Wikipedia talk:Centralized discussion/Macedonia

Welcome. Alcohol is served :)

File:Chinaspritecans.jpg

Also some 雪碧 for the teetotallers.

Structure

So, let's collect ideas on how to proceed further, in terms of process and infrastructure.

My own suggestion:

1. Create subpages for the five principal areas of discussion:
   1. Page title of the main country article
   2. Naming conventions for page titles of sub-articles of the country
   3. References in other articles
   4. Greece-related articles
   5. International organisations articles
2. In each subpage, collect a small number of competing proposal guidelines
3. Hold initial content discussion on the talk pages of each proposal subpage
4. Collect consensus material on another subpage, "/guidelines", which will grow into the final result (hopefully)
5. Possibly create another subpage "/evidence" to host things like usage statistics, a repository of source links and so on.

Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:15, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Each of the five pages should be about all four meanings of Macedonia as the 29.1.1 page says.

1. 1. Page title of each of the four macedonias
   2. Naming conventions for page titles of sub-articles of each of the four macedonias
   3. References in non-contemporary context
   4. Specific country-related articles (Greece/Bulgaria/Republic of Macedonia)
   5. Other contexts (e.g.International organisations articles)

That would be better than having 4 meanings * 5 = 20 total pages. The rest seems ok.

I see your point, but the other Macedonias are hardly as contentious. We've always handled those just fine, with just ad-hoc disambiguation as a matter of common sense. In #4, only the one pairing has ever been an object of discussion. The whole discussion exists only because Greek editors wanted to make that one situation (ref to the country from Greece-related articles) a special exception case. If you want to merge that case with the other mutual pairings, you are basically already conceding there should be no special rules – which is fine with me, because then we don't need to discuss anything. #5 is moot for the other Macedonias, because they are, by their very nature, not participants in international organisations. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:39, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I am just following what the remedy says. Of course some parts of the discussion would be easier - one sentence would cover them. Lets finish once and for all with all of them (well at least for some reasonably large amount of time since "consesnsus can change" in the future). I think that was the spirit of the decision. Made some edits to the top. This effort is not only to answer the questions about the country about but the whole entangled naming issues. And of course the question of primary topic should be addressed since it was only recently and contentiously introduced. Shadowmorph ^{^"^}

Of course, concomitant issues regarding the "other" Macedonias can be treated as they come up. But it's still unnecessary to complicate the initial summary of the questions with things that won't be contentious. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:59, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I have an idea, I found this Template:Resolved issues. Can we use it to give out the definitely non contested issues like: FYROM (the acronym not the long form) cannot be used in most circumstances (unless e.g. to avoid repetition of the long form of the term in certain articles). Or Macedonia (region) is the accepted title of that article... not sure that there won't be any drama about which to include. If anyone objects we can take it down. Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 09:21, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Sure, good idea. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:32, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

BTW, not sure if you've seen it, but I've started drafting sub-pages. Do you think the format is okay like that? Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:34, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Can't keep up with the pace right now. I'll see them in a while. So where does that template thingy goes best? A separate section in the page covering resolved issues?Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 10:29, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay, let's take a break. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:36, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Citations

The page should make some use of the {{Reflist}} tag. I added it. However citations should be used moderately.Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 10:28, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Proposal

BTW, when the discussion does start, I would strongly prefer that we structure it similarly to the arbitration's evidence section. That will minimise indent replies, making the discussion more easily readable and less prone to hostility. Let me know about your views on this. I am taking a break too... --Radjenef (talk) 10:47, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Could you clarify what you mean? I think it's a lot easier for readability if a reply to a comment is indented right below rather than in a section much further down called "Reply to X". BalkanFever 11:11, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

The Workshop page was a bit chaotic, many overlaps and no taxonomy.The Proposed Decision page was nice but the community is not a fixed number of arbs that vote on versions and voting like in a poll you-know-what, is unworkable.

I would say something like the PD page but with no "opposers" and no "abstains". Revisions (offsets) of proposals were handy. Each proposal (for each specific issue that needs to be addressed) can have multiple rationales signed by multiple users. The competing proposals can be like A) B) C) and the revisions will be A.1) A.2) etc. The evaluating admins can tag issues about each proposal (tag A.x) with "no basis" etc. or "current rationale wording violates that and that"

By taking a look at MOSMAC I can hypothesize that it failed because it was an effort to collaboratively write an article ("essay") with no structure (other than typical policy texts). This one in contrast should be an effort to address specific issues with specific proposals. Opposing views do not have to mix. That way the ones in agreement with one proposal do not have to repeat the same arguments over and over again.

Rationales should be bullet points. Every new bullet under rationale should be about a new and unique way to justify the proposal. The number of the ways is not important but in that way all opinions can be expressed and evaluated without repetition and overlaps.

I would further suggest that each user that participates should at least try to cast a "second choice" to avoid maximum polarization. Those are my thoughts for now.Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 12:15, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

The purpose would be to put as much weight on the arguments supporting each proposal rather than the number of "votes".Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 12:17, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not convinced we should invite "vote"-style comments at all, at least in a first phase. Remember the whole purpose of the exercise is to finally make this NOT a vote. Perhaps we should have an initial phase that really is just hammering out the proposals and documenting the arguments. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:55, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

It was a "vote" at Greece that initiated the latest round of arbitration, so I agree with Future Perfect, no votes, no vote-like comment behavior. (Taivo (talk) 13:18, 12 June 2009 (UTC))

Decision mechanism

I've been thinking further about how we can actually bring about a decision here. On the one hand, we have a very clear mandate that this should not again become a "vote", with all the block voting effects and the type of dynamics we saw in the Greece poll and elsewhere. That's the íntention behind Bainer's proposal. So, theoretically, one way out would be if we just left it to the referee-admins to act as content-arbitrators, i.e. assess the soundness of our arguments, purely on the basis of their own personal judgment. However, the remedies also say that the referees ought to be assessing not just arguments, but "consensus". So, they will probably not feel confident simply "judging" things, but will want to see a consensus formed among others. But how can they assess consensus if we don't previously have a stage where we collect people saying "yes, I agree with X", i.e. giving vote-like statements? But once we allow that, how do we prevent yet new floods of people coming in with stereotyped "agree with X"/"as per Y" statements based not on an independent assessment of the arguments but on pre-existing political motivations?

I believe the only workable solution is to clearly separate the roles of participants with pre-existing involvement in the debate on the one hand, and outside uninvolved observers on the other. This means: we (people with previous involvement in related disputes, active participants in the Arbcom case, and editors with known affiliations with the nationalities in question) should only act in the presentation and documentation of the proposals and arguments. Then, in a separate step, we should have a stage where other people should be invited to say: "yes, I'm more convinced by X than by Y". But that role should be restricted to previously uninvolved editors. I'd say, we could set a condition like that they should be established editors (with minimum X edits before the beginning of this process), uninvolved in the dispute, and not from one of the ethnic groups involved. Their "!votes" would then serve as a neutral measurement of how convincing our arguments are.

Would that be acceptable? Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:55, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm thinking, we have each interested person post in their own section on some subpage, and say "This is what I think, and this is why I think it." Enforce a limit on length, say, 2000 or 2500 words per person or something, and move all discussion to the talk page of that page, kind of like the /evidence page is on an Arbitration case, but allowing for more personal opinion/analysis. By disallowing direct replies on the page itself, it would be much easier for the referees to determine consensus and the strength of the arguments. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 14:11, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

But the practical consideration is, if we really want to recruit more outside uninvolved people to chime in, we can't really expect each of them to write 2000-words essays on each of the questions. Also, there are only so many ways of re-stating the same arguments; we don't really want twenty people to say the same things in different words, just in order to prove that each of them has independently formed their opinion. There is, at some point, a legitimate place for a person to just say: "I'm for X, as per Y's arguments" (roughly in an RfC-"endorsement" style). Such endorsements provide the visible demonstration that somebody's arguments have convinced somebody else. Only, we don't want people with preconceived, external political motives doing that; "endorsements" can only fulfill their legitimate role of validating an argument if they come from outside. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:26, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

(ec) I'm still uncomfortable with the voting aspect of Future's proposal. There's just no way to keep the "drive by" and "bloc voting" aspects out of it. I like J.delanoy's limited length discussion without direct commenting. More like legal briefs. It may also keep anything heated from developing. "Consensus" is not a majority vote, but a coming together. So perhaps the next step after writing the briefs could be for someone less involved to read all the statements and write out a "this is what everyone agrees on" statement based on the briefs. Then the contentious matters will be clearly focused for either further discussion or clarification. More consensus might develop out of that process. In the end, there will be things that are still not agreed upon. Those are the matters that the arbitrators will simply have to adjudicate. (But we knew that from the beginning.) (Taivo (talk) 17:34, 12 June 2009 (UTC))

I'm happy with them adjudicating – if they will be willing to do that. I'm not so optimistic about consensus developing, among those of us who are already parties to the dispute. In core questions, we already know it just won't happen. As for keeping the block voting out, it can be done to a large degree if we can exclude Greek and Macedonian voters. To forestall an objection: that doesn't exclude them from the process; I'm just saying they (and we) shouldn't be the ones who endorse, but the ones who put their arguments up for the test of endorsement by others. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:40, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Now I've got to sound a bit like Tasos. Who is Greek? Who is Macedonian? And is it really possible (or realistic or "right") to exclude them? I think that we need a very strong neutral clerk involved. The ArbCom process seemed pretty clearly focused--stick to policy and don't drag anything else into the arena. If we have a strong neutral clerk, then he/she can be the gatekeeper for all comments. When a comment is not focused on policy and strays into politics, they can delete the comment or move it into a separate corral for "irrelevant" matters that are ignored. I don't think that any of the involved editors should perform that task. (Taivo (talk) 17:51, 12 June 2009 (UTC))

