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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

RFC on Taiwan/Republic of China

The following discussion 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.

The article Republic of China was recently moved to Taiwan, unanimously agreed upon by three administrators, on the basis of WP:COMMONNAME. In light of this, should Taipei be listed in prose and the infobox as being the capital of Taiwan, or the capital of the Republic of China? 01:34, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Responses

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The result of this RfC was no consensus. Although "Taiwan" has a bit more support, there is not sufficient agreement about one of the two options to constitute consensus.  Sandstein  08:36, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
  • Taiwan. This should really be straightforward. The acceptability of this change was confirmed by the recent country article move to Taiwan. The move established that Taiwan is a correct name for the country, and that Taiwan is the common name for that country in English. It's a straight logical step that Taipei should also be referred to as the capital of Taiwan, based on dominant usage in reliable English-language sources. Further, using the common name for the country in the lede and infobox of city articles is consistent with our other articles such as Washington, D.C. (United States, as opposed to United States of America), Paris (France, as opposed to French Republic), Berlin (Germany, as opposed to the Federal Republic of Germany) and countless others. Our naming convention at WP:NCGN also supports the change ("When a widely accepted English name, in a modern context, exists for a place, we should use it", "Within articles, places should generally be referred to by the same name as is used in their article title"). The objections made by two editors above don't seem to be founded in any policy-based reasoning. – NULL ‹talk›
    ‹edits›     01:34, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
    • See also source statistics in the Threaded Discussion section below, which show a strong majority of sources refer to Taipei as being in, and being the capital of, Taiwan. – NULL ‹talk›
      ‹edits›       05:02, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Republic of China in the lead sentence, Taiwan in the infobox. The decision of the closing administrators states: "This decision explicitly does not include any other articles. While there was some incidental discussion of what impact this move might have on other article's names, there was no consensus determined for that." NULL's comment above is misguided in concluding that the decision to move the WikiProject Countries template from Republic of China to Taiwan should have an effect on the text of articles. Whether Taiwan may be used to refer to Republic of China is context-dependent, and the subject of another ongoing Manual of Style discussion. While Taiwan may be used as the short form form Republic of China in some instances (and the two terms can be interchangeable as a matter of stylistic preference), in general, changing existing text without good reason to do so should be discouraged. This is especially the case in light of the closing decision.--Jiang (talk) 02:16, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Republic of China in both the lede and the infobox. Lede per Jiang and the same accuracy issues apply to the infobox as well because of the special municipality status of Taipei. GotR Talk 03:01, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Taiwan. I get 83 (50 deghosted) post-1990 English-language Google Book results for Taipei as "the capital of the ROC" or "the capital of the Republic of China", compared to 343 (205 deghosted) for Taipei as "the capital of Taiwan". A lot of ROC usage is historical, about 1949 and Chiang Kai-shek. The name ROC is confusingly similar to "People's Republic of China," which is far more familiar to most readers. The result of this RfC will be the new consensus. Editors are not obligated to vote any particular way on account of a closing statement. Kauffner (talk) 04:00, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Republic of China in both the lede and the infobox. The administrators who changed the Republic of China article title did explicitly mention, that their decision does not warrant for any further changes like this in Wikipedia articles. Kauffner is really full of t demanding the change in the Taipei article. He was one of those who in the ROC/Taiwan move discussion always wrote that in fact he does NOT want to make Wikipedia wide changes. He's like a politician after an election... I see a POV-driven attempt to purge the Republic of China from Wikipedia. Soon we might even see articles like the "Second Taiwan-Japanese War". Hsinhai (talk) 04:44, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Taiwan Per the address used on the official website for Taipei. [1] --Born2cycle (talk) 05:14, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Taiwan Like NULL, I don't see the policy-based objection. Wikipedia refers to the country as "Taiwan". Kauffner's reasoning re confusion and Google results is also useful. John Smith's (talk) 07:08, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Republic of China The Taipei City government website does not only use "Taiwan" as its address. (Personal attack removed). The website says Taiwan (R.O.C.) - now what could ROC possibly stand for? The Balitmore City Government only lists "Maryland", not even "USA"[2] . Should we change the country designation of Balitmore as well? Born2cycle's contribution to this debate is a total non-argument and shows that he either deliberately omitted important facts or cannot read. Hsinhai (talk) 08:25, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
    • You've already made a response above, Hsinhai. If you want to reply to Born2cycle, please do so in the Threaded Discussion section below. And please do not call other editors liars, that's a clear personal attack and is not at all appropriate. – NULL ‹talk›
      ‹edits›       09:13, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Republic of China Taiwan is NOT the correct name for the country, despite what commonname says and what the top guy claims. Also, the Beijing article certainly says Beijing is the capital of the People's Republic of China, and not China. Hanfresco (talk) 10:13, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Taiwan for the lead sentence. Fine with Republic of China or Taiwan in infobox. We don't say "Paris is the capital of the French [Fifth] Republic" and nor should we. After years of Wikipedia anachronism and idiosyncrasy when compared to every other single serious reference source, and a tortuous move debate, we now have the main article at Taiwan; where it should be, despite the obscure - and never consistently applied - "official" name of ROC. In the sort of non-technical and non-historical reference here, we should clearly use the common - and equally "correct" - name for the same reasons. As also suggested by the proposed updated naming convention. The "but terminology in article text is/should be different from article names" is a very odd argument, especially in this kind of context; and common name implicitly rejects that assumption. N-HH talk/edits 13:41, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Taiwan in both. The infobox should give a quick and simple information summary, so using the name of the country that readers will recognise should go without saying. As for prose, a well-written article is concise and deals with the topic without extraneous information. There's no reason to give both names of the country here. In Paris we don't note it is the capital of the French Republic, commonly called France. Nor do we note that Moscow is the capital of the Russian Federation, commonly called Russia. It should be the same here. CMD (talk) 14:12, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Taiwan in both, if only to avoid confusion. My impression is that, when the average reader sees "Taiwan," they know what is being referred to. OTOH, when ROC is mentioned, I believe people frequently conflate this with People's Republic of China. Obviously, ROC must be mentioned as well, but the "country" is known as Taiwan in English speaking nations.JoelWhy (talk) 14:16, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Republic of China. Taiwan is the Province name, Republic of China is the country name. To say that Taipei is the capital of Taiwan is to denigrate it as merely a province. We may as well change Ma Ying-jeou's title to "Governor of Taiwan" too. WP:COMMONNAME does not apply here. French Republic, Moscow, the ROC's situation is unique and those examples do not apply here.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.110.144 (talk) 13:54, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
  • ROC, since Taipei is not part of Taiwan Province. For a city located within Taiwan Province, however, "<city name>, Taiwan" is fine. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 16:33, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Taiwan in the infobox and we should say "capital of the Republic of China, commonly called Taiwan" in the intro. Taiwan should then be used further down the page in any other mentions. -- Peter Talk page 19:00, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Republic of China. Jeffrey (talk) 10:54, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
  • "Taiwan, formally known as the Republic of China", infobox: "Taiwan". --Dailycare (talk) 17:01, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Taiwan, formally known as the Republic of China -- This is obviously the appropriate answer now that the article on the country is at "Taiwan". Peterkingiron (talk) 19:45, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Republic of China in both the lead and the infobox. When people say Taiwan is a common name of ROC, they are not also saying Taiwan is ROC in context that has nothing to do with a government. The definition of ROC is not dominant among other definitions, as sources like Britannica and CIA fact book defined Taiwan as a self-governed island. Even when limiting the context to administrative and politics, Taiwan is not dominant. For example when I search "capital of" and Taipei in .edu domains, Taiwan show up in the result only half of the time. And that's not excluding the definition that Taipei as the capital city of Taiwan province. I have no idea how why this Wikipedia common name policy is supposed to override such definitions POVs from reliable sources. If the PRC government is mainly referred to as Beijing in the context of PRC government, should we disregard the more dominant definition as a city and define Beijing as the PRC government, without respecting WP:DUE?

