Talk:Country/Catalogs

I realise I've made an off-the-cuff policy decision here with my intro. Feel free to dispute, but I think it is the only way to avoid back-and-forth POV pushing of the type that plagues Wikipedia: To count it must be a UN member.Ian Cundell 18:44, 7 March 2007 (CST)

Why not rename the article to "List of Member States of the United Nations." (or something more catchy.) Since that's what it will be. Derek Harkness 04:03, 8 March 2007 (CST)

I agree with Derek about the title of the article. I've added the members from A through L. I'll add the rest later today.Hillie Plantinga 08:55, 8 March 2007 (CST)

The problem with the name is that we aren't interested in "member states of the UN" (right now). We're interested in the countries of the world. Therefore, in addition to the UN states, we can have a handy list of nonrecognized/questionable/whatever states. --Larry Sanger 09:21, 8 March 2007 (CST)

Gareth's slight reworking of the intro is immensely helpful. The point is to have a clear concept of organization that avoids the problems of special/ vested interest groups arguing that their hobby horse absolutely MUST has recognition at the top level: as a matter of policy we should deal with "nonrecognized/questionable/whatever" in the article for the pertinent state that is recognised. Any argument is over at a stroke and if you wish to know about South Ossetia you start at the Georgia article.

I would also argue for a name change, but to Citizendium Gazetteer, with a category of the same name for country's/ city's/ continent's etc articles, and the removal of Countries of the World from the Social Science section on the front page because, quite frankly it ain't. As I may have cited elsewhere, mere place names are not geography.Ian Cundell 17:38, 8 March 2007 (CST)

I'm very open to a name change. Citizendium Gazetteer is an interesting possibility. --Larry Sanger 19:18, 8 March 2007 (CST)

Cool. What's the best way to take things forward? Just go for it and see it it ends up making sense? Ian Cundell 15:05, 10 March 2007 (CST)

I'd like to discuss the implications of our labelling a list of countries a "Gazetteer." What precisely will we mean by this term? Does this mean that we will have Gazetteers for every national and major subnational entity? Let's get a reasonable proposal on the table before we take an action with such consequential implications. Will we mean something different by entries in a "Gazetteer" than what we mean by "encyclopedia article"? Or is the only reason we choose the word "Gazetteer" that it provides a nice label for a list of geographical entities? --Larry Sanger 17:46, 11 March 2007 (CDT)

Well, a gazetteer is a geographical index and this is one way of organising the information on geographical objects. I would favour a category/ workgroup to back it up and move the other pertinent stuff (Lists of Oceans/ mountain ranges - whatever AND the articles to it) to this and away from Geography (which is a subject, not an object). The only reason I kept it to countries was because that was the title of the (then red) link. 'Gazetteer' is a good, reasonably familiar term for a way of cataloguing geographical information (Let's Go..., Rough Guide etc are all gazetteers), so it makes sense. But happy for another term if anyone can think of one. Citizendium Guide to the World, anyone? Ian Cundell 14:20, 12 March 2007 (CDT)

Additional Information.

Can we convert this list into a table and add some addition information and or demographics. For example, Capital City, Continent, Population, Land area, Adjoining Counties and Seas. Derek Harkness 19:49, 8 March 2007 (CST)

No problem in principle, but I'd be wary of over complicating things. I'd favour keeping as sinmple an index as possible: Country; Capital; Land Area; Population. No real need for "feature bloat"

But if we switch to a Gazetteer approach there may be scope for a more flexible outlook. In the end any apporach needs to be easily understood. Ian Cundell 15:02, 10 March 2007 (CST)

There is the obvious limit of the width for the screen. I thought perhapse 4 or 5 columns containing just the most important information and demographics. Derek Harkness 03:18, 12 March 2007 (CDT)

No problem with that. Ian Cundell 14:20, 12 March 2007 (CDT)

Taiwan, etc.

I understand the desire to head off disputes of the kind that plague the similar wikipedia article on this subject, but it seems like problems are bound to creep in. A couple of thoughts:

1. Limiting to UN member states is untenable. The Vatican would have to be excluded if this were strictly observed. Furthermore, until quite recently there were undoubtedly sovereign states which were not UN members. Notably Switzerland, which only joined in 2002 or so.
2. Taiwan/The Republic of China is a sovereign state in all but name. It doesn't necessarily have to be in the main list, but surely it should at least be mentioned here. This list generally seems to take up a constitutive theory of statehood - i.e., that statehood comes from recognition by other countries, rather than by attainment of certain objective characteristics, which is the declarative theory of statehood. The latter seems to be the one more commonly used by political scientists, so it seems problematic to pretend otherwise for the sake of a neat list. The ROC pretty clearly meets a declarative theory of statehood definition, and it seems wrong to entirely exclude it on the basis that it doesn't meet as well an alternate, but less widely held, view. (And the ROC, additionally, does have recognition from a couple of dozen small countries).
3. What has happened to Western Sahara? It has about as much de jure recognition as Palestine, and considerably more claim to de facto status. Somaliland, the various de facto states of the Caucasus, and Transnistria should also probably be mentioned, even if not listed in the main list.