Ah, I misread your comment, Future. You weren't talking about excluding them from "filing a brief", but from the endorsement process. I still think that's problematic for technical reasons since there is a very large Greek diaspora (and virtually no Macedonian one). (Taivo (talk) 17:53, 12 June 2009 (UTC))

So, here's a more complete proposal on how to proceed to keep the process focussed, trying to bring together the best aspects of what each of us has proposed so far:

• We stick with the subpage structure I started creating this morning.
• On each subpage, active participants are welcome to file a concrete proposal, roughly like the ones I added already in some cases.
• For each proposal, the proposer adds a summary rationale explaining how it is based on policy, linking to evidence data and so on. These should be restricted in size. That would correspond to what I think you were describing with your "like a legal brief", and what Radjenef meant with "like the evidence page".
• Other editors are free to "co-sponsor" such a proposal, by adding their own supporting argument to it, but those secondary statements should be even more narrowly restricted in size, and it should only be done if the co-sponsoring statement actually contains something new. (No mere "me too" statements at that stage.)
• (Possibly:) Opposing participants are allowed to add a very brief summary statement against each proposal. The number and size of such counter-statements should be strictly limited.
• From that point onwards, threaded discussion will be handed off elsewhere, to a dedicated section of a discussion page which will be linked to from the proposal for convenience.
• Finally, there will be an endorsement section for each proposal, roughly like on a user RfC, with a list of outside editors signing that they find the argument convincing. This section may only be used by established and previously uninvolved editors (and ideally, excluding editors from the nationalities involved).
• The referees will have the task of judging the soundness of the arguments presented in the initial statements, aided in their assessment by the poll-like effect of the outside endorsements (but not reduced to counting votes).

Thoughts? Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:12, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Two other issues: we need to reduce as much as possible the scope for disruption (e.g. of the sort that might result from off-wiki canvassing) and we need to be as transparent as possible. To those ends, I suggest:

• IP editors and editors with accounts created before the end of the ARBMAC2 case should be (politely) excluded from participation. I am somewhat uneasy about allowing existing SPAs to participate, but excluding them probably isn't practical.
• Participants in this process should publicly state at the outset, for the record, their nationality and whether they have any affiliations to the disputing countries or nationalities, e.g. ChrisO UK (no Macedonian or Greek connections). By being open about our affiliations, we can better address the issue of editorial blocs identified by the Arbcom here. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:12, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

My understanding of the process is that it goes like this:

1. we present the info in that page that all people can agree to (consensus) and leave out the decision on which clearly we cannot agree.
2. present alternatives
3. some uninvolved users/admins (but not SPA or new accounts) will make the decision.
   

Notice that in all this process there's no need to present which side you are on or your nationality... man with one red shoe 07:04, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

But this leaves only two categories of consensus levels: either full consensus across all participants (something that rarely happens anywhere in the wiki world, and is unlikely to happen for more than a few minor aspects here), or apparent complete standstill and relegation to "stalemate resolution". But I expect the referees won't be willing to do that. They are supposed to resort to their own judgment as "stalemate resolution" only as a last resort. First of all they are supposed to read "consensus", and that certainly includes wiki-style "rough consensus", so we need to find ways to clearly document the existence of such, including the opinions of neutral outside observers who won't have the time and energy to engage in a sustained discussion effort and tinkering with proposals, but will nevertheless be crucial to provide us with the sort of outside sanity check we need to break the deadlocks. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:38, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

(moved comment) I don't think this (outside endorsements) is a wise addition to the process. It is just a "vote" with a different name and will be subject to the same problems encountered at Talk:Greece with the infamous poll. There is no way to ensure that "endorsers" are truly "uninvolved" or not motivated by nationality or politics. I also don't see how it might help well-informed arbitrators who will be adjudicating the final decision anyway. I'm just distrustful of our (or a clerk's) ability to screen every passing endorser for prior neutrality or uninvolvement. Watching the stream of new accounts and single-purpose accounts line up to make their voice heard at ARBMAC2, I'm leery of opening the doors to anyone who wanders by. (Taivo (talk) 07:09, 13 June 2009 (UTC))

But there are things which everyone will agree on that we can mark as "already has consensus" (the names of Macedonia (Greece), for example). Consensus can actually be determined without voting. For example, one editor can write a list of things which he or she thinks everyone will agree on and post it in a section called "Consensus". If anyone doesn't agree, they simply say so. If no one says anything, or if only one person objects to this or that, then we have a wiki consensus. Consensus isn't about a majority, but an overwhelming majority, so there's no need to "vote". I think that even right now, someone who's been involved in this discussion for a while could already write a list of things that everyone agrees on already. (This is a key early step in all books on negotiating and in business negotiating.) Then we focus on discussing just the non-consensus issues. (Taivo (talk) 13:14, 13 June 2009 (UTC))

sure, that can be done. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:31, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I've started doing something with the {{Resolved issues}} template that Shadomorph dug up somewhere. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:49, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with what Taivo says, I think that voting and commenting leads to division, let's try to buld a consensus about the basic facts first without voting by keeping the article like a normal article (without comments and sign ups inside it) man with one red shoe 17:26, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

So, I take it the consensus for the moment is we will have no "vote-like" elements at all, at least for the time being? I guess that's okay for the initial phase at least. We can still introduce a more poll-like phase at a later stage, if it turns out to be necessary, and concentrate on more pure discussion style work first. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:47, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

"Arguing for the enemy"

As the proposals and rationales have been growing on some sub-pages, I'm beginning to feel that I find some of the arguments adduced for the "opposing" proposals much more worth taking seriously than others, and a few red herrings are finding their way into the pages. Do you guys think we could find a way to edit each other's proposed rationales together, with a view not to defeating the "other side's" argument, but first of all with a view to condensing it into those arguments that we all agree are the most valid? It would be a lot more efficient for later stages of the process if in some place we had a "cleaned-up" view of the argumentation, where each proposal is supported only by those arguments about which we can all agree they are the ones that are worth taking seriously, free of obvious red herrings or false factual premises and so on. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:01, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Tagging articles

Somehow those who want to participate will have to be directed to here. See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Macedonia 2#Tagging articles. This has to be done first for the sake of fairness.  Andreas  ^(T) 12:33, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I have so far given notice at WP:AN, the ethnic conflicts noticeboard, Talk:Greece and Talk:Macedonia. I'm not really convinced we should notify all the talk pages of all the hundreds of articles where the country is mentioned in passing, that's just not very practical. But a few of the most pertinent sub-articles would probably be good, that's true. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:53, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Tagging is a remedy, so its implementation is mandatory. Here is my suggestion:

~  Andreas  ^(T) 12:58, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, the remedy clearly says it is "up to the community to decide how to go about it", so I can't see mandatoriness. And in any case, its intent seems to be more to notify editors of the 1RR restriction than of the discussion process. But sure, if you want to make mass notifications, go ahead. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:04, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

About your tag draft, I don't think it's very productive to link the newbies to the arbitration case first thing, especially not through a cryptic abbreviation like "1RR". In any case, I'd prefer to use such tags only once a conflict or edit-warring danger has materialised on a given article. Let's keep the 1RR warning and the discussion notification separate issues. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:07, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

After a week it would be a good time to update the disputed title template at Macedonia to link here.Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 13:20, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I personally don't think it's a good idea to have a link in the template. This discussion doesn't need any more "drive by" comments from editors who don't know the background, the requirements, etc. and are just passing through to stir the pot. (Taivo (talk) 13:30, 12 June 2009 (UTC))

Indeed. The kind of "outsiders" we want are people who actually understand wiki policy and its application, not newbies who may or may not have simply read the policy pages. BalkanFever 13:36, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Very much so. The tag as it stands right now would simply direct all the Macedonia-obsessed drive-by editors to this discussion, with predictably disruptive results. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:14, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Kafka Liz (talk) 13:31, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but what is then the purpose of this discussion? To achieve consensus between ourselves? Where is the community factor? I think that, although potentially disruptive, it is our duty to inform the community about this procedure. The referees will regulate any disruptions. GK1973 (talk) 20:59, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

User talk template

Maybe it's better to not tag the articles, but notify individual editors through a user talk warning when there's a danger of edit warring. I created a template {{uw-1rrMac}}. It currently says the following:

Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. Please do not edit-war over the terminology used to refer to Macedonia, as you did at Example. Wikipedia has a policy of using the most common name generally used in English to refer a country, and/or the name that a country chooses to use for itself, no matter if these names are politically acceptable to third parties (see the naming-conflict guideline). The Arbitration Committee has decided that all edits affecting the Macedonia naming issue are subject to a one-revert restriction: no editor is allowed to undo another editor's action more than once within 24 hours. In cases where a binding consensus guideline has been reached, editors restoring the consensus version are not subject to this restriction.