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision) suggests authoritative dictionaries should be used. Let's look it up:

The definition of ROC is certainly not dominant. --Skyfiler (talk) 02:08, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

  • Taiwan - [from uninvolved editor, invited by RfC bot] For a few reasons: (1) for the lay reader, Taiwan is less ambiguous, shorter, and very common. (2) to be consistent with the Taiwan article. (3) to avoid confusion with Peoples Republic of China. --Noleander (talk) 17:10, 14 April 2012 (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.

Threaded discussion

Briefly responding to Jiang: As I mentioned above, the closing rationale given by the administrators specifically relates to article names, and it can be seen in the discussion they had prior to making their final decision that the intent of that statement was to ensure that other article titles weren't changed, or articles split/merged/repurposed/etc. without discussion by referencing the ROC->Taiwan change. Their decision doesn't apply to the content of articles, and the precedent set by the ROC->Taiwan move is, in my view, a perfectly valid justification to be used in favour of making article content changes relating to the country. I'm also not clear on why you mentioned the Countries template and its related consensus, because I didn't mention it - I mentioned the country article itself. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 02:23, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I think your argument is that because the article was moved, we should change the article text to reflect the article. Please refer to Aervanath's comments in the deliberations in Archive 20. If the move decision explicitly does not apply to other article titles, then it logically does not apply to other article text. Article text may be changed either through the ongoing discussion on rewriting WP:NC-TW or on a case-by-case basis in the individual talk pages. The precedent set is by the move from People's Republic of China to China, where we decided not to change existing text without good reason. There is no justification for a wholesale change of "Republic of China" to "Taiwan" in all articles. There is only justification in specific instances where use of "Republic of China" does not improve the accuracy of the text. If you believe that "Taiwan" in this instance is, on npov and accuracy grounds (note that WP:COMMONNAME is a article title, not article text policy), preferable to using "Republic of China," then forward those arguments. If there is enough justification, those arguments should stand alone without need to reference the move decision. It is inappropriate to use the recent move decision as the basis of your arguments.--Jiang (talk) 02:47, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
That's not a logical conclusion at all. Article titles and article content are different things with different governing criteria and different processes for change. The admin decision specifically applied to article titles, it's not a logical conclusion that this extends to content as well. In fact, it was beyond the scope of the Requested Move for the admins to make such rulings relating to content, as they indicated in their discussion.
Wholesale changes of 'Republic of China' to 'Taiwan' in all articles is a strawman; nobody here or anywhere else has proposed it. This RFC is about this specific article, and at worst, articles about other present-day cities. The ongoing text proposed for NC-TW supports this change: "When discussing geography, those places within the territorial control of the People's Republic of China should generally be said to be in "China". For example, "Zhongguancun has become a major centre of electronics in China" [...] Places within the territorial control of the Republic of China should generally be said to be in "Taiwan"." City articles such as this one are geographic and as such should 'generally be said to be in Taiwan'.
Common name is indeed an article title policy, however it reasonably reflects our content policies in the sense that it has been long-standing process in Wikipedia that we use the terminology used by the majority of reliable sources. The majority of reliable sources relating to Taipei in English use the term 'Taiwan'. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 03:05, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm not making the same claim Hsinhai is making (i.e. the move decision forbade changes to the article text). I think Hsinhai is also misguided. I'm saying that the move decision is irrelevant here. A logically flawed argument would be that because the decision stated that it did not explicitly apply to article titles, but did not state as explicitly that it did not apply to article text, the decision may be used to endorse changes in article text. That article titles were directly singled out in the decision but article texts were not is because article titles were directly implicated while article texts were only tangentially implicated. The move decision also did not state that the decision should not be used to justify moving apple to orange. It didn't say most things that could be said. Just because it didn't say something was not allowed does not mean it can be used to suggest that something allowed. It simply isn't relevant.
This all said, I don't see a problem with listing "Taiwan" in the infobox as it is a mere location indicator. However, I think changing "capital of the Republic of China, commonly known as Taiwan" to "capital of the Taiwan" reduces the accuracy of the text. Here, Republic of China is not being used to refer to a location, but a state entity. Nothing is lost in using Republic of China as long as we explain that the common name is Taiwan. This is something that has no justification in the change. Since we are not a paper encyclopedia, we are not concerned about space. --Jiang (talk) 03:55, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
I suppose my position may have been misinterpreted. The decision effectively says 'Don't do X' but makes no mention of Y. It's logically flawed to interpret the decision as 'Don't do X and don't do Y' in the same way it's logically flawed to interpret the decision as 'Don't do X but Y is fine'. But I'm not suggesting the decision explicitly allows undiscussed content changes, I'm saying that because it doesn't cover that point at all, we can fall back on our usual methods of content change.
You indicated that Republic of China is being used to refer to the state entity, and I agree. However, the common name for the state entity, as well as its most common usage in reliable sources, is 'Taiwan', not 'Republic of China'. The impetus for change from ROC to Taiwan in this context is both the proposed NC-TW replacement (cities are geographical subjects) but also our standard operating procedure on reliable sources. Given the majority of sources use the term 'Taiwan' and not 'Republic of China', WP:DUE advises that we should give the majority term more prominence. This would be in line with saying 'Taipei is the capital of Taiwan', or at bare minimum, 'Taipei is the capital of Taiwan (officially the Republic of China)'. It doesn't support using 'Republic of China' in the position of higher prominence. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 04:14, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
I think we are largely in agreement over the characterization of the move decision and its implications here, but I am taking issue with how you've characterized it above, in which your comments could be interpreted as suggesting that the move proposal dictates a "yes" answer for this RFC. In light of the intentions of the closing administrators, I would prefer that you not reference the move decision as authority at all and concentrated solely on policy arguments. It is mere historical background material for this RFC.
WP:DUE applies to conflicting arguments so I don't see how it is relevant. We are dealing with words, not arguments here. And within the same sentence. I'm don't see how the difference between "Taipei is the capital of Taiwan (officially the Republic of China)" and "Taipei is the capital of the Republic of China, commonly known as the Republic of China" is governed by WP:DUE. Just because a word appears first in a sentence does not mean it is more important. The reason to favor the current wording is explained by me below. It is strictly an accuracy consideration. Reliable sources use both forms, so they do not give us any general guidance.--Jiang (talk) 04:27, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
I'll take a simple approach on it. The article already calls Taipei the capital of the "Republic of China, commonly known as Taiwan." Why not just switch it around (similarly to how the Taiwan article now is) and say "of Taiwan, offically the Republic of China," because I'm sure any reference to the country (or island, because in the case of Taipei, any reference to either is synonomous) is thereafter called "Taiwan", not the ROC, unless its specifically refering to the government. JPECH95 03:12, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
"Capital of the Republic of China, commonly known as Taiwan" is slightly more accurate phrasing than "capital of Taiwan, offically the Republic of China." The former is an accurate and undisputed characterization that Taiwan is the common name of the Republic of China. The latter suggests that Taiwan is not merely the common name of the Republic of China but a universal and equivalent name, a notion that raises objections from some quarters. As indicated by the recent move, all names here carry some political baggage - technological limitations of the article title forces picking a side, but article text can treat the issue more delicately. I changed this in the lead sentence of the Taiwan article but was reverted - but I won't dispute this there for now as I would need more ammunition than this to overcome the consistency argument - an argument that does not apply here.--Jiang (talk) 04:02, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

