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Requested Move: ROI → Ireland (state)

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: NOT MOVED: Prior consensus on this matter is noted at WP:IRE-IRL; the below discussion demonstrates that consensus has not changed and is largely reaffirmed. Most participants prefer the current titles and even most users who prefer another one of the options, also have voted in the survey to accept this current option (albeit, down list). Arbcom, in the past, has counseled that these matters should be governed by reference to the current Ireland related MOS, which also appears to be consistent with current article title policy (see also, WP:Place) — Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:10, 9 November 2012 (UTC)


Should Republic of Ireland be renamed as Ireland or Ireland (state)? Kauffner (talk) 16:06, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

So there is clearly consensus against a move in the RM started below. Now that has been established and the RM should be coming to a close, you want to drag this out another month with a RFC to try and change the vote. Great. Grossly misleading and totally unacceptable wording again though too. You cannot just ask if it should be renamed Ireland or Ireland state, that is blatantly favouring a change to the status quo with people looking at that and thinking, "Do i want Ireland or Ireland (state)". Totally biased and deliberately designed to be. BritishWatcher (talk) 10:17, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
There is a huge backlog at WP:RM, so this could drag on for a while. But whenever the RM closes, the RFC would close as well. It was done this way for the Burma RM. Given the history of the issue I hope full due process is followed here. Kauffner (talk) 04:00, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

– The article on the nation-state of Ireland is currently at Republic of Ireland, yet the single word "Ireland" is both the common name of this state and its formal name as given in the Irish constitution. As detailed here, the Irish Supreme Court declared in 1989 that ROI is not "the correct name of the State" and that this usage is "erroneous." Just plain "Ireland" is the usage of the United Nations, European Union, Britain's Foreign Office, the U.S. Department of State, the Permanent Mission of Ireland to the United Nations, the Associated Press, New York Times, and Britannica. The purpose of an encyclopedia is to inform, but the current title misleads the reader into thinking that ROI is a proper long-form name and thus subtracts from the sum total of human knowledge. Kauffner (talk) 13:16, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Supporting material

  • "The name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland." — "Constitution of Ireland" (1937).
  • "In the English language the name of this State is "Ireland" and is so prescribed by Article 4 of the Constitution...[Use of "Republic of Ireland" is] difficult to explain. There is only one State in the world named Ireland." — Irish Supreme Court, Ellis v. O'Dea (1989) I.R. 530.
  • "Ireland is simply Ireland. Although it is a republic, it is not the Republic of Ireland." — "Style Guide", The Economist.
  • "For country names, the US Central Intelligence Agency's World Factbook — continually updated — is a good place to start." — The Chicago Manual of Style, §8.43. See "Ireland". The World Factbook (2024 ed.). Central Intelligence Agency..
  • "If I say that my name is Costello and that my description is that of senior counsel, I think that will be clear to anybody who wants to know. If the Senator will look at Article 4 of the Constitution she will find that the name of the State is Éire. Section 2 of this Bill declares that 'this State shall be described as the Republic of Ireland.' Its name in Irish is Éire and in the English language Ireland. Its description in the English language is 'the Republic of Ireland.'" — Prime Minister John A. Costello, 1948. Kauffner (talk) 13:16, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Survey

Indicate order of preference among the following options:


  • ABCED, as nom. Kauffner (talk) 13:16, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
  • ABCD. I'm voting alphabetical. As a generally third-party American, I find both the Ireland and Taiwan debates a bit silly. It seems that everyone not involved in those debates sees both issues clearly: it's China and Taiwan, Ireland and Northern Ireland. I'm convinced absolutely that these are common names, and I think historical and political concerns in the areas in dispute are the only things that muddy the issues. And if not for the prevalence of UK users here, the Ireland issue would be settled as simply as the Taiwan one. Now, whether as the English Wikipedia we should give greater weight to UK positions is a question I see as less settled. But Ireland is an English-speaking country as well. --BDD (talk) 18:14, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
  • My preferred order is AB*DC. In my opinion, most readers are not looking for the article on the island, and so "Ireland" should not take the reader straight to that page, rather to what is currently at "Republic of Ireland". I was really quite torn between having the current ROI article or a dab page at "Ireland", but I honestly think we'd be letting readers down with a dab page – I can't help but compare that to peoples' reactions if "paper" encyclopaedias tried that. The caveat on option B is that Republic of Ireland should remain at "Republic of Ireland", despite the style guides and blah blah blah (my reasoning: WP:NATURALDAB and all that, and an aversion to style guides and being dictated to in general). "Ireland (state)" seems sloppy and odd to me, probably because "state" is such a broad term, and I don't think "Republic of Ireland" is inherently misleading to the readers. For me, it boils down to countries having precedence over anything else. IgnorantArmies (talk) 14:02, 22 September 2012 (UTC) edited to make preference clearer 15:27, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
To clarify: my preference for "Republic of Ireland" over anything else (iff option A is not preferred) is due to the lack of a suitable (IMO) alternative. I generally prefer natural disambiguation to parentheticals. IgnorantArmies (talk) 14:04, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
In other words, your vote is AEBDC? Kauffner (talk) 03:24, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
  • DCABE There is no strong evidence that a majority of people are interested in the state more than the island. When Americans talk about their ancestors they don't mean modern Ireland. When people go on holidays they don't particularly care about the border. The only reason it comes up much now is because of the troubles with the Euro which is a temporary thing. Republic of Ireland is a recognized disambiguation by law in Ireland when there can be a conflict. It is better to land at a more general article rather than a more specific one if there is some ambiguity. Shouldn't the proposal have been phrased in a fairer manner rather than just pushing one side and leaving anything else to a discussion at the bottom? Dmcq (talk) 14:24, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
  • DC - This has been discussed to death, and the current setup has always come out on top. The island-country is the main topic. It has been called Ireland for over 1,000 years while the modern state has only been calling itself Ireland for 75 years. Even still, "Republic of Ireland" is the official description of the state. If the argument is that we should use "Ireland" because it's the official name, then by that reckoning we should move United Kingdom to "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", Germany to "Federal Republic of Germany", Greece to "Hellenic Republic" and over 100 others. In Northern Ireland, the state is almost never called "Ireland" and in Britain too it's seldom called that. Calling the state "Ireland" is akin to calling Northern Ireland "Ulster". ~Asarlaí 16:10, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
  • ABDC per nom. The options should also mention the Kingdom of Ireland. Laurel Lodged (talk) 17:47, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
  • DC. The issue of which topic has primacy is complicated; the status quo satisfactorily accomodates this complexity. --Kwekubo (talk) 19:14, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
  • DC per Asarlaí and Kwekubo. The island/country is the primary meaning; the state is a mere child. It is complicated and the status quo has always had consensus as being the best way of dealing with the complexity. Scolaire (talk) 19:38, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
  • DCBA The island is clearly the broad concept and most common meaning of "Ireland". A natural disambiguater is better than an artificial one. The status quo is the least worst arrangement. Timrollpickering (talk) 21:37, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
  • BDCA The island should be more prominent that its political units. -- 76.65.131.248 (talk) 22:51, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
  • DC Nothing has fundamentally changed since previous discussions on this. Valenciano (talk) 07:35, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
  • DCB per Asarlaí & Kwekubo & Scolaire, though this ranking obscures the fact that I rate D as many many times better than C. This issue has been discussed so many times before that we risk decisions being made by default as a result of editor fatigue. The comments above show lots of familiar editors whose view has not changed, and my view is also unchanged.
    The issues here are grossly mis-stated by the nomination, which misrepresents the problem as one of common name, when the reality is that the same common name is shared by two entities: the 32-county island, and the 26-county state. The article on the island covers more than 1,000 years of the history of the island, as well as its geography, whereas the article on the state covers the more recent history of part of the island. The article on the island is therefore a much broader topic, and in wiki terms it is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC.
    The oft-cited usage within international organisations of "Ireland" to refer to the state is a red herring, because Northern Ireland is ineligible for membership of those bodies, so no disambiguation is required in that rarified context. Within international organisations, states all referred to by their official name, regardless of whether that is their common name, so that usage does not help us make a decision in accordance with Wikipedia:Article titles.
    For those interested in the history of Ireland, the island article is the more comprehensive; for those interested in geography, the island article is more comprehensive; for those interested as tourists, the all-island article corresponds with the all-Ireland scope of the North-South joint tourism marketing of Ireland as a whole. That article should therefore continue to be the primary topic, and the article on the state should continue to use the widely-used natural language alternative.
    To those who advocate the use of "Ireland (state)" to describe the 26-county state, please note that the term is highly ambiguous, and could refer to any of the entities listed in Irish states since 1171. Ireland (state) is currently a redirect, but it should really be a dab page. If any state has a claim to the primary usage of that title, it is the Kingdom of Ireland, whose 258-year all-Ireland history spans a much longer period than the 90 years of the current 5/6ths state. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:29, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
Hey, BHG. Could you move part of this lengthy response to the Discussion below? Stops this section from getting overly long. --HighKing (talk) 11:39, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
Sure I could. As soon as the lengthy and partisan opening proposal is moved below and replaced with a neutral summary of the options, I will move all but a summary of my comment down below. -BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:50, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
And edit to add: As apparently saying nothing has changed since the last time this was debated isn't sufficient, I am in favour of the satus quo for the reasons outlined here. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 20:10, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Speedy close as a waste of time, given that the matter has been debated multiple times before and the nomination here merely rehearses the previous nominations without indicating any new arguments, any reason to believe the situation has changed, or even any acknowledgement of, let alone responses to, the counter-arguments put forward on previous occasions. D for all the reasons set out in all the previous discussions on this, the principle ones being reiterated above by BrownHairedGirl. ComhairleContaeThirnanOg (talk) 16:52, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Waste of Time - agree with statements made by ComhairleContaeThirnanOg. --ZooFamily (talk) 20:27, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
  • D/Waste of time, as before. — Jon C.ॐ 10:04, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
  • ABC per multiple prior arguments, agree with Bastun that nothing much has changed since last time, but the current form is still wrong despite the premature vote last time ----Snowded TALK 10:12, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
  • D' - and i strongly oppose the other options and this biased and unfair process. BritishWatcher (talk) 19:10, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
  • EDC, next DC as this is an international encyclopaedia and should not be a debating forum for mere students of politics. I was born and live in and prefer Republic of Ireland as the state name.Red Hurley (talk) 13:40, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
  • D - Kauffner fails to explain how exactly we would mention the Irish state in an article if we proceeded with "Ireland (state)". For instance if we follow IMOS and have Ireland used for the state when the island is not being mentioned and using Republic of Ireland when the island is being mentioned - thus following Kauffner's porposal every single instance regardless of context will need to be pipe-linked to "Ireland (state)" whereas at the moment we only need to pipe-link half of them. Mabuska (talk) 11:00, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
  • BACE – I am now convinced that “Republic of Ireland” is erroneous (meaning it is unsuitable even as a natural disambiguation), I don’t recall knowing about that Irish Supreme Court decision before now, that seems pretty conclusive to me.
    That leads me to prefer A, B or C over D or E. With this in mind, I still think it is impossible to define a primary topic for “Ireland”, which means that I firmly believe that “Ireland” should be a disambiguation page. That means I prefer B over A or C; and E over D.
    That leaves only A and C to separate, which forces me to pick a primary topic despite two firm opinions I hold against picking one here (to add to what I already stated, I dislike the idea of a primary topic in any case, but especially in this case). Forced to pick a primary topic, I guess I am answering the question ‘when someone uses the term “Ireland” with no context, or in a context where they could be referring to either the current state or the island, which are they more likely to mean?’, which would also be the same question if it ended “which is most commonly meant?”. This is by far the most difficult of these questions, but I think the current state just about wins, as countries are probably referred to more often than islands. So that puts A ahead of C. Therefore BACED, but no need to state the fifth of five options. I would also like to state my full support for this voting system. Much fairer than just voting for a single option out of many. MTC (talk) 16:30, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
  • DEA. The current setup has worked well, complies with common usage and uses the official description of the state. I see no compelling reasons to change the status quo, and would support a moratorium on requested moves until something changes in the real world. I oppose all options with "Ireland (state)" because the official description of the state, "Republic of Ireland" is the term in common use when the need to distinguish between the geographical and political entities. For the record, Kauffner (talk · contribs) invited me to take part in this discussion[1]. Thryduulf (talk) 16:45, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
  • ED: detailed rationale at Wikipedia:WikiProject Ireland Collaboration/statementbyDrkiernan. Everyone is agreed that Ireland is the official name, but Wikipedia does not put articles at their official name. We use common names or short form names or descriptions when disambiguation is required. Here we are using an official description as a natural disambiguator, as advised at Wikipedia:Article titles#Disambiguation. DrKiernan (talk) 18:44, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
  • ABC, as per Australia and Samoa articles, where the geographic term is the same as the state the state and both are common, the state seems to get primary topic. Murry1975 (talk) 17:43, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
How is this anything like the situation with Australia? Its an island and a state that controls the whole territory. The republic of Ireland is not the same as the island of Ireland which is shared between two sovereign states, and you cant just assign the entire history of the island of Ireland to the republic that has existed less than 100 years. BritishWatcher (talk) 10:55, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
The continent, the island and the state are different yet have the same common name. And to introduce the history element? There are very few states in Europe, including the UK btw, that existed in present form a hundred years ago (the UK in its present form is just as old as the Irish state), Germany in its present form has only existed less that 25 years- so BritishWatcher what point are you trying to make? That we should have exacting articles for everytime this occurs or that the state article should be brought into line with the others?Murry1975 (talk) 00:09, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
the point is a very simple one. Australia is country that occupies an entire continent. That is very different to a situation where there is a country that has existed less than 100 years that occupies part of an island, which has been known as Ireland for centuries before that states existence. Its an absolutely terrible comparison and symbolises this flawed and biased RM and RFC. Both of which should have been terminated days ago. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:13, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Australia does not occupy the entire continent, and for the record Samoa has differnet common meanings, like Australia shows consensus on other wiki articles for using the commonname when refering to state over geography articles. As I pointed the UK has existed in different forms since 1800 and yet the article titled the UK deals with the history of the precussors and the modern state, and Germany, which is an far older name than the previous examples has existed less than 25 years, yet the Germany article deals with all aspects of this. This shows again a consensus on wiki for commonname of the modern state. Murry1975 (talk) 00:09, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
What sovereign state shares the continent of Australia with the sovereign state known as the Commonwealth of Australia? You appear to be claiming that the Irish Republic article should claim the entire ownership of the island of Irelands history, which would be blatantly bias and factually inaccurate, and it is exactly why it is totally unacceptable for the state article to have the Ireland spot, because that is exactly what it will result in happening, and its why some people want it to happen too. BritishWatcher (talk) 23:39, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
According to us, Papua New Guinea does, in addition to parts of Indonesia. --BDD (talk) 23:42, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
The United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland may be deemed part of Europe, but many sources view it as not seen as part of continental europe, which is the European mainland across the English channel. If the main island of Australia was divided by two sovereign states, and the island was still known as Australia.. The state would not have primacy. BritishWatcher (talk) 23:48, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Why wouldnt the state have primary? WP:CRYSTALBALL? Australia is already a group of islands that form a continent and the state gets primary. Murry1975 (talk) 00:04, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
If two states were on the island continent of Australia and could each claim ownership of its history, whilst many sources continue to make reference to both being part of "Australia", why would the state with the title be entitled to primacy? As has been gone through on numerous occasions in this debate, there are extensive sources that refer to the island as a whole, rather than 1 of the states on the island today when using the name Ireland. BritishWatcher (talk) 00:20, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Again I must point out Australia is not an island continent, this I believe mutes part of your point. The other part is muted by the logic that most states we know now do not have an exclusive history, the US for example has history that is more complex than Irelands will every be, different native tribes, British, Spainish, French and Russian colonies, 13 states right up to 50 (and that has only been reached in the 1960's). Should we excluded all this history from the US article? Or the UK article which show history pre-1707 (not much but even so by following your point it shouldnt be there)and the history post-1707? The article History of the UK has a very good section Union with Ireland, are you advocating removing this too as it is history of what is now another state? I think not, yes Ireland has two meanings, the point being its primary usage in the world today is a the state. I accept that the island has large usage as does the usage to describe the whole as a country, but just because they are used does not mean they are primary. Murry1975 (talk) 00:49, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
The only way the Australia example would be relative to the Ireland debate is if there were two states on the island and like you accept in the case of Ireland, there was large usage describing the island by the name still including both the states. That is not the case in regards Australia at present and i do not accept your claim that the primary usage in the world today relates to the Republic of Ireland rather than the island, that is debatable, unlike the Australian case where the primacy is obvious. The UK articles primary focus remains from 1707, but touches on the situation before. Ive no problem with the Republic of Ireland article laying out the history, but thats very different to covering it in the sort of detail possible with the article on the island at present, able to cover all the history, the split, and the all ireland stuff today. Rather than attach it all to one state. BritishWatcher (talk) 01:05, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
And plenty of sources describe Australia as a island continent. What position wikipedia has decided to take on the matter is for a different debate, a quick look through the talk page of Australia (continent) also shows people disagreeing with use of that terminology and article location. The situation with regards the "australian continent" would appear more in line with the situation with the British Isles rather than about the island of Ireland being divided into two states. But as you yourself recognised, there are many sources referring to Ireland as the island, or "the whole as a country", that is not the case with regards Australia which is why its not comparable or relevant to this debate. BritishWatcher (talk) 01:39, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
If New South Wales left the Commonwealth of Australia and the other states continued to call the country they were part of "Australia", then the situation would be relevant to discussion but as that has not happened it is irrelevant as the country controls the entire landmass, which is not the case with Ireland. Thryduulf (talk) 10:35, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
We will differ in our opinions on this, lets not clog up the page anymore and let this run. Murry1975 (talk) 14:11, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
  • AB ECD... strong preference for A, but B is acceptable. People familiar with the topic know that the term can refer to either the state or the island, and understand that it usually refers to the state, not including the Northern Ireland part of the island. If we are to have a dab page, then the two uses should be clearly disambiguated with the appropriate information, while retaining the sense that the most common name for each is just Ireland; hence B. The others are progressively problematic in the order given. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:58, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Option F or G: A disambiguation page, the [I]sland at "Ireland (Island)", and the [Republic] at "Republic of Ireland", or at "Ireland (Republic of)" (but not without the preposition "of") (provided that the proposer herein is not in fact himself subsequently prevented due to whatever reason from proposing or effecting any further changes to the titles of geographical or geo-political articles).
  • Apples and oranges. I am in general unimpressed, or amused, with requests to re-name and move, especially in Island-of-Ireland-related articles, by persons with little direct, personal connections to the inner or greater region or regions concerned. No reasonable person can but say that there is absolutely, positively nothing remotely similar whatsoever to the greater China/Taiwan – PRC/RoC naming dispute; neither has the latter have any similarity with any other geographical or geo-political naming disputes in Europe or in the Middle East, and even the mere suggestion thereof is absurd and ludicrous. "Apples and oranges", and all that. This should be left well alone, and be left to the natives, the British and the Irish Wikipedians themselves (who are after all almost all native speakers of the English language, unlike the Chinese and the Taiwanese ones), with their own consensus, not by some "meddlesome" outsiders or foreigners; and this should moreover be made into a rule here in Wikipedia, supported by sanctions and penalties. Rightly or wrongly, there is still nothing remotely Chinese about Ireland, save for the odd old immigrants and the international students in the Universities.
  • The Economist. "The Economist" and its so-called "Manual of Style", both written anonymously, not only are considered no more reliable – by the natives themselves here in the United Kingdom and in the Republic of Ireland – than Wikipedia, but are considered all-together somewhat unreliable, certainly NOT widely consulted as a usual reference. (The ones that the natives consult are those published by the The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Observer, The Independent and The Daily Telegraph; The Economist is mainly read by foreign students studying in the United Kingdom and in the Republic of Ireland, and "uniformed" Johnny Foreigners in general "who don't know better".) It must be noted that The Economist is NOT in fact written in Standard British English, but a mixture of toned-down, non-standard Mid-Atlantic British, Mid-Atlantic American and Standard American English, and therefore potentially inadmissible.
  • WE don't speak American over here! "The Chicago Manual of Style" concerns with American English, which is NEVER spoken or used, by most, here in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland (although the natives in Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland, followed by the natives in Scotland, are usually the ones who are most open to the occasional American words), and is therefore both immaterial (irrelevant) and inadmissible.
  • The word "State" also means "the Government" here. In any case, it is in fact NOT correct to use the name "Ireland (state)" for the Republic of Ireland, for, firstly, that the Government of Ireland (being the official name) does not either permit, or no longer permits, the use of the terms "Irish Republic" or "Southern Ireland", or such terms with the word "state" therein (in it) as "Irish Free State" or "the Irish State"; and secondly, for in the United Kingdom (which is not a true federal state) and in the Republic of Ireland (which is a unitary republic), the word "state", instead of referring to a "sub-national political subdivision", as it is in the United States of America or in Australia, can also mean specifically the Government itself, rather than the entire geo-political entity as a whole, e.g., "the British State" means specifically Her [Britannic] Majesty's Government [in the United Kingdom], and "the Irish State" means specifically the Government of Ireland.
  • -- KC9TV 00:40, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • D per BrownHairGirl. B would also be acceptable but not my preference. I don't like A and C because I don't see how you would objectively be able to pick a primary topic out of the two articles. E seems to be pointless - No need for a disambiguation page if the articles have different names or the use of the qualifier(Island) if there is only one article named Ireland. Dlv999 (talk) 17:55, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • BECDA. No primary meaning. RoI seems misleading. Slightly prefer the island for the undisambiguated name if the DAB is rejected. Andrewa (talk) 10:29, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
  • D Fail to see what the other alternatives give that is an improvement over the current naming. Mtking (edits) , 21 October 2012
  • CBADE I view the island as the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, and place a higher emphasis on using the official name (e.g. United States vs. America). - Presidentman talk · contribs Random Picture of the Day (Talkback) 20:50, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
  • D The argument based on Constitution of Ireland (1937) is to base the name on an aspiration, that the people and government of the 26 counties claimed sovereignty over the whole island, as such it fails the Mandy Rice-Davies test (they would say that wouldn't they). When working on articles about Irish sports I have found that in practical terms, the word Ireland nearly always needs qualification because although Irish funding and analysis of sports use the term Ireland within their documents, they do not usually mean all of Ireland but those counties under the control of the Dublin government. So in practice one has to differentiate within articles. For example Irish Sports Council claims in this document "The Football Association of Ireland is the governing body for football in Ireland." (a page the document calls "Soccer"!) which is not true unless Ireland is taken to mean territory under the control of the Irish state (See FIFA) Yet the page on Rugby states "The Irish Rugby Football Union is the governing body for the sport of rugby in Ireland." which does not mean the territory under the control of the Irish state but all of island (See IRB). For anyone who does not know the politics and sports of Ireland those statements are confusing. The pages About Us and Governing Bodies in the document can only be partially understood if the page All Island Work is read first. The council was set up by Irish Sports Council Act (a link on the About Us page), and administers the functions laid out in the act, but the act does not contain a definition of what Ireland is, (for that one would have to look elsewhere) and I guess that would lead back to the 1937 legislation. A biased POV would not be such a problem if it were not that using it leads to incomprehensible sentences because using "Ireland", as demonstrated in the document I have used as an example, is confusing unless one already very familiar with the subject. Therefore I think for clarity of meaning the current page names are better than the alternatives. -- PBS (talk) 13:15, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
    • The Irish state was generally referred to as "Ireland" from 1921 onward. The constitution simply acknowledged what was already a well-established usage. The idea that the "Republic of Ireland" is only part of a larger "Ireland" entity did not arise until later, with Britain's Ireland Act 1949. Kauffner (talk) 02:33, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
  • DCEBA - The nominator makes a strong case that the WP:COMMONNAME for the nation-state is simply "Ireland". Unfortunately, this argument is irrelevant to the issue at hand since the common name of the island is also "Ireland". All of the WP:OR on what the WP:PRIMARYSOURCES say the WP:OFFICIALNAME is also misses this point. It all comes down to what the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is. The current article on the island functions nicely as a WP:CONCEPTDAB (which is what other encyclopedias such as Columbia do, with the nation-state at Ireland, Republic of). Whether it's official or not, "Republic of Ireland" is commonly used and is a much more natural disambiguation than "Ireland (state)". TDL (talk) 05:05, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
  • DAEBC - D first per don't fix it if it's not really broken, but the arguments for the sovereign state being the primary topic are slightly convincing. I'm not fond of "Ireland (state)" since ROI is a commonly used enough variant which supersedes the need for a dab label in brackets. - filelakeshoe 22:48, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
  • DA - Just as in case with the move request of Taiwan. Ireland (as country) is most likely as the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and the namesake island would be move to Ireland (island) article. ApprenticeFan work 01:38, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
  • D That option is the only one I'd support. Keep the status quo as it is, there is no need to change it not to mention that "Ireland (state)" just looks out-of-place. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 10:17, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

