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Nomination of Portal:Mozambique for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Mozambique is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Mozambique until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 01:30, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Tunisia for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Tunisia is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Tunisia until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 01:40, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Niger for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Niger is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Niger until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 01:42, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Algeria for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Algeria is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Algeria until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 01:42, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Burkina Faso for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Burkina Faso is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Burkina Faso until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 01:46, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Guinea-Bissau for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Guinea-Bissau is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Guinea-Bissau until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 01:46, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Botswana for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Botswana is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Botswana until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 01:46, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Rwanda for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Rwanda is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Rwanda until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 01:46, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Albania for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Albania is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Albania until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 01:50, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Ethiopia for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Ethiopia is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Ethiopia until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 01:52, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Montenegro for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Montenegro is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Montenegro until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 02:08, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Cape Verde for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Cape Verde is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Cape Verde (2nd nomination) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 02:08, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Kyrgyzstan for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Kyrgyzstan is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Kyrgyzstan (2nd nomination) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 02:08, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Namibia for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Namibia is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Namibia (2nd nomination) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 02:08, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Mauritius for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Mauritius is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Mauritius until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 02:08, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:The Bahamas for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:The Bahamas is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:The Bahamas until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 22:30, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Singapore

Singapore, an article of interest to this project, has been nominated for Good Article. It seems possible for it to become a Good Article, though it needs tidying up. If anyone is interested in helping out, see the review: Talk:Singapore/GA3. SilkTork (talk) 16:26, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

request for addition to Template:Infobox_Country

For those interested, there is a request at the Template:Infobox_Country talk page to add parameters for the judiciary (highest court, highest judge). --Goldsztajn (talk) 16:42, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

Minority Languages ​​in Country Article Infobox (Serbia)

Hello, I guess that some of you may be interested to express your opinion on RfC if the country infobox (Serbia in this case) should contain "Recognised regional or minority languages" or should they be removed. The RfC can be seen on THIS LINK. Best regards and thank you for your contribution.--MirkoS18 (talk) 21:36, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Monaco for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Monaco is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Monaco until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 20:34, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Canada for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Canada is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Canada until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 01:52, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Yemen

The Yemen article has recently been reassessed as B-class, and the map on the front page needs to be updated accordingly. 165.91.13.178 (talk) 08:41, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Comment on creation of Workforce in country XX

On the economics project page, there is proposal for a new set of articles which has relevance for this project, for those interested: see here.--Goldsztajn (talk) 14:46, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Request for comment on China and its name usages

Hello, I am wondering if there are editors with a background in political geography that can provide comment. In the recent Template:2019–20 Wuhan coronavirus data table there has been a bit of an edit war and mass confusion around how to list China in the list of countries affected by the virus. Things like China, Mainland China, China (mainland), or China with the footnote have been used. There seems to be little clarity of the matter with it almost changing daily based on people's assumption and/or biases of China and the territories. The terms seem to be used to avoid confusion with the listing of Hong Kong and Macau. There is no other precedent for using these terms on Wikipedia and clean and true listings such as List of sovereign states and List of countries and dependencies by population all seem to have no issue. In this table though, constant edit warring and changes.

If others with some background can provide some further insight here or at Template talk:2019–20 Wuhan coronavirus data, that would be very much appreciated. Krazytea(talk) 03:13, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Idea for new community workspace

Hi. I would like to create some kind of collaborative workspace where coordinators or members of various WikiProjects would gather and provide updates and information on what is going on at each wikiproject, i.e. regarding their latest efforts, projects, and where interested editors can get involved.

For those of you at this very active WikiProject, your input would be very helpful, so I wanted to get your input on whether you'd be interested in helping me to make this happen.

we are discussing this proposal right now at:

* Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Idea for new community workspace

Please feel free to let me know what you think of this idea, and please let me know your preference, regarding the options above. if you do not see any need for this idea, that is totally fine. However, I think that the majority of editors lack awareness of where the truly active editing is taking place and at which WikiProjects, and I would like to do whatever I can to help make people more aware of where the activity is, what they can do to help, and also which areas of Wikipedia offer ideas and efforts that might help them in their own editing activities. Please feel free to let me know.

thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 18:57, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

RfC which may be of interest

An RfC on whether it is appropriate to use the disputed 2011 census in the lede of Religion in Albania may be of interest to project participants. [1]. Khirurg (talk) 00:05, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

List of largest empires - defining an empire for the purposes of the list

Hi there,

Contributions would be appreciated to a discussion on the talk page of the list of largest empires as to exactly what should count as an empire for the purposes of that article - specifically, whether the US and the Soviet Union should be included. I'd be grateful for input from anyone who has an opinion on the matter, as given that edits back and forth are going on on the article currently on a near daily basis, and the article has been controversial for years, I feel it to be important that consensus is established as soon as possible on the matter.

Thanks very much! | Naypta✉ opened his mouth at 11:11, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Demotion of List of national anthems

Formal notice that List of national anthems is up for demotion at Wikipedia:Featured list removal candidates/List of national anthems/archive1. Skjoldbro (talk) 13:39, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Maps by United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

I noticed that some countries have a corresponding map in the commons category commons:Category:Maps by United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the infobox (China for example). I was wondering if we should remove all the maps from the infoboxes or add them to the infoboxes of all countries? Interstellarity (talk) 19:01, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi Interstellarity. In general I would advise against those maps. All they really show is the location of selected cities, and it's not always clear why these cities are chosen. Considering this, and in the interest of keeping the infobox short, the sort of information that could be found in these maps could be much better presented in the article body. CMD (talk) 06:49, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
@Chipmunkdavis: I'll go ahead and remove the maps. Interstellarity (talk) 11:08, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
@Chipmunkdavis and Interstellarity: - I'm not sure I see this. I'm far less sure about the benefit of the world map that barely shows a country at all. Can we revert this and ping interested editors on the pages this impacts? Guettarda (talk) 14:51, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
@Guettarda: Do you think all of the countries should have the map? Interstellarity (talk) 14:55, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
The location maps show where the country is in the world, which is quite useful. That's why it has been included in this wikiproject for years. If it's too small the maps usually have an inset, or use a regional map. Regarding this discussion, we haven't taken any action that needs to be reverted, and it would be unproductive to ping every page that uses the country infobox. If there is a debate on usage in specific articles, the best place to discuss that is on the talkpages of those articles. CMD (talk) 16:33, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Ah, I have seen the edits referred to now. I would advise against such widespread changes being explained through referral to this very short discussion; it would be more helpful to other editors to give the reasons directly in the edit summaries. Whether reverted or not however, it remains the case that discussion on the specific article talkpages would be more productive and applicable than discussion here, although those edit summaries may draw eyes here that have further opinions. CMD (talk) 16:48, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
    @Chipmunkdavis: What action should we take? Should I revert everything I did? Should I continue removing those maps, but with a different edit summary? If so, what edit summary could be used instead? Should I discuss on talk? If so, where? Interstellarity (talk) 17:14, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
Hi Interstellarity, per WP:BOLD I think if you feel those edits are correct, there is no need to revert them (although you can if you want to). Perhaps it's best to hold off on further changes in case Guettarda wishes to discuss this further, however, if you want to continue removing the maps or resume doing so in the future, I would suggest an edit summary that clearly lays out the reasons you have for making that edit. If someone reverts your edits and/or a dispute is raised regarding the map usage on any of these articles, the best place to discuss it would be the talk page of that article, as this talkpage isn't well watched. CMD (talk) 17:30, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

New map and area of Nepal

Your input is requested at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Nepal#New map and area of Nepal. Thank you! Usedtobecool ☎️ 10:37, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Capitalization of the Netherlands

Your feedback would be appreciated at Talk:The Netherlands#Capitalization of "the". Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 21:33, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Population density calculation - using land area only, or total area including lakes and rivers?

In some countries (eg Netherlands, Uganda, Malawi), a significant (approaching 20%) part of their total area is bodies of water - lakes, rivers or inland lagoons. Typically, Wikipedia country pages give population density figures based on the total area - eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands or, in the list by population density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population_density (giving around 421 people/sq km for Netherlands). But it seems to me that using the land area is more relevant and consistent (territorial water by an ocean shoreline is not counted, so why should it be for a lake - sometimes, like Lake Victoria, an international one?). Organizations I can find giving the statistic tend to use land area - eg World Bank ( https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.POP.DNST?view=chart ), UN World Statistics Pocketbook ( https://unstats.un.org/unsd/publications/pocketbook/files/world-stats-pocketbook-2019.pdf - it may not be clear from that because it only list the total surface area, but we can see for Netherlands, it gives density as 507.0 per sq. km), UN Population Division ( https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/trends/WorldPop2300final.pdf ) , or Eurostat ("The land area concept (excluding inland waters) should be used wherever available; if not available then the total area, including inland waters (area of lakes and rivers) is used" https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/refreshTableAction.do?tab=table&plugin=1&pcode=tps00003&language=en ). So I think it would be more in line with general practice to use land area rather than total. This might need a comment in the country infobox template to persuade people to do it this way. Comments? Peace Makes Plenty (talk) 10:09, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

I would support such a comment given these sources, but at root this is probably a sourcing issue that needs to be dealt with at individual pages. For example, the Netherlands page listed the density at 521 everywhere in the article except the infobox, so I've just changed the infobox to match the article. CMD (talk) 10:45, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Kosovo move discussions

Hello, everybody. There are ongoing, relisted move discussions of several Kosovo-related articles(Vucitrn, Pec, Malisevo). Unfortunately, almost no editors have participated in those discussions since they were relisted. I've posted the same message in several wikiprojects in the hope that it might increase participation. Maybe members of this wikiproject could contribute to them and provide new perspectives.--Maleschreiber (talk) 00:42, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Paracel Islands

I feel we should add the Paracel Islands to all ‘List of countries and dependencies by...’ that don’t require outside info (eg. List of countries and dependencies by number of police officers’). What are your thoughts?