@Kauffner, your methodology is flawed. Your first result for "capital of Taiwan" states that "the capital of Taiwan is Chunghsing New Village" (the capital of Taiwan Province in Taichung); the second result states that "Taipei remained a temporary provincial capital before it officially became the capital of Taiwan in 1894"; the sixth result states that ""the capital of Taiwan Province (Taiwan sheng) in 1891". So your Google Books results suggests that "capital of Taiwan" is an ambiguous phrase that needs further qualification.

Further, I don't grasp the relevance of your arguments. If people might confuse "Republic of China" with "People's Republic of China", then we are suppose to explain, through parenthetical clauses and article linkage, the difference. The purpose of this encyclopedia is to educate. We do no shove terms under the rug just because they sound similar to some other term. That is a non-argument.--Jiang (talk) 04:13, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

For statistics sake, here's what I come up with on Google Books:
And the same searches on Google Scholar:
No matter which way you slice these figures, Taipei is in Taiwan and is the capital of Taiwan in English language sources. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 05:00, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
Again, I don't quite grasp the relevance of all these statistics. Please cite the policy rationale. WP:COMMONNAME is not relevant as it applies to article titles, not text. WP:NPOV, which is authority here, states that "The best name to use for something may depend on the context in which it is mentioned; it may be appropriate to mention alternative names and the controversies over their use, particularly when the thing in question is the main topic being discussed." Reliable sources here suggest that both "capital of Taiwan" and "capital of the Republic of China" are valid options. Editorial judgment is needed in how to render this information here - both forms can appear in the same article in different contexts. The answer to your RFC is yes, it may be used; but unlike WP:COMMONNAME no policy suggests that it has to be used.
My initial response to Kauffner was that his data did not support his argument as much as it appeared from the numbers alone, but this was not my main point. My overall response is that the data is not really relevant per WP:VERIFY. Text in article do not need to be supported by the majority of sources; they only need to be supported by at least one but preferably more reliable sources. No one is doubting either of "capital of Taiwan" and "capital of the Republic of China" as verifiable statements.--Jiang (talk) 05:23, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
When sources conflict on information, we have always deferred to the information appearing most dominantly in reliable sources provided it's not incorrect. 'Taiwan' is not incorrect in English usage as it is the common English name for the country, and WP:DUE details how we assess which information to use. With conflicting sources, we're dealing with differing viewpoints on what is correct information (one viewpoint supports 'Taipei is the capital of Taiwan' and the other viewpoint supports 'Taipei is the capital of the Republic of China'). DUE says to "keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public". This means that the viewpoint most commonly seen in reliable sources is the viewpoint we afford the most weight and grant the position of greatest prominence in the article. It's clear in English that in a sentence constructed as 'X is Y (or Z)' that Y is in a more prominent location than Z. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 05:39, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
There is no informational conflict here so WP:DUE is irrelevant. An informational conflict would be some sources claiming Taipei is the capital of Taiwan and some sources claiming Taichung is the capital of Taiwan...or more relevant, some sources claiming Peking to be the capital of China and other sources claiming Nanking or Taipei to the capital of China, in which case we would treat Peking as the capital of China and Taipei as the capital of Taiwan under WP:DUE. There are no conflicting viewpoints based on different perceptions of fact in this debate. The sources do not disagree - they just use different terms to refer to the same thing as a matter of editorial preference. This is merely a stylistic question to be settled by the Manual of Style, which leaves such issues to editorial discretion. I am favoring the existing text in the lead since it maximizes the information presented.--Jiang (talk) 06:34, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
I disagree. The information conflict is on what the country is called in English language sources. The fact that both terms are synonymous doesn't particularly help us in determining which term we should actually use and it's very clearly not as simple as 'pick whichever one you want' when each term has political POV attached to it. The neutral approach is to use the term most commonly found in reliable sources. This was the reason the ROC article was renamed (common name dictates using the most common name in sources for article titles) and it's the most neutral treatment in article content as well (due weight dictates using the most common name in reliable sources for article content). If the terms didn't carry differing political weight then it might be as simple as you suggest, but they do, and it's not. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 06:46, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
An information conflict would be a dispute over the actual facts contained in the article, not disagreements among Wikipedia editors over stylistic preference in using a particular term. The Manual of Style does not use WP:DUE as a basis for determining when to prefer certain terms (petrol) over others (gasoline). We would not go around doing google checks to determine whether to use petrol or gasoline in an article - we would base it on what would make most sense in the particular context. I fail to see a information conflict here. The text of WP:DUE assumes contradictory arguments, and there are no contradictory content assumptions here.
When you argue that "the neutral approach is to use the term most commonly found in reliable sources," aren't you making an argument that all instances of "Republic of China" should be changed to "Taiwan" (which you called a straw man earlier)? In what instances would we prefer "Republic of China" over "Taiwan"? Again, you seem to be applying WP:COMMONNAME to article text when the policy was designed for article titles. If the community wanted it to apply to article text as well, they would have said so a long time ago. The complexity of the issue means it is never as simple as saying that article text must match article titles. Why else would we have a pipelinking function? It is precisely because these terms carry political baggage that we must use editorial discretion in writing articles and not impose some politically insensitive rule saying that article text must match article titles determined by WP:COMMONNAME. --Jiang (talk) 07:04, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