  • Point of discussion as this cannot be decided without taking this into consideration. The island is called Ireland and has been for a lot longer than this modern state of Ireland has been around. Also a lot of references to Ireland are referring to the land, the island, the historical concepts of Ireland and not the modern state. From a Wikipedia naming perspective I believe the island at Ireland is a clear WP:Primary Topic. Canterbury Tail talk 15:02, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Is the preference with most preferred first or most preferred last? I put most preferred first but IgnorantArmies put A first and yet says they prefer Republic of Ireland. Dmcq (talk) 14:29, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
"Country" is much more ambiguous than "State". "Country" could rightly be used to refer to Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Scotland, the Scottish Highlands, the West Country, the Basque Country, asf. "State" can only mean an independent state or an administrativ' region therof. ~Asarlaí 16:21, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
I know, but my concern is with matching current usage. --BDD (talk) 16:06, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
I can assure you that in current usage, Ireland (as a whole) is quite often referred to as a country. ComhairleContaeThirnanOg (talk) 16:54, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
I see support for state here at Ireland in a state of chassis ;-) Dmcq (talk) 09:14, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
What improvement to decision making is gained by putting in options nobody is going to choose to put first? Someone stuck your thing as E above so go and support it if you really do support it. Dmcq (talk) 09:18, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
It came up during the mega vote and has been a repeated problem when various polls fly around with less than all the options - the classic being the one that excluded the status quo. Given the history of this dispute such an approach doesn't help in the slightest. Timrollpickering (talk) 12:51, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
Well, at a glance it looks like this option is coming close behind Option A now (both are well behind the current set-up), so even though it is almost guaranteed to make all the editors from Ireland unhappy, it clearly has some appeal. --41.232.58.237 (talk) 07:47, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Please be aware that this has been a Arbcom case and the current naming patterns are based on a long-running consensus from that. Any naming changes may be affected by current motions and resolutions from that case. --MASEM (t) 03:39, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
Actually, to be accurate, the Arbcom case did not result in a consensus. It was a vote count which has since been shown to have been overwhelmingly and unfairly influenced by the volume from one national/cultural bias in particular. Which is what always happens on this issue. --HighKing (talk) 11:38, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
That claim has been repeatedly made, yet is also without grounding. Various attempts at counting "Irish editors" were inconclusive, with most showing that the result would be unchanged if the electorate was restricted on ethnic or nationalist grounds. Even looking at the votes above, I'm Irish as is BHG, Scolaire, Bastun and Asarlai and all favour the status quo so I'm still not seeing this anglo-american supression of the preferred "Irish" option. Valenciano (talk) 16:57, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
All attempts to count nationality have been inaccurate and therefore inconclusive, because not every editor publishes their nationality. But. For those editors where their nationality is known (like the list you just published) the voting patterns were striking and not inconclusive in the slightest. And I don't know what you mean by "anglo-american" supression - wasn't a counted demographic AFAIK. --HighKing (talk) 09:56, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
Not true and you know it. User:Rannphairti_anaithnid published just such an analysis at the time which showed the status quo prevailing and besides that, no one has yet made a convincing case as to why geographical locations on this encyclopedia should only be written by citizens of that country. Seems to fly totally against what we're trying to do here. Speaking personally as an Irish ex-pat, I'm kinda happy that people care enough about the place to write about it, regardless of where they're from. I've honestly never really got where you're coming from with this one. Valenciano (talk) 18:57, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
Actually, to be accurate, the Arbcom case led to a six-month long discussion here on this page. The result of that discussion, agreed by the great majority of participants on both sides of the debate, with only two or three dissentors, was to hold a vote (not a !vote but an actual poll of editors), using STV, among the whole Wikipedia community, without distinction of ethnic, national, cultural or any other identity. The vote was held, and the result was conclusive: maintain the status quo. The notion that a volume of votes from one "bias" should have been excluded was never mooted before the much-trumpeted launch of the poll. And, in any case, how could such a bias be "conclusively shown"? All attempts to count nationality have been inaccurate and therefore inconclusive, because not every editor publishes their nationality. The number of identifiable British/NI "unionist" voters was considerably less than the number that would have been required to overturn the majority. Also, the number of Irish who voted for the status quo, while it may have been the minority (and despite what you say, whether they were or not depends on whose figures you accept), was large enough that you could not say with any degree of confidence that the Irish demographic was different to the population as a whole. Scolaire (talk) 16:38, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
Not only that, but Rannpháirtí Anaithid's analysis also clearly showed that the option that came nearest to winning - the then option E, which as I recall would have turned Ireland into a dab page and renamed the articles Ireland (state) and Ireland (island) - was in fact joint-least popular among voters assumed to be Irish, far behind the winning solution which we are being told is the result of some nefarious foreign plot. ComhairleContaeThirnanOg (talk) 22:23, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
According to RA's analysis, 16 (53%) "Irish editors" voted for ROI in 2009, 14 (47%) for "Ireland (state)". No one is voting "Ireland (state)" this time around, so those would probably be "Ireland" (Option A) votes now. The overall vote was 126 (56%) for ROI, 101 (44%) for "Ireland (state)". Kauffner (talk) 05:18, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
No, that's not what happened, because those were not the options. RA's analysis shows that if only the editors assumed to be Irish had voted, the final count would have been 16 for having the country article at "Ireland" and the state article at "Republic of Ireland" against 14 for having the country article at "Ireland" and the state article at "Ireland (state)". But the vote boiled down to a choice between having the former and having "Ireland" as a disambiguation page, the country at "Ireland (island)" and the state at "Ireland (state)". RA did not work out how Irish voters split on that choice. I don't know which editors our Anonymous Contributor counted as Irish, so can't work that out against the same dataset either. You'll note that the second choice among the Irish editors also involved keeping the country at "Ireland", so it is quite a leap to assume that supporters of that option would necessarily prefer to move the state article there. --ComhairleContaeThirnanOg (talk) 21:08, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
Sixteen Irish editors voted for the island to be primary topic in the first round. That's the same as the number who voted for ROI in the final round. I assume it was the same people. My spin is that the Irish editors reacted negatively to the idea of making "Ireland" a DAB, an idea that was popular with non-Irish editors. Kauffner (talk) 10:18, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
That's true but not even the whole story. It's also the case that of the 32 assumed Irish editors, 28, or 87.5%, voted for options that kept either the current "ireland" article or an alternative "main topic" article at Ireland. Only 2 voted for a dab page there, but equally only two voted for moving the "state" article there. So I think it's clear that the Irish contingent strongly prefer having an all-Ireland article of one form or another at "ireland". Which suggests that a move such as the one suggested above will be at best extremely contentious. --ComhairleContaeThirnanOg (talk) 16:32, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Personally I believe this argument is too complicated for a single poll. Various viewpoints can be condensed to:
  1. The state article should reside at "Ireland" since that is the official correct name of the state.
  2. The island article takes precedence over the state article, and therefore should reside at "Ireland"
  3. Both have the same "weight", why don't we use a dab page
  4. The state article should not reside at "Republic of Ireland"
All the viewpoints have validity. Trying to out-number the status quo (even though the status quo doesn't have consensus) is futile. Even if a majority disagrees with the current arrangement, nobody agrees on why they disagree, hence there's no alternative arrangement with sufficient numbers. Divide and conquer. Stupidity in action. --HighKing (talk) 11:52, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
HighKing, I think you are right in part of what you say: "there's no alternative arrangement with sufficient numbers". Where I disagree with you is that I see no reason to change to an alternative unless that alternative arrangement carries more support than the status quo. I can see no basis in any of wikipedia's procedural policies for replacing one disputed arrangement with something which is more widely opposed. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:44, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
Because the current arrangement is particularly objectionable to those who object to it. It's the wikigeopolitical equivalent of a certain recent YouTube clip, I think. ComhairleContaeThirnanOg (talk) 17:02, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
Actually BHG, we don't disagree at all. --HighKing (talk) 09:57, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
  • I just want to express my displeasure with editors whose votes solely take the form of "we've discussed it before." Please consider making arguments for your preferred option, especially with policy-based evidence. See Kauffner's nomination if you need an example of such an argument. --BDD (talk) 16:16, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
    • WP:DISCUSSED is based on the premise that consensus can change. Of course it can, but you would expect to see some evidence of this changing consensus. On the contrary, this RfC from just two months ago shows that it is taken for granted that the article will remain at its current title for the foreseeable future. Opening an RM just because it's a year since the last one is not going to achieve anything, especially when the arguments are the same tired arguments that have been rejected time and again over the last ten years. If the nominator doesn't bring any new arguments to the table, it's very difficult for the opponents to counter with anything other than "we've discussed it before". Scolaire (talk) 16:32, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
BDD, it's because several of those editors have gone to considerable lengths to rebut identical arguments in the past and therefore fail to see why we have exactly the same debate every few months without a hint that anything has fundamentally changed. Valenciano (talk)
Saying "we've discussed this before" may not be an adequate response, but saying "we've discussed this before and I have already indicated the reasoning behind my choice of option X" seems more than reasonable to me. The proposer of this move request has proposed it on more or less the same grounds that it was proposed before, and has made no attempt to rebut the countervailing arguments that were made at length on previous occasions. If he did engage with the objections, which far from being a secret have been rehearsed at mind-boggling length on several previous occasions, and brought some new arguments to the table, I would have no particular objection to responding to those. But I personally think someone who is re-proposing a previously failed move request should at least engage with the arguments that were made against the move on previous occasions. ComhairleContaeThirnanOg (talk) 17:02, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
You displeasure is noted, User:BDD. Please also note my displeasure at seeing yet another RM proposed on exactly the same basis as prior ones, without addressing any of the reasons why prior ones failed. For what it's worth, here are some of the arguments in favour of the status quo that I've made in the past. In fairness, you didn't take part in the Great Debate of 2009, so you may have missed all the same arguments by all the same people made then, before then, and subsequently... BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 20:21, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
US should return stolen land to Indian tribes, says United Nations. Dmcq (talk) 20:48, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
I'd be interested in a completely different discussion, on the issues surrounding renaming the "Republic of Ireland" article to something (anything) else, and leaving everything else as it is. But not now, and not connected to the current discussion. --HighKing (talk) 10:00, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
I would support that 100%—including (or particularly) the "not now, and not connected to the current discussion." Scolaire (talk) 16:40, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
While I believe that Republic of Ireland is the best dab, I've never had any objection to the country being at Ireland (state) or whatever suitable alternative can be hashed out. The island is clearly the primary topic, but other variants of the state article name would be reasonable enough and would have a far better chance of getting consensus. Valenciano (talk) 19:02, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
My understanding was that late last year we agreed to have a move proposal on precisely that - a move of Republic of Ireland to Ireland (state) - and even scheduled it for 15 January gone by. It's all there in the last archive. By the time 15 January came round it never happened, probably because everyone was so dispirited by the process of having got that far, but perhaps also because it got sidetracked when people kept popping up re-raising the old rejected move proposal instead, just like this time. ComhairleContaeThirnanOg (talk) 22:12, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
No, we didn't agree to anything last year. Some of the wiser heads began to form a consensus that that was the move most likely to find acceptance, but the lunatic fringe made sure that the wiser heads did not prevail, and in the end everybody gave up at the same moment. Perhaps when the current madness is over, we could start talking about talks about that possibility again. Scolaire (talk) 23:47, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Comment - This requested move is blatantly bias (it completely ignores the primary problem, which is there is an island called Ireland, which is the primary topic), This should not have been introduced without prior discussion, and considering the lengths that were went to last time, an extensive process endorsed by arbcom, this should not be done in this way. BritishWatcher (talk) 19:07, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