Elipoloos123 (talk) 09:31, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

I have not seen this done in any reliable source, and don't really see how it meets most relevant list criterias. Pretty sure any police officers would be transitory. CMD (talk) 02:36, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

The World Factbook lists it, and like the Spratly Islands is a group of disputed islands in the South China Sea with multiple countries claiming it and as far as I know it is not included in any of the areas of the countries involved. Also, when I wrote this I thought people would get confused, because I meant lists not like the list of countries and dependencies by number of police officers, more like things that we could get from its world Factbook entry, like land area (which is the main one I think we should put it on, have left a message on talk there no reply as of writing), population, etc. Now that I’ve clarified what I meant, what are your thoughts? (please be aware that my time zone is AEST, so I probably won’t reply when you do) Elipoloos123 (talk) 09:53, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

It'd be hard to tell if the Paracel Islands are included in a land area figure or not (although I suspect they would be by the countries involved), because they're just a rounding error. China includes them in Hainan, while Vietnam includes them in Da Nang. There's not much to differentiate them from any other disputed island groups, and disputed areas are a different sort of concept. CMD (talk) 14:19, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Abortion law has an RFC

Abortion law has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Manabimasu (talk) 03:32, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

FAR for Belarus

I have nominated Belarus for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. (t · c) buidhe 03:08, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Country Vs state debate

A discussion is taking place at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:United_Kingdom#Sovereign_Country about whether the term country or state should be used in the intro of the article for the United Kingdom if any one is interested in commenting. Llewee (talk) 17:15, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Puerto Rico

Should things in San Juan be listed under a section named ==Puerto Rico== or ==United States==? And if it's a table should the country column for these things be  Puerto Rico or  United States? Should Category:Foo of Puerto Rico be a subcategory of the corresponding Category:Foo by country? The same is probably the case for many other (inhabited, organised) dependencies – These countries are often listed alongside independent States on Wikipedia and in other publications but among some quarters on Wikipedia there are strong resistance towards this presumably established practice. WikiProject Countries does cover these countries, from Greenland to Aruba to Macau. 219.77.116.215 (talk) 15:26, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

It's tricky to make a general ruling for these sorts of questions, often different aspects of the same entity might be treated differently. CMD (talk) 12:18, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
Would there be examples? Which aspects would, let's say, San Juan/Nuuk/etc.., go under Puerto Rico/Greenland and which would go under the United States/Denmark? 219.77.116.215 (talk) 16:48, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
If there is a list of things in Denmark you might include Nuuk items, if there is a list of things in Greenland you might include them there too. It's really going to depend on the specifics in question. CMD (talk) 00:46, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
What about tables, especially those which got a column for cities and another for countries, to the right-hand side of the column for the subject matter of that particular list? 219.77.116.215 (talk) 16:31, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
Arguments could probably be made for either, so long as it's consistent within that table. CMD (talk) 17:43, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
In that case consistency could be hard or even impossible to achieve across different lists on the same or similar topics. There should be some sort of general study by this WikiProject into the established conventions or practices (they clearly exist already and it would not be hard to generalise), so that they can be stated and/or codified under this WP. 219.77.116.215 (talk) 11:30, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Merge/split discussion at Talk:List of lighthouses in China

This discussion is troubled by a bizarre level of sock/meatpuppetry, but at least some of the IP comments are making reasonable points, and one of them mentioned this project. I'm hoping some folks from here will be willing to weigh in. —valereee (talk) 16:24, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

How much content about climate change is warranted in country articles?

I had started this discussion on the talk page of the "template" sub-page but not many people seem to watch that page (or care), so I am attempting to bring it up one level. Maybe taking it to WP:RfC eventually would be even better. @User:Femkemilene, @User:Chipmunkdavis and @User:Moxy. So I am copying here the start of the discussion we had here: ++++++++ The template doesn't explain in which section the topics of "climate" or "climate change" should be included? EMsmile (talk) 03:54, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

In practice, climate is included within Geography, either integrated or as a sub-section. I don't think this should be prescribed here however, as its importance and weight will differ depending on the country. This is even more so for climate change. CMD (talk) 04:10, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for your response. Well, I think it would still be useful to point this out. So I have mentioned it in the template description under geography. If we want people to follow the template well we need to be a bit more explicit about what goes into each section, I think. Not everyone would know that climate belongs with geography. And it's not about "prescribing", it's just about showing people how best to use the template and what should go where. EMsmile (talk) 04:38, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
There are over 200 countries that could use this format. There are good reasons to keep it at a very high level, for example the considerable local variation between countries, and because there are myriad items that could be included here if it begins to get more specific. CMD (talk) 04:51, 19 November 2020 (UTC) +++++++++

Further examples of the same discussion are available on the talk pages of Australia, India (very heated and - from my perspective - unfriendly discussion), Bangladesh. The Australia case for me was baffling: there is a sub-article called Climate change in Australia but it was not mentioned or linked to from the Australia article. Surely that would not be too much to ask that such a link is included (and this would apply for every country article if a sub-article about climate change in that country exists).EMsmile (talk) 03:49, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Australia has a link now, Femke and I agreed on some text that included the link and I added this text after a period of no objections. I continue to feel it remains better as a case by case assessment than a general principle however, given the sheer number of potential country subpages. CMD (talk) 12:15, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
I agree that now the pages about countries talk to little about climate change considering the importance of the problem. If someone do not know about the problem he will not see the impact on his country when reading it, and most of users do not understand when to search information about in the page even when they want.

In my opinion every country article must have a subsection "environmental issues" visible in the table of content, with a redirection to main article about the environment issues in this country above. This is because environmental issues affect every country now more than economical or political now. 7-8 millions people die each year from air polution, the corona pandemic is a result of nature destruction. In my opinion better about environment and not climate change because in other case I afraid that paople will forget about the link with issues like deforestation and air pollution.

In this subsection we should write 10-15 lines, including, of course, about climate change. The main article about environmental issues should have a subsection about climate change with a redirection to a page specifically about climate change in this country. --Alexander Sauda/אלכסנדר סעודה (talk) 10:41, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

I tend to agree with you but I wonder if the other people from this WikiProject Countries will say there should be no new sub-heading but it should be lumped with "geography"? There is a template page that sets out the structure for the countries articles, see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countries/Templates (I also wrote on the talk page of that template page before but didn't get many replies). EMsmile (talk) 11:35, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
The purpose of country pages is not to showcase the problem of climate change. Nor are they places to provide education about environmental issues. Pushing an agenda through off-topic articles is wp:coatracking. Country articles are about those countries, with whatever information is most due for each individual article. In no way do environmental issues come close to the importance of politics. Countries are literally political units. As it is, country articles already inevitably bloat to exceed Wikipedia article size guidelines. Some will include environmental information in various forms, in various sections or subsections, but it will depend on the relevance and importance for that particular country, and it should be about that country rather than the topic as a whole. CMD (talk) 12:26, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
The purpose of country page is give the most important information about the country in the format of Wikipedia, of course. In the page there are information about politic, economy, history. If something influence the live of the country - it is mentioned. Environment issues impact the life of the country and the politics and the economy of the country are strongly influenced by it.

CMD writed "Some will include environmental information in various forms, in various sections or subsections, but it will depend on the relevance and importance for that particular country, and it should be about that country rather than the topic as a whole.", Therefore there are place for those issues in the country pages. I think there is not a single country that is not enough impacted by environmental issues for including such subsection. If someone know such country write about it here. I agree that in the country page the environmental information should be referred to the country.

I think that a country page should include a subsection "environment" or "environmental issues" not in the geography section. Also 1 - 2 lines about it should be writed in the lead section. Countries now often change their policy what means that all the economy sectors are changing. Elections in many countries directly impact their climate policy and climate policy of others countriers. The objective of Wikipedia is to "helping to create a world in which everyone can freely share in the sum of all knowledge." and the abcence of environmental information is not going with that purpose. The environmental information will be usefull to all readers, from environmental activists to oil companies (each commitment means that large amounts of invested money become "regret investments", so this can prevent it and no company can afford many millions writers that provide information all over the globe like Wikipedia).

Brief, considering the huge impact that environmental issues have on the country, Wikipedia will not accomplish its target without section about environment.