The problem with this list in wikipedia is that there's a ton of POV pushers on all sides of the issues who aren't really interested in trying to come up with a reasonable article that deals with the questions concerning the various dubious states. Instead they all want to force their perspective through on whichever of the dubious states they're trying to either prove or disprove the statehood of. So you've got a bunch of people who will come through and repeatedly remove anything from the list that hints at questionable status for, say, South Ossetia or Somaliland, and then you'll have others who will simply remove them entirely. And you get a bunch of people with questionable command of English and very strong points of view arguing vehemently on the talk page. One would hope that this project could deal with the issue a bit more maturely and productively, rather than simply closing off all possibility of improvement by artificially limiting the list to UN members, which isn't, as I pointed out above, a tenable distinction. John Kenney 00:39, 12 March 2007 (CDT)

We really need two lists. One Politically Correct list and one comprehensive and politically ignorant list. For the PC list, we have to decide who's politics to go by and I suppose the UN is as good as any other. I'm not saying the UN is unbiased and NPOV, it is decidedly biased, but at least we all know how and why it is so.

The second list should be longer and aim to be a comprehensive list that ignores political opinions of what is and is not a country and goes by the generally understood idea of sovereignty. I would argue that this list includes all potential country articles even if the country no longer exists. This allows use to cover subjects like Prussia, the old Yugoslavia, Scotland, England, Wales, etc. It would equally allow use to cover countries that are disputed such those named in the post above. Derek Harkness 03:30, 12 March 2007 (CDT)

I'm not sure I understand the "politically correct"/"politically ignorant" distinction you are making. At any rate, there is no reason not to make this list multifaceted and include more dubious currently existing countries somewhere. We already include Palestine, which is not a de facto state and is not a UN member. If we had a separate section for it, why shouldn't we include the ROC, or Abkhazia, or whatever? To sink these currently existing state-like entities into a list that includes Scotland and Anhalt-Dessau would just be to bury it. John Kenney 10:05, 12 March 2007 (CDT)

I think the idea of having two lists should be anathema. One list, properly disciplined with clear rules for when exceptions are made (I can see a case for both Taiwan and Western Sahara - NOT for England etc because they should be covered in the UK article). As far as I know the PLO (or the Palestinian Authority is it now?) has observer status so I do not think Palestine should be on the list, because (right or wrong) it doesn't exist. The Vatican stays because it has permanent observer status and that Switzerland only joined in 2002 is neither here not there: in 2001 there may have been a necessary debate. Now the point is academic.

The reason for using the UN as the basis point is that it provides a clearly defensible line: that is to say it is an editorial decision, and has nothing do to with political correctness and everything to do with maintaining a manageable system, free of the need to keep checking for POV pushers and special interest groups. It is essentially the same as a magazine having a style guide: ie "this is the way we do it. Work with it, or head back to wikipedia". Ian Cundell 14:20, 12 March 2007 (CDT)

The Switzerland example was merely to demonstrate that, until quite recently, UN membership was not very close to coterminous with "generally recognized sovereign states". It may not be again at some point. Beyond that, I'd be happy to discuss a system that would allow exceptions for Taiwan/ROC and Western Sahara in particular, as those two have both de facto statehood and considerable minority diplomatic recognition. Palesitne has considerable recognition, but no de facto status - the Palestinian Authority, which rules Gaza and some parts of the West Bank, is neither sovereign nor the same thing as the de jure State of Palestine, which is represented diplomatically not by the PA but by the PLO. That said, listing Palestine separately wouldn't be too bad either. I don't really feel that strongly about Somaliland and the various ex-Soviet de facto states. If we can come up with a clear distinction that allows us to include Taiwan and ditch them, that would make me perfectly happy. John Kenney 01:17, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

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I could be persuaded to add another section on the end listing "Former members". Such a list would allow ROC, USSR and other countries that have changed in the last 50 or so years to be included in the list without creating a political headache. Derek Harkness 04:02, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

