Talk:Denmark–Mexico relations

Mexico adopting the Danish mortgage system

I removed the sentence about how Mexico recently adopted the Danish mortgage system because it seems wholly unrelated to the topic of Denmark-Mexico relations. None the 3 articles cited provide any evidence of any actual interaction between the two countries (although I only had access to the first two paragraphs of the Economist article.) If Mexican officials had conferred extensively with the Danish government on this, that would be one thing, but there's no evidence of that, at least in the cited sources. For all we know, the Mexican government read about the Danish system in a book and decided to implement it in their country. To put it another way, if Indian style curry suddenly became popular in Mexico because a cooking show featured Channa Masala, would this constitute a significant or notable cultural relationship between Indian and Mexico? Or how about this way: If you knew nothing about Mexico-Denmark relations, and then read the sources on the mortgage issue, would you come away feeling like you knew anything more about Mexico-Denmark relations? Are the good? Are they deteriorating? Do the countries have historical ties? You'd have no sense. All you'd know is that the Mexicans thought that the Danes handled their mortgages in a better way, and decided to copy them. Yilloslime ^T_C 03:58, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Keep in article as the person who found the info. To address your analogy: If Indian food became a craze in Mexico and it was reported in reliable media, yes I would have added to the article on Mexico-India. An article on India-Britain would be remiss if it didn't mention the importation of takeout curry houses. That is a culinary relationship between the two countries, although there is an article on Mexican cuisine and Indian cuisine already. Notability is determined by the media, not by Wikipedians. You and I would disagree on what is notable, but the Wikipedia rule is when a topic is covered by multiple reliable sources it gets its own article space. This isn't in its own article space, its within a relations article, which covers, diplomacy, economics, and even sports. They did not adopt a US model, they did not adopt a Japanese model. It is a significant economic contribution of Denmark to Mexico. Is your concern that Mexico appears to have pulled the idea over, rather than Denmark pushing it over, or that it was not adopted by mutual negotiations? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 15:00, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, it does show a sort of influence at least and these kinds of influences undoubtedly play a role in their attitudes toward each other. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 14:59, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

The point is that this is an article on these countries' relations, in other words, their interactions with each other (politically, economically, culturally, etc.) There's no evidence that there was any interaction between Mexico and Denmark on this issue, hence it has nothing to do with their relations. If Dutch ovens became popular in Mexico would you consider this part of Dutch Mexican relations? Yilloslime ^T_C 15:30, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Relationship (n) Synonyms: connection, affiliation, rapport, bond, liaison, link, correlation, association. I don't see "interactions" in the list. They are not synonyms. Once again you are using the Strawman fallacy and a bit of Reduction to absurdity as your argument. Just stick to Wikipedia policy. It is more akin to Japan adopting Just-in-time (business) from Ford or America adopting Danish design. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 15:57, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

You forgot "dealing," which MS Word also lists a synonym. But I'm not going to argue semantics. Any reasonable personable would agree with the point that bilateral relations are about the interactions of 2 countries with each other. My point which you a have remarkable knack for skirting but never directly addressing is the following: That the Mexicans apparently independently and of their initiative adopted the Danish model of mortgage lending is irrelevant to the topic of Mexican-Danish relations. This isn't about verifiability--I agree it is adequately sourced; and this isn't about WP:N--notability applies to whether certain topics get stand alone articles, not to what facts get covered in an article. (I'm amazed that someone with more than 60,000 edits and 4.5 years of experience on WP wouldn't know that.) It's about relevance.

Assuming a topic is notable, it's up to the editors to decide which verifiable facts get put into that article. WP:NPOV and WP:NOR help to guide those content decisions. We also have to take into account relevance--in the case of say Bill Clinton scores of books and thousands of articles have been written on the man. There are millions of facts which our article on him could mention. As editors, we've got to decide which are the most relevant for the article. My point here is that we are not obligated to include every tangentially related factoid into an article, no matter how well sourced. And the fact that Mexican mortgage system is modeled on the Danish system is simply not relevant. There's no evidence or reason to assume that in making this decision the Mexican gov't interacted with or had any dealings or connections with the Danish gov't or private sector. No evidence of an affliation, rapport, or bond, or any liaising or linking. Perhaps there's a correlation, but that's not good enough. Yilloslime ^T_C 16:28, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I think you are engaging in original research when you talk about how Denmark came about adopting the system, since the details are not discussed in the Economist. Also the Bill Clinton article cannot fit a full 300 page biography. It just means that size constraints make us pare down the article to the standard Wikipedia 2 pages. The information in all the biographies is notable by definition. That is also why there are almost 50 articles on the president or events involving the president.