--Alexander Sauda/אלכסנדר סעודה (talk) 11:52, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Alexander Sauda/אלכסנדר סעודה. I don't agree with the statement of CMD who said "In no way do environmental issues come close to the importance of politics.". That's just a personal opinion. Usually the two are intertwined: politics can lead to environmental issues (take China and water and air pollution as an example); and environmental issues will eventually lead to a policy response. I think environmental issues should be briefly mentioned and then hopefully links to the relevant sub-articles can be given. What would be appropriate steps to encourage more people to take part in this discussion and to reach a consensus? Is WP:RfC the right way? EMsmile (talk) 03:20, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Solicitation of comments

A Request for Comment (WP:RfC) was posted Sunday, 17 July 2011 at the Talk page of South Sudan. It concerns the use of the definite article ("the") citations in the InfoBox and elsewhere of what the long form is of the country's name. It is my hope to have responses from academically aware editors devoted to Africa, geography, coutries, and British English. Hurmata (talk) 23:25, 17 July 2011 (UTC) Note: archived from Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries/To do. CMD (talk) 09:12, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

Taiwan has an RFC

Taiwan has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. STSC (talk) 21:32, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Note: archived from Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries/To do. CMD (talk) 09:12, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

FLRC

I have nominated List of autonomous areas by country for featured list removal. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Best, CMD (talk) 16:56, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Need a middle ground

We have a push to add human rights and corruption to leads all over. Was trying to standardizes these to get a middle ground so we dont get wording like extrajudicial killings in the leads all over like this...but have been reverted without care for the edits (its in there favor[2]) and others removing all the info from the lead altogether. Was trying to prevent more blanking and advocacy style edits but failed. Not sure how we get these POV editors together getting a neutral middle ground... eg Egypt Russia China etc..--Moxy 🍁 18:55, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Shouldn’t all leads address human rights at least superficially? Not so sure about corruption, that seems to be a subset of crime to me and the notability is more variable. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:30, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
As proposed long ago ...each should be looked at case by case. if there is to be info it should be presented in the same neutral just the facts manner as FA articles....So Canada says ". It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties,..." Thus we should use the same style in other articles ..like Russia ", ranking among the lowest in international measurements of government transparency, freedom of the press and civil liberties." These link to the main articles on the topic without using inflammatory terms like extrajudicial killings. But as said before have one editor adding horrible wording and another blanking all even attempts of a mid ground wording. --Moxy 🍁 19:38, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
Why do you consider extrajudicial killings to be an inflammatory term? It seems just about as objective and academic a term as its possible to get. If extrajudicial killings are a notable problem in a particular country it could very well be due in the lead. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:03, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
Has to do with relevant lead linking and trying to make sure other don't see the edits as a net negative because of wording thus blanking. Linking to extrajudicial killings ( a dictionary definition} in the lead does nothing to help understand the overall problem in these individual countries and is why we have articles on corruption human rights etc for individual countries. It's all about neutral non political wording with relevant linking for topics that in some cases cover 10,000 years.--Moxy 🍁 20:20, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
These pages are for the modern countries not the ancient civilizations which with they may or may not be associated or descended, the leads aren’t meant to cover 10,000 years. I still don’t see your argument for extrajudicial killings being inflammatory, arguing that they aren’t super relevant isn't the same thing as saying its inflammatory. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:28, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
The problem it that's it's removed on site by the majority of ediotrs.....thus most think it's an undue term that has resulted in the current problem. We should link pages with relevant information without terms that others obviously see as problematic because of there placement in the lead as per WP:Weight and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section.--Moxy 🍁 20:37, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
Unsure where you are getting "the majority of ediotrs” from. I find that hard to believe, most editors never edit country main pages and even fewer make significant edits to the lead. Can you provide some examples from a few different pages of what you’re talking about? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:41, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
Country articles have a very high rate of Wikipedia:Main article fixation ....as they are some of the most ed6ited articles we have. In fact as we speak 3 ongoing problems with just the lead in country articles is randome addition of climate change, human rights and sovereignty. Takes lots of work to make sure the lead are not overwhelmed with flyby edits.--Moxy 🍁 21:11, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
If you find extrajudicial killings to be inappropriate, it can be excluded. But I think that elaborating upon human rights in all countries where they are poor or problematic cannot be tackled by a one-size-fits-all solution. Every country is different, and human rights abuses can be by both the government and also powerful non-state actors such as insurgent or rebel groups or even private individuals or entities. I believe that these kinds of nuances should be identified. DeathTrain (talk) 01:36, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
Elaborating on human rights in the article may be due, and I agree there can't be a one-size-fits-all solution, but Moxy is correct that there is extreme fixation both on country articles and on country article leads. I'm not a fan of over-emphasising rankings, which are relative and somewhat arbitrary, but neither should leads be going into specific and arbitrary lists of eg. various human rights abuses. Talking about extrajudicial killings is undue in a four paragraph summary of a country (and one paragraph is inevitably just history which further limits other information). CMD (talk) 02:06, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

@Chipmunkdavis: So what should be done about the Egypt article specifically? If rankings are inappropriate, then how should human rights be elaborated upon in the lead?DeathTrain (talk) 00:00, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Egypt's lead is already a reasonable length, and the human rights subsubsection makes up only 4% of the article, so there should not be too much elaboration. The current emphasis on authoritarianism is problematic as this is not covered in the article body. Moxy's bundling with government transparency and freedom of the press is quite neat, although transparency is not covered much in the article either. Anyway the article talk page is a better place to determine what should be done, my comments at the Wikiproject level are that leads are a place to reflect the article body, not craft something new. CMD (talk) 01:27, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
@Chipmunkdavis: @Horse Eye's Back: Can we agree that there is no consensus to put this particular sentence,

[The country] ranks among the lowest in international measurements of government transparency, freedom of the press and civil liberties.

in the lead section of all countries with poor or problematic human rights records, as it is not a one-size-fits-all solution? DeathTrain (talk) 15:05, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
I suppose, there are many facets to human rights and countries have differing records in different facets. That's not to say it couldn't be used, if accurate and with local consensus. CMD (talk) 16:48, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
We will have to keep a close eye on the pages involved. We have some being blocked. --Moxy 🍁 21:42, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

I think a standardisation would be nice. However, we have to be careful not to introduce systemic bias by an unbalanced selection of sources. For example, take country A in which citizens enjoy some human rights but that violates human rights abroad (e.g. through wars of aggression), and contrast it to country B that violates more human rights of its own citizens but has a comparably peaceful foreign policy. Which country would have a better human rights record? Studies that only look at the domestic record will say country A, whereas studies that only look at the international record will say country B. So there needs to be a balance. I think one sentence dealing with the domestic acts and one sentence dealing with the international acts would be necessary in order to have such a standardisation be neutral. --Sarrotrkux (talk) 13:21, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Saudi Arabia

There’s a new user at Legal system of Saudi Arabia that’s made this change x3 both as an IP and under their new account. There is a POV there but I can’t actually figure out what it is - there’s a talk page discusion I’ve been having with them but I’m none the wiser what they’re up to. Their edits are a mixture of being unsourced and against the inline citations, poor English or just don’t make sense, or using as a source a website called sharialaw.org which looks non-RS/SELFPUB. The issue itself revolves (I think) around what will be quite an obscure topic for most people: whether Saudi Arabia uses Hanbali, one of four Islamic (Sunni) legal schools of thought (known as Maddhab), in its law courts or whether it should be described as Wahhabism which is certainly the dominant religious movement in the country. I’ve not seen any sources that say Saudi’s law courts don’t follow Hanbali. It’s a low traffic article and on obscure topic hence I’m trying to get other inputs. That’s a bit of a long shot I know but if anyone one is inclined, please take a look. (I’ll post this at a couple of other Wikiprojects). DeCausa (talk) 08:26, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

TfD: "Largest cities of" templates

Virtually every country's main article use one of these templates:

A newly-registered user randomly nominated one of them for deletion. Discussion is at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2021 May 17#Template:Largest cities of Israel. --Triggerhippie4 (talk) 20:33, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

"Zangezur Corridor" deletion

There is an interesting discussion on deletion of Zangezur Corridor article, relevant to Armenia-Azerbaijan topic. Members of this Wikiproject are very welcome to participate in the constructive discussion and diversify it. Thanks. --Armatura (talk) 14:12, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Most viewed start article in this Wikiproject

Sovereign state 81,394 2,713 Start--Coin945 (talk) 14:17, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Suggestion: Use this academic summary of "states" datasets

I've noticed that there are many List of sovereign states in the 1940s-style articles. These articles do not provide assessments of the number of states in ways that are consistent with academic datasets do. This 2020 study[3], which summarizes three different datasets on page 301 could be used to fix all the "List of sovereign states in the XXXXs" articles. It would however require considerable work. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 00:12, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

RFC/discussion of article List of countries and dependencies by area

Hi Wikiproject Countries editors,

You may be interested in this discussion at List of countries and dependencies by area. The RFC can be found by the article's name in this list, and the actual discussion is at Talk:List of countries and dependencies by area. Cheers. — 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚 ☎ 09:31, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Italicization of named indices and rankings?

Should the titles of country indices, rankings, and reports published with a proper name title be italicized in the article title and text?

Examples:

These reports don't seem to fit neatly into any of the example categories for either minor works or major works over at WP:FORMAT and MOS:TITLE. I personally think they're far more significant, lengthier, and bigger in scope than most of the examples given for minor works, though, and maybe closest to the "Syndicated columns and other features republished regularly by others" example given as a major work.

Intralexical (talk) 00:48, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

I feel you'll get a more substantive response to that question at WT:Manual of Style/Titles. — 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚 ☎ 03:07, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

RfC: Dependent territories and subnational areas

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
A summary of the debate may be found at the bottom of the discussion.

This issue often comes up in pages that list countries by data (e.g. [1], [2], [3]). It has been discussed here before too, but I couldn't identify a consensus, and I think one is in order. The questions here, if I can summarise them, are:

  1. Can dependent territories and subnational areas be included in country lists?
  2. If they're included, does that even need to be made explicit in table headings and article titles?

— 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚 (talk) 02:24, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

Personally, my understanding is that (1) WP:RS is king, and anything listed as a country by RS's is a country for WP, regardless of whether it's a sovereign nation-state or not. ISO 3166-1 would be a good place to start when settling a dispute about whether a place can be listed as a country or not; if it has a country code, then it is a country for all WP intents and purposes. This is already in line with the definition of country at WP itself:

A country may be an independent sovereign state or part of a larger state,[1] as a non-sovereign or formerly sovereign political division, a physical territory with a government, or a geographic region associated with sets of previously independent or differently associated people with distinct political characteristics. It is not inherently sovereign.

