Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (country-specific topics)

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1 "(item) of (country)" vs "(adjective of nationality) (item)"
2 Vote here
3 Pop quiz
4 Examples of confusion
5 Exceptions
- 5.1 What about "--- in Fooland" and "--- from Fooland"? And people categories?
6 Redundant or competing pages: Places, countries, etc.
7 Related discussions
8 Deprecate?
9 Ethnic groups by country categories
10 Scope of Rule

[edit] "(item) of (country)" vs "(adjective of nationality) (item)"

ex: History of Israel vs Category:Israeli history

We really need a guideline on this, as quick glance through Category:Categories by country will demonstrate. Some categories use one form, some use the other, and some, such as Category:History by nation and Category:Politics by country are a chaotic mix of the two.

The best discussion I found on this subject was at Category_talk:Political_parties_by_country:

"It has been agreed that we should not have article names of the form [location] [object] (eg. South African political parties) because this requires not only the knowledge of the location, but how to make that name a possessive (South Africa -> South African). For example, how does one make Côte d'Ivoire possessive? It is simple enough for creators to search for it, but we have users to think about also - whom we cannot expect to guess the correct possessive every single time. This is why we have all articles relating to locations of the form [object] of [location] (eg. Political parties of South Africa, or Geography of Côte d'Ivoire). This simply uses the raw name of the state for ease of use, and for compliance with most other articles." - User:OldakQuill

It looks like this was discussed and consensus was reached. I agree completely. I propose that this be added as a preferred naming convention. (Certainly, if there are any exceptions, these can be noted in the convention.)

- Pioneer-12 12:17, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Vote here

For:

I agree, this seems very sensible. Thryduulf 12:49, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I agree with the proposal. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:23, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC)
I agree as well. -Kbdank71 17:26, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I've been looking for this policy. I think most people assume it is policy already! --Dmcdevit 22:42, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Of course I agree... I initially proposed it. :-) - Pioneer-12 15:57, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Support; see my comments below -- Tetraminoe 19:10, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Against:

No biggie to me, but I see less need for standardization, and if it is standardized, I'd go with the adjectival form. That seems more natural. Maurreen 06:01, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pop quiz

re the adjectival form, can you (without looking it up) tell me what that form is for all the following countries:

Côte D'Ivoire
Democratic Republic of Congo
Seychelles
Equatorial Guinea
Tuvalu
Micronesia
Holy See (Vatican City)
Burkina Faso
Kiribati
Marshall Islands
Myanmar
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Perhaps we ought to have a list here of what the adjectival forms, etc, of country names are (or would that fit better at Wiktionary?) Thryduulf 15:49, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

These would be my guesses, without looking them up:

Côte D'Ivoire - Ivorian or Ivoirian, I believe both are equally acceptable.
Democratic Republic of Congo - Congolese, though I'm not sure how one would indicate which Congo
Seychelles - Seychellean
Equatorial Guinea - Equatorial Guinean
Tuvalu - (no idea)
Micronesia - Micronesian
Holy See (Vatican City) - "Vatican" itself is an adjective
Burkina Faso - (I'd guess wildly) Burkinan or Burkina Fasonian
Kiribati - (I've never even heard of this place) Kiribatian?
Marshall Islands - Marshallese
Myanmar - Burmese
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines -- St. Vincentian

How'd I do? -- Jmabel | Talk 04:23, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC)

Better than I did! I have now looked them all up and the answers are at User:Thryduulf/Country naming conventions pop-quiz answers. Thryduulf 09:25, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

...and let's not forget those Monegasques(?) in Monaco, Luxembourgois (or is it Letzeburgisch?) in Luxembourg, Sotho (?) in Lesotho, Ghanaian in Ghana, Manx in the Isle of Man, and Cypriots in Cyprus! And that's without mentioning well-known odd formations such as such as Greek, Spanish, Danish, French, Peruvian, and Dutch. Grutness|^hello? 13:22, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC). PS - "St. Vincent and the Grenadines" would be a great name for a jazz band.

My guesses:

Côte D'Ivoire - Ivoirian
Democratic Republic of Congo - Congoese (or possibly Zairese, since the country used to be called Zaire)
Seychelles - Echellian
Equatorial Guinea - Guinnian
Tuvalu - Tuvalese
Micronesia - Micronesian
Holy See (Vatican City) - Popian :-)
Burkina Faso - Burkinese
Kiribati - Kiribatian
Marshall Islands - Marshallian
Myanmar - Burmese
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines - Vincentian or Grenadian (probably varies depending on the island)

Excellent quiz!

Not only is it hard to derive the adjective from the country name, it's also often hard to derive the country name from the national adjective, especially if it's a multi-word name. Maybe that should be the next quiz. :-) - Pioneer-12 01:44, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Examples of confusion

Each example is another reason why we need a clear policy on this.

Category:Canadian Olympians and Category:Olympic athletes of Canada
Category:History of Europe and Category:European history
Category:History of Prussia and Category:Prussian history
Politics of Italy and Italian Government

[edit] Exceptions

[edit] What about "--- in Fooland" and "--- from Fooland"? And people categories?

There are alternatives to "of". "In" is sometimes preferable to "of" (particularly in geography). I don't like "from" - "of" is probably better for consistency.