Thanks! ~~~~

There are additional parameters that can be used to warn against particular types of anti-consensus edits, such as inserting abbreviated "FYROM". Optionally, it can also include a link to this discussion (that would be especially useful when posted to an established editor who might have something legitimate to contribute here, but I wouldn't normally use it for hit-and-run IPs.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:14, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually the tag (which is required by ArbCom anyway) which you developed above was fine except for the last sentence about the ArbCom and this discussion. Delete the last sentence with the link and I don't have any objections to it. The warning is a good idea, too, but again, leave the link to this discussion out of it. (Taivo (talk) 12:42, 14 June 2009 (UTC))

Yeah, one would assume that an established editor with something legitimate to contribute wouldn't be edit-warring over the name. Sure, there are a number of reasons for which they might make a single revert, or they could be reverting vandalism, but those who need to be told not to edit-war by the template most likely won't be such users. BalkanFever 13:02, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, uhm, it seems such a remote possibility, but hard as it is to believe, I've heard rumours that Macedonia revert wars between established users have on some rare occasions happened. You and me and everybody else here present would of course never have had anything to do with that. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:10, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Lol, point taken, but I meant in future (too tired for a pun). Humour me: can you think of any user, existing or hypothetical, whom you would need to tell not to edit-war about this with the above template, and would expect to contribute constructively here? That's different to simply informing an established editor, who may have unknowingly involved themselves in this mess, of the centralised discussion. You don't need a template for that. BalkanFever 14:15, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Disagree on comment about scholarly usage and evidence

The comment about "scholarly usage uses Macedonia to name the ancient kingdom" is not referenced. The current "evidence" of this is based on JSTOR. JSTOR digitally archives journals dating back through the entire 20th century and generally does not contain the most recent 5-10 years of the journals it includes. Therefore the counts at JSTOR are skewed in favor of non-Republic uses of Macedonia because of the heavy inclusion of pre-1990 issues and the non-inclusion of the most recent issues. Better evidence of this is needed if this is going to be one of the "consensus" bullets. Right now, I do not agree with this point. (Taivo (talk) 22:56, 12 June 2009 (UTC))

Another problem I have with the comment about scholarly usage is that any scholar who works (or wants to work) in Greece, and wants official permission from the appropriate Greek government office to conduct their research, or gets funding from the Greek government or a Greek research institution, is going to be forced by that reality to use "former Yugoslav" in all their publications or else risk any possibility of working in Greece in the future. This reality would also skew the scholarly citations that might otherwise read simply "Macedonia". These two factors lead to the evidence for "Macedonia" usage among scholars being skewed. This is probably a minor bullet since scholars aren't going to come to Wikipedia for information anyway. I suggest that bullet be deleted because the information is not really verifiable. (Taivo (talk) 23:18, 12 June 2009 (UTC))

The ancient kingdom is generally called Maceonia or Macedon in works by classical historians and classicists. I don't think this is controversial, but I could easily be wrong. --Akhilleus (talk) 04:33, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I suggest that assertions like this should be signed with the username of who added them. There are some other "facts" that I might be contested.Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 06:05, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

No, that's the worst idea, let's try to build a document that we all agree with not having different statement contested and commented over and over, that exactly why we don't sign them. man with one red shoe 07:20, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Taivo, your second comment, I think, is over-dramatising it a bit, and I'm not certain it is true. In any case, the issue here was not so much what the scholars' preferred naming choice is when referring to the country, but what their most frequently meant referent is when they use the name. And the usage of "former Yugoslav" in academic sources is so relatively rare that it hardly distorts the statistics for that latter question. Also, there's little reason why the statistics should be much distorted particularly by people working in close academic contact with or dependence from Greece; we are not talking about specialised fields like archaeology here. – BTW, I have another google statistics for web content of .edu domains somewhere; will upload it on Monday. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:29, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I added an additional element to that, while that might be true that's clearly driven by context, if somebody talks about "ancient Macedonia" they will use Macedonia without any reason to disambiguate the name, if somebody talks about "Macedonian soccer team" they don't have any reason to say "no, we are not talking about ancient Macedonia, we are talking about Former Yugoslav..." Context is clear in those scholarly works about ancient Macedonia, same for Wikipedia, we don't need to use "Ancient Macedonia" every time we refer to it in an article about history, just like we don't need to disambiguate Macedonia when we talk about clear current issues, there's no chance to confuse Macedonia soccer team with Ancient Macedonia soccer team for example... man with one red shoe 17:35, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Agree with the contextualization. A sociology or political science or agricultural journal won't be talking about ancient Macedonia, just as an archeology journal won't be talking about modern Macedonia (much). (Taivo (talk) 19:52, 13 June 2009 (UTC))

Nationality declarations

Some editors have suggested participants in this process might want to declare their own ethnic affiliations to avoid suspicions of block votes. The idea has met with some objections. Self-declarations that have already been listed (voluntarily) have been moved to a subpage. This will not form part of the final decision-making process. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:55, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

: Yea, like moving them to a sub page is any different. Just adds one click. Oh and if we are keeping one POINTy discussion we have to keep the other response sections too with all of my responses. My comments cannot be summarized as "some objections", sorry. That declarations should be moved to each user's userspace where they belong. I have made every effort to begin here with a cool spirit. It is not me that began to poison that. I truly am sorry.Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 07:05, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I want to move on.Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 07:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm glad you decided that, I was preparing a large plank to hit your head with... :D man with one red shoe 07:09, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Future is a gentleman and he saved the day. Dr.K. logos 07:11, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Good move. My motive in self-declaration was simply to clarify things. Many of the users I've encountered have decided (according to their various viewpoints) that I must be Turkish, or Armenian, or Greek, or... Rather than adopt the Schartz-Metterklume method, I thought I'd just say who I was for once and for all. Kafka Liz (talk) 12:55, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much Kafka Liz for your elegant and principled answer. It really means a lot to me. Let's try to allow Lady WP:AGF to recuperate in the hopes that she returns some day to these pages. Hopefully when she gets better she can expel cynicism and bad faith once and for all. Dr.K. logos 13:13, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to everyone who's cooperating with this proposal, as transparency can only be a good thing in this process. I'm sure the appropriate conclusions can be drawn from refusals to be transparent. -- ChrisO (talk) 14:24, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Generally speaking, I'm not sure any conclusions can or should be drawn. Many users, myself included, are reluctant to disclose any personally identifying information online. My personal philosophy is that all necessary conclusions can be drawn from the content of a user's edits. For myself, though, I've grown tired of hiding or appearing to hide things. Kafka Liz (talk) 14:41, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Definitely agree with Liz. Now if we could move on from this and concentrate on the rest of the centralised discussion (the parts that will solve problems) that would be great :) BalkanFever 15:00, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you Kafka Liz once more. Thank you BalkanFever. I expected no less from you and you did not disappoint me. As far as transparency, let's not confuse the issues. I consider myself to be exceedingly transparent. I edit under my real name. I consider this to be very transparent. Let's not confuse transparency with usage of anti-intellectual metrics to score cheap and silly conclusions. Other than that I echo BalkanFever: Let's move on. Dr.K. logos 15:12, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Id rather we all go with Percy Shelley, we are all Greeks.Shadowmorph ^{^"^}

Sure, then we'll be free to construct fairy tales that votes like in talk:Greece have nothing to do with the national POV of the participants. man with one red shoe 17:38, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Nobody said that, I actually said I find that a natural thing. Americans do it too. However here we don't vote. Here we will talk by the books, right? Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 18:47, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Let's hope so. man with one red shoe 19:13, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Danke schön

Danke schön Future for erasing (moving to a subpage) the nationalities section. Dr.K. logos 06:56, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Having settled this (hopefully), let's return to the more substantial issue about what to do with our national affiliations: could I hear your thoughts on section "Decision process"? Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:58, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I did not have time to study it in depth but from what I saw so far I really like your proposal. Good work Future. Tasos (Dr.K. logos 07:01, 13 June 2009 (UTC))

I need a bit of time for a detailed reply and maybe a few suggestions. Dr.K. logos 07:05, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I added my thoughts, I don't think it's necessary to say which side you are on, we just need to present what we agree upon, and then present alternative solutions in neutral language and then let other people decide. man with one red shoe 07:06, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Ireland

I would suggest to have a look on what is going on at Wikipedia:WikiProject Ireland Collaboration#Ireland naming question as an example on how to go about. I would not say we have to follow that example, just look at it to get ideas. In the case of Ireland, the discussion is moderated.  Andreas  ^(T) 01:07, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

In reading through the Ireland statements, you can see why I don't think "endorsements" are anything that we want to try here. It's very hard to find any of these statements that aren't supported by about half the endorsers and opposed by about half the endorsers. It simply throws the whole discussion into a very stark and polarized light. (Taivo (talk) 12:57, 14 June 2009 (UTC))

Macedonia referee appointments

The arbitration committee has appointed a group of three admins it is sure will make a good team to help solve the issues here. The admins are: User:Fritzpoll, User:Shell Kinney, and User:J.delanoy. To an amicable resolution...for the committee. — Rlevse • Talk • 23:21, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Good choices all - I welcome their involvement. Thanks for letting us know. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:32, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

No problem. — Rlevse • Talk • 23:34, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

One additional thing that would help - the centralized discussion badly needs to have someone overseeing it clerk-style to deal with problematic conduct by participants. Is there anyone who you could find for that role? -- ChrisO (talk) 01:08, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Is there anyone you know of off hand who is interested? J.delanoy^gabs_adds 04:07, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I concur with ChrisO. Furthermore, the present whole structure of discussion looks a bit chaotic as it is difficult to navigate around and there are multiple threads developing at the same time. Worse, it seems that the whole discussion has started in the wrong order. If it first settled the wikipedia name for the country, then all else would be much easier to sort out. The Apple of Discord is left on the tree while discussions are spread all over the place. Probably, the current discussion has already painted the entire picture and it may be time to somehow go straight for reaching a consensus on the name of country article. This will reduce the number of A, B, C,... etc. "solutions" and ensuing redundant arguments. Esem0 (talk) 04:48, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll ask around and see if anyone's interested. Please do the same, if you can. -- ChrisO (talk) 06:57, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

The three referees are empowered to handle the behavior problems here, contact them on their talk page if you to get their attention. It's best if those participating in the discussion don't as they're involved. — Rlevse • Talk • 20:41, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Dealing with disruptive participants?