Petrol and gasoline are English dialect differences covered by WP:ENGVAR, which indicates that the subject of the article or the first major contributor determines the language variant to be used. It was designed to avoid edit warring over changes to words that have no other meaningful difference. The terms 'petrol' and 'gasoline' have no political weighting and are in every way synonymous. In cases where there's a difference of meaning, the MOS guideline is overridden by the DUE content policy, just as every policy takes precedence over every guideline when they conflict. The ROC/Taiwan matter is one such case of 'meaningful difference' that is beyond the scope of the MOS to effectively mediate. WP:POVTITLE was used during the ROC->Taiwan move and was mentioned specifically in the final decision, indicating the admins acknowledged that both titles carry different POV. WP:POVTITLE provides resolution for this in titles, and WP:DUE provides resolution for this in article content.
The 'change all ROC to Taiwan' argument is a strawman because nobody has made that argument. Using the term appearing most commonly in sources is not in any way the same. Books and Scholar results for "President of the Republic of China" and "President of Taiwan" are almost identical and it may well be the case that the best quality sources favour "President of the Republic of China". In this case, common appearance would support keeping the title "President of the Republic of China". Sources for "Constitution of the Republic of China" vastly outnumber sources for "Constitution of Taiwan" and the common appearance argument firmly supports the ROC version of the term in that case. It's not at all true that the common usage will necessarily result in a blanket change. Common appearance is and rightly should be applied to each individual case, not to the term as a whole.
As I said, it's long been the community's understanding that WP:DUE is the content-side counterpart to WP:COMMONNAME. The difference is that WP:DUE takes advantage of content space to provide information on all notable points of view, with appropriate prominence based on their prevalence in reliable sources (eg. "Taipei is the capital of Taiwan (officially the Republic of China)") whereas the limited space constraints of the article title force WP:COMMONNAME to make a decision one way or the other. This has been the practice applied to just about every article I've ever worked on, and has been raised and reaffirmed in every content dispute and every AN or DR thread on the matter that I've seen. This isn't some new interpretation, this is how things have been in practice for a long time, in my experience. I do understand that you disagree that there is a policy-based justification and that's why we're having this RFC, to see what the others think. I'm happy to concede that WP:DUE would prefer we use the 'Taiwan (officially the ROC)' construction over just 'Taiwan' as I voted above, but I insist firmly that WP:DUE absolutely applies here and that it is absolutely not a simply stylistic preference. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 07:41, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
Even if WP:DUE is the content-side counterpart to WP:COMMONNAME (which I will assume good faith on your part and assume is true), I do not see how mention of both terms in different order represents different viewpoints. I am the only one on this page who has argued that "Taiwan (officially the Republic of China)" and "Republic of China (commonly known as Taiwan)" carry slightly different meanings (see my response to Jpech95). If on the other hand you believe these two variants mean the same thing, then how can they represent different viewpoints? Contrast the selection of "capital of Taiwan" and "capital of the Republic of China" (without mention of Taiwan) - those two could potentially be the basis of different interpretation, but no one here suggests dropping mention of Taiwan from the text entirely. If there is no difference in meaning, then I don't see how WP:DUE is relevant. WP:DUE to viewpoints, not semantics.--Jiang (talk) 21:51, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
I agree with you that "Taiwan (officially the Republic of China)" and "Republic of China (commonly known as Taiwan)" mean slightly different things, but I don't reach the same conclusion you do, that the latter is more accurate. As I mentioned above, English sentence construction gives implicit seniority to objects appearing earlier in the order of a list, and main phrase objects have implicit seniority over parentheticals which are considered optional in reading. It's the natural method of reading English and it's why there are rules that a sentence must be complete even with parentheticals removed - "John is a bastard (and a friend)" still reads as a correct sentence when the parenthetical text is removed. This means text appearing in the main body of the sentence has greater prominence in English. In the example sentence, it's implicit that the main intent being conveyed is that John is a bastard, and the fact's he's also a friend is given lower significance. The same implicit prominence affects constructions like 'Taiwan (officially the Republic of China)' because in that construction, 'Taiwan' is the main intent and '(officially the Republic of China)' is an optional, lower-significance explanatory parenthetical.
Our policies tell us we should give more prevalent viewpoints greater prominence and this extends to situations such as this, too. The construction "<common> (officially <official>)" is very widespread across Wikipedia (just look at the lede sentences of Albania, Australia, Brazil, Croatia, Greece, Ethiopia, Norway, Portugal or any country really, and then look at the articles for each of their capital cities and note what's written in their ledes and infoboxes) because it gives more prominence to the more common name, per WP:DUE. What may seem like a minor detail can be a major flashpoint to fanatics and diehard supporters on both sides of any given political cause, and the way Wikipedia generally washes its hands of political POV is to follow its policies. That way when someone tries arguing later that it should be "Y (commonly X)" instead of "X (officially Y)", we have something to point to when we tell them we're not being biased or taking sides on the subject of X, we're simply applying our policies evenly across all of our articles. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 22:31, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

@John Smith's - You may not see a policy-based objection, but I do not see a policy-based justification. This is a matter of stylistic preference.--Jiang (talk) 07:22, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Hsinhai, regarding the Taipei City website, could you take a look at this link and tell me what the first sentence under the heading 'The Overview of Taipei City' says? – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 09:16, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