I also think that categories that contain people and are themselves categorised by nationality ought to be "Foowegian ----" rather than "--- of Fooland", unless the reason they are being categorised relates directly to their country as a political entity (so "Prime Ministers of Fooland" but "Foowegian artists"). That's closer in line with normal usage (when is the last time you heard a person described as an "artist of the United States" rather than an "American artist"?) as well as being preferably ambiguous (people are members of rather fuzzy cultures: e.g. "Basque" may be an appropriate designation of nationality but it wouldn't fit in a "by country" scheme). Also bear in mind that many people are identifiable as Foowegian even if they lived before the modern state of Fooland came into existence. As noted above, literature, culture, music and the arts are tied in more with notions of nationality and "peoples" rather than countries as legal and political entities. "Foowegian literature" makes more sense than "Literature of Fooland" (again, when is the last time you heard a book described as a major contribution to the literature of the United States, rather than to American literature?).

Overall I think a strict, overarching policy is a bad idea unless the exceptions leave leeway. On a case-by-case basis, consistent conventions should be worked out (look at Category:People by nationality for example - there are a some "People of Fooland" and the odd "People from Fooland" but mostly "Foowegian people" - where possible I have suggested that the "from" and "of" categories should be put in adjectival form, but reaction seems negative so far). One thing that bugs me is that we have "American foo-doers", "United States foo-doers" and "U.S. foo-dooers" (see Category:American people by occupation)- it's not just deciding whether to use an adjectival form, picking which one to use is also important (Luxemburger vs Luxembourgeois comes to mind - and Dominica and Dominican Republic both have adjective "Dominican", so "of Dominica"/"of the Dominican Republic" always has to be used even where usually the adjectival form would be). Despite this chaos I firmly believe any policies and conventions should be made on this more local scale (deciding on a format for things like Category:People by nationality, Category:European rivers - a nightmare using a combination of "in Foo", "of Foo" and "Fooian" at present - and picking adjectives for countries like the USA, Luxembourg etc) rather than laying down a rule of the form "always of Foo, except for the following exceptions". Making sure that either "Fooian history" or "History of Foo" was standard among "history by nationality" would have prevented that Prussian history cock-up, without the need for an overarching policy - I don't see why such a policy is an immediate necessity. I have no problem with stating that in general "of" is preferable, but deliberately leaving possible exceptions open-ended - if any exceptions are challenged with a {cfr} to "of Foo" form, the onus should be on the challenged names to prove their value on a case-by-case basis. Anyway, if you are going to use a rule of the form on the project page, it really ought to state when in Foo is appropriate - it's now standard in a lot of geography categories. --VivaEmilyDavies 08:39, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback. Flexibility is important. I have added exceptions to deal with situations like English Literature and "of foo" vs "in foo" Are there any other exceptions that should be added?

I totally disagree with the idea of doing this locally. With that method you wind up having dozens of different groups of people arguing the same issue over and over and over again in ignorance of one other. What a waste of time! The purpose of general guidelines is to indicate best practices--to spread wisdom, improve consistency, reduce arguments, and save time. That's what this guideline is striving for. - Pioneer-12 01:10, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree with VivaEmilyDavies that an over-arching policy of e.g. "always use of" would be inappropriate and detrimental to Wikipedia (see non-natural examples mentioned above), but I disagree that the standard should be set locally: I think it should be set here, but with enough detail (and coordination with the editors of specific subjects) to be useful. It seems that policies, official or unofficial, are in place for various subjects across WP; this policy should gather, coordinate, standardize and improve them. There are clearly times when X-ish Y is preferable to Y of X. I think the probable comes from the fact that "country" and "nationality" are not always seen as synonymous. To follow VivaEmilyDavies's line of reasoning, I think that for issues tied directly to geographical or political divisions, Y of X may be be better; for issues of nationality, X-ish Y may be better. Thus, "Mountains of Canada" and "Politics of Italy," but "Chinese philosophy" and "American music".

This gets even more tangled up when considering languages, which often bear the name of their country of origin. I think, following common English usage, "Spanish literature" should be allowed, referring to literature in the Spanish language; "literature of Spain" should also be allowed, referring to literature by Spaniards. This may be more appropriate for some languages than others: for instance, Spanish-language literature originates from many countries other than Spain, but does Japanese-language literature come from many other countries than Japan? In this case, it could be helpful for both pages to exist, with one redirecting to the other. (Which redirected to which should likely be a case-by-case basis, since even in situations where the two are nearly synonymous, there is often either some literature in that language originating from other countries, or some literature originating from that country in other languages. It might not be enough to warrant two separate pages, but the redirect should go to the larger one.)

So, taking into account the often tricky overlap between geopolitical boundaries, nationality, and language, some policy to guide these areas should exist, but we should approach it with due research and caution, and expect to craft a fairly nuanced policy that will probably best be refined over time. Otherwise, how could we deal with, say, these articles: "Jewish literature" (religious/national identity), "Israeli literature" (national/political identity), "Hebrew literature" (language), "Yiddish literature" (language/culture) -- or "literature of the Jews," "literature of Israel," "literature in Hebrew," "literature in Yiddish"? Where do they overlap, and where do they diverge or conflict? Other than someone knowledgeable in the area, I don't think you can accurately make the distinction. In these places, an overarching policy could do more bad than good. To craft a policy that provides useful guidance but is flexible enough to account for reality will take some time. -- Tetraminoe 19:10, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Redundant or competing pages: Places, countries, etc.

Please see Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions for a discussion on consolidating pages. Maurreen (talk) 16:49, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Related discussions

[edit] Deprecate?

There was a recent poll at Wikipedia talk:Category titles/Archive: Poll started August 4, 2005 during which the subject of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (country-specific topics) came up and the assertion was made that this convention either is or should be deprecated, see also archive 3 and the current debate at Wikipedia talk:Category titles. Thoughts on that issue are welcome, as is input on Category titles and how current policy affects them. Steve block talk 08:27, 17 August 2005 (UTC)