Resolved

 – contact one of us if there is a problem, and we will handle it case-by-case. Fritzpoll (talk) 09:10, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Frankly I'm on the verge of withdrawing from this process because of the disruptive behaviour of one particular participant. Is there any mechanism for asking for someone to be excluded from the discussion on the grounds of disruption? It is yet more of the wikilawyering and bad-faith nationalism that we've seen before, and for which Kekrops and Avg were topic-banned. It's very discouraging to see that despite everything that's happened some people's behaviour still has not changed. -- ChrisO (talk) 06:52, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Don't know if we are talking about the same person, but I'm out of the discussion, I much rather prefer to talk to the walls than to be nitpicked to death. man with one red shoe 07:43, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

This was of course predictable. The argumentative smokescreen (or drowning-the-debate-in-drivel) tactics has always been successfully used in these debates. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:02, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. It's a deliberate tactic, of course - flooding out everyone else with reams of argumentative drivel. We saw this in the arbitration case and now we're seeing it here, from the same individual. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:11, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm actually not convinced of bad faith on his part; but it's still quite disruptive. It's just his hyper-active ways in debate. The problem is that his argumentative logorrhoea drowns the good arguments on both sides. I would much rather have a shorter and much more convincing summary of the arguments opposed to my own side, so that outside readers will be quickly able to take it all in and judge, than these reams and reams of just-slightly-besides-the-point ramblings that will neither convince readers nor allow them to be convinced of the opposite, but will just turn them away shaking their heads instead. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:32, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't WP:ARBMAC apply to this page? --Akhilleus (talk) 17:05, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Sure, it does. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:09, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Just to be sure, who are you talking about? J.delanoy^gabs_adds 01:50, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

See my email. (Taivo (talk) 02:25, 16 June 2009 (UTC))

I've read most of the contributions of the person that you don't dare to speak about (really, why this mystery?). It seems that the definition of disruptive behaviour, given by the person who provoked this mess (my turn to introduce some mystery) and who was warned in multiple occasions, leading eventually to desysop (my turn to throw some mud), coincides with argumentation against "our position" which may be valid so let's throw some mud and discredit the opponent side. Tactics of throwing mud right and left has been occurring very often in this affair, and this proposal is one of those attempts. Congratulations gentlemen, your effort to reach consensus on an issue like that, has taken Wikipedia to another level (lower that is). We find once again the same persons that were admonished, warned etc... to participate in the resolution of this issue, yet they accuse another person of "disruptive behaviour". That's a great start. Also, any naming policy that you use to justify transfer to the article to Macedonia is good since it is wikipedia policy, whereas any policy that serves the positions of the other side becomes "wikilawyering". This is a great example you give as distinguished members of the wikipedia. Demonstration of bad faith has reached a new high. Congratulations.

Regards. Another "nationalist" "disruptive" greek user. El-greco (talk) 07:28, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

After that lovely rant, I can't see that there's anything useful in keeping this thread open. It seems to me we should directly ask our referees for action if action needs taking; does this sound like a plan? I really think it'd be best to mark this archived this now. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 08:08, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Some rules regarding the presentation and discussion of proposals

Having observed some of the recent discussion, J.delanoy, Shell Kinney and myself have agreed a set of rules to be applied to the proposals on all the subpages of this debate. They are as follows:

• People can submit as many proposed solutions as they like - if identical, or near-identical ones appear, they can be condensed by the three of us into a smaller number as necessary. There will probably be some practical cutoff time after which a new proposal won't get enough time to be discussed, but there isn't a strict limit for now.

• Proposals should not refer to other proposals directly - there is no need for comparisons of this kind within proposals as the natural option should emerge from the subsequent discussion

• Proposals to be discussed on the appropriate talkpage, with rapid archiving of procedural threads that have been resolved

• No proposals to be struck out or moved by other editors - part of the reason we're here is to evaluate consensus in relation to the guidelines, per the Arbcom case. A mixture of discussion and policy review will weed out unworkable proposals, whilst giving everyone the opportunity to air their views.

This will mean that some of the existing proposals have to be reworked slightly, but there is no longer a need to debate these procedural points, and you can get on with presenting and discussing the options to move forward independently. Any comments, complaints or concerns, let us know. Fritzpoll (talk) 16:03, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. Any views on modalities of how to edit "opposing" rationales, as we've been doing? Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:07, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

If it's in good-faith and doesn't lose the meaning or is to comply with the rules we've set out, I don't see a problem; provided you accept that in the former case, if the editor reverts to their old version, then you'll need to accept that and discuss changes calmly Fritzpoll (talk) 16:16, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Does this mean that we should cease to enrich the "arguments against" sections or that they will be moved to the talk pages? Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 16:57, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I would prefer that you make your arguments against a proposal in the form of your alternative proposal, but if you want to directly discuss another person's proposal, the talk page would be the place for that. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 18:32, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I think the current format in Wikipedia:Centralized_discussion/Macedonia/main_articles is needed, we need a section that synthesizes "arguments against the proposal" because otherwise people will read rosy descriptions of the proposals without knowing the drawbacks (following the talk page wordy and unstructured debates is probably not reasonable). That being said I don't think that that section should be an excuse to dump any imaginable argument there, it should be limited to, let's say max. 5, well thought drawbacks of the proposal. man with one red shoe 19:02, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with red shoe on this. Both the pro and the contra sections should be as terse and concise as possible. Also, I think it's inefficient to have arguments in the contra sections that are really just restatements of arguments made elsewhere in the pro section of another proposal. There are some arguments that really just serve as contra arguments against one proposal without being automatically pro arguments for a specific other proposal, but those are relatively few. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:20, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing in the above that explicitly prohibits a pro/con format. But individual proposals should not become a subjective commentary on the merits of other proposals - as such, as j.delanoy says, it may be better to have these arguments against as part of the talkpage discussion. Fritzpoll (talk) 10:00, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Requests for the referees

Since it's now been clarified that the referees will be actively intervening on these pages, I've added this section to keep requests to them in one visible central location. Please add requests below with a subheader for each. (I'll be adding one in a minute.) -- ChrisO (talk) 18:57, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Closing threads

Could I please ask referees, when closing threads, to add the {{discussion top}} and {{discussion bottom}} tags to the top and bottom of the thread, to make it clear that it's closed? I've done that for the closed thread above. -- ChrisO (talk) 18:58, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Personal attacks and point-scoring

Unfortunately some people are engaging in unproductive and off-topic personal attacks and tendentious attempts at point-scoring, on this page and in the proposals. In particular:

• This rant was added to a closed thread by GK1973 (talk · contribs). I have removed it per WP:NPA.
• On Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Macedonia/main articles, there have been a couple of attempts to add off-topic point-scoring by Shadowmorph (talk · contribs) (removed by myself, restored by Shadowmorph, and finally removed by Fut. Perf. as tendentious). The circumstances of the page moves in April are not relevant to a discussion on future naming.

Could the referees please make it clear to participants that personal attacks and tendentious point-scoring are disallowed? They serve no constructive purpose and only serve to inflame and poison the discussion. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:10, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

(ec) I have explained adequately in the talk page why that note has to be included to inform outsiders of the relevant background of the status quo (in short). I don't know how referring to a status quo would be in-topic but alluding that the status quo was natural or consensus of the community by failing to inform the readers of how it was imposed is off-topic. On other pages whole blocks of texts from the ARBMAC2 decision where pasted so I fail to understand how since we are referring to the status quo we should even link to the findings about the moves. My recommendation would be for removing all references to any status quo, current or previous, including the comparisons between proposals and the status quo if we don't include at least a link to how the current status quo was imposed. Hiding those facts is POV-pushing. I.e.: a note referring to background regarding actions that have happened is removed by the very person the note is referring to. The note did not include any other info other than the fact that the status quo was imposed without consensus. Those are the facts.

It would be nice if ChrisO also said above that Future reincluded a more NPOV version of the note that ChrisO subsequently again removed. However I only reverted once and I am keeping my promise to not edit war about it. I leave it to you to make your judgments.

