
  • Federated States of Micronesia (common English name Micronesia[2]),
  • Republic of China (common English name Taiwan) and People's Republic of China (common English name China)
  • Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (rather than Nagorno-Karabakh).

  Other more loosely related examples exist [3].

• "Republic of Macedonia" is an acceptable disambiguator because it is also the self-identifying official (constitution) name.
• This proposal has some advantage over the other proposals in that it can be applied not only to the main article (dealing with the page title of the main country article), but also to other page titles (dealing with the page titles of various sub-articles), and in the text of other articles (how to refer to the country in normal article text in other articles, including articles of international organizations and Greece-related articles). A universal solution applied everywhere looks more neat. It is very easy to see why other proposals can not achieve this: Greece-related articles can not use Macedonia to refer to the country, because Greece has a region with the same name. (But could (in principle) use "Republic of Macedonia" without the possibility of confusion!) That excludes proposal A. "Category:Politics of Macedonia (country)" looks very odd, while "Category:Politics of the Republic of Macedonia" looks decent. That excludes proposal C. And so on. Other proposals simply don't fit the universality criterion (even in theory).

Envisaged impact on readers

• Readers using the wiki-search function on "Macedonia" will be led through the disambiguation page.
• Readership of the disambiguation page will be artificially inflated by its placement at the term used by most sources to refer to the country, as was the case before April 2009. However all readers would very quickly continue towards the article they want.
• The great majority of readers will need to take an extra step to reach the article with the greatest level of usage, i.e. the country article.

Compliance with Wikipedia policy

• Compliant with WP:DAB (use simple title for disambiguation page) and WP:PRECISION (prefer precisely specified names when ambiguity exists) under the premise that there is no clear "primary topic".
• Compliant with WP:NCON's criterion favouring the English version of the country's self-identifying (constitutional) name [4][5].
• Compliant with WP:DAB suggestion that "If there is extended discussion about which article truly is the primary topic, that may be a sign that there is in fact no primary topic"
• Compliant with suggestion of WP:Naming conventions (common names)#Do not overdo it that "if there is no agreement over whether a page title is "overdoing it", apply the guidelines at WP:PRECISION"

Why is this better than the status quo?

The title of the country article would be unambiguous. In no circumstance would any reader find himself directed to an article he didn't seek for. This version would be the least likely to raise objections. No one is likely to think of this solution as representing any POV on any matter.

Arguments against Proposal B

• Less efficient than A for the majority of readers using the wiki search function.
• Minor practical issue: every proposal except A (and E) will require substantial cleanup of a large number of incoming wikilinks pointing to plain Macedonia and meaning the country; that should be changed to the appropriate target rather than a disambiguation page. This pratical issue is labeled minor, because a bot can solve it; nevertheless a bot would have to be set up, so it is not zero-effort.
• The use of full formal names is generally deprecated by Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names), as they "require people to know that name, and to type more." Full formal names are generally only used on Wikipedia to distinguish sovereign states which share a geographical name with another state, namely the two Chinas, the two Congos, the (formerly) two Germanies. There is no other contemporary country called Macedonia.
• Reference works and cartographic works make very little use of "Republic of Macedonia". The formal name appears to have little common usage, making it likely that the term will be unfamiliar to the non-knowledgeable reader.
• Some of the examples with which this proposal is compared, e.g. to use Republic of Ireland, not Ireland, are considered by some as controversial, and in the case of Ireland a parallel wikidiscussion is going on.
• Violates WP:NPOV#Article naming's requirement to use the "common English language name as found in verifiable reliable sources".

Users who endorse Proposal B

• —Nightstallion 10:42, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
• First preference. Per the general naming guidelines proposal A would be correct, but I am generally in favour of compromises that reduce tension. I believe this is such a compromise, and we are fortunate that this way of arriving at a compromise has been codified in the naming convention in WP:UCN#Do not overdo it. This proposal is analogous to the Nobel Prize in Economics, which redirects to Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Hans Adler 11:16, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
• First preference. It's what the Library of Congress does [6], representing a scholarly consensus, and an extra mouse click for readers is not burdensome. Novickas (talk) 13:19, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
• It seems an abvious choice to use the country's constitutional name for itself, and I agree with Hans Adler that doing so ought to reduce tension on Wikipedia. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 14:08, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