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No prob with Taiwan - I would strongly resist USSR - it doesn't exist and is not current, so belongs in a History of Russia article, with links form the from Soviet states' articles as apparopriate. Ian Cundell 07:37, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

I did not mean the USSR, I meant what I said, the ex-Soviet de facto states - Abkhazia, Transnistria, South Ossetia, and Nagorno-Karabakh. I thought I was using a well-understood shorthand to refer to these countries, but I guess not. Perhaps everyone would be well-advised to at least read over the wikipedia arguments on these subjects here. While that discussion is incredibly annoying and never resolved, and is full of nationalist POV-pushing, this all feels like reinventing the wheel. And if we just want a List of UN members, we should just import the wikipedia article United Nations member states, which is completely adequate (and is a featured list). John Kenney 10:28, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

short form names and long form names

Derek, whatever names the UN may use, it is wrong to use a mishmash of short form names and long form names. In a political context, "Russia" means the "Russian Federation," and it is not even slightly incorrect to call the Russian Federation "Russia." Or to call the Islamic Republic of Iran "Iran." Or, for that matter, to do what you have also done and call the French Republic "France," or the Islamic Republic of Pakistan "Pakistan," or to use the short name of just about any country in the world. There are some times when it makes sense to use the long form name, because the short name is informal or ambiguous (the Koreas, Macedonia, the Congos, the Federated States of Micronesia all come to mind). But the list as it was was completely inconsistent, giving some short form names and some long form names. John Kenney 10:02, 12 March 2007 (CDT)

BTW, if we were to turn the list into a table, I would support having separate columns for short name and long name (with the two merged in cases where there is no short name or no long name.) John Kenney 10:06, 12 March 2007 (CDT)

I don't know why some countries are listed with the long for and some short, perhaps an email to the UN might reveal some interesting information. I do think we should be consistent. A mix of long and short is odd. However, there are often more than one shortened version plus abbreviation. Listing both long and short together would just complicate the page without actually providing much additional information. Adding a column listing the capital cities would link to another page on those cities where as a column listing alternative names link to the same place as the first column.

My argument in favor of using only the long form on this page would be several fold. The long versions are less prone to ambiguity. Using the long version increases the amount of information where as using shortened versions decreases the quantity of information. There is space in the articles themselves to list all the various shortened, abbreviated, colloquial and local dialect versions of the names and their origin. There would be less chance of ambiguation with historical names. Derek Harkness 12:56, 12 March 2007 (CDT)

On balance I'm inclined to agree that long form removes and risk of ambiguity (same essential reasoning as using the UN as the basis point). The only reason it is like it is now is because it was stitched together by several people. Ian Cundell 14:20, 12 March 2007 (CDT)

What risk of ambiguity is there with "Iran" or "Russia"? John Kenney 18:11, 12 March 2007 (CDT)

And what about countries where the long form name doesn't even include the short name? "French Republic," for instance? It seems to me that this is unnecessary pedantry. Wikipedia, I think, actually does a good job with this. See here, and the way they give both short form and long form names. Beyond that, the problem is not that the list was stitched together by several people, but because the UN itself is completely inconsistent in how it names the various countries. There is no rhyme or reason to which countries the UN gives the long form for, and which the short form, and I don't see why we should emulate them on this subject. John Kenney 18:17, 12 March 2007 (CDT)

The wikipedia list is a bit messy. Especially with all the different language names included. I hope we can make something neater than that. I'm for only one name per country and full explanation of all the other variations and histories of the name can be left to the article on that country.

As for ambiguity: Russia, historically, has been used for various states. For example, The Tsardom of Russia, The Russian Empire, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and Russian Federation, have all been known by the short name of Russia. There are WP articles on all these long names except for the Russian Federation which is listed under the title Russia. Here lies an inconsistency. Other short names name similar levels of historical ambiguity. For example, I can find at least 6 different United States of somewhere or other. While only one United States exists now, it doesn't mean that we won't want articles on some of the others. The short name for the United Kingdom leaves open some ambiguity as to the status of Ireland; where as the long name does not have this ambiguity. Derek Harkness 00:11, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