NULL, a investor-targeted subpage on the TPC government website is quite weak. The highest executive level of the ROC is the Executive Yuan. The Government Information Office, a EY department published the following information: http://www.gio.gov.tw/taiwan-website/5-gp/glance/ch1.htm Therefore, Taipei is the capital of the Republic of ChinaHsinhai (talk) 10:23, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Ah yes, the Government Information Office. I provided a number of links from the GIO in the ROC->Taiwan move where they referred to ROC solely as 'Taiwan'. Here's a few more links from the GIO.
If referring to Taipei as the capital of Taiwan is good enough for a president, official tourism and economic press releases and published reviews, not to mention the near-endless supply of reliable, independent sources that also refer to Taipei as the capital of Taiwan, why wouldn't it be good enough for Wikipedia? Does former President Chen's official statements only count if you agree with them politically?
Since you didn't like the Taipei government page I linked you to, what about these other pages from the same site?
Some of these references to 'Taipei, capital of Taiwan' are attributed to Hau Lung-pin, mayor of Taipei and a KMT politician. So KMT doesn't mind referring to Taipei as the capital of Taiwan, and DPP (President Chen, above) doesn't mind referring to Taipei as the capital of Taiwan, so who exactly does mind referring to Taipei as the capital of Taiwan? – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 11:05, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

NULL, do you know about public international law? The name of the state on Taiwan is NOT Taiwan, but Republic of China. While Taiwan may be the colloquial or even common name for the Republic of China (at least for events that took place after 1949), the name of the state that exercises power on Taiwan is the Republic of China. That is also the very reason, why ROC passports ONLY state "Republic of China" as the holder's nationality, and not some hybrid form like "Republic of China (Taiwan)" or even just "Taiwan" . I am sure you will find local government or tourism websites that either do not mention the term USA once in their address or substitute it with the term "America". Does that change anything about US passports being issues with "United States of America" as the nationality? Definitely not. This is not about anyone in the ROC government taking an issue with calling Taipei the capital city of Taiwan. In fact, the article even mentions that the ROC is commonly known as Taiwan. The info box gives official names however - how about you read the info box of the Taiwan article. Last time I checked, the ROC constitution was not changed. And if you really want to push for common name (and not just push your ROC purging agenda), then I dare you to changed United States to America in Washington DC's info box. Hsinhai (talk) 11:44, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

The official name of the country isn't relevant to this article. The common name is Taiwan, and Taipei is the capital of Taiwan, according to both official primary sources and a wealth of secondary independent sources. As for the passport, I suggest you take a look at File:Taiwan_ROC_Passport.jpg, which has been in effect since 2003. The infobox only gives the official name of the city in its title, as it should, and the rest of the information is standard naming practices. I have no interest in changing the ROC infobox at Taiwan to say anything other than 'Republic of China', and I have no ROC purging agenda, that appears to be a fabrication of your own making, much like you fabricated the statement "Null has repeatedly changed the country name in the info box" when no such thing happened. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 11:51, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
And as you kindly pointed out, the article on Washington, D.C. uses the common name (United States) in both its lede and its infobox as opposed to the official name United States of America. Much like this article should use the common name Taiwan in both its lede and its infobox. Thank you for providing an example of why this would be a consistent change. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 11:58, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
Official name doesn't matter, that's quite right. The overwhelming use is serious sources of Taiwan is what matters - and is what makes that just as "correct" as any official usage by the state itself.
As for the "common name doesn't apply to text" objection, that's not quite true - the wording here implicitly assumes, unsurprisingly and utterly logically, that we would be using the same name in text as in title for the same thing: "There is also no reason why alternative names cannot be used in article text, in contexts where they are more appropriate than the name used as the title of the article". The naming convention on geographic names is even more explicit, at least within the text of the same article: "The same name as in the title should be used consistently throughout the article, unless there is a widely accepted historic English name for a specific historical context".
Any comparison with President or Constitution article issues is slightly off-point; there are other reasons why changes to those article titles to refer to Taiwan on the basis of the main article title change would be problematic, to do with legal formalities and, mainly, history (eg it makes no sense to imply that early ROC presidents were presidents "of Taiwan"). This is a contemporary, non-technical reference to the country. The text here should follow the contemporary, non-technical name we have now agreed for that country. N-HH talk/edits 13:57, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
NULL: the addition of "Taiwan" to the front cover of the ROC passport did not change the official name of the country or the nationality of its holders. The German passport says "Federal Republic of Germany" - yet there is no such thing as FRG citizenship. The PRC passport for Chinese citizens with permanent Hong Kong SAR residency says "Hong Kong SAR Passport" in addition to "People's Republic of China" (and is in that regard quite like the ROC passport) - yet the nationality of the bearers is Chinese, not "Hong Kong". Why can't you live with a compromise, where "Republic of China (Taiwan)" is in the info box? All the quoted government sources do this likewise. Hsinhai (talk) 14:36, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
It's a bit pointless to get bogged down in the name on the passport and what it "means". It's one document amidst mountains of other relevant evidence, and policy and convention on common names as opposed to official names is pretty clear. And are you saying you would now accept Taiwan in the opening sentence, so long as ROC (Taiwan) is in the infobox, as a "compromise"? If so, you might wish to amend your main response above (as well as move your second contribution from up there to down here). N-HH talk/edits 14:47, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