You're begging the question. It's quite obvious from the discussion here that not everyone agrees that the island of Ireland is the primary topic. And an RM is absolutely the proper way of requesting a move. Instructions there indicate that Ireland-related discussions must occur here, not that they require "prior discussion." We don't follow parliamentary procedure—we don't need to discuss whether we want to discuss. --BDD (talk) 19:53, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Reply to MTC: Re the "Supreme Court decision", the reference to that in the ROI article is actually very misleading. There was no such decision. The court was hearing an appeal by Dessie Ellis "against the failure of the High Court to prohibit the hearing of district court proceedings for his extradition from Ireland" (Irish Times, 6 December 1989). The Supreme Court ruled against Ellis, that is, its decision was that extradition proceedings could continue, and in fact Ellis was extradited. In the course of his judgement, Justice Brian Walsh said, "if the courts of other countries seeking the assistance of this country..." etc. This was not a ruling, and it had no effect on the court's ruling. James Casey, in Constitutional Law in Ireland, correctly reports the judges remarks, but the Wikipedia article incorrectly interprets Casey. The fact is, not only were Walsh's remarrks obiter dicta, but they have not been relied on in a single case in the 23 years since. There is no Irish law - none whatever - against the use of ROI as a name for the state. Which is just as well, as otherwise thousands of Irish citizen's, including RTÉ employees, publishers and the designers of food and other packaging would be breaking the law every day. Scolaire (talk) 10:55, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
    I don’t think obiter dictum applies here; the question of the name of the country may not have been central to the case, but I find it unlikely that such a long and specific passage in a Supreme Court decision would be based on an erroneous understanding of the law. There may be a misunderstanding here as to which statement I was referring to. I was and am referring to the “However, they are not at liberty to attribute to this State a name which is not its correct name” line from the quote here. Care to cite any cases in the 23 years since that have specifically contradicted that statement? That would stand a very good chance of convincing me to change my vote. Such a case should also be added to the names of the Irish state article, for balance against the Ellis v O’Dea case at the very least.
    Also, news reporters and publishers are free to use whatever name they like, using “Republic of Ireland” can’t be breaking the law, even if it happens to be unprofessional and incorrect. The name of a country should indeed be set out in law, and using the wrong name is incorrect, but it cannot be considered “breaking the law” to use a few words incorrectly. Such a law would be akin to a law against bad grammar, and I’d have to report you to the police for using an apostrophe for a pluralization (“citizen’s”). MTC (talk) 12:27, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
I can't believe I did that! That is indeed a hanging offence. As for the substantive matter, we'll have to agree to disagree. To me that long and specific passage is just one (albeit a distinguished) person's opinion. To me, the absence of any cases in 23 years, citing or contadicting that obiter, is a mark of how irrelevant the lawmakers think it was. The pronouncements of any judge are only significant to the extent that they are used as precedent (or are reversed) in the future. In this case, that would give it zero significance. BTW Names of the Irish state also misquotes its source, which again says "Walsh J. condemned the practice..." and not "the Supreme Court unanimously condemned..." Scolaire (talk) 13:52, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
Whether you consider Ireland would be better used for the state instead of the island or we should use Ireland (state) is up to you to decide, but saying 'Republic of Ireland' is not a natural disambiguation is simply wrong. That is the official description of the state and it is used to disambiguate in the Dail quite often when there is a discussion which relates to Northern Ireland. If you've read the articleyou'll see for instance the Revenue Commissioner's letter, and they've used Republic quite rightly there to avoid possible mistakes or confusion. Dmcq (talk) 13:05, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
I agree. The fact that "Republic of Ireland" is not the official name of the state is already a matter of consensus here, I think. But as has been noted at length, Wikipedia naming policy places no great emphasis on using official names. "Ireland (state)" is not an official name either! --ComhairleContaeThirnanOg (talk) 13:52, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia’s naming policies are guidelines, not rules, and I have arguments against many of them. Also, “Ireland (state)” doesn’t need to be an official name, “Ireland” is the name and “ (state)” is a disambiguator (not a very good one though, given there have been several states called “Ireland”).
The question to be answered here as I see it is “is it incorrect to use Republic of Ireland?”. If yes, we shouldn’t use it under any circumstances, and we should use “Ireland” with a disambiguator; if no, it is the most natural disambiguation and should be used as the article title given that “Ireland” is ambiguous.
Dmcq, at no point did I claim that “'Republic of Ireland' is not a natural disambiguation”, I said it was incorrect to use it as such if it is no longer a valid name of the country. Scolaire, if that is indeed just one person’s opinion then the this needs editing, as it is currently written it very clearly implies that the quote is a statement by the court, which suggests it is far more official than “just one distinguished person's opinion”. Unfortunately the source for the quote is a dead link and I have been unable to find a better source via Google.
I’ve now read the whole of Names of the Irish state several times. The main pieces of evidence as I see them are the Supreme Court statement from 1989 and the official use of “Republic of Ireland” by the Revenue Commissioners more recently than that. Anything that doesn’t relate to the Irish government’s usage is irrelevant in my view, the question here is about the official position of the Irish government. So we have a Supreme Court judge’s opinion of the law versus an envelope printed by the Revenue Commissioners. I’m siding with the law expert. MTC (talk) 14:55, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I said that that needs editing. The source, which I have, says "Walsh J. condemned the practice..." and not "the Supreme Court unanimously condemned...". Ditto for all other references to "the court" in that paragraph. The source is not very good, by the way (it's a course manual from the Law Society FE1 Preparatory Course at Griffith College, Cork). It says, among other things, that Walsh J. said that "foreign courts are at liberty to issue warrants in the foreign language", when in fact he said that the courts of the United Kingdom or of other States might choose to issue warrants in the Irish language, per the following quote. Incidentally, I'm perplexed by your apparent suggestion that a Supreme Court judge’s opinion of the law represents the official position of the Irish government. Judges and governments frequently differ - it's called the Separation of Powers. In this instance it would appear that the Minister for Justice was happy to accept extradition warrants that did not use the name "Ireland", despite the opinion of the learned judge. The Revenue Commissioners, on the other hand, are ultimately responsible to the government. Scolaire (talk) 16:20, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
I’m perplexed as to how someone could be perplexed at a suggestion that an Irish Supreme Court judge has expert knowledge of Irish law. Your separation of powers point actually strengthens my position, as we now have a high‐ranking official of one law‐related body (even if his opinion is not representative of the court’s opinion, it is still an expert’s opinion about a fact) versus a envelope printed by a non‐law‐related government department. I’m wondering if it’s possible to make my position any clearer. Now, being aware of the possibility for arguing in circles, I’ll avoid replying any further unless any new arguments are made. MTC (talk) 17:40, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
I said "I'm perplexed by your apparent suggestion that a Supreme Court judge’s opinion of the law represents the official position of the Irish government." I never at any time suggested he did not have knowledge of the law, and that's not what you were arguing: you said "Anything that doesn’t relate to the Irish government’s usage is irrelevant in my view, the question here is about the official position of the Irish government." Don't misrepresent me. And thank you for avoiding circular arguments in the future. Scolaire (talk) 19:44, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
I wish people would keep track of what they say for just a short while. 'meaning it is unsuitable even as a natural disambiguation' and 'Dmcq, at no point did I claim that “'Republic of Ireland' is not a natural disambiguation” are as far as I see in conflict with each other. Perhaps one can twist one mind to make them consistent but could we not just make what is said more plain and constructive thanks. Dmcq (talk) 20:04, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
Scolaire, you were stating that you were perplexed about my suggestion. If my defense of my point was a “misrepresentation” of what you were perplexed about then you are in fact misrepresenting what I said. I never suggested that the judge represents the official position of the Irish government, as if he is making the law rather than interpreting it. My point was that as he is presumably an expert in law, I trust his reading of what the official position of the Irish government is (I am equating “official position of the Irish government” with “Irish law”, perhaps that is what confused you). I have no intention of misrepresenting you, but likewise do not misrepresent me.
Dmcq. “unsuitable as” is not the same as “not”. Whether something is a natural disambiguation is not decided by whether it is correct or not. “Republic of Ireland” is a natural disambiguation whether or not it is valid as a name of the country. My argument is that it is unsuitable because it isn’t a valid name, not that it is unsuitable because it is “not a natural disambiguation”. MTC (talk) 20:20, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
I'm not here to waste my time on sophistry. Dmcq (talk) 21:26, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
Ditto. Scolaire (talk) 10:08, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Is it getting about time to summarize? As far as I can see WP:COMMONNAME checks don't clearly favour whether Ireland should be the island or the state and there's a number of reasonable possibilities for dealing with the conflict and there's no particular policy problems - so it all depends on what most people want though we shouldn't do anything if the numbers are close. Maybe people will polish up the presentations of their cases above? perhaps something more stirring could sway a few minds? Dmcq (talk) 11:31, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
What should happen is the above debate be archived as there is clearly majority support for the current setup, there is absolutely no consensus for any form of change nor will there be at this stage. The debate should be over for now, and if necessary this needs taking to arbcom for it to be locked in place for another year or two to prevent this sort of thing happening which has done nothing to resolve the dispute as no new evidence was provided.. even worse than that the whole RM was framed in a way that entirely forgot there was an island called Ireland, which is the whole reason for the current setup. Even with the blatant bias RM/RFC, along with biased canvassing.. the vote still remains against any change to the island article titles. I fail to see why anything needs polishing, it needs putting in a cupboard for another couple of years. BritishWatcher (talk) 12:15, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
Same. I don't think there is much benefit to summarising — it would just rehash the same arguments.
There is no consensus to move. The appropriate policy area here is WP:TITLECHANGES. For better or worse, Republic of Ireland has been the article title for a long time. Without consensus and a good reason to change, that is where is should stay. --RA (talk) 20:11, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
I have requested a close at WP:AN/RFC. --Scolaire (talk) 15:24, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree with BW and RA and with Scolaire's request to close. Mabuska (talk) 15:31, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Notifications

In view of the longstanding disputes about notifications of debates in this area I feel it is important to record notifications of this RM:

The following users have been notified of this proposal by the nominator:

The following projects have been notified by the nominator:

Timrollpickering (talk) 22:12, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

The list of individuals looks a bit selective to me! WP:Canvass? --Scolaire (talk) 07:02, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
The list of users looks *very* selective to me... As someone who is now an infrequent contributor but who has nonetheless taken part in every such debate since joining, I'd expect at least a heads-up. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 11:51, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
I wasn't canvassed. I found a draft proposal in Jpech95's user space and commented on it; Kauffner merely notified me when the proposal went live. This also explains Jpech95's notification. Jenks24 is a respected admin active in requested moves. I'm not sure about GoodDay. The proposal is listed at WP:RM and the relevant WikiProject was notified. Please assume good faith. --BDD (talk) 16:12, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
Only one of the projects that the articles are members of was manually notified. It may be more due to technical problems than anything else but as far as I can see Article Alerts has not picked up on this RM yet. And this doesn't even cover the list of places for notification that was thrashed out for past discussions. Timrollpickering (talk) 16:55, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

I would have liked to of been notified about this debate. BritishWatcher (talk) 19:04, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

There's only evidence of one editor not involved in the draft proposal being notified, and that editor is not participating. Monitor this page and/or RM if you're interested in naming discussions related to Ireland or in general. --BDD (talk) 19:57, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
I do check this page occasionally.. but the RM was entirely out of the blue with no recent previous conversation about holding a RM. Clearly it would have been helpful had there been several weeks of debate before jumping in with a RM to ensure people did not miss it. BritishWatcher (talk) 10:39, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
But there was previous notification, even on this page. See the section ROI naming proposal. It's been a while, but I doubt you would have liked it if he gave that notification the day before. Perhaps it was taken for an April Fool's joke. --BDD (talk) 17:51, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
Unfortunately BDD WP:Votestacking is quite explicit. It isn't the number of votes it's getting 'support votes up first to give momentum. In this case even if the RM had carried it would have been easily appealable because of those 4 selective messages at the same time as posting the RM. In the case of habitual behaviour this becomes an issue requiring remedy:

How to respond to inappropriate canvassing The most effective response to quite recent, clearly disruptive canvassing is to politely request that the user(s) responsible for the canvassing stop posting notices, possibly using {{subst:Uw-canvass}}. If they continue, they may be reported to the administrators' noticeboard, which may result in their being blocked from editing. Users with a prior history of disruptive canvassing, which they have previously been asked to discontinue, may be blocked immediately without further warning, if such an action is deemed to be necessary.