*For the reasons stated by those who signed before me. Hiberniantears (talk) 14:16, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

• First preference by far. GK1973 (talk) 16:55, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
• First choice. Yes, English Wikipedia reflects common usages of people from English speaking world, but English is lingua franca, so do not expect that people outside of that world certainly know the republic. (no offense, but until I began editing English Wikipedia, I did not know know about the existence of the state) People indifferent in the political and naming disputes over Macedonia would remind "Macedonia" as the ancient kingdom or region, so Macedonia at DAB could be a wise choice for all people in search for ambiguous meanings of "Macedonia". This proposal to go back to the revert of ChrisO seems reasonable because the name had been stable for years until the move. Also could you clarify who proposed which proposals on this RfC?--Caspian blue 18:10, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
• First choice, though A would also be acceptable. I prefer this solution because there is legitimate confusion among those not familiar with the region. Moreover, one can make the argument that using the "correct" name is a better practice than using the "common" name. // Chris ^{(complaints)•(contribs)} 18:59, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
• First choice. The existing rule regarding "most commonly used name" may at best dubiously apply here. International media tend not to cover subnational entities as well as we do, and they have obvious demands on limiting the amount of space taken up by any content, which causes them to compress material after the first usage. As a result, it would be in their economic best interests to use the shortest name for the most commonly used item, whether that is really "accurate" or not, which might cause them to use the shorter name "Macedonia" for the country more frequently, particularly when that is the only "Macedonia" being discussed. Maps are also influenced by aesthetic and other considerations given the dimensions available to them in some cases. Therefore, where for the most part, other information sources will consistently feel a need to compress information because of editorial pressure, as per WP:PAPER, we here are not so pressured. We also have a few more options regarding maps than many print publishers do, so our responses could reasonably differ there as well. We as opposed to many/most of them also have to deal with the Greek subnational entity and the historical entity regularly. Many of those other sources will cover the Greek region rarely, the historical state rarely if ever. If there were clear evidence that the most frequently used name for the current country is "Macedonia" in situations discussing not only the current country, but also to a reasonable degree both the Greek subnational entity and the former country, then I probably would agree to that name. I have not however that I can remember seen such evidence presented. The country article gets only about 60% of the hits of all articles named "Macedonia". The phrasing of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC defines a "primary topic" as one which is "much more used", and it is arguable whether the country's 60& usage is sufficient to qualify as "much more" usage. If it does not, then WP:NCDAB would seem to apply, and point 1 of that section would indicate that the name "Republic of Macedonia", which is equally clear and unambiguous, could reasonably be used. John Carter (talk) 19:08, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
• First choice. Macedonia is ambiguous; I prefer disambiguating with a slightly longer unambiguous name than with parentheses. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:21, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
• My opinion is to keep things clear for the readers and not confuse them. This proposal is by far the most neutral. --xvvx (talk) 22:16, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
• First choice, primarily because I am not convinced that the Republic is the primary topic. To quote WP:PRIMARYTOPIC "If there is extended discussion about which article truly is the primary topic, that may be a sign that there is in fact no primary topic, and that the disambiguation page should be located at the plain title with no "(disambiguation)"." This centralized discussion is nothing if not extended. Also per John Carter, the Republic article only accounts for 60% of hits, which for me is not sufficient to establish it as the primary topic. Although WP:PRIMARYTOPIC offers no metric for determining the primary topic, I would expect at least an order-of-magnitude difference in the number of hits between the primary topic and all other topics combined, which is not the case here. The efficiency counter-argument is also rather trivial in my opinion (one click). --Athenean (talk) 00:14, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Proposal C: "Macedonia (country)" solution

• Macedonia (country) is the article about the country.
• Macedonia is the disambiguation page

Rationale

• Same rationale for putting the disambiguation page under the simple title as for [B]
• This solution reflects the practice that the most common naming to be used in article text elsewhere will be plain "Macedonia" and that the rest ("country") is just a disambiguation addition; the common way of linking to it will be through the pipe trick "[[Macedonia (country)|]]".
• This solution may be more stable than [B] in the hypothetical case that a political solution in the real world is reached, involving a change in the country's official name. In that case, "Republic of Macedonia" as the official name may become factually incorrect, while plain "Macedonia" may well continue to remain in use as the most common informal appellation at least for some time, until the new naming takes hold in practice.
• This solution is comparable to Georgia (country) with Georgia as a disambiguation page (though note that Georgia is the only country in the world for which Wikipedia uses a "(country)" disambiguator, although not the only country with an ambiguous name).