And (2), if all entries in a list are deemed countries by WP:RS, then there is really no need to specify "and dependent territories" or "subnational areas" anywhere in the article's text or title. In fact, it should not, so as not to cause further inconsistency and confusion. — 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚 (talk) 02:24, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
It's really going to depend on the list in question, and what RS say about those specific list topics. The ISO is one source amongst many, it is not the be all and end all for all lists produced. CMD (talk) 03:24, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
Yes, ISO is not the only WP:RS. Perhaps I put that example across too strongly. The emphasis should've been on this: anything listed as a country by RS's is a country for WP, regardless of whether it's a sovereign nation-state or not. — 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚 (talk) 08:54, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
Here are few examples of what I'm referring to in (2):
  1. List of countries and territories by land and maritime borders
  2. List of countries and territories by maritime boundaries
  3. List of countries and dependencies by area
  4. List of countries and dependencies by population density
  5. List of countries and territories by land borders
  6. List of countries and dependencies by population
  7. List of countries and territories by border/area ratio
  8. List of countries and territories by extreme temperatures
  9. List of countries and dependencies by number of police officers
  10. List of countries and dependencies and their capitals in native languages
  11. List of countries and dependencies by number of physicians
  — 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚 (talk) 09:06, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
In several of those cases, saying something like WP:RS is king, and anything listed as a country by RS's is a country for WP is BS, because the reliable sources are not remotely consistent on what constitutes a "country", which is unsurprising as the word "country" itself has multiple overlapping definitions. We've historically had major disruption on some of these lists from people pushing their own POV on this point. Kahastok talk 10:09, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
... is BS, because the reliable sources are not remotely consistent on what constitutes a "country"
That's not particular to countries; of course sources don't always agree. Mostly all WP editors are asked to do is reconcile and reflect what RSs say, stating what they agree on as fact and pointing out where they differ (when and if they do). — 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚 (talk) 13:33, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
Damn, some of those lists are sorted by some EXTREMELY precise and off the wall criteria.. "extreme temperatures" and "number of police officers" especially. Firejuggler86 (talk) 23:54, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
The word "country" has multiple overlapping meanings. The proposal here is effectively that Wikipedia should come up with our own definition of a "country" and stick to it. This breaks WP:NOR and is unworkable in practice.
Because the word "country" has multiple meanings, a definition like anything listed as a country by RS's is a country for WP is extraordinarily expansive. The UK, Germany and Austria, for example, are all made up constituent parts called "countries". France uses the word "country" to refer to relatively small areas. The result is a set of lists that are non-neutral and internally inconsistent, with the United States and China listed alongside Saarland and Ploërmel-Coeur de Bretagne.
A useful parallel is a "List of Indians" based on the principle that anyone listed as an Indian by RS's is an Indian for WP. This list would absolutely have to include both Pocahontas and Mahatma Gandhi, because we will easily find reliable sources listing each as "Indians".
This is not a problem unique to this area, and so we do have guidelines here. Our guidelines require that each list have selection criteria that are unambiguous, objective, and supported by reliable sources. That means every list "of countries" or "of countries and X" needs to define precisely what counts and what does not count in its lede. Where the list is based on a single source, the definition and nomenclature should be based on the source. Where it is not based on a single source, the best option is to use one outside reference point like ISO 3166-1 and stick to it. But whenever we do that we absolutely have to acknowledge that it isn't going to correspond to every single individual's own personal notion of what a "country" is. Kahastok talk 10:09, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
@Kahastok: the RFC is problematic because the the opening statement is not neutral.
Fixed.
The proposal here is effectively that Wikipedia should come up with our own definition of a "country" and stick to it.
No, it isn't. Obviously, as Chipmunkdavis pointed out, different RSs are relevant to different topics.
That means every list "of countries" or "of countries and X" needs to define precisely what counts and what does not count in its lede.
Now, that is WP:OR.
the best option is to use one outside reference point like ISO 3166-1 and stick to it.
That is my proposal. I'm glad we agree then.
— 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚 (talk) 13:20, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
No, it is not OR to literally follow our own guidelines at WP:LSC.
If we are not precisely defining what counts and what does not count in a list, then we open ourselves up to rampant abuse. Does entity X belong on list Y? Nobody knows. Impossible to say. And the result is inconsistent and biased lists because every entry has to be debated and individually subjected to the consensus process on talk.
I note with interest that you cherrypick quotes from my text, removing them from their context. You cannot assume that everybody will accept that ISO 3166-1 is the sole and authoritative definition of a "country", even if you use it as the basis for your list. Because it isn't. Kahastok talk 18:12, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
I note with interest that you cherrypick quotes from my text, removing them from their context.
That's not "cherrypicking"; I'm simply highlighting what part of what you said that I'm responding to (as in this very case). And the context is not removed; it's right above for anyone to see.
Does entity X belong on list Y? Nobody knows.
The sources do.
And the result is inconsistent and biased lists because every entry has to be debated and individually subjected to the consensus process on talk.
Isn't that precisely the issue I'm raising, and the status quo you're advocating to keep?
That means every list "of countries" or "of countries and X" needs to define precisely what counts and what does not count in its lede.
— 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚 (talk) 21
26, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
If every entry on every list has to be discussed on its individual merits based on "the sources" - which are going to be different sources every time - then we'll end up with inconsistent and biased lists.
No. The only way you can sensible do this is by choosing selection criteria that are "unambiguous, objective, and supported by reliable sources". We then include entities that meet the criteria and do not include entities that do not meet the criteria. Which is also what our own rules tell us to do.
But when we describe the contents of the list (e.g. in the article title), we have to acknowledge that those criteria are necessarily not a universal definition of the word "country".
This won't get rid of every single discussion on every single list. But you're on much firmer ground to include or exclude Entity X when you can just point at the selection criteria and say that it clearly does or doesn't fit, than if you're just relying on "the sources" in an area where reliable sources are inconsistent. Kahastok talk 08:14, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
About Germany and Austria...
The UK, Germany and Austria, for example, are all made up constituent parts called "countries".
Not in English. They're called Länder, which indeed is the plural of land, but in this context, that of a federation, the Encyclopaedia Britannica translates it as states:

The constitution of the republic, adopted in 1949 by West Germany, created a federal system that gives significant government powers to its constituent Länder (states).

— 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚 (talk) 14:09, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
Relying on semantic translation differences for these issues rather than the specific intended meanings behind multi-meaning words would create the odd situation whereby the en.wiki List of countries and dependencies by population density article would have fundamentally different contents from the de.wiki version of the same list, which does not seem ideal. CMD (talk) 16:18, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
There's nothing wrong with that at all. No two cultures' languages define the world the exact same way; every language also has words for concepts and ideas that other languages have no words for. So you can't really expect any two languages' wikis to have the same lists and the same items in those lists as each other, not even for two close cousins like English and German. Firejuggler86 (talk) 00:05, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
Our lists have introductory paragraphs which define scope, their formulation is not restricted to the specific words used in article titles. Nor is each wiki restricted to sources in their own languages, sources in other languages count as reliable and can be used to inform relevant lists on the various wikis. CMD (talk) 02:01, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
Nor is each wiki restricted to sources in their own languages
I haven't seen anyone here suggest otherwise.
sources in other languages count as reliable and can be used to inform relevant lists on the various wikis.
Sure, all I'm proposing is that these sources, whichever they may be, be used as criteria for what can or cannot be listed (or numbered) as a country (not some cooked up WP:OR criteria, in which every entry has to be debated and individually subjected to the consensus process on talk.[1] — 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚 (talk) 05:46, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
German has the word "Staat", which means state. Germany and Austria do not use it to refer to their subdivisions. They uses the word "Land". Which means "country". The parallel to the situation in the UK is exact. Your failure to acknowledge this demonstrates a major systemic bias against non-English speakers. Kahastok talk 18:12, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
German has the word "Staat", which means state. Germany and Austria do not use it to refer to their subdivisions. They uses the word "Land". Which means "country".
And yet, WP.de uses Staat to refer to countries—e.g. de:Liste von Staaten und Territorien nach Einwohnerzahl—and Land to refer to states (regardless of what we think they mean).
The parallel to the situation in the UK is exact.
Is it? Germany is a federation; the UK isn't. That's the difference. Regardless, we as editors are not required to delve into why the sources call Scotland a country and not Alabama; we're simply asked to reflect it.
Your failure to acknowledge this demonstrates a major systemic bias against non-English speakers.
Of course there is a systemic bias in WP.en against sources not in English, as there is in WP.de against ones not in German. That's the very reason why each WP language version stands on its own, and there is no WP:policy requiring consistency across them. — 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚 (talk) 21:46, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
On calling Scotland a country, note it does not have an ISO country code, which is why basing list inclusions on a word with variable and vague meanings doesn't work. CMD (talk) 03:07, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
True. It has a subdivision code (3166-2), though, in which its subdivision category is... (drumroll): country.
Code Subdivision name (en) Subdivision category
GB-ENG  England country
GB-NIR  Northern Ireland province
GB-SCT  Scotland country
GB-WLS  Wales [Cymru GB-CYM] country

Wales was changed from being described as a principality to being described as a country in the December 2011 update to the standard. England and Scotland were maintained as country and Northern Ireland was maintained as province.[1]