In ictu oculi (talk) 13:01, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
IIO has posted messages denouncing me for this and that every day for about three months now. He has followed me from Czech hockey player RMs, to Vietnamese diacritics, and now to Ireland. Hey, everyone needs a hobby. Kauffner (talk) 14:25, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
Um-huh. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:09, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
I think this particular argument is kind of moot. It looks rather like anyone who wants to follow this has it watchlisted anyway. At any rate, the votes above suggest that nothing is changing on this occasion, so we can probably spare ourselves the debate about the debate about the debate. --ComhairleContaeThirnanOg (talk) 16:25, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I am also unhappy about the fact the Ireland wikiproject was notified and not the UK one. The Ireland naming dispute relates not just to Ireland but also the UK, which shares Ireland with the Republic of Ireland. In future if we have the misfortune of additional debates on this subject, both should be notified or neither. Otherwise it is bias. BritishWatcher (talk) 10:39, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I think it's a fair assumption that any members of the UK Wikiproject who are interested in Ireland are as likely to have joined the Ireland wikiproject, which covers both the North and the Republic. --ComhairleContaeThirnanOg (talk) 13:57, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
I disagree ComhairleContaeThirnanOg for this WikiProject is the default one for the Republic of Ireland however since it's creation has been used for an all-Ireland guise despite the fact other islands don't have such WikiProjects so I'm assuming it's a poliitcal statement. If anything the collaboration WikiProject should be made the default for the island and this one left solely for the Republic. On that basis I disagree that members of the UK WikiProject would join this one if they were interested in Northern Ireland affairs. Mabuska (talk) 13:20, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure if you noticed, but this WikiProject is the collaboration WikiProject. However, WikiProject Ireland is and was always meant to be an all-Ireland project. Look at the list of members (which includes English, Scottish and American users as well as NI ones). Look at the very first edit in 2006. Look at the project page itself which begins: "WikiProject Ireland is a WikiProject dedicated to improving Wikipedia's coverage of topics related to Ireland" (not "the Republic of Ireland"). This WikiProject is for collaborating on "cross-border" or unionist-nationalist issues, while WP:IE is for matters of general interest relating to Ireland, north and south. Let's not turn an RM on an article into a debate on the "guise" of another WikiProject, or whether it is a "political statement".

Proposed notification list

This is taken from the discussion in November 2011. Those already here or notified are given unlinked:

Asarlaí, Bastun, BritishWatcher, BrownHairedGirl, Daicaregos, Dmcq, ComhairleContaeThirnanOg, Eluchil404, Evertype, Fmph, GoodDay, Hans Adler, HighKing, Mabuska, Kauffner, MTC, Mtking, RA, RashersTierney, Red King, Sam Blacketer, Scolaire, Sswonk, Thryduulf, Timrollpickering, Valenciano, Van Speijk. Kauffner (talk) 07:16, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
Stable door, mate. It would be polite to notify them, even at this late stage, but the discussion is dead in the water. Scolaire (talk) 07:30, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Scolaire, it would of been polite regardless of the stage. Mabuska (talk) 11:19, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

@User Scolaire, User Bastun, User British Watcher etc. are you satisfied with the above as User Kauffner's response to the WP:CANVASS issue? Are you satisfied that there's a recognition that it was contrary to the WP:CANVASS guideline and that there's a committment to not keep on doing it? Unfortunately I see here is the attitude of repeatedly getting away with the same behaviour encouraging the behaviour to continue. Which just means that the next RM in the User:Kauffner/RM incubator pipeline will have the same problem. Is this what the community wants? In ictu oculi (talk) 05:04, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I usually fully support the good progress and commonsense approach Kauffner takes to the naming of articles,such as at Burma and Ivory Coast where commonname is used now thankfully, but this RM and RFC is just fundamentally flawed when it ignores entirely the existence of an island called Ireland, which is the whole reason why the regularly used name and official description of the state "Republic of Ireland" is used instead. The lack of notifying those who have been fully involved is a problem, as is the fact the Ireland wikiproject was notified and not the UK wikiproject. These article naming issues involves both and so both should be notified in future, as happened during the major process a few years ago which was accepted by arbcom and resulted in a 2 year lock on moves. Ideally after this process is over this time, there may be an extension of that ban on page move attempts. Nothing has changed, its clear even from the flawed RM above the majority oppose changing the status quo. This should all just be closed now so we can all move on. BritishWatcher (talk) 10:45, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

In ictu oculi, you have made your point, but really this is overkill! Yes, I am satisfied that the appropriate people have now been notified. On the other hand, I don't feel that there was any need for "a recognition that it was contrary to the WP:CANVASS guideline" or "a committment to not keep on doing it", so it doesn't matter whether I'm "satisfied" on that score. What's done is done. The RM/RfC will die a natural death - probably soon as far as discussion is concerned, maybe later as regards closing it. Scolaire (talk) 17:40, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Agree with Scolaire. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 09:28, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

More supporting material

National Official:


— Constitution of Ireland, Republic of Ireland Act


UN Official:


— United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names, UNGEGN List of Country Names

— Presidentman talk · contribs Random Picture of the Day (Talkback) 21:12, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
--RA (talk) 22:01, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Comment: There appears to be, in the above supporting material, an implicit consensus that the name of the island (or "country" as opposed to "state") is also "Ireland". Indeed, that is the only common name for that topic. --RA (talk) 22:01, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

RM vote count

For the RM vote count, I get 13 for Ireland (A) or Ireland (state) (B or C), 29 for Republic of Ireland (D or E).

  • A, B, or C: Kauffner (AB), BDD (AB), IgnorantArmies (AE), MTC (BA), 76.65.131.248 (BD), Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (AD), Murry1975 (AB), Born2cycle (AB), Laurel Lodged (AB), Snowded (AB), Presidentman (CBA), Daicarego (AB), and Andrewa (BE).
  • D or E: Dmcq (D), Asarlaí (D), Kwekubo (D), Scolaire (D), Timrollpickering (D), Valenciano (D), BrownHairedGirl (D), Bastun (D), ComhairleContaeThirnanOg, ZooFamily, Jon C (D), BritishWatcher (D), Red Hurley (ED), Mabuska (D), Thryduulf (D), DrKiernan (ED), RA (D), Eluchil404 (ED), Martinvl, In ictu oculi, 46.7.113.111 (D), Keith D (D), KC9TV, Dlv999 (D), Mtking (D), PBS (D), TDL (D), filelakeshoe (D), ApprenticeFan (D), and The C of E (D). ----- Kauffner (talk) 06:22, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
It isn't supposed to be a vote you're supposed to give reasons. But yes the consensus pretty well supports 'The result of the move request was: NOT MOVED' until', and that's it until such time as the whole business is raised again which I hope will be at least six months away. Having more discussions in a shorter period than that will simply give the same result again and deafen people to any argument so if you are hoping to raise it again just now could I suggest it is a bad idea? Was there some other reason for what you wrote here? Dmcq (talk) 09:00, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
I think Kauffner was only conceding the point that there was a greater than 2:1 majority against any page move; that that is unlikely to change any time in the foreseeable future; and that consequently there would be no point in him repeating the exercise in a year's time, or indeed at any time in the foreseeable future. At least I hope that was the reason. Scolaire (talk) 11:49, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Londonderry

Moved to Talk:Derry

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Rannpháirtí anaithnid (talk • contribs) 21:00, 9 October 2012‎ (UTC)

Categorisation of Politicians as Roman Catholics

I am going to make it not too long – if, say, politicians, political leaders and statesmen from multi-confessional states and regions, such as The Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Eritrea, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan and West Africa, and parts of China, can all be properly categorised according to their respective faiths, religions and denominations, then why the religion – and especially the Roman Catholic religion – of politicians from the Republic of Ireland and from Northern Ireland, cannot be properly categorised accordingly too? I think that it is obvious that a lot of Irish Wikipedians – of whatever points-of-views and hidden political agendas, probably of the Irish Republican and Nationalist persuasions – have been removing the Roman Catholic religious categorisation for virtually ALL Irish persons, selectively or indiscriminately, even including virtually all Irish politicians and statesmen (and an arbitrarily-high criteria "imposed" in the "Irish Catholics" category). We have this truly ridiculous, comical and ludicrous situation here, where, according to one editor [2], even Mr. Martin McGuinness, of Sinn Féin, is now suddenly not a Catholic! Whoever next? Mr. Gerry Adams, and Éamon de Valera? (If this had not also happened already!) Should consensus be allowed to overrule the agreed principle that Wikipedia is not censored? Be that as it may, if this were not a case of Wikipedia:POV pushing, this sort of "local" censorship (at least for senior Irish Catholic politicians), still, I think, should not be allowed to stand here in Wikipedia; otherwise, there would be chaos across Wikipedia. -- KC9TV 23:58, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Their religion is not a defining characteristic or related to their notability. Mo ainm~Talk 00:11, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
Even Martin McGuinness? The Nationalist and Republican community in Northern Ireland is almost entirely Catholic (do we also require a debate on that?), and he is a member and a representative of that Community. How many Councillors, MLAs, MPs, TDs, Senators and Peers from Sinn Féin and the SDLP are Protestants, or non-Christians such as Chinese? And why the need to censor the religion? Even Gandhi and Nehru are allowed to have their religion! -- KC9TV 00:48, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
The Guidance hatnote at Category:Irish Roman Catholics makes it abundantly clear where this category is and is not appropriate. RashersTierney (talk) 01:21, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
And who wrote that up, exactly? And was it done with the general consent of THIS WikiProject? And like I said, even Gandhi and Nehru are allowed to have their religion, whereas Irish politicians are not! -- KC9TV 02:23, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
Doesn't matter. It's been in place by consensus for some considerable time. Wikipedia does not hinder politicians or anyone else from having a religion. The attempt to conflate religion with political affiliation is another matter entirely. RashersTierney (talk) 02:32, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
But Wikipedia is not censored, so therefore, I do NOT see there is anything wrong with "conflating religion with political affiliation" as such, as you had put it. This is just a blatant form of censorship. -- KC9TV 02:43, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
No.It is maintaining WP:NPOV. Your view expressed above that McGuinness represents the Catholic community gives the game away. RashersTierney (talk) 02:50, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
The game of what, exactly? Most who can point out Northern Ireland, Donegal, Monaghan, Cavan and Louth from a map are aware that the Nationalist and Republican community in Northern Ireland are not really made up of anyone else but Catholics, any more than the local Unionist and Loyalist community are really made up of anyone else but Protestants/Presbyterians! A matter of simple logic, really. -- KC9TV 03:07, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
If a person does not identify with a religion in a notable way I don't see why we should be sticking it in. As to Martin McGuinness it is not his religion that stands out but his nationalism. And can I point out also that Catholics in the IRA who fought the 1922 agreement were excommunicated so obviously religion was not the most important thing to them either. Dmcq (talk) 01:53, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
  • The last point is a somewhat fallacious argument, because an excommunicate is still technically a Catholic. An excommunicate, whatever the definition is, who was ever baptised or confirmed in the Roman Catholic Church, is still technically a member of the Roman Catholic Church [3], and I suspect that it was also the case even back in the year 1916. In any case the Catholic Church certainly claims universal jurisdiction of some sort over all Christians, or, persons who were ever validly – in the eyes of the Catholic Church – baptised with the Trinitarian Formula, most Protestants included.
  • I am sorry, but I don't see how the religion of most politicians from N.I. is somehow not of note (notable), even (or especially) those who are Independents, or from the Alliance Party. As to the politicians from the Republic, I am not so sure, but Presidents, Taoisigh (Prime Ministers), Deputy Prime Ministers (Tánaistí), and Speakers of the Two Houses (Ceann Comhairle and Cathaoirleach), and their Deputies, if any, probably ought to be in. -- KC9TV 03:52, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
So should we include most Protestants in the "Irish Catholics" category? ComhairleContaeThirnanOg (talk) 03:41, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
I am definitely not stopping you, there! -- KC9TV 03:52, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

(reply to opening poster) I was the editor that reverted your addition of McGuinness to the catholics category (among others) and I did so, as I pointed out in the edit summary, per our policy on living persons, specifically WP:BLPCAT, which says: "Categories regarding religious beliefs or sexual orientation should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief or orientation in question, and the subject's beliefs or sexual orientation are relevant to their public life or notability, according to reliable published sources." I'm having a hard time seeing how McGuinness is notable for his religion rather than for his political and paramilitary activities.

