Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)/Archives/2011/September

Falkland Islands

In order to maintain a neutral position in respect of the on-going sovereignty dispute of the Falkland Islands between the United Kingdom and Argentina, the English language version of Wikipedia has adopted the following conventions:

• Geographical articles include both the English and Spanish names of the locality in the lede and in the Infobox, otherwise the English name only is used
• Articles that directly relate to the dispute put a translation involving "Malvinas" directly after the first instance of "Falklands", but use "Falklands" alone thereafter - for example "Falkland Islands (Spanish:Islas Malvinas)" or "Falklands War (Spanish:Guerra de las Malvinas".

The Falkland Islands articles are frequently subsject to vandalism with phrases such as "Islas Malvinas sont Argentina" (I am not sure about the Spanish). The Falkland Islands group has attempted to maintian a neutral policy regarding the islands. This morning a Falkland Islander took umbridge at the name "Malvinas" appearing in the artciel, did some clumsy modifications and turned a few good links into a red link.

In view of this, the group had a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject South America/Falkland Islands work group#MOS:Geographical names where the princpals were agreed by the group memebers. Is the community at large happy with the addition that I have made? Martinvl (talk) 16:15, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

The proposed text is now at the top of the section.

I agree with both bullet points; they seem eminently reasonable, and helpful to the confused. I would strike the first clause; I doubt that professional Argentines will agree that the proposed guidance is neutral; if they cannot get the True Name of the islands alone, they will insist on equal time throughout articles.

As far as i am concerned, the real justification is the same we use elsewhere, as with Gdanzig: English-speakers overwhelmingly call the islands the Falklands, except when discussing the dispute. So should we, in writing English. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:17, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

We need some sort of introductory sentence to explain why and when Spanish names are given in a large selection of articles, but not Germans, French or Italian. We can't just have two bullet points with no intro. Martinvl (talk) 22:21, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually we could; most of our sections are rules without justification. But I agree that one is useful; and have added the assertion that Malivinas is encyclopedic information. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:30, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

I have added the word "disputed" with a link to the article Falkland Islands sovereignty dispute so as to ensure a WP:NPOV. Martinvl (talk) 07:29, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

This differs slightly from the actual practice on Falklands articles (as discussed at WT:FALKLAND) in that we don't put the Spanish name of localities or geographical features other than islands in infoboxes. Many of us would object to a Spanish name being included in the same way as Warszawa is used in Warsaw because in this case we should avoid the implication that the Spanish names are used locally. But there doesn't appear to be another way of doing it on {{Infobox settlement}}. This would also follow on from the Gdansk/Danzig precedent: that article also does not put "Danzig" in its infobox.

On islands we use {{Infobox Falkland island}}, which has an explicit "Spanish name" field, so this is not an issue. Pfainuk talk 08:59, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I would expect Martin's change to be uncontroversial; anybody interested enough to read the section will already know that the British Government disputes the territorial claim, but I see no harm in it.

This page is intended to document what editors do actually do, after discussion, so please do tweak until it does. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:53, 11 September 2011 (UTC)