Category talk:Micronations

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Interesting category. Feel free to drop by the Association_of_Inclusionist_Wikipedians if you think that some of these articles are being deleted. --ShaunMacPherson 00:20, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 General principles concerning micronation articles 2 Results of Wikipedia micronation articles nominated for deletion 3 Comments on criteria sought 4 Talossa

[edit] General principles concerning micronation articles

Given the controversy they generate I think it is probably a good idea at this point to try to establish some general principles governing the inclusion/exclusion of micronations from Wiki. The set of informal criteria I have myself used over the past several years is as follows:

1. That its existence is independently verifiable by more than 5 offline documentary sources.

2. That such documentary sources are likely to have come to the attention of a minimum of thousands of people in a minimum of 5 countries over a period of years - eg through the medium of popular television and radio broadcasts, and in high circulation national newspapers.

3. That it has produced substantial physical evidence of its existence - ie tangible objects such as coins, medals, banknotes, stamps, passports (preferably all of them) produced in multiples of at least hundreds - or alternatively, that it or its representatives have been involved in court cases or other public processes, meetings or ceremonies, for which transcripts or photographic records exist.

My view is that if a micronation fulfills all of the above criteria it has a demonstrable existence in the real world (irrespective of whether that existence is "legitimate" according to interpretations of law or historic precedent), and which, as part of a wider cultural phenomenon qualifies the micronation as a notable, valid article subject.

It is my view that all of the micronation articles currently listed in this category fulfill these criteria, and that any proposed future inclusions should equally be required to do so.--Gene_poole 02:26, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Given that a further year has passed since I posted the above comments I thought it would be a good idea to review how my proposed principles are stacking up against Wikipedia's evolving consensus on this subject. The following is the list of articles about micronations that have been nominated for deletion (that I'm aware of - I'm sure there are lots more) during the past couple of years. It clearly demonstrates that articles about micronations that conform with my proposed principles above are almost always retained, while those that do not are almost always deleted. This evidence is even more compelling given that 2 of the kept articles below were nominated for deletion a total of 5 times. --Gene_poole 05:38, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Results of Wikipedia micronation articles nominated for deletion

Avram (AFD discussion)	Kept	Complied with: 1, 2, 3
Empire of Atlantium (1st nomination)	Kept	Complied with: 1, 2, 3
Empire of Atlantium (3rd nomination)	Kept	Complied with: 1, 2, 3
Empire of Atlantium (4th nomination)	Kept	Complied with: 1, 2, 3
Empire of Atlantium (5th nomination)	Kept	Complied with: 1, 2, 3
Hutt River Province Principality (AfD discussion)	Kept	Complied with 1, 2, 3
Ladonia (AFD discussion)	Kept	Complied with: 1, 2, 3,
Nation of Celestial Space (AfD discussion)	Kept	Complied with: 1, 2, 3,
New Utopia (AFD discussion)	Kept	Complied with: 1, 2, 3,
Principality of Freedonia (AfD discussion)	Kept	Complies with: 1, 2, 3,
Sealand (AfD discussion)	Kept	Complied with: 1, 2, 3,
Sovereign State of Aeterna Lucina (AfD discussion)	Kept	Complies with: 1, 2, 3,
Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands (1st nomination)	Kept	Complied with: 2, 3
Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands (4th nomination)	Kept	Complied with: 2, 3
Principality of Marlborough (AfD discussion)	kept	Complies with: 1, 3
Northern Forest Archipelago (AFD discussion)	Deleted	Complied with: 3
Nova Roma (AFD discussion)	Deleted	Complied with: 3
Fifth World Council	Deleted	Complied with: none
Duchy of New Sealand	Deleted	Complied with: none
Empire of Septempontia (AFD discussion)	Deleted	Complied with: none
Nation of Pogo (AFD discussion)	Deleted	Complied with: none
Republic of Atlasia (AFD discussion)	Deleted	Complied with: none
Societas Via Romana (AFD discussion)	Deleted	Complied with: none
Virtual Commonwealth of Cyberia (AFD discussion)	Deleted	Complied with: none

Er . . . Almea isn't a micronation. It's a conworld. Wiwaxia 03:31, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comments on criteria sought

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sovereign State of Aeterna Lucina... perhaps some discussion by others about these criteria may be useful. They seemed reasonable to me and I've been using them in weighing how to comment regarding the recent batch of micronation related AfD nominations, but they may not be reasonable to others. I think the analysis showing correlation between the criteria being met and previous AfD outcomes gives empirical support to their usefulness. ++Lar: t/c 08:10, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

One problem is that those criteria are very, shall we say, forgiving. Imagine that my family have a long running dispute with the government. It's been reported a few times on local TV and in the regional newspapers, a catchment of thousands of people. With absolutely no foundation in law, I decide to declare our property an independent state. No other sovereign nation recognises me. I may as well say I'm Napolean for all that the average person cares. Nonetheless, our dispute with the government gets a bit nasty. There's a stand off, and I'm carted off to jail. Reuters picks up the story, and a few papers around the world pick up the story about the eccentric Englishman. I am now eligible for an article on Wikipedia. All the above criteria have been met. Now, let's be honest, some of the micronations which have been proposed for deletion this week are little more than the fantasy I have just put to you.

1. That its existence is independently verifiable by more than 5 offline documentary sources. Fine, but I would say 5 different offline documentary sources. 5 articles in the Sydney Morning Herald should be not enough.