I didn't only remove the ones you added to the catholics category either, I removed those you'd added to the protestants category, including a president of Ireland, who is notable not for his religion, but for being, you know, head of state. Regarding your claims of censorship, I never said that McGuinness is not a catholic and it's clearly stated in his infobox, so I don't think that kind of argument cuts any ice. Valenciano (talk) 06:14, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

As regards the "Gandhi and Nehru" argument, I did a quick survey of modern Indian history and clicked on some lesser-known names (not quite at random - they tended to be sequential). I found that, for instance, Rani Lakshmibai, Banarsi Das Gupta, B. D. Sharma, Chandra Shekhar Azad, Sachindra Nath Sanyal, Manmath Nath Gupta and Prem Krishna Khanna are not categorised by religion. On the other hand, people such as Ram Mohan Roy, Dayananda Saraswati, Sri Aurobindo, Muhammad Iqbal, Syed Ahmad Khan and Ramakrishna are categorised as Hindu reformers, Hindu philosophers or Muslim philosophers rather than just as Hindus or Muslims. I would conclude that the practice in Indian articles is the same as that in Irish articles: if their religion is a defining characteristic or related to their notability they are added to the category, if not they are not. Scolaire (talk) 16:06, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Agree fully with the majority above. Including a person in a category because of their presumed religion makes no sense when they are not notable because of their religion, and in any case is a breach of WP:BLPCAT. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 23:37, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Why is Ireland allowed to refer to the island directly?

I'm sorry I'm late to the "party", but after reading what I could of the discussion, I see a wide variety of opinions on the matter. Normally, when a name has multiple uses, and there is no consensus on which is most common, the unqualified name redirects to the dab page. FWIW, article traffic stats for the last 90 days are 68% Ireland / 32% RoI (though that under-weighs RoI in that we don't know how many went to Ireland and subsequently went to RoI because it was the wrong place). I don't understand how, when there was clearly significant dispute and no clear majority, options "B" or "E" were not chosen as the correct outcome.

In all other cases I can think of, the common name of a country is that used as the name of the article for the country, or redirects to it. This is what actually brought me here – someone finally noticed that, at ISO 3166-1, Ireland was linked (not surprisingly) to Ireland, something I would guess people will commonly do when writing articles referring to the country, without bothering to check that such an apparently obvious link might actually be wrong. Has someone gone through the tens of thousands of pages that link to Ireland to see if they're correct? Or even sampled them to get a sense of proportion? There's no mention in the giant discussion above. This, of course, affects readers too, but it's up to writers to get the links right, a task that should be easier whenever possible, not harder. (Please ignore, rather than flaming, if you don't think a discussion of the links is important.) —[AlanM1(talk)]— 08:06, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Can I refer you to this discussion and my subsequent edit of the Irish Manual of Style to say that, per WP:OVERLINK, "Ireland" or "Republic of Ireland" should not be linked at all unless it is thought necessary in order to establish context or for some such reason. Removing links would eliminate 90-99% of problems at a stroke. In ordinary article text, "Ireland" will do on most occasions, either because it is clear which entity is being referred to or because it doesn't matter (the River Shannon flows through both the state and the island at the same time). The exceptional cases, where confusion is likely to arise, are covered in WP:IMOS#Use of Ireland and Republic of Ireland. Regards. Scolaire (talk) 11:38, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
Just for clarity, as it was I who pipelinked the state in ISO article, every state was hyperlinked, Ireland, as the article title is the island and this was the hyperlink- incorrect. Removing links may work in most cases but when there are links (like the example) we should insure that the correct one is given, as Alan points out. As fo the above discussion, I think we should leave that rest for now. Murry1975 (talk) 12:13, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
But I think it's kind of stating the obvious to say that if you are going to link you should link correctly. Obviously, also, if you see an incorrect link you should correct it, and if you see something that is needlessly linked you should unlink it. Scolaire (talk) 13:52, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
Was there not a taskforcefor that at some stage, I think I remember reading something about one. Murry1975 (talk) 14:03, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps we should have a dab page for Turkey especially around Christmas and Thanksgiving ;-) Dmcq (talk) 18:20, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but "don't link to Ireland" doesn't sound like a valid argument (I'm sure there's a WP article about that somewhere). WP:OVERLINK has been significantly argued against in many places. Linking to even a well-known country name is a matter of providing easy navigation to related information, a fundamental underlying concept of the web. Countries of birth, death, and residence are commonly linked to, regardless of whether they are major or not.
One should not have to read hundreds of MOS pages to know how to link to something as common as a country name. It should work the way the average editor expects it to work, out of respect for their time, if nothing else. That means not having to check the most obvious links to see that they go where they are expected to. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 05:59, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
not sure if you understand, but there are 2 entities called Ireland, just as there are 2 called Turkey and 2 called Georgia. So to disambiguation between these identically named entities we need to add some disambiguation to the article names. In relation to Ireland the community have agreed that the island should be titled Ireland and the country Rebublic of Ireland, the latter being normally piped to Ireland. It's very simple really. HTH.Head-it-behind (talk) 07:21, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
Alan, you apologised for being "late to the party", and that's fine. You're still entitled to state your point of view. But the fact remains that the outcome of the most recent discussion was that consensus has not changed since the previous discussion. The consensus is for the article name to be "Republic of Ireland" and for links to the Irish state (and it is acknowledged that there are occasions when links are desirable) to be in the form of a pipelink. You also asked not to be flamed. You weren't. Can I ask you in return not to flog a dead horse? Scolaire (talk) 09:02, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
Because Ireland is an island and that fact, to much contention, supercedes priority over what the state calls itself, should they happen to clash, and mismatch, at the same time as they currently do. It is difficult for some to get around the idea that the state is more minor than the island. But the state is a mere component of the island. The island is the foundation of the state, and whatever else we plant upon it. The state is an abstract construct of and upon the island. The states first function is not to be or replace, but to represent or lead that which already is. Reasons do not change maps until the maps actually change, and the intention of the states name is on the islands behalf, to claim representation, not to define separation, termination or even existence. There is no alternative name for the island, or is there much of a whisper of the idea that there could or should be. The island is the thing of which the state is a part, hence, the state is not the thing. If the state were both the thing, and a part of the thing at the same time, the seas would boil and the sky would fall down. Look at it this way, when the state was begun, it was not as a new culture, or an exodus. It was as a representation. Plenty of new culture and exodus did that entail, but not dramatically enough to become the *point* of definition. The whole island is the point of definition. Some argue that the north is so culturally British that it bears no relevance to the rest of Ireland, but in fact the north is culturally unique, and culturally Irish, in that sense as well. It is as much part of Ireland as the republic is, because Ireland is an island. So, you ask why a thing is allowed, but it is at no time a matter of permission. It's not a fulfillment of request. In fact, the term Republic of Ireland used to define the state in relation to the island is both the construct and subscription of the state, so you have not only the states permission, but its requisite. The examples you say you can think of all relate to republics which represent the entire portion of the *country* they seek to represent. The USA, for example, is commonly known as America due to its significance in the Americas, but believing the USA to *be* America is merely a shortfall in education, not a matter of permission. ~ R.T.G 18:18, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
Ooh - that last sentence "The USA, for example..." - now that's what I call flaming. ;-) Dmcq (talk) 19:06, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Which flag first in lead of Flag of Northern Ireland

Anyone like to stick their oar in at Talk:Flag of Northern Ireland#Union Flag vs St Patrick's Saltire in the lead thanks? I think the title says it all. Dmcq (talk) 14:08, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Northern Ireland is repreented by the Union Flag. Yes, it's not unique to the province, but IT IS used to represent it - loads of references. The Union Flag should first and foremost be there. SixtyNineSixtySix (talk) 19:58, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

RfC about flags

Please contribute at Talk:Flag of Northern Ireland#RfC: Should the Flag of Northern Ireland article show the flag of Ireland? if you have some thoughts on the matter. Dmcq (talk) 22:18, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

CFD on cheeses

There are ongoing discussions about Category:Northern Irish cheeses & Category:Cheeses of Northern Ireland at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 April 13#Category:Northern Irish cheeses & Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 April 13#Category:Cheeses of Northern Ireland. Timrollpickering (talk) 23:50, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Rethink on the Derry / Londonderry section

Start of discussion

I think it is about time to rethink the 2004 compromise at WP:IMOS#Derry / Londonderry. I think overall the decision was right but that it needs a bit of tweaking. The cases I'm especially concerned about are where the subject is fairly unambiguously linked to the city being called Londonderry rather than Derry, for instance those on unionist politicians. It would save a lot of trouble if this business of insisting on Derry was relaxed in such circumstances and I think this leads to such articles being more stubby and less well looked after than corresponding nationalist ones, so I think it is impacting negatively on developing the encyclopaedia. Dmcq (talk) 12:05, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

The last re-think was July-August 2012. It ran to over 50,000 bytes and covered the ground pretty comprehensively. What has happened in eight months to make you think it is time for another one? Scolaire (talk) 12:41, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
A lot of that was about where the actual consensus was done since that was the original question. Lets just jump over whether and where there was a consensus then and what it said then and just go forward from what's there now. Then it digressed into the Ireland / Republic of Ireland issue. That's well settled now. Then it seemed to get onto Londondonderry/Derry city of culture and whether that was yet the official title or were we supposed to ignore the Londonderry bit until it actually started and was the actual official title. I'm sure there was some useful stuff there somewhere but it was buried under a lot of fairly irrelevant stuff. Perhaps we can avoid having people drag up lots of not very relevant stuff this time round. Dmcq (talk) 13:13, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
I noticed that Scolaire said a number of times in that archive that any discussion about the future of this should be at WP:IECOLL, so I moved this from WT:IMOS#Rethink on the Derry / Londonderry section to here. Dmcq (talk) 13:37, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
I'm not optimistic that reopening this question will produce a more satisfactory consensus, but if it is to be revisited, I would propose keeping the present city Derry/county Londonderry as a default, but when a reasonable assumption can be made about the form of the name that the subject of the article is likely to use, using that form; thus, for example, we could presume Londonderry (city and county) for unionist politicians, Derry (city and county) for GAA articles. If "reasonable assumption" is too vague, then we could maintain the current rule except where a RS reference can be provided to the actual use by the person/organisation etc. of the alternative form. Brocach (talk) 14:32, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
I think the problem with a "use Derry unless" approach is that it takes us into a whole grey area prone to lengthy disputes and edit wars. Yes, there are people like Nigel Dodds who would unquestionably be characterised as "born in Londonderry" but I can see others for which it would be more problematic. Does Robert Hamilton (British Army soldier) count as "unionist" due to serving in the British army? What about Ivor Canavan? Are Alliance a unionist party? On balance I think we're best simply keeping the status quo, it's worked well and has let numerous editors focus their energies on more productive things. Valenciano (talk) 16:17, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure whether Dmcq was addressing only the possibility of using "Londonderry" at times for the city (clarify please?). I rather assumed that the same principle would have to extend to the county in the opposite cases. I think it could work, if people were sensible about it (how likely is that?) - using the "alternative" name only when it's clearly appropriate to the subject, and if in doubt, using either the present formula or Derry/Londonderry (or Londonderry/Derry). Brocach (talk) 16:57, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
I don't think the County Londonderry / County Derry problem has given rise to quite the same strong feelings so I was only addressing the problem of references to the name of the city. But yes if a solution can be found which clearly indicates that the county should be referred to as County Derry in some circumstances I would be happy to support that as well, especially if it helps fix the major problem! As to when to use Derry / Londonderry my favourite choice would be to judge by the major references, modified by consensus in those cases where the sources seemed to indicate the opposite of what one would expect. Actually consensus is allowed by the current wording but the default seems to be taken as a rigid rule. Dmcq (talk) 17:31, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I am very reluctant to relax the present rules. I can see that there are some cases where it may seem straightforward, but for every one of those instances there will be dozens or hundreds where some editors think its clearcut and others disagree. That will just lead to the same arguments being repeated ad nauseam, and settled by attrition. That sort of argument attracts POV-pushers on all sides, and drives away content creators.