Nice dodge. I could just as easily say that it's OR to suggest that the Danes had a hand in Mexico's decision to adopt their system. In fact, I will say that. All we know know is that they did, and there is no evidence that bilateralism played a role in the decision. So this factoid is irrelevant and suggesting it has anything to do with Mexico-Denmark relations is OR. Yilloslime ^T_C 17:32, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

@A Nobody: I don't think "influence" should be fodder for these bilateral relations articles. I think we need restrict ourselves to active interactions between countries. If the scope is expanded to mere influence, that the opens the flood gates for all kinds of irrelevancies. For example, it's easy to find pizza in Mexico city--should Mexico-Italy relations therefore claim that there is an Italian influence on Mexican culture as evidenced by all this pizza? I hope not. Maybe Canadian whiskey is popular in some sectors, should this be mentioned in Canada-Mexico relations? What about Swiss cheese. Should the availability of Swiss cheese in country X be noted in every Swiss-X relation article? Yilloslime ^T_C 17:47, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I would hope that the article on Mexico-US would mention that Corona (beer) is the top imported beer into the US. If it doesn't I will add it now. Remember it is what the media chooses to be important enough to write about, not what you and I decide are important. Think Just-in-time (business) imported to Japan, not pizza. However, I don't think culinary relations should be excluded if they are covered by reliable sources. Cheers. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:43, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

"Remember it is what the media chooses to be important enough to write about, not what you and I decide are important." I could not agree more. If the media talk about corona in the context of US-Mexico relations, then I agree it's fair game for the article on US-Mexico relations. (I wouldn't go so far as to say it necessarily should go in the article--there's a lot you could say about US-Mexico relations, and there may be more important things to cover in the limited space of the article. But it certainly could be included.) Turning to the matter at hand, there are absolutely no sources that talk about the mortgage system in the context of Denmark-Mexico relations, and therefore we shouldn't either. Yilloslime ^T_C 03:56, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

You are hung up on the word "relations" as if it had magical properties, any synonym can do. It is the concept, not the word. Look at the US State Department relations pages and see the same topics listed.

RfC on inclusion of information on Danish mortgage system

I seek external viewpoints on whether or not this information (as discussed above) should be included. LibStar (talk) 05:42, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

The Economist says: "This year Mexico is due to test an intriguing idea that it has imported from Denmark, which has one of the world's best-run mortgage markets." Taken literally, I would say that that qualifies as related to this topic. The importation of goods has appeared often on pages such as this and information often qualifies as a good as well (see patent). Whether or not someone's paying for the good doesn't seem as significant to me in relation to this article as the fact that they went to Denmark for the idea.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 00:11, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

The importation of goods, services, and ideas define trade. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 14:22, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Maersk?

I agree with the general concept that economic ties can and should be included in these bilateral relations articles. But for the record, I have doubts about the relevance of the fact that Maersk has invested in Mexico. Maersk is a huge shipping company that does business with just about every major country in the world. If they did not do business in Mexico, that would be truly revealing. Yilloslime ^T_C 03:58, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I totally agree with the above, Maersk operates in almost every developed and reasonably developed country that has a port and I've never such a fact reported in any other bilateral relations article I've looked at. what this factoid reveals about bilateral relations is little. It's one of these google search and scrape up any little factoid you can exercises. LibStar (talk) 07:18, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Maersk has offices in about 130 countries and I'm guessing where the country has a port they ship to as well. LibStar (talk) 08:03, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm proposing removing this statement unless a very good reason is provided to include it including why a similar statement does not appear on any other bilateral article. LibStar (talk) 16:33, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

• I oppose deletion, the relationship goes back to 1932, and was important enough that the president mentioned it in a speech. It meets every requirement for notability and verifiability. Cheers. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:55, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

And yet is entirely irrelevant for the reasons expressed above.Yilloslime ^T_C 17:33, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Everyone has a personal opinion, that is why I stick to the Wikipedia pillars of notability and verifiability, and it meets both. Cheers. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:34, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I have no argument that verifiability is met. As I pointed out above Notability doesn't apply. Could you explain why you think WP:N has something to say on this issue? The LEDE of this guideline says "These notability guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article. They do not directly limit the content of articles. For Wikipedia's policies regarding content, see Neutral point of view, Verifiability, No original research, What Wikipedia is not, and Biographies of living persons." So it seems clear to me that we can't use WP:N to decide whether or not this fact is worthy of inclusion in this article. Yilloslime ^T_C 18:44, 4 June 2009 (UTC)