@N-HH and CMD: The argument that we don't have "French Republic, commonly known as France" is a strawman. Find one other example where the common name does not form part of the official name. It would make not sense to state "Republic of China, commonly known as Taiwan", but here, the common and official names are so different that producing both in the text will be more informative than presenting one, because one cannot necessarily be inferred from the other.--Jiang (talk) 21:33, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Well that's easy. Greece is officially called the 'Hellenic Republic', and its capital Athens says 'Greece' (alone) in the lede and infobox. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 22:10, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
As a similar situation, perhaps East Timor could be used. Now East Timor is officially the "Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste". It actually even asserts "Timor-Leste" as a shortform name. We however, use East Timor. On Dili, "Dili is the capital, largest city, chief port and commercial centre of East Timor." CMD (talk) 00:19, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
There is no shame in learning. Today I learned Greece is officially the Hellenic Republic and that East Timor wants to be called Timor-Leste. Just because I call feces gold, doesn't make poo gold. Others who don't understand the difference between poo and gold may wish to learn it too. Hanfresco (talk) 05:38, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
Greece is officially "Greece".[6][7] Kauffner (talk) 08:31, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
No, it's not. See the websites for the President of the Hellenic Republic, the Prime Minister of the Hellenic Republic, the Hellenic Parliament, the Hellenic Republic Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Hellenic Republic Ministry of Finance, to list a handful. The CIA World Factbook (see 'conventional long form') and US State Department also have this right. Greece is the short form used day-to-day but not the full official name. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 10:29, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
@Jiang. The France/French Republic example is not a strawman; but is admittedly an imperfect analogy, for the reasons you state. However, it does illustrate the broader principle that we tend to use the short-form name in general references in other articles, as well as for the main article title; plus, as above, we have other examples that also apply that principle even when there is a big difference between official and short-form names. Post-move, I don't see why we're having to prove over and over - especially with someone who helped draft that move and who also seems to be in favour of naming guidelines that say as much - that "Taiwan" is the usual way we should refer to this country in any casual, contemporary context. Like every other reference source in the world does. N-HH talk/edits 10:45, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
How is it that official names do not matter? Wikipedia is still an Encloypedia and should adhere to accuracy as much as possible. Wikipedia is here for people to learn not for editors to push a political agenda. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.46.140 (talk) 16:40, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
If we spoke only in official terms, we'd be out walking our Canis lupus familiaris while enjoying a nice Musa acuminata fresh from the pseudostem (or do you prefer Malus domestica?), musing over whether the Hellenic Republic can solve its debt woes. Official names do matter, but not on every page. They go in the proper spot (usually an infobox) on their main subject page, and everywhere else they're referred to by their common name. That sentence above would have been a lot more understandable to people if it had been about dogs, bananas, apples and Greece (the common names for all of those things) instead of the way it was written. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 00:35, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
Canis lupus familiaris, Musa acuminata, Malus domestica, Hellenic Republic are no more relevant to this discussion as United States/USA or United Kingdom/Britain. Official names matter to and in the Republic of China and every other sovereign nation around the world. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.46.140 (talk) 14:15, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
Rather, I should say that Official name versus Common name matters more in regards to the Republic of China than almost any other sovereign state in the world. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.110.144 (talk) 16:00, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
If we're going to break consistency with every other article we have on Wikipedia, we'd need proof that what you say is true. Do you have any sources to support your assertion that the official name is more important in ROC/Taiwan than elsewhere? We use common names specifically to avoid taking sides in political debates. When we choose to use Taiwan, it's because Taiwan is the most commonly used name in English, not because we think Taiwan is the 'right' name, nor because we support Taiwanese independence or oppose reunification. The politics of the matter specifically doesn't factor into our decisions for this reason. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 22:34, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
As noted we generally don't use official names when they are not also the commonly used term (and by commonly used, we don't simply mean by random people in a bar or tabloid newspapers - we mean by reputable and serious sources). That's the way it is. If you don't like that policy, or the fact that following that policy, the main article page for the thing commnly known these days as Taiwan is at, er, Taiwan, you'll need to take it up in those places respectively. N-HH talk/edits 14:50, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
WP:COMMONNAME is a policy in regards to titles, not to the articles themselves. You're over-stretching the common name policy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.78.140 (talk) 16:37, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
Here's the policy for your reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:COMMONNAME#Common_names. Stop implying that it is Wikipedia policy to use common name everywhere, including article text; that is just patently false and untrue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.78.140 (talk) 16:47, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
I have read it thanks. Given that it is a sub-section of the policy on "Article Titles", it is not surprising that common name policy focuses on, er, article titles. The idea that it therefore does not apply to references to names in article text is at best a bit of a leap and at worst absurd. One would have thought it follows fairly obviously that once we've determined the general, common name for something, that's the name we use for it everywhere, subject to context - indeed that assumption is there in the wording of common name to the extent that it raises any exceptions to that rule; and the principle is explicit in the geographic name guideline. Perhaps you could in turn read those, as highlighted in my comment above, from a couple of days ago. N-HH talk/edits 16:57, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
When you have clear, written proof that common name has to be used in article text based on Wikipedia policies or consensus that it should pertain to the article text, please provide it. Your assumptions and personal interpretations are not WP:Policy.
Tell you what, I'll race you to see if you can find first any explicit instructions in policy, guidelines or consensus that common names should not be used in article text. I have actually shown you a guideline that says - rather obviously - that it should, but you've chosen to ignore that. This is like discussing bathroom hygiene with a child who has been told to use the toilet who insists "but you didn't tell me I couldn't piss on the floor". Denigrating taking the obvious for granted as merely an unfounded "assumption" or "personal interpretation" is the game of a troll or an idiot.N-HH talk/edits 17:28, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
You're the one saying we should use common name in article text, the burden of proof that we should do that is on you. What do they say about people who are the first to issue a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_personal_attacks? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.78.140 (talk) 17:30, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
Here's a hint: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.78.140 (talk) 17:32, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
You're the one saying we shouldn't use it, the burden is on you etc etc. Yawn. We could do this forever. And if you don't want me to criticise your behaviour, don't behave that way. N-HH talk/edits 17:37, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
You've obviously run out of good, logical arguments to support your cause. You're making it easier for others to ignore you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.78.140 (talk) 17:39, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
N-HH has made his argument, that the principles behind commonname apply to text to, and there's simply been no response to it. CMD (talk) 17:45, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
His/Her argument isn't written in WP:Policy. Where something isn't written WP:Policy, Consensus is required. He/She speaks of Common Name within article texts as though it were a Wikipedia mandate. However, his/her argument isn't supported by Policy or Consensus and therefore lacks authority. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.174.144 (talk) 19:30, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
You still haven't offered a response to it. CMD (talk) 22:27, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
N-HH did provide you with information written in a content guideline, at WP:NCGN: "When a widely accepted English name, in a modern context, exists for a place, we should use it", "The same name as in the title should be used consistently throughout the article", "When a widely accepted English name, in a modern context, exists for a place, we should use it", "Within articles, places should generally be referred to by the same name as is used in their article title". NCGN represents broad consensus on how geographic places and articles should be written. WP:DUE also applies, as I've mentioned a number of times above. So the burden is on you, 159, to show why the consensus of our naming convention guidelines shouldn't apply here. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 23:18, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

@Skyflier: That's actually what they are saying (and that shouldn't matter anyway, as a capital city is all to do with government. By your argument, we shouldn't take Jamaica to be a country either. The Oxford Dictionary often equates islands and countries which have the same name where the island makes up most of the country [8][9]. It's also impressive how you posted that Oxford dictionary link while managing to ignore "capital, Taipei; language, Mandarin Chinese (official). Official name China, Republic of." CMD (talk) 04:03, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Also, you refer to the CIA world fact book as supporting your contention. In fact it says the opposite - it clearly specifies "Taiwan" as the name of the country based on the island, and Taipei as the capital of "Taiwan". It was in fact cited in support of the name change for the main article, along with many other country articles that say exactly the same thing, such as the UK FCO, the BBC etc. N-HH talk/edits 14:25, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Taiwan province

Two people have raised this in their responses - here and then here. But no one's suggesting saying it is in "Taiwan province" or linking to the Taiwan province article. We're suggesting simply and directly saying it is in - or rather the capital of - "Taiwan", ie the country/state, and linking to that article. Since when did "in Taiwan" ever mean merely in "Taiwan province" anyway? N-HH talk/edits 14:50, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Decision time?