2 is fine by me.

3 I feel is way too lenient. Court cases should not be enough, as my 'fantasy' above illustrates. Coins, passports, stamps etc should only count if they are valid somewhere. Can I spend the coins and banknotes freely (are they legal tender) anywhere? Are or were the stamps valid for international postage? Have any legitimate sovereign states accepted the passports as valid travel documents?

4 The policy makes no distinction between territorial micronations and artistic/political/fandom ones. I believe this needs to be addressed. As first offer, I would propose that WP:WEB should apply to those micronations which are purely of the fantasy/hobbyist type and which are internet based. I've nothing against these entities at all, it seems like a bit of harmless fun to me, but Wikipedia is not.... well you know the rest... --kingboyk 19:48, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Regarding your intro/example, I think you're probably right, as it stands the criteria may well be too lenient. I think a new analysis of outcomes may be a good thing, it may wel show some skewing farther toward deletion from the first analysis, but I think part of the point of the policy was that it seemed to empirically bear out how votes seemed to go, at least that was my read. Regarding 1. maybe something like 5 articles, at least 3 different sources? If we're getting to concrete maybe we agree the bare bones idea is workable, with some dial turning, rather than that the metrics are completely the wrong ones? ++Lar: t/c 21:14, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

3 different sources is certainly better than 5 articles from the same newspaper. --kingboyk 21:24, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Nod, those 5 articles could be just because one writer or editor has a hobby... (oh, and further, the same 5 artciles seem to be used in support of all the micronations or wannabe micronations anywhere near Oz... WP:WEB suggests that the notability test is more than a mention... some considerable length needs to be devoted to the topic in the article or programme or whatever... I personally think WEB is too stringent but it bears mentioning that is the approach it takes...) ++Lar: t/c 21:26, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Exactly my thoughts. It's quite possible there is a micronation hobbyist working for SMH (nothing wrong with that, but we shouldn't rely so much on one fine but regional newspaper). I'd add too that one particular book seems to be cited in many articles too - Strauss, Erwin S. How to Start Your Own Country. --kingboyk 21:36, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Nod again. My thinking here is this: given that Micronations seem a phenomenon that is of cultural significance, there are three classes of them... those important (current or historic) enough to warrant their own article and a mention in the main Micronations article (Sealand, Indian Stream being two that come to mind), those not important enough to merit their own article, but still important enough to be merged into either the current Micronations article, or perhaps a new one called "minor micronations" or whatever, and those that are so unimportant that they don't even warrant that. Using these 5 articles and one book as a binary decision maker isn't going to help get to that sort of 2 tier gradation. I'm just someone that wandered into this, with some minor interest (being libertarian as I amtends to get one sent info on a lot of these proposals, not all of which, er, float...) so I can't really speak to where to find more guides to notability but more ought to be found if possible... I think I'm done commenting in detail till more folks weigh in though. ++Lar: t/c 22:21, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. --kingboyk 22:29, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

So... anyone have any more comments now? I think both kingboyk and I felt we had said our piece barring further comments from others. A number of micronations have now went through AfD and the above box updated with results. Any change to the empirical predictive ability? Any comments on the 3 tiered approach? Any desire to move this forward into a useful metric? ++Lar: t/c 03:38, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but it'll have to wait till later in the week. I spent 3 hours writing a response earlier today only to lose it all when Wiki had one of its periodic fits. --Gene_poole 04:20, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

You probably don't wanna hear it, but "external editors" are your friends. I don't edit small stuff that way but anything big I periodically repaste into a local text editor (UltraEdit being my favorite but that's a war topic in itself!) I look forward to your rewrite. ++Lar: t/c 05:22, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Yikes! Save often. I don't trust computers, if wiki doesn't have a problem Firefox crashes on me (sad to say but true, since 1.5 came around). --kingboyk 15:14, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Talossa

There are soooo many micronations THAT ARE REAL THAT CAN BE VERIFIED. I think that people should stop deleting these articles. My Kingdom of Talossa, for example, was deleted and protected, for the simple reason that I provided no source except for the website fast enough. I know that this micronation fulfils all those critea and can cite those newspapers if any adin, King of Hearts in this case, can give me enough time. I would appreciate any admin help.--Kitia

There are very very few micronations that are "real" in the sense of being more than just a website. If people continue writing articles about unverifiable micronations, then they'll continue to get deleted. --Centauri 22:56, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I can provide the newspapers that sitedthis nation. Anyway, even if it is only a website, which it isn't, it still provides info, which is what the Wikipedia is all about, right? --Kitia

What Wikipedia is "about" is outlined in the following 3 keystone policies: WP:V, WP:OR and WP:NPOV. One of the things Wikipedia is definitely not about is writing articles about insignificant websites - see WP:NOT for further detail. --Centauri 01:47, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Talking about Talossa in general (Kingdom and Republic, I'll not annoy you with internalt issues, but I'll assure you that there's a friendly cooperation among them and they may unite in a nearer future), I believe that should be created a page about Talossa, even if I'm not sure if the 1st point of this policy is fullfiled. Why I believe this (and the fact that I'm a member of this community does not influence me)? Because Talossa, founded in 1979, is probably longest suriving micronation (model country) and the first one of his gendre. Some says also that its founder was the one who invented the word "micronation".--Elistir 14:24, 20 October 2006 (UTC)