References

  1. ^ "Changes in the list of subdivision names and code elements" (PDF). ISO 3166-2. International Organization for Standardization. 15 December 2011. Retrieved 28 May 2012.
which is why basing list inclusions on a word with variable and vague meanings doesn't work
Which is why editors ought to follow the RS pertinent to the topic on inclusions and exclusions to the list of countries, not debate its meaning and whether it applies to each and every single entry, as it's common practice in various lists of countries pages, e.g.. — 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚 (talk) 04:06, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
How do you propose editors figure out which RS are the most pertinent for a topic without discussion on the relevant entries? CMD (talk) 05:35, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
What does debating the countriyness of entries on a list of countries have to do with pertinence of a source to a topic?? — 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚 (talk) 08:20, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
Presumably the sources would help inform the list criteria. CMD (talk) 09:39, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
Yes! That's what I'm saying from the beginning: WP:RS is king. In fact, the criterion is the source. Is the country listed in the source? Is the source deemed reliable and pertinent to the topic? Then it should be included and counted as such just like any other. Not separated, not hidden, not collapsed, not unnumbered, not formatted, not distinguished in any way, shape or form that the source doesn't do. I'm glad we agree. — 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚 (talk) 09:49, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
Is your proposal now that all lists should only have a single source? Kahastok talk 09:56, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
Where did you read me say that?? What I said--to you!--was that, as Chipmunkdavis pointed out, different RSs are relevant to different topics. — 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚 (talk) 10:07, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
Where I read that was here. If a list is based on multiple sources, and they are different in any way, then that entire text is nonsensical. Kahastok talk 10:46, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
This is pretty much a strawman argument, but I'll entertain it, for the fun of it. If, in this imaginary scenario of yours there are all these different sources that are in vast disagreements with each other over what is and isn't a country (something I find highly unlikely to begin with), then here's the thing: if that were the case, they could not all be considered reliable!! And as you know, there's a protocol in place for that question that is an enwiki wide policy..but either way, unlikely dreamed up hypothetical scenarios are not something to argue standards over. Firejuggler86 (talk) 00:23, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
I had already addressed that--to you again--here. But let's move passed it as, in spite of the hostility, it seems after all that we're in agreement:
  1. Having every entry ... debated and individually subjected to the consensus process on talk results in inconsistent and biased lists.[1]
  2. Where the list is based on a single source, the definition and nomenclature should be based on the source. Where it is not based on a single source, the best option is to use one outside reference point like ISO 3166-1 and stick to it.[2]
— 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚 (talk) 22:16, 9 May 2021 (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.

It is now clear that User:Guarapiranga intends to use this discussion to claim that I endorsed positions far stronger than I in fact endorsed or supported. So for the avoidance of doubt, my view is:

  • Where a list is based on a single source, it should use that source for its inclusion criteria, and it should use that source to determine whether entities are called "countries", "states" or something else.
  • Where a list is based on multiple sources it should use ISO 3166-1, or a similar standard, for its inclusion criteria, taking proper account of states with limited recognition.
  • Nothing that I have said in the above or elsewhere should be construed as endorsing the use of country names from ISO 3166-1 in multiple-source lists. Country names in multiple-source lists should almost always be based on MOS:GEO, i.e. using the names our articles use.
  • Nothing that I have said in the above or elsewhere should be construed as endorsing the removal of information not present in ISO 3166-1 from multiple-source lists, particularly where that information is necessary for WP:NPOV.

Kahastok talk 16:56, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

I can only go by what you wrote, and we agreed on: that, in essence, the definition and nomenclature should be based on the source. This is now the status quo. If you misspoke, or changed your mind, and wish to change the consensus, you'll need to initiate a new discussion. — 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚 ☎ 17:27, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
That's not what I wrote though. You continually take these quotes out of context. In context, they clearly do not mean what you claim they mean. I have told you this. Repeatedly. You ignore me, and insist that I take an opinion even now that I do not take and have never taken.
I have raised this at WP:AN so that an admin can help judge what the correct interpretation of consensus is. Because I certainly don't recognise your creative reinterpretation of the discussion as anything more than that. Kahastok talk 19:20, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
That's not what I wrote though.
It's right here, though: Special:Diff/1022079769 (in the last paragraph). — 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚 ☎ 01:11, 24 June 2021 (UTC)
It is deeply misleading to pull out specific phrases without the surrounding context, if the surrounding context alters the meaning. Kahastok has noted that this is the situation here multiple times now, including in one of the diffs you have now repeatedly cited across multiple pages. Quoting someone out of context is specifically considered a violation of WP:CIVIL, so please do not do so anymore. CMD (talk) 07:29, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

RfC at the MOS on linking of place names

This might interest participants here: WT:Manual of Style/Linking#rfc_8DFDEF9 — 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚 ☎ 23:13, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

For the interested

Talk:Czech_Republic#Requested_move_25_July_2021 Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:42, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:The Gambia#Requested move 20 August 2021

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:The Gambia#Requested move 20 August 2021 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject.  — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 16:13, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Category:City population templates

With the closure of Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2021 July 25#Template:Largest cities of the United States, I would like to revisit the templates in the category and Template:Largest cities which many of the templates in the category are based on.

For a number of countries, a section is devoted to these templates rather than integrating the article link into the text. If we can establish a consensus here that this isn't preferable, we could establish precedence so we can delete the templates by level. Catchpoke (talk) 20:10, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

I find these templates quite problematic, especially as mentioned that they are often given their own header, creating a blank section on some devices. I have had to fix such issues in quite a few articles. I do not think it would be a loss at all the have these deleted; they are the sort of template that implies false consistency across diverse articles, and if the information was that significant it should be present in the article prose.
On process, this page is not that watched, and there would likely be better participation in a mass TfD discussion. For this it would be good to do them all at one time. The sporadic one-off discussions for each individual template that have been taking place recently feel quite unproductive, especially as this is the sort of template that looks to be part of a set, and is thus liable to be recreated on an individual basis. CMD (talk) 08:23, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
I'm too busy at the moment to be nominating them all at once but I really appreciate your input. Hopefully in a few months I can get back to this. Catchpoke (talk) 16:43, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Chart spam

Temperature change in Greece since 1901 in the context of global warming[needs context]

Meaningless chart spam ......these charts have no scale/context ....what is being presented? Keep? Remove? Is this a COi self promotion ....?--Moxy- 11:41, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Keep. This chart provide a good overview over the temperature in Greece. The scale is available via Commons by clicking on the chart. I have not created this figure myself, so it is definitely no "self promotion". DiagramLover (talk) 13:05, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
Useful charts in their own way, but an image on a very specific topic which needs to be scaled up to be read and understood is not the best choice for overarching country articles. CMD (talk) 15:20, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
I am happy to hear that you find these charts useful. The climate section is certainly specific, but that is where these charts belong. They are a good complement to be used in the "geography/climate" sections of our country articles. Often we only present Koeppen diagrams, which are very academic, and the climate across the year, which is useful, but not over time (20th century). These bar charts provide a quick overview and are self-explanatory. DiagramLover (talk) 15:48, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
The often quite poor Koeppen diagrams are also the result of being rapidly spread across various country articles. I'm not sure replacing these through a similar process is helpful. The graphs in question are also not self-explanatory. They are ambiguously titled "Temperature change", but the individual bars do not show change. To understand the graph you need to understand that temperature change is determined by the relative change shift in bar frequency above the particular overall mean, which I'm not sure a reader with no background will. CMD (talk) 16:23, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

I think remove; change in one particular metric over a relatively short time period is not representative of climate in that country as a whole in all of history, I have removed the United_Kingdom#climate one and replaced with the Koeppen Diagram. in the UK case the text uses exactly the Koeppen Climate Classification already so it seemed particularly pertinent to the text. I have moved the image to the Climate of the United Kingdom article as there is a section on temperature change over time where this seems to fit better. JeffUK (talk) 17:12, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't think they're helpful in most cases. They're being inserted into sections on climate on country articles that don't talk about warming or the like, and as a result the chart is not connected in any way to the text of the articles. Images need to support what is already being discussed in the article and add additional clarity, these seem to just being randomly added and are eye candy due to lack of connection to the surrounding text. Additionally not having a vertical scale marked on the image makes it more of an abstract pattern. With the scale being buried in the image's comments and based on standard deviations (which means nothing to the majority of readers) prevents it from providing immediacy to the viewer. I hate to say it, but it's the kind of chart that climate change deniers point to to fuel their argument that scientists etc. are not being completely honest and abstract. Due to lack of obvious scale, and inability for a layperson to clearly interpret as the lack of clear scale could mean it goes up by 0.1 degree, 1 degree, 10 degrees etc. Canterbury Tail talk 12:18, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
I don't think our fear of how climate science deniers might or might not react is a valid argument to include a chart on temperature change in the 20th century. These charts are not about the climate change debate, but simply show how temperatures have changed over the past few decades. In many cases, of course, the temperatures have increased, but in some cases they have barely changed or not at all. So these charts should not be placed in the context of the dispute between climate change deniers and activists. The charts are neutral and based on official data, often from Berkeley. In general, climate is defined as the statistics of the weather over the past thirty years. These and other years are shown in these charts, nothing more. Therefore, they are of course very closely linked to the climate sections of our articles. The scale is pretty self-explanatory and details are easily available from the chart's description. It would be a shame if we withheld this concise overview from our readers. These are helpful charts that provide a quick overview. DiagramLover (talk) 15:38, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
If they had an absolute scale, they would be suitable for climate change-specific sections and articles like Climate change in Turkey. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 17:18, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
Moreover, without an absolute scale all they illustrate is 'Temperature changed over time', a statement which, even if it were in the body of the article, doesn't really merit a picture to back it up. JeffUK (talk) 20:26, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
As the person who has edited Climate change in Turkey the most I would like the Turkey diagram to be with a scale but svg format, so that the scale could easily be translated or removed (if there is consensus) later. Then I would be happy to replace the current warming stripes diagram, which would be an improvement as I see it has also been put in the Turkish article without translation of the header. Chidgk1 (talk) 15:24, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