The debate has gone quiet for a while, but the conclusion - especially when factored alongside the decision to move the main ROC article to Taiwan - would appear to reflect a consensus to refer to Taipei as the capital "of Taiwan"; like 99% of real-word sources - academic, general reference and media - do. However, my attempt to implement this has now been reverted by the same editor that reverted a previous recent bid by someone else to do it. Not only do they seem to be editing, despite their claims, against discussion consensus, but I'm not sure the Beijing page provides a good comparison - it's part of the same wider debate, and presumably its current terminology reflects previous practice. Paris, London, Tokyo, Jakarta etc provide better examples, where, as usual, the short form of the parent country is preferred in the first sentence. N-HH talk/edits 17:40, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I dispute the 99% figure! I think it's 68.45634242453421143255228453533221%!
Anyway, this case is different in that you can't just write "capital of Taiwan" unadorned and introduce "Republic of China" a couple paragraphs later without confusing your reader. The choices are "capital of Taiwan, officially the Republic of China", "the Republic of China, commonly known as Taiwan", "Republic of China (Taiwan)", "Taiwan (the Republic of China)". My preference is to go for one of the shorter forms, especially "Republic of China (Taiwan)" being less contested and more accurate, with a single pipelink to the country article. Can you explain how the others are better options?
The sentiment here, per my discussion with NULL above, is not to use either "Taiwan" or "Republic of China" without introducing the other in the same sentence.--Jiang (talk) 17:52, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
Apologies, the 99% is slight hyperbole [sic] of course. But the "Taiwan" short form is definitely the majority usage, however you run the maths, and - as a result - it's what's finally been agreed on WP as the usual name. I have to say as well that I think using the bracketed alternatives - although they bring in both terms in the briefest format possible - are the worst of all options, as they're seen even more rarely, and I prefer prose as explanation. My preference was and is for "Taiwan, officially [known as] the Republic of China,"; and that was a compromise, as I'm not even sure the ROC addition/qualification is even needed at all at that point - doesn't the current version of the final paragraph introduce and explain the ROC issue fairly well as it is without a prior mention? N-HH talk/edits 21:27, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
I disagree with your premise that the short form in this particular instance "is definitely the majority usage" - at least I don't see evidence for it. In fact, the evidence slightly leans towards the opposite: "capital of the Republic of China" is a more common phrase than "capital of Taiwan." Just take a look at "capital of Taiwan" -wikipedia versus "capital of the Republic of China" -wikipedia. The results become even more lopsided when you search Google Books. Sure, there are references to the former that don't refer to Taipei, but the majority do, and a minority of references to the latter don't refer to Taipei as well.
The final paragraph should not be introducing "ROC" without spelling out the acronym first. I do not think it is sufficient for those who think Republic of China = People's Republic of China. It would only send the wrong idea that Taipei was once the capital of China, but now it is the capital of Taiwan, if the two ideas are not sufficiently linked.--Jiang (talk) 21:59, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
Those Google results don't seem to me to reflect modern real-world proportions or the stats cited in the main debate above, possibly because of the exact search terms you've used. Also the last para does mention and spell out "Republic of China" in full before using the acronym ROC (and also uses the ROC terminology there in the proper historical context). It currently says: "The Republic of China took over the island in 1945 following Japanese surrender ... [the KMT] resettled the ROC government to Taiwan and declared Taipei the provisional capital of the Republic of China in December". I think that's quite clear, and accurate, and indeed makes the formulation "Taiwan, officially the Republic of China" the more appropriate, clear and logical description at the top of the lead. As I said, the "Republic of China (Taiwan)" styling is very rare; the use of brackets also makes it look as if there's another Republic of China somewhere, and this is just the Taiwan version. N-HH talk/edits 15:10, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
For example, try simply Googling "Taipei capital [city]". You'll get dizzy from the mass appearance of "Taiwan"s all over the page. It's a long wait before "Republic of China" - let along "Republic of China (Taiwan)" - turns up. Can we please just fall into line with the rest of the world - and, indeed, our own article on "Taiwan", rather than unnecessarily having to pipe the link - finally? N-HH talk/edits 11:52, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
I like the Republic of China, commonly known as "Taiwan" because it clearly states the situation rather than resorting to potentially ambiguous parentheses, or simply Taiwan because Taipei was the capital before the Chinese showed up. Readin (talk) 13:56, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
Since the article is a contemporary one, we write in the present tense, and readers read in the present tense, it doesn't matter when the Chinese came, just that they're here. Besides, the Republic of China had other capitals before they went to Taiwan, so the anachronistic argument works both ways. CMD (talk) 14:01, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
I added this RFC to the list of closure requests, which is currently backlogged. Personally I think this will emerge as no consensus but we'll need an uninvolved admin to rubber-stamp it. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 05:19, 24 May 2012 (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.