Envisaged impact on readers

• same as B

Compliance with Wikipedia policy

• some points shared with B.
• Compliant with WP:NPOV's requirement to use "the common English language name as found in verifiable reliable sources".
• Compliant with WP:NCON's requirement to use the English version of the country's self-identifying name.
• Compliant with WP:DAB's requirements that when there is no primary topic "the disambiguation page should be located at the plain title with no '(disambiguation)'".
• Compliant with WP:DAB suggestion that "If there is extended discussion about which article truly is the primary topic, that may be a sign that there is in fact no primary topic"

Why is this better than the status quo?"

• same as B and additionally
• focus of editors is directed to more productive issues than arguing about what is the primary topic for a topic that has such a complex state that it needs a Macedonia (terminology) article similar to the American (word) page.

Users who endorse Proposal C

• Used to prefer A, but I no longer expect a clear consensus for that. Still believe that the degree of "primacy" in usage is strong enough to justify A in principle, but I can't claim it's overwhelmingly strong enough to make A mandatory, so B/C is also acceptable. Slight preference for C over B, since it reflects more clearly that every addition beyond plain "M." is only for disambiguation, and "M." is otherwise the normal default name. It's also more likely to survive any future name change that might occur in the real world. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:35, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
• Third and last choice; clumsy and still ambiguous: Macedon was a country. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:26, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Proposal D: "Region" solution

• Macedonia to be the article about the wider geographical region, currently Macedonia (region)
• Macedonia (country) or Republic of Macedonia to be the article about the country
• Macedonia (disambiguation) to be the disambiguation page

This was the status quo before 23 September 2005.

Rationale

• This has been proposed mainly because of its perceived analogy to two other problematic naming cases: Ireland and China. In each of them, the simple page title currently leads to a geographical/historical survey article (Ireland = Ireland (island); China = China (historical region), Taiwan = Taiwan (island)), while the modern country of the same name is at a longer disambiguated title. The same solution is used for the less disputed Micronesia case.
• The geographical meaning of Macedonia, while not "primary" in the sense of quantity of page views, may be regarded as naturally "primary" in a logical sense, insofar as it is the historically prior meaning to both the country and the Greek province, and encompasses them both.
• Reflecting the practice of the Library of Congress that uses the label "Macedonia", alone, to cover the region (from antiquity to 1912) in its taxonomy preferences.
• Many reliable dictionaries list the region (or the ancient region) first, suggesting the region as primary topic - examples: Merriam Webster[7] and The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language[8]. However the ordering of the meanings might be irrelevant (reasons explained in rationale against A)

Compliance with Wikipedia policy

• Not compliant with WP:DAB. It would have been compliant if the region were in fact the primary meaning of the word in English.

Envisaged impact on readers

• Readers who want to read about the country (the most numerous group) will arrive at the region of the same name, of which the country is part. It is possible that some of the information they seek is in the Region article, the rest is one click forward.
• Same for readers looking for the other meanings.
• Readers are unlikely to perceive this as having reached the wrong article.

Why is this better than the status quo?

• No, or almost no users (as opposed to editors) would perceive that they had landed at the "wrong page." With proper hat notes, they could all be at the right place, or just one click away.
• No readers will go to the DAB page unless they direct themselves there.

Arguments against Proposal D

• Not compliant with WP:DAB -- "Macedonia region" is the least common (fourth place) meaning of "Macedonia", it comes after Republic of Macedonia, Macedonia (Greece) and Ancient Macedonia.
• Landing people on an article about the region is actually the least likely to give them the info they are looking for (because the main usage of "Macedonia" and because of observed page visiting patterns).
• "Macedonia" in its modern geographical sense is not an inherently salient and natural geographic unit (like the islands Ireland and Taiwan) but a highly arbitrary product of historical coincidences. As such, it is a relevant unit of geographical categorization only for a very short historical time period, roughly from the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries.
• For a reader to navigate onwards to their real target page through a large article is less efficient than navigating onwards through a disambiguation page.

Users who endorse Proposal D

• Macedonia is the name of a wider geographical region. Thus, I endorse this solution. Pel thal (talk) 16:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)