I posted on DiagramLover's Wikimedia Commons talk page about one of their charts, before I noticed that the issue had been raised here before. My post:
"I removed your chart Temperature Bar Chart Europe-Germany-Hessen-1881-2020--2021-07-13.png from the Hesse article. Unfortunately, there is no mention of climate, temperature, or climate change in the article, so there is no place in the article to put the chart, and it serves no clear purpose. In addition to those problems related to the article, the chart also lacks an important vertical scale.
I appreciate the effort to add information about the climate of places into the respective articles. However, I think that images should always support the text. They can rarely stand completely alone, leaving the reader without important context. This is particularly true for such complicated matters as, for example, climate."
I think that some of the charts (if adjusted by adding a vertical scale) are useful. They just need to be put into context, and not added indiscriminately to geography articles! If the article contains a section about climate, or about climate change in that region, then put the chart there (if it adds value). Otherwise, create such a section first before adding the chart (again, if it is thought to be a relevant addition). Having images completely out of context does not help with readability, and decreases the value of the article. So: Remove, for now. Renerpho (talk) 02:07, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

I understand your argument. So I will only add these diagrams if there already exists a "climate" section. DiagramLover (talk) 08:20, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
Additionally only add them if there is a vertical scale with actual numbers. "the color scale varies from ±2.6 standard deviations of the annual average temperatures between the years mentioned in the file name" is not any kind of a vertical scale most readers will understand. Even as is and interpreted it could be the temp wobbled slightly, or the temp clearly went up 10 degrees, standard deviations don't give any kind of information. Canterbury Tail talk 17:47, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
Thank you for sharing your view. However, using an absolute value would not be the right choice in this specific case. Let me explain: When it comes to the deviation from an average temperature, an absolute scale would not work well. For example, an object cannot be "three times warmer/colder" than another object, and a 0.2-degree deviation from 10 degrees is not comparable to a 0.2-degree deviation from 20 degrees. That is why providing an absolute scale will not provide any information that could help our readers. Using standard deviation and representing it by red and blue colors is a common way to deal with such variation. It has shown to be intuitive even for non-experts. As the Commons page defines, "This bar chart is a visual representation of the change in temperature in the past 100+ years. Each stripe represents the temperature averaged over a year. The average temperature in 1971–2000 is set as the boundary between blue and red colors, and the color scale varies from ±2.6 standard deviations of the annual average temperatures between the years mentioned in the file name. Data source: Berkeley Earth." Your concern is that the temperature wobbles slightly. Fortunately I can tell you that this is not an issue at all, because we have data across 100 years for all charts, sometimes even more, and there is almost no chart for which the global temperature has changed by less than 1 degree (which is a lot) throughout these years (I can just skip the few ones where that is not the case). The highs and lows are what the 2.6 standard deviations are based on. Therefore, from the charts it becomes very clear, which of these 100+ years are relatively warm and which ones are relatively cold. The Greece chart depicted above is a great example: It intuitively shows that there was some sort of random variation throughout the 20th century and, during the last 30yrs or so, increasing temperatures have become a remarkable phenomenon. I hope you will understand that an absolute scale is not the right solution here, temperature bar charts based on standard deviations are common practice, and there is no reason to believe that dark red or dark blue colors would represent random artefacts ("wobbled slightly"). DiagramLover (talk) 19:55, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
@DiagramLover: Then add a scale for standard deviations. No matter what the diagram is for (whether it's temperatures, standard deviations, or something else), there should always be a vertical scale on the diagram. If you're not sure what the vertical scale is for your diagram then either find out, or make another diagram. The highs and lows are what the 2.6 standard deviations are based on. Then it's as simple as marking where, say, +2 and -2 st.dev. lies on the vertical scale. Shouldn't be too hard. It intuitively shows I suggest not to rely on the reader's intuition. Renerpho (talk) 22:14, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
minus Removed.Moxy- 15:43, 1 August 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for your support. Again, this color code is standard in the climate debate, and known for being very intuitive. Average Wikipedia users might not even know what a standard deviation is. For those who want to know, as I have repeatedly writte, the scale is clearly explained on the image description page -- for each image! Even the new IPCC report uses exactly the same color code, see, for example this Tweet. I can see that individual users have removed all figures already, without even waiting for a conclusion of this discussion, which, to be honest, is not very polite. It will now take a lot of efforts to include these images again, which I will do once this discussion is finished. We should also discuss about the style of our communication. For example, I find the choice of words ("meaningless", "spam") not at all appropriate, in view of the efforts it took to upload and integrate these images. This choice of words implies malicious intent. Wikipedia is a volunteer project. Almost everyone who contributes to this project is doing so with positive energy, so do I. Verbal attacks and the systematic undoing of the work of other users reminds me of vandalism. Multiple (!) users have thanked me after having added a chart in an article, indicating the large support from our Wikipedia community. If one or two users want other charts, please feel free to make the effort to create and upload better alternatives. DiagramLover (talk) 20:31, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
Hi DiagramLover, I agree with your concern about choice of words, I often feel that people could try to be friendlier with each other so I am giving you my full moral support here. :-) My experience in the past is that adding information about climate change issues to the high level country articles is often met with resistance at first but can eventually succeed (I eventually managed to include a bit more about climate change in the India article, for example). I think it helps to write on each country's article's talk page first before adding climate change related content and then to be very careful and gentle about it (it makes sense that the country overview articles cannot go into too much detail for each topic; think also gay rights, gender issues, political activism etc. Regarding those graphs it seems to me that one criticism is that they have no y-axis and no labels on the y-axis. You said one can get them by clicking on them but could they (the y-axis) be added right from the start? Also personally I don't like the black background, it looks unscientific to me. Furthermore, another suggestion would be to add these charts to the CCC articles ("Climate change in country X"). We have those articles for about 50 countries now, see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Climate_change_by_country . You will have far less pushback there. And they get linked from the main country article. Perhaps at a later stage, very gently, some more climate content can also be added to the country articles but for now, I would suggest to try with the CCC articles, like Climate change in Europe, Climate change in Kenya etc. EMsmile (talk) 03:47, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
20210822 Global warming - warming stripes bar chart — uploaded 23 August 2021
@DiagramLover: @EMsmile: and others:
  1. I am the main contributor to the Warming stripes article, including many of its images. I can state that the idea is relatively "new" and therefore subject to resistance. About two years ago I introduced one to the top-level Climate Change article, and consensus fairly quickly caused it to be removed. There is an understandable desire here for standardization among us techy types, which militates against anything "new" even if there are advantages. Those advantages include, especially, the intuitive understanding of concepts in our core readership, which are not techy types. Our public audience will more readily understand colors than techy charts.
  2. Warming stripes originator Ed Hawkins (climatologist) found (and I agree) that a black background made the colors stand out better, which is why his https://showyourstripes.info/ website offers charts with black background. I've added y-axis labels and gridlines in my freshly uploaded chart at right, but I was able to accomplish this because I had easy access to global temp change data. I don't know where one could obtain the raw data on a country-by-country basis for the wider effort you're discussing. —RCraig09 (talk) 06:05, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
Thanks RCraig09 for these explanations. I understand better now. I like your new chart, let's use it (in the climate change article?). Regarding country data, perhaps DiagramLover knows how to get the raw data for the individual countries to improve those graphs as well? EMsmile (talk) 01:59, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
@EMsmile: It's a tough lift to get a new image introduced into the central Climate Change article, since there are already a couple of more comprehensive temperature charts there and space is highly prized. It's more likely that a sub-article or one of the 'country' articles could make use of warming stripes bar chart(s), but I've never seen any raw data for particular countries/regions. It looks to me like User:DiagramLover simply downloaded PNG graphics from Dr. Hawkins' website, but hopefully DiagramLover or someone else knows where the data is so one can make SVG charts using my spreadsheet approach (SVG being preferable since they're smaller files and scale up without pixellation). —RCraig09 (talk) 03:01, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
Good idea about sub-articles. How about you add it here: Effects of climate change or here Physical impacts of climate change (a lot of overlap in those articles by the way, I guess let's discuss further at WikiProject Climate Change. :-) ) EMsmile (talk) 13:28, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
I'll have to think further about which sub-articles would be improved by this particular global chart, and whether consensus in those articles would accept anything "new". The easiest place to insert color-coded=bar charts would be the country articles, but that effort would depend on finding original data. @DiagramLover:, are you aware of the location of nation-level data? 15:43, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Exception for city-states and microstates

  • Note: I understand that in large countries where there are many cities with different climates, table (in main article of country) with temperatures of many cities is disputed however, there are exceptions to the rule. Please stop removing weatherboxes from articles of city-states or microstates (Singapore, Malta etc) with a single climate across their entire surface. This behavior is considered disruptive. There is no any consensus for removing weatherboxes from articles about city-states, especially as the name says these are city-states, so - city, weatherboxes in articles about cities is standard on Wikipedia. Subtropical-man (✉ | en-2) 02:35, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Dependent/overseas territories

Should most if not all dependent or overseas territories have their own Lists of something in Foo for any lists on any specific topics or subjects? Discussion has been kick-started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Lighthouses#Dependent/overseas territories. 219.76.24.210 (talk) 08:42, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

There's no clear and consistent definition of what a dependent or overseas territory is, so this is really going to be a case-by-case item depending on the topic. CMD (talk) 09:16, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
What about those (permanently) inhabited by civilian residents with their own organised governments, that are "unincorporated" or where metropolitan laws don't apply unless otherwise stated? 219.76.24.210 (talk) 10:30, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
That would depend again on the specific topic. Sometimes they might be better listed separately, sometimes within their sovereign state. CMD (talk) 12:02, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
Any examples? Say, lists of airports, lists of banks, lists of companies? 219.76.24.200 (talk) 12:56, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
Presumably that would be impacted by how the air traffic regulations, financial authorities, and business registrations are structured with regards to the sovereign state. CMD (talk) 13:04, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
Quite many inhabited ones got their own air traffic regulatory authorities and aircraft registries, company registries and bank licensing regimes. 219.76.24.200 (talk) 13:08, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
Yes, some do, some don't, hence case by case. CMD (talk) 16:21, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
Anyhow by referring to "how the air traffic regulations, financial authorities, and business registrations are structured" the rule is rather clear (to those who won't refuse to understand). 219.76.24.210 (talk) 12:36, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
What's your take towards some staunchest advocates and defenders of the countries ≡ sovereign states notion? (E.g. Those stationed at Talk:List of metro systems and Talk:List of tram and light rail transit systems?) 219.76.24.196 (talk) 12:13, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Use of Flag in Infobox (Afghanistan)

As the use of flags in the infobox seems to be causing some disagreement on this talk page I think it would be useful to reach a consensus specifically on this issue.