I agree that there are problems with taking the current wording as a rigid rule, but I also think it's by far the least-worst option. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:34, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

But it's not a RULE, it's a GUIDE. And therein lies the problem; people thinking it's a rule and mercilessly imposing it where in some cases it's not appropriate to do so. As you pointed out, consensus can be achieved to go against the guide, but it never is, because it's taken as a rule. SixtyNineSixtySix (talk) 19:50, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
I don't believe the current way is a least-worst solution by any means as it leads to articles which don't reflect their sources and which seem to turn away potential contributors to those areas. I think the various wars in this project seem to have settled down in line with the agreement in the real world. Yes there will be occasional clashes where people have strong point of view over particular topics where the guidelines aren't obvious but if Derry City council can get to some sort of modus vivendi I'm sure Wikipedia editors can too. Dmcq (talk) 09:08, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
Based on previous experience there will be constant not occasional clashes. The current solution works well, lets leave it ----Snowded TALK 09:32, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
The current solution only works because it is backed up by explicit guidance at IMoS. That guidance could be nuanced - say, for example, to state that Londonderry should be used for the city in relation to the Waterside, unionist politicians or other topics specific to the local Protestant/unionist/loyalist community; and that, again excepting P/U/L topics, County Derry should be used for those local government areas in the county that have nationalist/Catholic majorities, or for topics specific to the Catholic/nationalist community. If the wording were clear enough, and all IECOLL editors agreed to edit/revert in line with it, I don't see why there should be any more clashing on the issue than there is now. Any editor going against the IMoS would get the message after a few reverts and direct contacts linking to the guidance. Brocach (talk) 09:57, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
Following the precedent of Talk:Gdansk/Vote, we would have explicitly unionist topics use "Londonderry (Derry)" on first usage and "Londonderry" thereafter whereas explicitly nationalist topics use "Derry (Londonderry)" and then "Derry". DrKiernan (talk) 10:14, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
I'm always a little loath to institutionalize things like this but that would get my vote. I'd still want to keep the current business of just saying Derry where it wasn't explicitly political. Dmcq (talk) 10:53, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
Oh the disputes that would follow - population statistics on wards, which topics are nationalist, which unionist. Come on guys, we've got more than enough history here ----Snowded TALK 11:35, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
Exactly how do you work out that statistics would be an explicitly nationalist or unionist topic? Dmcq (talk) 12:27, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
Read Brocach's suggestion, after you realise I was replying to the conversation not just to you it should be fairly self evident. If you need to spell it out just say ----Snowded TALK 12:34, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
There would probably be some disputes at first, but things would settle down; it's doable. It's not a case of having to change everything at once; the current city Derry/county Londonderry stays as the default and any change to any article must be justified, either by the article fitting into a narrow range of topics (spelled out in IMoS) that are identified with one community or the other, or by showing that the particular term is more appropriate. The politicians, in particular, are (mostly) easy to agree; Catholic schools/churches/GAA topics in the Derry box (city & county), loyal orders/Protestant churches/schools in Londonderry (city & county). For anything outside these explicit categories (others could of course be added), the onus would be on the editor proposing a move away from the status quo to show justification; for the trickier cases mentioned above by Valenciano, the default is defended unless RS evidence is tabled. Thus, a place could be listed one way or the other if it is shown from reliable sources that its current population is mainly unionist/nationalist or Catholic/Protestant. I really doubt that ward-level statistics would be needed to settle a dispute as to whether one term or the other would be appropriate; but if required, election data (and, as a proxy marker, census religion data) is readily available, and for 50:50 cases we could do the "Gdansk (or Danzig)" thing. Too strict an adherence to the current regime retains such oddities as referring to Gregory Campbell as from Derry, and GAA clubs as from Londonderry. People from Derry/Londonderry should be able to read about themselves, their communities, etc. without wincing at the terminology. Brocach (talk) 12:39, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
I understand and respect the intent but I am afraid I think its a license for conflict, there is simply too much ambiguity in the cases to allow easy resolution. The current rule/guideline whatever is simply to understand, simple to enforce and balanced. ----Snowded TALK 12:45, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
Balanced? I agree with going by neutral point of view and for Derry that means most references should say Derry rather than any idea of 50-50 balance, but balanced is definitely not something I would come out and say about this. I wouldn't know how to make it even more unbalanced. Dmcq (talk) 13:25, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
Describing people such as Gregory Campbell and Nigel Dodds as "from Derry" and GAA clubs as "from Londonderry" is, sadly, a necessary evil for the greater good. It frees up lots of editors to get on with building an encyclopedia rather than being forced to sort out these tedious 19th century style ethno-nationalist conflicts. I'm open to a new wording, but just can't see how one can improve on the current one, which is a tried and tested way of keeping numerous pages stable. "Unionist" and "Nationalist" topics are in some cases clear cut, but in so many others, much too vague. For example, the Waterside was cited above as a "Unionist" topic, however its elections to Derry City Council split 4/3 Unionist/Nationalist, which is hardly overwhelming. Valenciano (talk) 17:26, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
I agree that in general we shouldn't start marking constituencies as being explicitly nationalist or unionist. I am open to a proposal for checking sources to see whether they are referred to as Derry or Londonderry more often but I guess that would as you say be rather too much of a step at this stage and so we should just deal with the straightforward cases where 'explicitly' makes obvious sense. Dmcq (talk) 17:42, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
The current situation where Wikipedia promotes, nay requires, Derry for the city and Londonderry for the county is indefensible. It says, at least strongly implies, that each of these usages is correct. Wikipedia SHOULD NOT be promoting one or the other alternatives of a contentious term, but here we find it doing just that; bloody scandalous. The part of the IMOS that "mandates" these usages should be struck out. SixtyNineSixtySix (talk) 18:47, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
@6966, it's easy to just object to stuff, as you have done with my recent edits at Flag of Northern Ireland, but perhaps you could explain your reasoning and offer alternatives (there and here). Brocach (talk) 20:08, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
I already explained the reasoning; it amounts to Wikipedia taking a position, and it should not do that. It needs sorting, but at the moment I don't know how. SixtyNineSixtySix (talk) 20:58, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

While sceptical about any change to a longstanding status quo that has served us well, I'd be interested to know how these "exceptions" would be defined. Basically politicians belonging to DUP, UUP, UDP, Vanguard, to name a few, would presumably be categorised as "Londonderry" while politicians of SF, SDLP, Irish Independence Party and the Nationalist Party, together with GAA related topics, would be the "County Derry" exceptions. Am I right in thinking that's what people are proposing? Valenciano (talk) 22:11, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I can see why people would want to make exceptions like that, and also why people would want to restrict the exceptions as far as possible. I am wary of any guidelines based on either "self-identification" or "sources". "Self-identification" will lead to endless discussion on the lines of "can you prove they self-identify?" (see Talk:Michael Gambon#RFC Nationality for example), and "sources" will always lead to "my sources are better than yours" arguments. If there is to be a change it should be both brief and clear. For instance:
  • Use Derry for the city and County Londonderry for the county in articles, unless there is an unambiguous consensus to do otherwise.
That way, an editor can state his/her rationale, and it will either be accepted or rejected. There will be no scope for nitpicking or source-warring. And an editor will not be able to reject just on the basis that "IMOS says we can't" because IMOS will say we can if we have a consensus. Scolaire (talk) 22:56, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
Unambiguous consensus, well overall I'd like that if it worked out as it goes beyond where it just talks about 'The naming dispute can be discussed in the articles when appropriate.' which seems to have been interpreted as that consensus is overridden by the IMOS. I think perhaps though we need a step at a time so it might be best to give more specific guidance so only a few articles need more discussion and consensus. When things quieten down without people arguing over it then perhaps it can be simplified.
The other possibilities I've seen are and my views on them are:
  • Keep the current business as it squashes argument. Having strong guidance has cut down on the arguments but there have been negatives as well, it has driven off contributors who disagree with it so making development of the encyclopaedia a bit lop-sided. I appreciate the need to keep arguments to a reasonable level but I think the situation has quietened down to the stage where more discussion and consensus can be done rather than imposing a single rule everywhere. Sports issues will always a magnet for trouble but I'm quite happy to leave that to the sports projects.
  • The Wikipedia basic default is for each article to follow the main reliable sources for the topic and ignore what happens in other articles. Conflicts are solved by consensus. This would as Scolaire says lead to 'my sources are better than your sources' - but encouraging the finding of better sources is a good thing in Wikipedia. I think though we can agree we need general guidelines which cover the majority of cases well so as not to have too many cases requiring 'solving conflicts by consensus'.
Living persons are dealt with especially sensitively in Wikipedia and that would be where I would think we should at the very least try and do likewise and I think we should try to do that for the recently dead too. The minimum change I'd like is for people to be treated as they would obviously wish where as far as Derry / Londonderry is concerned. Plus I would like to change the last lne in the section to more obviously encourage consensus rather than just say talk.
  • The Talk:Gdansk/Vote on the Gdansk/Danzig problem has some simliarities and they treat biographies as a special issue. and they have voted for 'In biographies of clearly German persons, the name should be used in the form Danzig (Gdansk) and later Danzig exclusively. In biographies of clearly Polish persons, the name should be used in the form Gdansk (Danzig) and later Gdansk exclusively. Persons controversial follow the guidelines according to the applicable period as decided above. Similar applies to other place names in the region that shares a history between Poland and Germany.'.
They also wondered whether they should refer to the city differently at different times and they seem to have agreed for it to be called Gdansk from 1945 onwards and Danzig before then. I don't think we need the same naming by period as them but there may be some room for using Londonderry by context elsewhere in future. It was just annoying having editors arguing over some American's biography where the source said he came from Londonderry about whether that really meant Derry or County Londonderry when there just wasn't any other information!
  • There was a proposal to use population statistics to characterize wards as nationalist or unionist and decide on that. I see that as a violation of the original research policy and just a pain and trouble. However I would encourage more use of consensus where there is a lot of disagreement but it should be backed up by sources.
Were there other proposals? I think at present I'd just add a special clause on biographies, and talk about consensus rather than just discussion to do other than what the guideline says. Dmcq (talk) 15:17, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
How about something like replacing:
"The naming dispute can be discussed in the articles when appropriate."
with
"Biography articles should use Londonderry for the city or County Derry for the county if the subject has shown an obvious preference for the name, this can normally be assumed for members of nationalist or unionist parties. For all articles any consensus to override this guideline should normally be backed by the main reliable sources on the topic."
How is that for a starter? Dmcq (talk) 10:25, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
I have already said that I oppose all "self-identification" and "source-war" guidelines. They are inevitably and invariably used as an excuse for edit-warring and contentious debates, which is precisely what we are trying to avert. Any modification to the current convention has to be based on friendly agreement. I believe that friendly agreement is achievable, given that certain people on both sides have stopped editing or scaled down their activity in the last six months. But if friendly agreement is not considered to be possible, then the only realistic alternative is to stick rigidly to the convention that has worked over the years. Scolaire (talk) 11:35, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
I think problems are arising because the convention is being applied too rigidly. Allowing the use of County Derry at Derry GAA articles and Londonderry at DUP articles will likely reduce the level of disruption rather than increase it. What we need is a general rule that permits an occasional exception: such as "Occasional exceptions to the general rule may be agreed at individual articles". DrKiernan (talk) 12:16, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
Have you some examples of friendly agreement on this subject that you are thinking of? Dmcq (talk) 12:56, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
(e/c) In reply to you both, what about the wording that I suggested: "Use Derry for the city and County Londonderry for the county in articles, unless there is an unambiguous consensus to do otherwise." This involves a simple assumption of good faith. Where the name used is obviously inappropriate, a consensus will quickly form that the other name should be used (and remember, silence equals consensus). Where there is an edit-war, the name used is not obviously inappropriate, and the convention automatically applies. From the foregoing discussion, Gregory Campbell and Nigel Dodds are two cases where there would be a clear consensus for change, and the Waterside area is a case where there would not. Scolaire (talk) 12:59, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
The "unambiguous consensus" is most likely to be reachable in the categories already mentioned, so I would have: "Use Derry for the city and County Londonderry for the county in articles, except in biographical articles about Protestant/unionist/loyalist people from the city (use Londonderry); biographical articles about Catholic/nationalist/republican people from the county (use County Derry); and articles about Gaelic games (use County Derry)." I'm still sure there will be a little bit of sniping but the clearer the IMoS wording, the easier it will be to deal consistently with reverts. I share DrKiernan's optimism that this greater flexibility, but within clear guidelines, will reduce disruption. (I'm not saying that these three groupings are the final list, but others could be added in a few months if these seem to work out.) Brocach (talk) 14:14, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
(e/c) More wordy guidelines do not reduce disruption. All they do is provide fodder for those who want to argue about the precise meaning of the more wordy guidelines. Why do people assume that consensus is going to be unreachable? All right, perhaps "unambiguous consensus" is open to abuse – one single editor could disagree just for badness and then say that the consensus is not unambiguous. On the other hand, just "a consensus" is too weak; it could easily come to mean nothing more than a mathematical majority like 2-1 or 3-2. I would be happy with some other word such as "clear consensus" or "obvious consensus". All that that would mean would be that somebody who wanted to change the name in an existing article would have to establish that there was a consensus to do so, and somebody who added the non-standard name to a new article would be left unmolested unless there was a consensus to change it. People who can't or won't abide by that kind of collaborative behaviour won't be affected by laundry lists of when you have to follow a convention and when you have to reverse it. It will only be grist to their mill. Scolaire (talk) 14:32, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
I'm opposed to any attempt to use the unofficial nickname (official only over the border in a place with no jurisdiction over NI) "County Derry". Unlike the city, "County Derry" has never existed and still doesn't. — Jon C.ॐ 14:27, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
There's the kind of collaborative mentality I'm talking about ;-) Scolaire (talk) 14:34, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
It might be worthwhile trying to get the GAA business agreed by the provision for consensus based on sources rather than sticking it in at the start, biographies in general have special provisions in Wikipedia. If the majority of sources agree then 'verifiability not truth' is what we should follow (we should also follow commonsense, but that is far harder to check and agree on!) Dmcq (talk) 15:06, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean by "the GAA business". As of now, it is not "stuck in at the start" on IMOS, and I'm not in favour of "sticking it in" anywhere. As far as I'm concerned, the GAA is a total red herring. A GAA player has no more right to be from "County Derry" than a singer, an engineer or an entrepreneur. That is why I think drawing up rules and lists is the wrong way to go. As individuals, we should use both common sense and sources, but collectively we should strive for consensus and collaboration. Scolaire (talk) 17:45, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
This has been done to death. Leave it the way it is. The only reason I see the same people getting involved into restarting contentious settled issues like this is because they are simply bored and are looking for confrontation. Let sleeping dogs lie. ÓCorcráin (talk) 19:39, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
By 'the GAA business' I was referring to what Brocach said "and articles about Gaelic games (use County Derry)". By 'stuck in at the start' I meant along with any change to allow more widespread use of Londonderry or County Derry. I was asking that we do only consider biographies at the moment, but that in general if a decision is made about anything like that in the future then we should take note of the principle in WP:5P that "All articles must strive for verifiable accuracy, citing reliable, authoritative sources, especially when the topic is controversial or a living person. Editors' personal experiences, interpretations, or opinions do not belong". Dmcq (talk) 22:42, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
Okay, I understand now. But I think it shows where the three of us differ. Brocach favours adding rules about biographies and games, you prefer to add rules about biographies now and rules about other things later, and I believe that adding rules at all will only create disruption down the line. I'm going to make a formal proposal at the bottom of the page. --Scolaire (talk) 08:29, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Penalties for breech of pledge.