RFC closure re Taiwan/ROC etc

Hang on, fair enough to note the above as having "no [clear] consensus", since there is obvious disagreement. However, many of the dissenting voices are totally ignoring policy and practice. We also have to say it's the capital of something - and surely that something should be what we call the main article, which, as also noted, also has majority support at least, FWIW. That is, "Taiwan". Instead we currently have not even the second choice - "Republic of China" - which would be bad enough, but the rarely-seen and never-mentioned in the RFC "Republic of China (Taiwan)". There may not be strict consensus for "Taiwan" but there's certainly not consensus for either of the other options. N-HH talk/edits 15:17, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any policy that is on point. Naming conventions (the only policy articles linked above) apply to article titles, not article text. If there was policy clearly aligned in favor of one side as you claim, the RFC could have been decided one way or the other.
The choice, as the decision quickly evolved, is not over whether to use either Taiwan or Republic of China, but to use both in the same sentence. I'm happy to participate in brainstorming alternative solutions, but it is counterproductive to second-guess the closing decision above.--Jiang (talk) 07:46, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
Well, no, what you say about the naming conventions is plain wrong. Yes, it's not policy, but, per common sense - unsurprisingly, as it would be bizarre any other way - the guideline on place names explicitly says that the name chosen for an article title should also, generally, be used in article text. In this specific case, simply saying "Taipei is the capital of Taiwan", as the large majority of real-world sources would, is a rather obvious no-brainer. Why should Wikipedia live in an esoteric and eccentric bubble? At a push, there's a case for adding "officially the Republic of China", although that is all explained in the linked article on Taiwan. We've already made this decision at the main article title. Why does it have to be refought on every page, and then that debate closed as "no consensus" because one or two random WP editors continue to hold out or offer even worse third options? This is inertia by veto and a recipe for endless talk page tedium. N-HH talk/edits 10:45, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
Like it or not, this has to be "refought on every page" because many of us who supported the page move, and the three closing administrators who decided on the move, designed it that way. There many instances where using "Taiwan" is more appropriate than using "Republic of China," while (believe it or not) there are instances where using "Republic of China" is more appropriate than using "Taiwan." This is a case-by-case editorial decision. Never has there been any consensus or decision to change all mentions of "Republic of China" on Wikipedia to "Taiwan" - in fact the move decision explicitly says it did not do this. Suggesting that those who don't agree with the notion that all mentions of "Republic of China" on Wikipedia should be changed to "Taiwan" are weirdos is just plainly unproductive when it comes to finding a workable solution. I consider it an assumption of bad faith if you want to assert that "one or two random WP editors continue to hold out." This is an exaggeration of the facts, in the least, given that there are nearly half twenty, not one or two in the discussion above, supporting giving preference to "Republic of China." Perhaps one or two dissenters operate in some other articles, but certainly not here, and if the situation were really what you suggest, the decision would not have been "no consensus". Where there have been only "one or two dissenters" on related move requests, the request to move has almost always succeeded.
Back to the content - I already showed above that "Taipei is the capital of Taiwan" does not get more internet results than "Taipei is the capital of the Republic of China." Since we are focusing exclusively on the order of words, the contents of the specific phrase is relevant. That "Taipei, Taiwan" gets more hits than "Taipei, Republic of China" says nothing about Taipei being the "capital" of Taiwan - it is only reason to have Taiwan listed as the country location in the infobox. However we fudge the numbers (the ones you provided that specifically reference "capital"), the data suggests no clear cut preference, so no, this is not an "obvious no-brainer". Can we now focus on what arrangment of words best presents the facts, rather than why Wikipedia user Jiang is living in an esoteric and eccentric bubble?--Jiang (talk) 11:56, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
Re Wikipedia:NCGN, this would not be inconsistent. First, the guidelines say "places should generally [not universally] be referred to by the same name as is used in their article title." This is a valid exception due to context. Second, we refer to "Taiwan" or "Republic of China" here not as a place but as a political unit when we reference the capital, so the guideline is not wholly relevant. This distinction lies here: "Taipei is the capital of the Republic of China; it was the largest city in Taiwan." --Jiang (talk) 12:04, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
I don't agree that this case is an appropriate exception to the rule, and I agree with N-HH that re-fighting common sense changes individually on every involved page is tedious and draining on everyone involved, both for and against. That said, I do agree with you Jiang that there has not been, nor should there be, a universal decision to replace all instances of ROC with Taiwan, and I'll note that that particular point has been raised as a strawman by others in prior discussions on this subject. I don't think anyone has seriously suggested actually doing that, and I'd certainly be opposed to a blanket change.
I don't know where you've established that the search results for the terms are inconclusive though. I included fairly solid results above in the discussion where I demonstrated that Taipei is referenced as the capital of Taiwan, specifically with no mention of the ROC at all, in more results across Google, Google Scholar and Google Books than the alternative.
All said though, this discussion has closed as no consensus and I don't see any benefit in reopening it at the moment. There's no new evidence yet and it might be a good idea to let the matter cool down and work on other areas of the Taiwan/ROC debate that are less contested, and revisit this question again in a few months. I remain convinced that 'Taiwan' is the appropriate term to use here and that our policies and guidelines support this, but for the time being - at this article, at least - this is a dead horse. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 00:04, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
I agree as well that there are going to be cases where ROC is more appropriate than Taiwan, eg in historical and more technical contexts - I have never argued for universal replacement or criticised those who have rejected that idea (and yes, as a matter of general guidance, WP:NCGN of course allows for such divergence from common, standard names, when it uses the word "generally" as you highlighted Jiang). However, those cases are going to be rather obvious and specific - the assumption in any general context, such as here, should be in favour of Taiwan, and the burden should be on those preferring ROC to make that case. As noted, Taiwan was also the majority decision here, if not one made with clear consensus. I don't want to overanalyse the Google results or search methodology, but to continue to assert that the evidence shows ROC is more common in relevant, serious real-world references to Taipei genuinely seems eccentric. And, finally, I offered my options for what wording would best suit - "capital of Taiwan", with a possible although in my view unnecessary "officially the Republic of China".
All that said, this is probably indeed a dead horse, which is why I despair of Wikipedia sometimes. The simplest, most obvious things - where the "hard" work has already been done by a far greater number of far greater minds than ours out in the real world - are left looking odd, idiosyncratic or somtimes plain wrong in our text by veto, and no amount of rational discourse (and wasted time) can put it right; and conversely, complex issues and political disputes are often reduced to misleading right-or-wrong banality. N-HH talk/edits 08:42, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Biased, inaccurate introductory paragraph

The introductory paragraph implies that the Republic of China is a legitimate, legally conventional country which it isn't. Compare the Taipei article to the one on Tskhinvali; whilst the Taipei article is better, the Tskhinvali one gives a more accurate description of these types of cities' status as a capital. I've changed it but I think my sentence is a bit clumsy, nonetheless it is a necessary correction that should be in the introductory paragraph and I wanted to justify it with a post on the Talk section because I know things relating to China are often controversial. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 113.135.152.51 (talk) 15:39, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Are we supposed to repeat the word "a disputed region claimed by the People's Republic of China that is mostly based on Taiwan island and has limited international recognition" every time Taiwan is mentioned in political context on Wikipedia? I think not. Leave the details of the political dispute to the main Taiwan article. Non-sovereign political entities have capitals too.--Jiang (talk) 16:06, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Agree with Jiang. The Tskhinvali lead is basically a giant WP:Coatrack saying "South Ossetia is not really a country!". Not neutral, and not helpful to the reader. CMD (talk) 16:23, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Given that South Ossetia is probably much more obscure to the "average" reader that Taiwan, that the latest major flare-up there was pretty recent, and that the situation remains in flux, I think you can make a case for a bit of explanation on the Tskhinvali page, as currently; but agree that there's no need here, or for most pages about things in or from Taiwan or when Taiwan is referenced. Although the dispute over Taiwan is technically ongoing, the substance/nature of that debate has essentially been stable and normalised for some time now - from a global perspective at least - and is usually taken as read and worked around in the real world. Any relevant detail is properly noted on the main Taiwan page, which is linked. N-HH talk/edits 17:18, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

First line as Taipei/Taipei City

Since it's common English usage to only say "Taipei", should the first line of this article be 'Taipei' or should it remain 'Taipei City'? Or should the article begin with something like 'Taipei, formally known as Taipei City'? Transphasic (talk) 22:56, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Kaohsiung which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 20:59, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

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