Option A Continue using the flag of the Taliban

Option B Return to the tricolour of the deposed republic

Option C Use both

Option D Use neither

Note: This discussion has been going on for a while but now seems to be roughly half and half split between those supporting option A and those suggesting another option so additional comments would be helpful.

--Llewee (talk) 16:02, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Guam, Hong Kong and Macau

User:ThePoi had changed the way the airports of Hong Kong and Macau are displayed in the List of Singapore Airlines destinations as opposed to an earlier RfC consensus and with no discussion in the list's talk page. The same had happened to Guam and Hong Kong airports with the List of Japan Airlines destinations. What could be done? (Please discuss at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation.) 203.145.94.193 (talk) 15:34, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of "Largest cities of " templates

Templates "Largest cities of " has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. --Triggerhippie4 (talk) 09:49, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Not sure what to make of the addition below to multiple articles. Clearly no real information here ....sounds more like an advertisement...or something to convince the reader this data is worth Wild. Do we have a conflict of interest here and is there any data worth kepping? e.g...e.g We do have another example here that is different but is the data relevant or even informative?Moxy- 02:00, 30 December 2021 (UTC)


Growing importance is being given to the economic contribution of the creative industries to the national economy. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) recompiles statistics about the export and import of goods and services related to the creative industries[1]. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has assisted in the preparation of national studies measuring the size of over 50 copyright industries around the world[2]. According to the WIPO compiled data, the national contribution of creative industries varies from 2% to 11% depending on the country. Using the WIPO-framework, a study published in 2013.....[3]

All that is relevant to country articles is the national contribution of creative industries, and whether that is WP:DUE for the article will depend on each country. I do feel the coverage might be useful for some countries, but not in that current form. CMD (talk) 18:40, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
Thank you for the clarity around this, CMD and Moxy. Just to be super clear, the information about UNCTAD and WIPO is not relevant, but if just this is inserted ... Using the WIPO-framework, a study published in 2013 found that the total share from the creative industries amounted to a 4,7% contribution of copyright-based industries to Argentina's GDP and 3% contribution to employment. ... that would have been acceptable? Isla Haddow (talk) 06:17, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
It would depend on the country and the rest of the section. Within the small space allocated to the Economy, how relevant is a 3% contribution almost a decade ago? CMD (talk) 16:23, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "Beyond 20/20 WDS". unctadstat.unctad.org. Retrieved 2021-12-29.
  2. ^ "The Economic Performance of Copyright-Based Industries". www.wipo.int. Retrieved 2021-12-29.
  3. ^ Prof. Juan Miguel Massot, Karina Prieto, Marisa Weiry (September 2013). "The Economic Contribution of Copy". {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Image galleries

example of wide and cluster of images causing text sandwich
example of little mini images in a gallery that also causes undeuweight to the section
example of image overload that also causes side scroll action to be implemented for the whole article...and causing more attention to be drawn to the section then others

Wonder if we should write something about "Image galleries and cluster of images". The vast majority of our articles don't have them for a multitude of reasons. WP:GALLERY clearly discourages them... should we be saying the same here?

They cause access problems for many MOS:ACCIM
A gallery is usually added at the end of sections because no room to follow MOS:SECTIONLOC causing a section to have no images in mobile view until you scroll many times.
Gallery and collages often don't meet basic size requirements WP:IMGSIZE
Galleries can cause undue weight to a section because of shoehorning in of images WP:UNDUE.
Clusters of images sometimes cause text sandwich WP:SANDWICH.
Moxy- 00:07, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Côte d'Ivoire

Hi, Ivory Coast changed officially its name in 1985 to Côte d'Ivoire [4]. By decree dated on October 14, 1985, the Ivoirian government decided to name the country "Côte d’Ivoire" and to no longer accept translations of this French name [5]. Isn't it time to put this official name in the wikipedia pages concerning this country ? [6] [7] A similar example is that of Costa Rica.
Add a request in WikiProject Africa talk page and WikiProject Ivory Coast talk page. --Fayçal.09 (talk) 09:13, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
I added a request move here. --Fayçal.09 (talk) 09:43, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Discussion about article "Constituent state"

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Constituent state#Merger proposal, which is about an article that is within the scope of this WikiProject. --Heanor (talk) 16:15, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Handling linking to historic countries

Moved from User talk:Davidships § Courland Governorate

"Do we really need to say Courland Governorate, Russian Empire? We don't say, e.g. Nigeria Colony, British Empire do we? If people want to know more, it is only a click away. Another point is that I always pipe links to the Russian Empire as Russia, per COMMONNAME. Mjroots (talk) 17:52, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Mjroots - I would be more than happy with Courland Governorate, Russia. My only concern is not to leave readers with only an obscure indication of locale with no indication of what country it is in (between Riga and Hull there are many possibilities).Davidships (talk) 18:04, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
Hmmm, tricky on this. We don't say "Egypt Eyalet, Ottoman Empire", do we? - I just use Egypt. I think this probably needs a discussion at Wikiproject level. Mjroots (talk) 07:01, 4 March 2022 (UTC)"

The edit that sparked the discussion was this. So, the question is how should we handle linking to historic countries. The Egypt example above is one of many Eyalets, Vilayets, and Khedivates of the Ottoman Empire. My preference is that COMMONNAME is adhered to unless there is a strong reason to deviate (Dominion of Canada, Union of South Africa). If readers want to know more, the info is a mere click away. Mjroots (talk) 08:06, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't see how this is a COMMONNAME issue, as it's about describing a location not naming it. Whether to attach the larger country to a subdivision is an editorial choice. What I would say is that the page should be consistent. The page in question doesn't seem to have a consistent standard, sometimes just naming a town, sometimes naming a region ("The ship was driven ashore and wrecked at Mont-Saint-Michel, Manche"), and sometimes the country ("The schooner was wrecked on Scroby Sands, Norfolk, United Kingdom") or country-ish level colony ("The ship departed from Saint John's, Newfoundland, British North America"). CMD (talk) 09:21, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
@Chipmunkdavis: - with France, locations are given in the format of "location, department" where the date is post-1790. British North America is linked where that is the appropriate name for the area in question at the time in question - an importan principle is not to rewrite history. Where a ship is lost at a location different to its flag country, the the name of the country is given, unless it has already been established where that location is. The Courland Governorate had a different flag to the Russian Empire. Whereas the Grand Duchy of Finland used the same flag as the Russian Empire, but I've not seen it suggested that we write "Grand Duchy of Finland, Russian Empire". Mjroots (talk) 10:24, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
My own underlying view is is that what readers would want to know for a shipwreck is what the ship was (eg name, nationality and type), where it happened (ie geographical location), and something about what happened (on the day and eventually); to me, the geopolitics of the nearby coastline is not a priority. The entries on these pages are intentionally brief summaries of events. If I were writing this entry, I would have written "...Domesnes, Riga Bay. She was on a voyage from Riga, Russia to Hull, England." My reason for not doing so is that these shipwreck articles exist largely due to the prodigious dedication of, in particular, Mjroots and so I try to follow his approach as best as I can. It may be that WT:GEOG would also have views on this. Davidships (talk) 13:27, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
WT:GEOG notified. Mjroots (talk) 13:58, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
It is important to link to the country at the right period in its history e.g. to link to the Electorate of Bavaria if the date falls within the period 1623 to 1805 and not to Bavaria. However, we can always pipe it by typing e.g. [[Electorate of Bavaria|Bavaria]] if the full title seems unwieldy or awkward. Bermicourt (talk) 21:06, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Ukraine

Think we should work on this article together Ukraine ...needs lots of care. As of now its full of unsourced info and full of excerpts that dont allow us to monitor changes to the article and has many subpart references we normally dont use in country articles. Best get as many eyes on this considering whats going on.--Moxy- 17:16, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

FAR for Chad

I have nominated Chad for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. (t · c) buidhe 23:24, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

User script to detect unreliable sources

Main page: User:Headbomb/unreliable

I have (with the help of others) made a small user script to detect and highlight various links to unreliable sources and predatory journals. Some of you may already be familiar with it, given it is currently the 39th most imported script on Wikipedia. The idea is that it takes something like

  • John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14. (John Smith "[https://www.deprecated.com/article Article of things]" ''Deprecated.com''. Accessed 2020-02-14.)

and turns it into something like

It will work on a variety of links, including those from {{cite web}}, {{cite journal}} and {{doi}}.

The script is mostly based on WP:RSPSOURCES, WP:NPPSG and WP:CITEWATCH and a good dose of common sense. I'm always expanding coverage and tweaking the script's logic, so general feedback and suggestions to expand coverage to other unreliable sources are always welcomed.