There's a pledge at the front of this page which editors are free to sign or not. Having signed, it is a reasonable expectation that the signatories would make every effort to keep their pledge. My question is, what's to be done when an editor repeatedly fails to live up to the pledge? While I would not go so far as to suggest sanctions, as that would be to encroach on the operations of other wiki courts, nonetheless, some note ought to be made of it. For example, the editor in flagrant breech of his pledge could have his name deleted or put into an infobox reserved for unrepentant sinners. As an example, I note that user:Brocach has appended his name to the list; this was quickly followed by an ANI case [[4]] (no. 99). While no he escaped censure was imposed on this occasion, the bar is far lower in this space surely, for somebody who voluntarily pledges himself to avoid personal attacks. Or is the pledge just a pious piece of nonsense aspirational? Laurel Lodged (talk) 12:15, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

As far as I can see the comment that caused the ANI referral was provoked. OK maybe one should not response in kind but your words "escaped censure" are not accurate and are themselves a personal attack of a sort along with "pious piece of nonsense". I suggest you leave it alone ----Snowded TALK 12:34, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
Wow! I was never even aware of the pledge. But then, I never signed anything. All that is just aspirational, anyway. There's no way it's enforceable. Scolaire (talk) 17:36, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
The word is "breach", Laurel Lodged. But you failed to note that I signed up to this IECOLL page at 19:06 on 18 April, three days after the ANI complaint against me was closed with no action against me. Grow up. Brocach (talk) 22:19, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
LL, why don't you read Wikipedia:No personal attacks. IMAO, your own contribution to this pillar of Wikipedia is more honoured in the BREACH than in the observance. Hohenloh + 09:42, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
Fr Hohenloh is possibly referring to the GAA wiki wars when both Brocach and I were within an ace of severe penalties for our behaviour. Suffice to say that neither of us covered ourselves in glory in that interchange. So the Vicar is imbalanced in his reporting there. But on another topic, for those who want to see more examples of Brocach's side-splitting humour on spelling mistakes, see Robbie Keane (the famous sportsperson from South Dublin, doncha know. Enjoy. Laurel Lodged (talk) 19:30, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Why Republic of Ireland?

Please, look here. Want to make this clear. -- Ата (talk) 06:18, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Readers Digest version: the article title was the subject of an arbitration case in 2008-2009, there was an extensive and lengthy poll in 2009 and the result was that the article remains at Republic of Ireland. The most recent discussion was between September and November 2012 and demonstrated, in the words of the closer, "that consensus has not changed and is largely reaffirmed." If you want the long version, read through the 32 archives of this talk page (and the archives of Talk:Ireland and Talk:Republic of Ireland for the pre-2008 discussion). Cheers. Scolaire (talk) 07:43, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
There's two main contenders for that article name, the island and the country. It was put to a poll and the island won. 'Republic of Ireland' is an official government description of the country for disambiguation purposes though not its actual name so it is not as though Wikipedia is doing anything too strange. If you refer to the country elsewhere in Wikipedia you should normally pipelink it as in Ireland unless it really does need disambiguation. WP:IMOS#Use of Ireland and Republic of Ireland is the guidance on that but this project talk page is the place to discuss anything more than straightforward tweaks there. Dmcq (talk) 09:33, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
I've added a bit about discussing major changes there at this page - I think that has become pretty standard so might as well write it down. Dmcq (talk) 09:47, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
I've added a notice at the top of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ireland Collaboration/Poll on Ireland article names sumarising the vote, noting the most recent consensus and pointing here for discussion. Please feel free to tweak it! Thryduulf (talk) 18:11, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Derry: formal proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The proposal failed for lack of any support.

I propose that that the current text in Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Ireland-related articles be replaced with:

  • Use Derry for the city and County Londonderry for the county in articles, except when there are extenuating circumstances and there is a clear consensus for doing otherwise.

This is consistent with two of the five pillars of Wikipedia: (1) Wikipedia does not have firm rules, so that provision ought to be made for exceptions; and (2) editors should interact with each other in a respectful and civil manner, so that anybody proposing (or opposing) an exception to the general rule will seek consensus and avoid edit wars. It does not, of course, remove the requirements for showing verifiability, maintaining a neutral point of view, etc. Scolaire (talk) 08:50, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

  • Oppose on the basis that it goes against the second pillar of WP:5P "Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view." and "All articles must strive for verifiable accuracy, citing reliable, authoritative sources, especially when the topic is controversial or a living person. Editors' personal experiences, interpretations, or opinions do not belong". Just saying consensus cuts out the source based part and encourages forum type discussion. It should normally be obvious what to do and consensus decision making should only be necessary in occasional cases. The guideline should document the usual standard cases rather than leaving people on their own to argue each and every thing. The guidelines are where the consensus should mainly be applied, as in WP:GUIDES "Guidelines are sets of best practices that are supported by consensus", not each individual article. Dmcq (talk) 09:24, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
By the way using sources would not mean pushing Derry everywhere, the WP:OR policy is relevant here. "To demonstrate that you are not adding OR, you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that aredirectly related to the topic of the article, and directly support the material being presented". Basically the default stance is that only sources directly relevant to a topic should be considered within an article on that topic. Dmcq (talk) 13:29, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
    • Please clarify your WP:5P argument. The proposal specifically states that it "does not, of course, remove the requirements for showing verifiability, maintaining a neutral point of view, etc." Scolaire (talk) 13:41, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose the proposal as written per Dmcq. The point of the rule/quideline/whatever you want to call it is that Wikipedia should use "Derry" for the city and "Londonderry" for the county in all cases, except where that is verifiably incorrect according to reliable sources. Your proposal boils down to "use "Derry" for the city and "Londonderry" for the county except where editors on an article agree to do it differently." That defeats the point of having the statement at all. Thryduulf (talk) 17:45, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose with regret; I very much share your aim of opening up the current overly strict regime, but I believe this can only work by getting consensus around more detailed IMoS guidance. Otherwise every article will become a battleground. If it becomes clear that your proposal here is not supported, I will put forward the alternative I outlined above. Brocach (talk) 19:43, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose with a clear conscience. Every article would end up being an exception and a battlew ground. Let's not go there. (PS don't spoil the surprise for spell checkers) Laurel Lodged (talk) 20:46, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose - whilst it would suit both sides to some degree or another, it would cause far too many problems. Do we want to end up with another British Isles/Great Britain and Ireland style group set up to decide what source to use? Mabuska (talk) 21:13, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
I'm not quite sure what you're saying. Is it that you would oppose any change whatsoever at the current time? The proposer Scolaire was opposing the use of sources saying it would lead to "my sources are better than yours" arguments, and saying it should all be decided by consensus and nothing else stuck in IMOS. I was advocating practically the exact opposite of putting more consensus agreements in IMOS and supporting the use of sources where the general consensus is challenged. The sources would have to be the main ones about the topic of the article. Dmcq (talk) 21:55, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
The proposer Scolaire is not opposing the use of sources. I oppose any form of rule that says "the name to be used will depend on the number and/or quality of the sources" because that is a subjective criterion that leads to disruptive arguments. Reliable sources are required by Wikipedia policy – that cannot be over-ridden by a MOS and shouldn't need to be re-stated in every sentence of a MOS. Scolaire (talk) 07:25, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
I can't see how your proposal supports the use of sources, it sounds to me more like a basis for loads of tit-for-tat agreements at best and a total domination of one side or the other at worst with no objective criteria at all. Tit for tat can be a modus vivendi in the real world but a quick read of WP:5P will show Wikipedia is against such a way of working, and if there is to be POV pushers in this project I say they should work for their living by providing good sources as per policy rather than just voting in 'consensus' decisions. Dmcq (talk) 10:05, 26 April 2013 (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.
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