I was asked here to be open (by Heimstern) so I am adding this last paragraph even though I didn't have an initial intention to do this. ChrisO has made been assumptions of bad faith on repeated occasions from the start of this discussion even going as far as suggesting that conclusions should be drawn about editors that simply used their right to not reveal their ethnic affiliation. just to follow the suggestions of ChrisO. ChrisO should have been already blocked for that part (WP:AGF violation per ARBMAC, if ARBMAC does apply here).

It seems like certain people have been striving to "expel" me from these pages; ChrisO and man with one red shoe have been closing watching to see if I make a single revert or a "pattern of editing" that is questionable enough to propose a ban on me. I have repeatedly been the subject of multiple personal attacks and assumptions of bad faith but didn't operate so in the same spirit. So this is a defensive comment by me.Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 19:45, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not seeking to get rid of you - I only want you to contribute productively. If you're not willing to do that you shouldn't be participating in this discussion. How we got here is completely irrelevant to these discussions. We're here to find a way forward, not to relitigate an arbitration case. Your note was unnecessary and served no useful purpose. It is necessary and useful to state what the current status quo is, and what the previous status quo was - as I've said before, we're not operating in a vacuum or with a blank slate, and the fact is that we do have a status quo. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:56, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

@ChrisO Yes, I would love that. As long as everybody understands that ChrisO... Btw, who closed the thread in question? When I commented it was wide open and proposing very peculiar "suggestions" and accusations against an unnamed editor. This beautiful and very informative gray box was not there and a simple "resolved" icon does not actually consist a warning that nobody should comment on what was written, as is the case now. So what is this? And what constituted my input a personal attack? Did I accuse anybody of anything? I only mentioned that I agreed with YOUR opinion, regarding editors who BEYOND DOUBT have been sanctioned by the ArbCom. I did not accuse any unnamed editor of things that he was never formally charged of or sanctioned for. I just mentioned that some have officially been deemed disruptive and should we ban editors from a discussion, then we should start with them. It was a proposal, not an accusation. You in turn accuse me of a personal attack (against you?). Can an admin please clarify this for me? What is the attack I made? That I used first person plural when I asked "Are we nuts?" If, so, then I take it back... although I don't know people here personally, I doubt that they are nuts.... And how about the personal attacks evident in the now "closed" section? I also propose that the referees take a look into the matter and state their opinion on the conduct of everyone involved... It is very interesting that you close your "ranting" (not a nice word, is it?) with the phrase The circumstances of the page moves in April are not relevant to a discussion on future naming.. First, because it was you (plural) who attacked someone (maybe me? I cannot tell, since unnamed accusations may be directed at anyone...) for past conduct as perceived by you (plural) and secondly, because it was you (plural) who brought forward the issue of disruptive editors. In my vocabulary, "disruptive" can be justifiably used for editors sanctioned for such kind of behavior, one of whom is you (a fact, not an attack nor a claim). I will not get into a discussion over that issue, but I believe that your "formal", "legalistic" attitude above was demeaning and misleading and I perceived it as a personal attack against me. I urge the referees to comment on this case, so that I finally understand what constitutes a "personal attack" or a "rant" in Wikipedia, since I seem to misinterpret the policies when I read through them... GK1973 (talk) 19:57, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

The discussion was closed following Heimstern's request and marked with "Resolved" by Fritzpoll at 09:10, 16 June 2009 (UTC). You added your rant (yes, that's what it was) at 17:58, 16 June 2009 (UTC). Please don't edit closed threads and don't post unproductive comments that serve only to inflame the situation. If you're not willing to be civil and productive, please go away. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:58, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Do you read what you post??? Do you sincerely accuse me of incivility and inflammatory ranting??? Do you consider my support to your idea unproductive? What does this say about you? If you're not willing to be civil and productive, please go away. Oh... and let an admin answer that... please, let us stop arguing with each other when there are admins here perfectly capable of guiding us through this process. GK1973 (talk) 20:10, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

All right, enough. I do not care what the status of the article was or is. What matters is what it will be. As Wikipedia does not cite precedent in making decisions relating to content, it is irrelevant how or why something became the "status quo" or ceased to be the status quo. Also, quit bickering. It is seriously distracting. This dispute is complicated enough without unnecessarily adding editor conduct into the mix. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 20:26, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I second what J.delanoy had to say; what happened in the past on Wikipedia isn't relevant to the discussion. Focus needs to be on finding a current consensus, not on who did what when. Shell ^babelfish 20:54, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, I agree and I'm perfectly happy to move on. I posted a set of new data a short time ago that I hope will inform the discussion in a positive way. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:47, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Ok lets move on. Thank you for constructive contribution with new evidence. I might have some words about those and/or make a similar research about common English usage in specific domains. Since the talk page of MOSMAC2 does not seem a good place to discuss that new evidence would it be possible to add it in the evidence page of this discussion so that analysis talks can be initiated there? Or I could post my observations in this talk page.

initial observation: "General encyclopedias - various meanings, no clear trend"; since Wikipedia is a generic encyclopedia too I doubt why we have to elaborate into specific domains and not generic domains. I think Taivo said something like that too, but anyway it is my opinion. Some scrutiny and analysis still needs to be done about that research about usage of the word. For one thing the sample of books seems small to make a sound statistical argument (looking at individual domains). Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 22:10, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

"Background" section

The "Background" section on the central page has been growing in an uncontrolled way. Can we please keep that section reduced to really just the few basic facts that a new outside reader needs for their first orientation? As far as the presentation of "common usage" is concerned, my take is that the only bits that are really needed for first orientation and pretty much idisputably established are the following:

1. The country is most frequently called plain "Macedonia".
2. In general-purpose, present day common English publications, the term "Macedonia" refers most frequently to the country.
3. In older English usage (pre-1990s), it refers more often to the wider area or to the ancient kingdom.
4. The country article has far more readers than all other articles.

These four facts are indisputable, and further nitpicking over them at this point would really no longer be a sign of a constructive attitude. All other details belong to those pages where they serve as arguments for specific proposals, but not on the central page, especially if their validity and their relevance as arguments are not consensus. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:36, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I concur but do so in a factually accurate manner (the text should reflect the citations)Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 19:44, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Future Perfect's simple and accurate wording is fine with me. (Taivo (talk) 19:47, 16 June 2009 (UTC))

I also agree to this wording. These are facts, although not the sole arguments as to the issue in question. GK1973 (talk) 20:00, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Clearing the Air

Jeez, I sent an email to J.Delanoy after he asked who people were talking about when it came to "disruptive behavior". I didn't intend it to be such a bruhaha to send J.Delanoy an private email so that he knew the context, but I guess with this topic, there is no alternative to public disclosure. (This is my email, so a disclosure is not inappropriate.) Here's what I wrote to J.Delanoy: "Just in case no one has mailed you, the disruptive participant is Shadowmorph. I agree with Future Perfect, that he's probably acting in good faith, but his on and on and on nitpicking and just off-topic "evidence" and "logic" are drowning the discussion in herring." It's nothing that hasn't been said already six times, so can we just get on with the discussion? Note that I assume good faith on his part. Note also that elsewhere in this discussion (on another page) I offered this same advice directly to him and he thanked me for it. So please, let's move on. (Taivo (talk) 21:08, 16 June 2009 (UTC))

Thanks Taivo, I was the one who insinuated to JDelanoy (in his talk page), among other things, that the mentioning of this letter was intimidating to third parties. GK1973 (talk) 21:18, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

region or dab

moved talk page comment by IP to relevant page: main articles talk

How to move on?

I notice that discussion over the last few days has concentrated almost entirely on the "main article" issue. On that page, I believe the relevant arguments are now all stated, and what discussion is still ongoing seems to be going in circles already. It's unlikely that anything much fundamentally new is going to be said there.

So, how do we move forwards? Time to get some actual decision process going? Do the referees want more outside opinion, and if yes, in what form?

At the same time, the situation at the other subpages is quite different. I had expected more discussion at least on the open issues at "international organizations" and "other article titles".

At the "other articles" subpage, no discussion has occurred at all and no competing proposal has been filed. Should we assume that the existing proposal is already consensus?

Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:48, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Speaking on behalf of the referees, we think that we need some fresh input. This will be done by the following:

• On Monday, the current discussions will end, and the talkpages will be archived. The proposals should be finalised by point.
• The proposal pages shall be advertised at WP:CENT, the Village Pump, and relevant noticeboards.
• The discussion shall proceed in an RfC format - there will be two sections. In the first section, single line endorsements with reasons shall be permitted, but no direct replies will be permitted. There will be a second section for discussion, where endorsement reasons shall be discussed

Consensus will be determined by strength and weight of the arguments and adherence to our policies and guidelines, not by the number of endorsements, which will act only as a guide. Fritzpoll (talk) 09:08, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Will the current participants be excluded from the new discussion or will this discussion simply be continued on the new page? And since you're going to advertise, be ready for gigabytes of this and this. (Taivo (talk) 09:34, 20 June 2009 (UTC))

Current participants who've helped create the proposals aren't restricted from continuing with the discussion. We're aware that there are likely to be a number of arguments that are based on personal feeling. Consensus will not be determined via a simple count of editors who like a particular proposal; the merit of arguments and their relevance to policy will be the deciding factor. Shell ^babelfish 00:21, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Can I ask please, what happens in the case that no consensus is found? Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 20:52, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Then the arbitrators make a decision on usage and we all live with it. (Taivo (talk) 22:23, 21 June 2009 (UTC))

I honestly have to wonder how effective this is likely to be. Remember the comments in the arbitration case about how we needed to get away from the "vote fetish" that plagues Wikipedia? This issue involves a fairly complex intersection of policies and real-world usage. How likely is it that the average uninvolved Wikipedian will be able to absorb all of that? Since consensus cannot trump policy, what happens if opinion is in favour of a solution that violates policy (as several of the solutions advanced here do)? Is there even any point in advertising policy-violating solutions? Also, isn't this simply opening the door for nationalist partisans to mobilise and swamp the discussion? We're here precisely because the Wikipedia community has proved unable to find any consensus on this issue; what makes anyone think that the community will miraculously reach a consensus after seven years of internecine wrangling? -- ChrisO (talk) 22:49, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

From the very beginning in discussing this whole process I've opposed any kind of vote-like behavior, but it seems that "outside endorsements" (by previously uninvolved editors who are neutral) are some kind of Holy Grail sought after, but never found. This exercise will, as I have said from the outset and as ChrisO states here as well, bring out all the nationalist socks, meats, anon IPs, and SPAs to flood the discussion with more meaningless blather. What's the point? The three arbitrators here are knowledgeable enough and well-versed enough in the arguments to make a well-informed decision. (Taivo (talk) 23:12, 21 June 2009 (UTC))

The point is that Wikipedia is a wiki and doesn't have an editorial committee to decide its content. Not in this case, nor in any other case. It is edited by "anyone". That's why Wikipedia operates by "consensus". The referees can help in countering the "gaming" effects if any as mentioned by ARBMAC2. Personally I don't see any gaming will be attempted by the usual suspects.Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 23:45, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Shadowmorph, where have you been for the last two months? You know good and well that consensus is not going to be reached here by normal means. ARBMAC2 has a specific process to move past stalemate when consensus is not possible. It will have to be used here. The "endorsement process" is a waste of time, I'm afraid, for the reasons that I've stated before and the reasons that ChrisO stated above. (Taivo (talk) 00:18, 22 June 2009 (UTC))

Disputing "largely agreed upon facts" [sic]

The first "fact", says that the state's most frequent name in common English usage is simply "Macedonia" and is supported by this as a source. A google news search can hardly be considered a good indicator of common usage; it doesn't conform with wikipedia's guideline on reliable sources as it includes opinion pieces and articles that don't predate the material's inclusion in Wikipedia. Furthermore, searching for occurrences of the word "Macedonia" in google news, includes articles that mention the country as "Republic of Macedonia" and "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", of which "Macedonia" is a substring. It also includes articles where officials from that country are quoted as referring to it as "Macedonia", which is not necessarily an endorsement of that name by the news organization. Moreover, searching for news articles provides inherently skewed results, as the mainstream news media are not as interested in archaeological findings as they are in recent political issues. That is exactly why they were called news in the first place! A google news search only includes news articles that were published in the past month; obviously this would leave out volumes of scholarly findings that happened to occur before that. Finally, I would like to note that the guideline on reliable sources explicitly states that "For information about academic topics, such as physics or ancient history, scholarly sources are preferred over news stories."

The second "fact", the one saying that present-day English usage in general-purpose sources uses "Macedonia" in referrence to the country, is not supported by any evidence. I would really be interested in seeing reliable sources backing that statement. As far as I know, everyday English usage of the word "Macedonia" comes in many different contexts. In some instances, the meaning might be clear from the context in which it is used. For example, if people are talking about ancient history, then the word is definitely referring to Macedonia (ancient kingdom). In some other instances, however, the meaning is ambiguous and people are forced to add an extra sentence or two to avoid confusing others.

Moving on to the fourth "fact", which states that wikipedia's article on the country has a larger readership than other Macedonia articles, I would like to question how reliable it is to look at these statistics. Given ArbCom's finding on Abuse Filter 119, it is reasonable to assume that a large number of the visits to the country's article were by editors who wanted to either correct inaccuracies, find out about the naming dispute, edit war or participate in talk page discussions. The truth is that we have no way of knowing what people do once they land on the country's article; they might read the article, edit it, click on one of the other Macedonia articles on the hat link or even go post in the talk page! To make matters even worse, article hits were significantly inflated by televised news reports ([1], [2]) in the Republic, that told people to visit the article on wikipedia.--Radjenef (talk) 12:33, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Yawn. I'm not going to respond; every single point of this has been discussed, refuted, discussed again and refuted again a thousand times. If any new outside reader finds there's some merit in these points, please tell me and I'll respond; otherwise I'll just let it stand as yet another example of the tired old smokescreen tactics. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:40, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Please be more civil when responding to my concerns. These statements were listed as "largely agreed upon facts", even though they are not largely agreed upon. I hardly see why pointing this out qualifies as "smokescreen tactics". --Radjenef (talk) 13:07, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I raised some legitimate concerns. Please do not dismiss them as unacceptable filibustering and please do not accuse me of bad faith! ([3]) Also note that 1RR is in place. We are obviously in disagreement about this... we should be able to resolve it like gentlemen, without resorting to personal attacks! --Radjenef (talk) 13:48, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I have nothing further to contribute to this than an appeal to the referees to step in and exclude Radjenef from the proceedings. I still maintain that this is obviously unconstructive behaviour designed for no other purpose than to obstruct the process. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:56, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree, it's better if the referees step in. I have already messaged Fritzpoll about your conduct... just letting you know. --Radjenef (talk) 14:17, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

It should be noted that the google news search is a google UK search. I'm not sure if that is significant, but it might be. Personally, I also very much question google news as a source for current usage as well. The BBC, I know, has a guide to how to use names, and I believe I heard a few weeks ago NPR has a similar unofficial guide. Google news will, basically, reflect the style guidelines of the news services which most frequently mention the country more than anything else, and will likely be slanted toward the news services which most frequently cover the country, for whatever reason, and reflect their style guide. I am not sure how to address that problem, if it should be addressed, but I think it is reasonable to mention it. Regarding the fourth point, that the main article for the country is likely the most frequently accessed article, I've found it to be the case that the main article for a country is almost literally universally the most often accessed article, and, at this point, see no reason to question it unless specific evidence to the contrary is presented. John Carter (talk) 18:20, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

The solution is to do several searches from different domains. So far we have common Google web searches, web searches restricted to .edu domains, web searches restricted to individual news organisations, Google news, Google books, and a general-purpose linguistic corpus of present-day American speech. Every one of these surveys supports the claim that the country is more often called by the simple name than by anything else; and every one except Google Books (i.e. all present-day data sources) support the claim that the name is used much more often for the country than for the other referents. As for the issue that some sources have their individual style guides, yes of course they do, but then again, (a) if these are high-profile media, their influence will ultimately determine what our readers are familiar with, and (b) news organisations are unlikely to uphold naming conventions that are incompatible with their readers' expectations. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:50, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

In addition, I would also say that although individual news organisations may have their own style guides, what we're concerned with is what the usage is in aggregate. If we focused on, say, just the BBC or NPR, then obviously that organisation's style guide would be reflected in our results. You would get the same effect if you just focused on (for instance) National Geographic maps or the Encyclopaedia Britannica. But what Fut. Perf. and I have been doing is assessing usage in aggregate across a wide range of sources - media, reference works, encyclopedias and cartographic products. Having a sample that is as large and as broad as possible ensures that the results are not skewed by the style guides of a few individual sources. By the way, I've amended the Google search link to eliminate the UK news search domain. (The results are not actually that different - the news search domain attribute ("&ned=uk" in this case) simply weights the results so that media sources from the country referenced are listed first. You get the same results, just ordered differently depending on which country is referenced.) -- ChrisO (talk) 01:33, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Per the complaint to my talkpage, I will comment here. Radjenef: "largely agreed on" does not mean unanimously agreed on. Besides yourself, is there another editor here who holds your position on this matter? If not, the substance of your argument is best saved for later than for a presentational issue. Fut. Perf: I know you are feeling frustrated, but the best way to avoid rsponding to comments is not to respond at all - if the arguments lack merit, we'll find that on our own Fritzpoll (talk) 00:27, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

The main problem with Radjanef's changes is that - as usual - they're not based on any evidence at all, and he simply ignores the reams of evidence gathered here. Radjanef has not bothered to do anything other than put forward unsourced assertions and dispute unarguable facts. For instance, if he disagrees with the page view statistics compiled from stats.grok.se, he should put forward a counter-argument based on hard evidence, not simply slap tags over it and rant about it. Fut. Perf. is quite right to be frustrated (not to say disgusted) with this conduct. It's exactly this kind of behaviour that made the recent arbitration case necessary in the first place, and I for one certainly won't hesitate to go back to arbitration enforcement and request a topic ban on Radjanef if necessary. If he can't or won't contribute constructively, he should go away or be kept away. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:46, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