It is pretty standard practice for encyclopedia articles on currently existing countries to use the short form name. Wikipedia is rather unusual not for doing this, but for having separate articles on earlier incarnations of the state. But it's completely silly to have separate articles for, say, Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and Republic of Venezuela and United States of Venezuela. They are all the same country. The article on Russia can deal with both the current Russian Federation and all the previous entities called "Russia". Same thing with France (which can refer to the "French Republic," the "French State," the "French Empire," and the "Kingdom of France"), to Bulgaria ("Principality of Bulgaria," "Kingdom of Bulgaria," "People's Republic of Bulgaria," and "Republic of Bulgaria"), and so forth. Does it really make sense to act as though the People's Republic of Albania in 1975 is a different entity from the Socialist People's Republic of Albania in 1977? They were both the same country, ruled by the same man, Enver Hoxha. The change was completely meaningless and cosmetic. Especially at this point, where we don't even have separate articles for most countries, it seems bizarre to worry about ambiguity with earlier long form names that represent exactly the same state. And if we are going to use one name on the list, we should use the short form name except in cases of ambiguity like the Congos, the Koreas, and such like. That is to say, of instances where there is a present day ambiguity, not where there is ambiguity between the current form of a state and forms that existed in the past. John Kenney 01:11, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

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What are you talking about a straw man? Derek's justification for using the long form name was the potential of confusion with older long form names. I think that's ridiculous. Short form names are well-accepted, and are the titles used by every encyclopedia in their titles of entries on countries. If the old long form names are "irrelevant historical parallels," then, I repeat the question, what possible ambiguity arises out of articles at Russia, Iran, Iraq, France, and so forth? And are you all really proposing articles at French Republic and the like? As to what it should look like, a table that includes capitals, area, and population would make sense. As I suggested before, including long form names, as well, would make sense if people care about the long form names. As to "wikipedia-esque navel-gazing," surely this kind of thing isn't "wikipedia-esque," but a rather inevitable result of the fact that people can feel strongly about relatively small issues, and disagree about them. John Kenney 10:09, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

Dependent territories

Should these be listed here, perhaps in a separate list? Sometimes they even have separate currencies from their home country. John Kenney 12:17, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

I think a tiered aproach would be best. This list contains countries. The country articles contain the main sub devisions of that country (provinces or states) and, when we get that far, the state's article contains a list of it's counties and the countie's article contains a list of it's cities and so on. Dependent territories would be listed in the article of their parent country. Some of them will merit an article of their own (e.g. gabralta) others with not, but to list them all on this list would probably double or triple it's size and also make the list difficult to manage and check cause I doubt many of us know all the dependent territories of all the countries in the world without some heavy research. Derek Harkness 14:20, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

Gazetteers

Well, I thought a gazetteer was a dictionary of places. So you could say that a really big encyclopedia contains gazetteer entries (in that sense) and thus replaces a gazetteer. An index of places, however, can also be called a gazetteer. "Index" usually means "alphabetical list," although indexes can also be organized in other ways as with a topical index. So what, precisely, is the content of the proposal that we create a "gazetteer"? It is that we call any list of places, or perhaps a top-level master list like countries of the world, a "gazeteer," and perhaps also that we feel free to intermix different types of links and geographical information into the pages, again as we are doing with countries of the world?

I suspect the appeal of the "gazeteer" or "guide" proposal is that it will be useful to people to have more information than, simply, a list of countries. I agree with this.

Here is what I propose. I propose we have (mere examples offered here) World Gazeteer, North America Gazetteer, United States Gazetteer, Ohio Gazetteer, and Licking County Gazetteer. At each level our aim is, obviously, not to have every possible piece of information about things at that level of generality, but merely "the highlights"--obviously, a controversial task, but one that is open to various objective measures (such as population statistics).

The idea, then, is that at each level, we list the major political divisions, major cities, major mountains and/or mountain ranges (and other geological features), major parks, and so forth. As to what sort of information to have, I would urge you to think first and foremost of what users are to find most useful and interesting. A list of countries alphabetically is not quite necessary, because if I want to look up a country, I can use the search box for that: so how many people want or will use an alphabetical list? Organizing them by continent, and continental subdivision as in the case of Europe, Asia, and Africa, would be much more interesting. Listing them also by land area, population, GDP and cost of living would all be interesting. But ultimately, for the World Gazetteer we should choose just one listing (perhaps by continent, then alphabetical); then we can link to a page such as Country comparisons that has the aforementioned lists. We might also on World Gazeteer have lists of the major mountain ranges, cities, rivers, oceans, etc.

I think the proper place to work out this idea is CZ:Geography Workgroup or some subpage thereof. (Notice that the new CZ: namespace permits subpages.) I'll copy this mail there for further discussion.

--Larry Sanger 15:26, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

Please reply at CZ:Geography Workgroup/Gazetteer.