Do note that this is not a script to be mindlessly used, and several caveats apply. Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable.

- Headbomb {t · c · p · b}

This is a one time notice and can't be unsubscribed from. Delivered by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:01, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Words to watch § RfC: Relative time references - 'today' or not 'today'?

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Words to watch § RfC: Relative time references - 'today' or not 'today'?. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:49, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Rm "ease of doing business index" from all "economy of" pages

Per this Ref desk post, we should remove the deprecated Ease of doing business index from all the "Economy of country X" pages. Keep a look out I guess, or hunt around, or use a script. Thanks. SamuelRiv (talk) 17:25, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

User: Iterresise‎ and largest cities sections/templates

Iterresise‎ (talk · contribs) has removed the "largest cities" section (usually containing a template) from a number of country articles. If I understand them correctly, their main issue is with the lack of consistency between such templates (see Talk:Bulgaria#Largest cities). Can someone please have a look through their edits and/or clarify what's the standard practice of this Wikiproject on that issue? Daggerstab (talk) 12:36, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

These templates have always been contentious, with accessibility and due weight concerns. There isn't any firm or consistent practice. CMD (talk) 03:33, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
I agree with CMD here. Not all countries have this template and there is no benefit to listing only a small number of population centres just to highlight the population. It is misleading and not beneficial when there is a separate article which can discuss this deeper. There isn't any guidance, policy, guideline, or essay on this. Iterresise (talk) 11:29, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
"Not all countries have this template" is a self-fulfilling prophecy when someone is going around removing that section. :) I also fail to see the logic in "no benefit to listing only a small number of population centres just to highlight the population" - they are not listed "to highlight the population", just to give readers an idea where the largest population centers are. I fail to see how it's somehow misleading but a separate article list is not. Lists of cities also don't typically "discuss this deeper", they are the same kind of tables. Daggerstab (talk) 12:13, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
Would you rather see every country have this template? I thought you were only concerned about Bulgaria. The template is very limited. In some city articles, they will list area of the city, multiple censuses, change from year to year, and density, among other statistics. It is also misleading because the definition of a city will differ between countries and within the subdivisions of a country. Iterresise (talk) 12:20, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
My point is that a list of the largest cities in a country is something that one would expect to find in an article about that country, regardless of it being implemented as a template or not. And I don't see how that's misleading - if such a list invites any comparison, it's between settlements within the same country, not between countries, so international differences in definitions are moot. Is this the root of the whole thing? Some kind of nationalist or intra-national competition about who has the most large cities? Daggerstab (talk) 12:39, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
My point is that there should be consistency between articles. Iterresise (talk) 14:15, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
Just the templates themselves with their particular formatting, or the practice of listing the largest cities in a country in that country's article in general? Daggerstab (talk) 12:09, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
It is both the template's formatting and its display and where the template is used (within the article). Iterresise (talk) 12:11, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
The question was not directed at you. Daggerstab (talk) 12:15, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
Most articles have this not in a template - but hard coded. Would need a wide talkto start removing the 200 or so. I wouldm support removing as most have little images that cant be seen.Moxy- 20:15, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
I have seen the same thing from this user, on both Sweden and Norway. With the justifcation being "pretty much just a table". Seems like a weird crusade to be on to me, sure, consistency is great, that doesn't mean every article has to look the same because they are in the same category. Not all country articles have the same sections and structure, and that's fine as long as it generally follows the same concept and manual of style. Including this as a good overview of population clusters at the cost of minimal increase in article size seems fine to me. If there are issues with individual ones, then that is another thing, but I saw no issues with the ones on Sweden and Norway, they were just removed by this editor because they seemingly are heavily against this. TylerBurden (talk) 03:33, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
So if there is no clear consensus, then it should be sorted on the individual articles. TylerBurden (talk) 03:34, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
Your arguments amount to "I like it because they are cosmetically beautiful". Have you looked at the other countries? There is no useful functionality when comparing the countries. Articles should be succinct and the discussion for countries' cities, as I mentioned above, should be moved and dealt with on the relevant and pertinent article. Iterresise (talk) 07:15, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
No idea why you are putting words in my mouth, they shouldn't be on the article because they are pretty, they should be on the articles because they are useful. Stop edit warring over this on multiple articles. TylerBurden (talk) 07:17, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
@Iterresise: I also strongly suggest you read WP:OTHERCONTENT to see why your line of thinking isn't as solid as you seem to think it is. --TylerBurden (talk) 07:19, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
(edit conflict)I'm counting 3 editors here who support removing the templates. You haven't addressed any of the concerns I stated. Take, for example, Vanuatu that has such a small population nor does it have cities. CMD mentioned WP:DUE and this is precisely the issue. Daggerstab and TylerBurden, stop the WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality. Iterresise (talk) 07:23, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
There is no battleground here, other than apparently you being willing to edit war across articles because of your personal preferences on templates. There is no clear consensus on this, so treat it on an individual case by case basis, perhaps on Vanuatu such a template is not appropriate, but it made perfect sense on both Sweden and Norway and from what I can see Bulgaria is no different. TylerBurden (talk) 07:29, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
WP:OTHERCONTENT is an essay while WP:DUE is a policy. Perhaps you are being disingenuous. Iterresise (talk) 07:37, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
So is WP:CON, which you seem to ignore. TylerBurden (talk) 07:40, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
Don't put words in my mouth, Tyler. Iterresise (talk) 07:43, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
I'm not, you are demonstrating that yourself by edit warring against several editors. While removing talk page warnings from your talk page about edit warring citing "essays". This really isn't something that should be complex, but I don't think I'll get through to you here since you're being nothing but snarky and passive aggressive at this point. So I'll leave you with this: respect WP:CON. TylerBurden (talk) 07:47, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
I am ending this thread because you are being disingenuous as you haven't engaged with my concerns I've wrote above. Iterresise (talk) 07:50, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
Please explain to me how it is undue weight to have a visual guide of country population clusters on articles? TylerBurden (talk) 07:42, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
2 reasons which I stated above: Comparing countries gives the countries with larger landmasses, larger economies, and larger populations these templates. The other reason is that you are comparing city populations versus city economies and city landmasses. Iterresise (talk) 07:47, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
Ok to address your points, I don't see how that has anything to do with due weight, we're not discussing flat earth here, we're discussing a simple template to provide a simple overview of population clusters, which is useful for people reading the article. I don't see why they should have to go to a seperate stub article for that when it is so simple to include. The templates I saw you remove were population based, nothing else, so I am not sure what you are on about nor why larger countries having these templates is such an issue to you. It's not a competition. TylerBurden (talk) 07:56, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
There is no limit to the sorts of templates we are going to create with this line of thinking. Right now, these templates are based on population, the proverbial next day will be by area, and then the next will be by GDP. We have tons of country articles on these topics. We don't need a small visual just to list the top 50. Iterresise (talk) 08:03, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
No, there certainly is a limit, but a small template providing a visual over the most populated locations is not it. If it were something more, I'd probably agree with you. With your own line of thinking, we might as well not add anything to articles because people will overdo it. See the issue? Again if it makes sense for an article, I see no reason to exclude these. TylerBurden (talk) 08:11, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
This is your opinion amounting to "I like it". You haven't provided any rationale as to why some countries do need these templates but others do. WP:IAR doesn't work like that. We have WP:CONTENTFORK and WP:WBA. Iterresise (talk) 22:38, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
@Iterresise I totally no Disagree with the massive and unilateral withdrawal of demographic tables from articles about countries and have reported their actions to the administration. You must reach consensus, not promote edit wars. Chronus (talk) 02:45, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
I also disagree and agree about reaching consensus. Gusfriend (talk) 05:54, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
@Iterresise: They are useful for readers of the article, which is who the articles are for, not your personal preferences based on beyond flawed logic. You're the one on a personal crusade against these templates because YOU don't like them. Hopefully the block will teach you to actually respect consensus and not edit war. Now additional people have come in also opposing your viewpoint, maybe it's time to WP:DROPTHESTICK. TylerBurden (talk) 08:46, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
If you continue to revert without explanations and edit war however, I'll be reporting that straight away as well since you are apparently completely incapable of letting this go. TylerBurden (talk) 08:50, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of List of Omani Governorates by Human Development Index

Notice

The article List of Omani Governorates by Human Development Index has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Contains scaffolding only, but no content. This was clearly intended to reflect articles such as List of Governorates of Iraq by Human Development Index with a table of statistics, but apparently the data table was never was added after the article scaffolding was created.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Mathglot (talk) 22:14, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Sections order: Geography above History

The geography section should be put above history. I can think of some reasons. Because this type of articles in essence is foremostly about geography. As you read, in the introduction of every articles, the geography aspects are mentioned first. People usually seek first to see where the country is, and geographical details. Btbg (talk) 17:02, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

The current recommended setup usually creates History->Politics->Administrative divisions->Geography, which has nice topical segues. Articles have adopted a few different orders differing from this over time, but not sure I've seen a Geography first one yet. CMD (talk) 21:32, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
We had this talk a few months ago at a GA review ....geography section normally much smaller then history (more room for image placement) have a few images that either get pushed way down. your edit at Lesotho made images shoved way down out of section - MOS:SECTIONLOC....and this edit to the Congo caused MOS:SANDWICH. Moxy- 17:23, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Feedback needed at list article regarding official status of Tamil

Should India be considered "a country where Tamil is recognized as an official language"? In a list article, this may depend on how the list criteria are defined or interpreted. Your feedback would be appreciated at this discussion. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 02:46, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

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