The kind of behaviour that made the recent arbitration case necessary is available for all to read in the final decision. In any case, however, I am willing to sidestep the personal attacks and reiterate the fact that I have raised some legitimate concerns. I never ignored any reams of evidence; I made a very specific post arguing against the validity of the said evidence. Other users, like John Carter and El-greco, have already expressed similar concerns towards some of the evidence. So far, nobody has bothered responding to my arguments, though I've seen plenty of "yawns", personal attacks and requests to ban me from the discussion. While we're at it, I'd like to point out one more thing about the fourth "fact": it claims that the article on the country has a much larger readership than all other Macedonia articles, yet the evidence provided (however skewed they may be, since kanal5 TV urged viewers to visit wikipedia) only exhibit hits. Like I said, we have no way of knowing what people do once they land on the country's article; they might read the article, edit it, click on one of the other Macedonia articles on the hat link or even go post in the talk page! --Radjenef (talk) 16:17, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I find it ironic that ChrisO criticizes behaviours about this issue. In my knowledge it was ChrisO course of actions that made the recent arbitration case necessary following his unilateral actions and abuse of his administrative powers for which he was warned and condemned [4] [5]. I personally am dissapointed that users that have demonstrated this kind of conduct (in multiple occasions it seems) are permitted to participate in this process and I wonder if ARBCOM would think the same way. On what it concerns me, this process has completely lost its credibility thus I have stopped participating. I would expect that this issue would have been taken care of by completely uninvolved parties; however it wasn't, thus I felt necessary to introduce my POV, to counter-balance. I see now that all my proposal edits have been methodically removed from the project page. If you think that this is the way to achieve consensus, you are wrong.El-greco (talk) 09:54, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm happy that you freely admit that you are here to introduce your POV. man with one red shoe 10:13, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

At least, I admit it. Oh, and you actually agree with me on my points above [6], though you only find it useful to delimit my phrase about introducing my POV. Great. El-greco (talk) 14:40, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

(ec) As a matter of fact, a topic ban was proposed for ChrisO. The fact that it was rejected probably answers your implied question about what AC thinks of having someone it admonished participating in this discussion. They could have removed him from it, but they didn't. Frankly, your bringing his behaviour up here is nothing more than an effort to discredit your opponent based on past behaviour rather than based on what really matters: the strength of his arguments. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 10:17, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

What arguments. The great majority of ChrisO "arguments" in this page is about disruptive behaviours and who should post or not post. Radjenef posted some valid points, but I didn't see any counter-arguments about these, and "Yawn" is not a counter-argument. For example, he stated that FYROM media has encouraged people to visit the page, thus infalting the number of visits. Where is the counter-argument about that? El-greco (talk) 14:40, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and you're mistaken to say ChrisO's action caused the RFAr to be filed. It had already been agreed upon to do so well in advance; ChrisO's move just caused it to occur a few days ahead of schedule. What really caused the RFAr to be filed was stonewalling by nationalists who wouldn't accept any term for the country north of Greece on "their" article except "FYROM". Heimstern Läufer (talk) 10:20, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I was not refering exclusively to ChrisO actions concerning the move of the article. Also, FYROM is a perfectly valid term in the context it was put, FYROM is the name of the country for almost half of the world (but this is not the subject here). FYI, for the entire greek community, anything else except FYROM is offensive, not just "nationalists". Anyway, this is not the subject here, but I am not convinced of some people's intentions here. Some people should have been involved more actively in clearing up the hundreds of articles speaking of Taiwan and China as countries, instead of Republic of China and People's Republic of China (and more other examples) and then I would be convinced of their objective involvement. El-greco (talk) 14:40, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry it's offensive to the Greek community, but that has no bearing on how it should be named in Wikipedia. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 14:43, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Page protected

Gents, today's edits, dare I say edit warring, over the discussion page is not good form. I've restored it to the last version prior to today's edits, which is the 11:22, June 17, 2009 version, and protected it for two weeks. I've notified the referees. I take no sides in the dispute of today's edits, but this should have been worked on the talk page, not rv'd repeatedly on the discussion page itself. The referees are will handle this issue and are free to unprotect it when they deem fit. — Rlevse • Talk • 14:10, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I added refs for the assertions currently on the page. If I unprotect the page (I'm waiting to see what Fritzpoll and/or Shell Kinney think), I do not want to see {{fact}} tags and so forth all over the place. If you disagree with something, discuss it on the talk page. If you want to add something to the page, include a reference for it. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 15:03, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for adding back my link to Jstor. I understand what you say about {{fact}} tags. What do you recommend we do about things that are listed as "largely agreed upon facts", when in fact they are disputed? I am perfectly open to discussion, yet I do not understand what I am supposed to do when the other editor says "not worth responding to", "Whoever still "disputes" these facts is not acting in good faith" and "obviously disruptive, no discussion". Why don't we just move all of these statements to the evidence section? Though they could be used as evidence to support one solution or the other, most of them clearly do not form an undisputed background for the case... --Radjenef (talk) 15:59, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

"Largely agreed upon" doesn't mean everyone agrees. — Rlevse • Talk • 17:00, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I think it should be clear that if you make a change to the main page and someone reverts, the next step is discussion. There's going to be very little tolerance for edit warring or other disruptive actions. As far as resolving disputes, there are more than just two editors interested in this discussion; if you and one other person can't reach an agreement, wait and let others respond as well. I also agree with J.delanoy, references would be helpful when adding new material. Shell ^babelfish 00:11, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the comments from my colleagues. We are here to determine a broader consensus of action, and I have already warned about the need to discuss reversions. I will unprotect the page, with the following warning: further edit warring will be sanctioned by blocks and ultimately by bans from discussion on these pages. Discussion is why we are here, and mindlss reverts are not the way to advance your position. Fritzpoll (talk) 00:20, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

International recognition

We seemed to have lost some of the international recognition lines from the background summary, what was there before was out of date, and what was added to replace it was flawed. I've taken the liberty of amending this accordingly [7]. To summarise:

• We had somehow lost the fact that most of the UN's member states (now two-thirds of the total, including most of the English-speaking world) recognise Macedonia under its constitutional name. This is a very important point, as it influences common usage in those countries. The page had previously said that "just over half" of the UN's member states employ this usage. I believe that figure was taken from the original MOSMAC1, but the international diplomatic position has shifted decisively in Macedonia's favour in the two years since that was written.

• Some data had been added, sourced to Macedonia naming dispute#List of countries, to state that "12 states recognise the country under it's UN reference, and 34 states/entities either do not hold formal diplomatic relations with the country, or it is unknown what reference they use to refer to the country". I'm afraid we can't be definitive about that. I had a major role in compiling that list, which is mainly sourced to public statements about diplomatic activity between Macedonia and other countries. We do know (because it's been stated on several occasions) that 125 countries as of February 2009 recognised Macedonia under its constitutional name. We do not know for sure how many countries use the UN reference or how many do not have diplomatic relations. Both of those categories of states must be among the remaining 67 countries, but we don't have enough evidence to say exactly how many are in each of those two categories.

• Not every international organisation employs the exact UN usage - some have come up with their own variants ("FYR of Macedonia", for instance).

Hope this makes sense... -- ChrisO (talk) 01:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

"Background" evidence disputed

Regarding this addition to the "background" section by Radjenef: this claim is still factually wrong; discussion now moved to int.orgs subpage. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:23, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Just noting here that I will remove these claims again some time during the next 12 hours, both from the "Background" section and from the "int.orgs" sub-page, unless somebody else does it before me, as I believe I have brought forward incontrovertible evidence it is incorrect. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:26, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Already done. We had the same issue in compiling the list on Macedonia naming dispute of countries that use whichever name or reference - editors were citing sources that said nothing about the particular country's position on the issue. Another editor raised this issue in this discussion which led to the list being greatly amended and numerous instances of OR removed (a task in which I was heavily involved). In the present case, we have a UN document which says nothing about the naming dispute, but which lists Macedonia under its UN provisional reference. It doesn't even come from the Macedonian government but from the UN General Assembly. To support the kind of assertion made by Radjanef, you would need a document issued by the Macedonian government itself or from a reliable third party that spoke explicitly of how the Macedonian government uses the UN terminology. This particular source doesn't come close. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:37, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I am sorry, are we discussing the quality of sources or not? Because in a section right below we agreed that any sentence does not have to be reliable sourced but only backed up by a footnote. Fut. Perf. said so himself that WP:OR is only for article space. A Google News query could also be thought of as original research, doesn't it? Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 21:00, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

We're not talking about whether some piece of information fulfils some formal "reliability" criterion according to our content rules for articles, but about whether that piece of information is correct. The claim that the country regularly (let alone exclusively) uses "f.Y.R." in its dealings with international organisations is demonstrably wrong. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:08, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Looking at what you've posted on the international organizations sub-page, it's clearly wrong. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:11, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Sourcing to reliable sources needed

I understand that some backing up must be linked for the statements and that they are not citations[8].

However notes 3,4,5,6 are actually citations. Wikipedia's policy about sourcing also has power in project space too. I don't understand how we can mix citations to reliable sources together with links to userspace essays.

And who is the "largely agreed upon" referring to? The 10 editors, tops that have been writing here? Are we a good sample of the community? Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 20:07, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

The reference syntax is often used in project space to add footnotes, as appears on a number of our project pages. It is acceptable, since the footnotes explicitly indicate the nature of the citation. Change is therefore unnecessary and only likely to provoke conflict. We want these pages stable by tomorrow Fritzpoll (talk) 20:11, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

It's not an article, but an internal discussion page. WP:RS is about articles, as is WP:OR. The evidence notes are purely for the sake of convenience, as a reminder provided among Wikipedians of what we consider suitable documentation of facts. And whether it's formally presented as a footnote or inline is of course totally irrelevant from the perspective of "reliability". Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:23, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Ok, misconception cleared. However I'm afraid the background section is not the best factual summary we could have but I guess its not important since we are in project space that only Wikipedians would read. I respect the need for stability but I though that some sentences should need to be sourced better, that's all.

For the record I have stated that I am not going to re-add again any wording about those footnotes.Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 20:28, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't mind if you would like to close (or collapse, whatever) this thread if you want to.Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 20:31, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Regardless of who raised that particular concern, I really think that it was a very valid one and one that we should seriously consider. Indeed, we have yet to see any reliable source about the number of countries "officially" recognising the country's constitutional name. I would appreciate it if someone would add the missing evidence or strike the statement off the list. --Radjenef (talk) 02:17, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

The list found at Macedonia naming dispute contains all the reliable sources and over the last two months there has been a very solid effort to make sure that all the sources there were reliable. This has been stated several times during these discussions. (Taivo (talk) 02:20, 22 June 2009 (UTC))

I agree that it should be removed if reliable and verifiable sources aren't included. Spis Ikke Gul Snø (talk) 02:23, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Reference to Macedonia naming dispute added. Since this is not an article, but a discussion, then that is a sufficient reference to the relevant information and the reliable sources quoted at that place. (Taivo (talk) 02:31, 22 June 2009 (UTC))

Taivo, don't delete my edits. Please, stop it. About the "sources", the reference in the article about the naming dispute is the same as in the project page (http://www.vlada.mk/?q=node/2273). It's the very same verbal claim by Milososki. There are no reliable, verifiable sources regarding this. Not even a list in their Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Nothing. Zero. Find sources. If you don't, you will violate Wikipedia's rules. SQRT5P1D2 (talk) 02:51, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

You are a topic-banned user, SQRT. It is as if you are not speaking here. I will defer to the arbitrator's request below. (Taivo (talk) 04:22, 22 June 2009 (UTC))

If a comment needs to be removed from these pages, please let the referees handle it. In the meantime there is a discussion open at AE to consider SQRT5P1D2's participation, why don't we let that run its course first? Shell ^babelfish 03:04, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

The verbal claim is named on the Macedonian goverment's website. That is a reliable source. The fact that it opposes someone else's point of view does not make it unreliable. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 03:51, 22 June 2009 (UTC)Striking along with all other comments in this section to show that I'm through with this filibustering rubbish and that it was a mistake for me to dignify it with a response. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 13:12, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

There's also a hell of a lot more references than just that one here. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 03:59, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

It's self-serving, which undermines its use as a reliable source. We wouldn't accept a Greek government website that claimed that half the countries use FYROM. Same problem. We could count them, one by one. We could say "the majority." We could say "except for Greece, Britain, and a few smaller countries." But 125 needs a source that is reliable for that piece of information. Jd2718 (talk) 04:03, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Three quarters of European Countries, well-source through the Macedonia naming dispute link Heimstern provided. Jd2718 (talk) 04:06, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)That's actually an interesting idea. I am going to write a letter to the American embassies of both countries, and see what results I get. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 04:07, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't see that a Greek government website would be unreliable, either (biased, of course, but hard facts tend to be solidly represented, regardless of POV). The other sources are clearly better, though, so we should rely mainly on those. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 04:17, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

If your letter does get answered it should be posted since it would be helpful information in order to adequately cover the positions of both countries on that. Right now the WP page linked above uses Greek official sources for some citations and RoM official sources for others so as mixing two biased sources in one paragraph. It also uses both Greek biased news sources and RoM biased news sources for citations too. Really reliable outside sources should better be used if found.Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 06:38, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately not many other sources can be found. Nobody else cares. Either way, this discussion is starting to look like it's about the Macedonia naming dispute article now; as such any further discussion might be better placed at that talk page rather than here. BalkanFever 16:41, 22 June 2009

I agree about that. Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 06:42, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I would suggest out of respect to this process and the controversy of whether his topic ban applies that SQRT5 abstains from this discussion until the case for his participation is cleared. Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 06:30, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and I concur that quoting Milososki is not the good way to go in terms of reliably sourcing a number. Project space might be flexible but it should not contain whatever political claim there is without attribution. So the sentence should say that "the foreign minister Milososki claims that ... ...".Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 06:42, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Should I include the attribution in the page? Only the number 125 needs attributino, the "two thirds" can be changed to "about two thirds". Does someone else agrees that the number needs to be attributed to "official Rom sources put the number at 125"? I think that saying "about two thirds" and a link to the WP page should be more than enough for the background section we have here Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 06:49, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

The 125 figure has been widely reported - see e.g. this article published only 10 days ago, and this BBC News article of November 2008. I see no reason to doubt it. The figure, after all, comes from the Macedonian foreign ministry, which is both an official source and the definitive source of information on Macedonia's foreign relations. There is no indication that Greece disputes the figure. -- ChrisO (talk) 07:10, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

from BBC: quote:In a November 2008 interview, Macedonian Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki said "it is important that 125 countries worldwide have recognised Macedonia's constitutional name,". That is called proper attribution, that's what I am saying.Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 08:46, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

If the BBC's not good enough for you, I guess it just goes to show that nothing will suffice for you if it supports this fact. Either way, the sources at the Macedonia naming dispute article are probably better for these purposes, if more of a pain to read though. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 12:06, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

But the BBC didn't report it as true; Antonio Milososki claimed it during an interview that was televised by the BBC. A person's claims surely do not automatically qualify as reliable sources just because he expressed them during an interview, do they? I am sure that, if the claim were true, it wouldn't be too hard to back it up with proper evidence... so, where is it? --Radjenef (talk) 13:05, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

The Macedonian Foreign Minister is a reliable source - indeed, the definitive source - for information about his country's diplomatic activities. Where else would you expect to get that information from? Your objection is completely nonsensical. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:12, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

ChrisO, do not remove my comments. You're not in a position to make judgements about this. There is no consensus about the matter you raised. This is childish.

Facts: one (1) self-serving source, making a verbal claim. There isn't even a list with the claimed numbers, in their ministry of foreign affairs (http://mfa.gov.mk/default1.aspx?ItemID=310). Not to mention that many countries in the "bilateral relations" list, such as Australia, don't have established relations with the "Republic of Macedonia" but with the "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia". Another instance that their MFA is not a reliable source.

The BBC reports the same claim by Milososki. The reference in the "Macedonia naming dispute" article is... Milososki. The sources everywhere are the same self-serving verbal claims. If BBC or News of the Macfordshire report a verbal claim, it doesn't become reliable and verifiable automatically.

Simply put: nothing supports this claim. No reliable sources = no reference. SQRT5P1D2 (talk) 16:45, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Questions about disambiguation

I'm unclear about the rationale for some of the disambiguation-based solutions being advanced here (i.e. those where Macedonia reverts to being a disambiguation page), so for those editors who favour such solutions, I'll pose the following questions:

1) It's generally agreed that there are only four leading meanings for "Macedonia". Why is having a disambiguation page superior to having a hatnote at the top of the most-used page, as at present? If the aim is to direct a minority of readers to the other three pages, isn't this already being achieved through the hatnote?

2) Since the great majority of readers have always gone to the country page, what is gained by forcing them through a disambiguation page that they don't need?

3) Is there any hard evidence that readers are being disadvantaged in any way by the current naming structure?

Any answers? -- ChrisO (talk) 22:55, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

1) Only four? In Mercury, the prime example for disambiguation (appearing in the policy text), there are only three common meanings. What is your point?

2) is disputed. Right now Fut's numbers suggest a 9:1 ratio of users choosing the country but noone can say for sure what the readers of the dab page were chosing when Macedonia was a dab page. Hits specifically to en.wikipedia.org/Macedonia are about 1000/day and of those it has been conjectured that 900 are happy to stay there (?). Of course that is only a conjecture since no experiment was made when Macedonia was a dab page so as we could see without any doubt. Furthermore hit statistics are not as reliable as unique users. Even if we had reliable numbers how much a majority is considered a "great" majority?

Furthermore ask yourself what is lost by forcing users to go through a dab page: it's 10 seconds and a click and that only for one part of the users. Consider that together with what is at stake: stability, edit wars, violation of NPOV as perceived "by some", disambiguation problems or semiological confusion in the hat link, loss of encyclopedic value due to recentism, (all those in my opinion).

2) even so we gain neutrality to say the least.

3) Yes one minority of users is obviously disadvantaged. Also there is a possibility that uninformed or lay readers might be mislead or even miss some content they might otherwise read (e.g. to read the history section of the country rather than read the region article). Is there any evidence that readers are being advantaged by the current status quo? I mean other than they avoid the dab page (they gain 10 seconds and a click) while also avoid seeing what other "Macedonias" exist?

Personal opinion: A dab in some cases will be educative for the general user or even incite him to learn other things. That is even more so for Macedonia. But I could support dab pages in other places too, I learned many things from having a query direct me to a dab page rather than a specific topic. Speaking for myself I don't see going through a dab page such a bad thing but rather a good thing.Therefore the users are actually more disadvantaged now. Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 00:17, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Deadline today

Towards the end of the day, proposals and all submissions will be opened up for community presentation and discussion per our earlier comments. At this time, comments on the talkpage may be archived, and some structural alterations will take place to facilitate endorsements and discussion. Fritzpoll (talk) 08:32, 22 June 2009 (UTC)