Talk:Burma/Archive 6

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no move. The discussion is really just going 'round in circles, as it always does. There's no hope of consensus, and it's just a waste of everyone's time to continue it. DrKiernan (talk) 15:16, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

Burma → Myanmar — It's time this be opened again —   Avg    22:50, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Notice of this discussion has been posted on Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 23:24, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Support move as abiding by our neutrality policy which means we don not take sides in the political dispute in the country. Burma simply doesn't exist other than as a historical entity. Thanks, SqueakBox 22:55, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Burma is a country in Southeast Asia that had the name Myanmar forced upon it by a junta. Not historical at all. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 20:41, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
    • First, it is of little consequence whether the name was "forced upon a country" as per our WP:NPOV policy. Second, it is of little significance whether "Myanmar" is historical or not, for it is "Burma" which is historical.--Huaiwei (talk) 04:52, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support - It is the official UN name, it is the name most countries use, plus it ranks first in google.--   Avg    22:56, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

• Google hits are never a good determinant of usage. Burma is used most often by English-speaking countries (and this is an English-speaking encyclopedia). And countries determine the name they use in the UN, so of course they're "Myanmar" there. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 20:41, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose We can't avoid coming down on one side in this case, so may as well stay where we are. Adam Cuerden ^talk 23:07, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
  • This is not an issue of picking sides in a political conflict. The issue relates to encyclopedic guidelines, not politics. AP, Reuters, and professionally written sourcebooks, almanacs, and encyclopedias all use the official name Myanmar used by the state. The same was case when Mobutu renamed Congo "Zaire" and then when Kabila changed the name back to Congo in 1997. Maglev Power (talk) 00:47, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support. Myanmar is the accepted name of the country by most countries and geographical authorities. Calling it "Burma" now is rather like calling Mumbai "Bombay": it would probably be recognized by more readers, but it's no longer correct. This issue has been far too politicized in the past, and I ask that anyone who closes this discussion ignore all arguments against calling the country "Myanmar" based on the fact that it is the junta's name for the country. This has nothing to do with how Wikipedia should title its article. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 23:12, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

• Please see my comment at bottom for a list of how Burma is the accepted name by all English-speaking countries governments. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 20:41, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• My country is an English-speaking country (yeah it is "country" we are referring to here), and Myanmar is the preferred name over Burma. This fact alone discounts your presumptions.--Huaiwei (talk) 21:06, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• This is an error of typing on my part, my intention was "governments". --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 21:36, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks for the clarification. The last I checked, however, my government happens to recognise the name Myanmar too[4]. I am quite sure that same government is English-speaking too if I recall correctly.--Huaiwei (talk) 19:11, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

• English is but one of the many languages spoken by that government, so it's hardly a representative example of an English-speaking government. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 20:51, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

• Interesting. So any native English speaker who takes up a second language automatically looses his "English-speaking" status?--Huaiwei (talk) 04:28, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

• Nice word twist, but no. I was talking about the government. Because the government speaks multiple languages, one of which happens to be English, and because the English-speaking portion of the population is so small, it isn't representative of the English-speaking world of which we are supposed to draw from for WP:COMMONNAME. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 23:36, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

• Not exactly a word twist, but an application of your skewed logic in realities of life. Multi-cultural governments do not make them any less English-speaking. The Singapore government do not speak "multiple languages" regularly, and it didnt happen to speak English as one of them. English is the default language of governance, the language of commerce, and the language of instruction in Singapore schools. It is the lingua franca of the populance, despite the supposed "small" portion of native English-speaking peoples. The Singapore Census conducted in 2000 shows a 70.5% literacy rate in English amongst the literate populance over the age of 15[5]. With English taught at the First language level in all national schools, this figure can only expect to rise. Kindly do not downplay the role of the English language in obviously English-speaking societies, just because we do not have the same skin colour.--Huaiwei (talk) 07:49, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

• You better stop this line of reasoning right there and now. This is not a question of skin color and playing the race card is not taking this debate anywhere. Whether we like it or not, when it comes to any language, we should give precedence to how native speakers use the language. (I am not a native speaker by the way.) And the four countries with the largest English-speaking population are the US, the UK, Canada and Australia.--Amban (talk) 14:07, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
  • No, India has more English speakers than any other. Timrollpickering (talk) 14:18, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[[
    • According to the article on Indian English, about 100 million speak English in India. That's less than in the US. And most of them are not native speakers. But let's suppose that you were right, should that mean that we should write all Indian-realted articles in the regional variety of English? And should the article on Scotland be written in Scots? In the long run, that would destroy English Wikipedia and we would have to create regional English language Wikipedias. This is one of the reasons why I have stopped writing regularly on English Wikipedia, where more and more East Asia related articles (my field of interest) have become battlegrounds. I think it would be much better for the Chinese language and for Wikipedia as a whole if Chinese Wikipedians contributed more to Chinese Wikipedia, and so on. But I don't see that happening. Instead we are generating incredible amounts of writing on talk pages about minutiae. This talk page is now 62 kb long.--Amban (talk) 15:15, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
      • According to this piece in the Guardian, India holds the record. [6]. List of countries by English-speaking population gives 350,000,000 as the number. Indian English is using the 1991 census and as noted in the other sources there has been an explosion in English usage since then. Giving enhanced importance to native speakers in this debate is messy and insulting when the language has a huge usage as a medium of communication beyond native speakers. And the principle of using national varieties of English for articles on subjects of a specific country is well established. Timrollpickering (talk) 16:41, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
        • Insulting, why? I don't take offense when native speakers of English, Chinese or Japanese correct my use of their language. That's the only way I can improve my skills.

For me language is about communication, not about posturing. I would like to think that people go to Wikipedia to find out about other countries and cultures rather than intervening to make sure that "their" country or culture is depicted in a "correct" way. But I may be wrong.

It may also be true that there are more speakers of English in India than native speakers in the US. But it is also true that most people in the world are taught English in either the US or UK variety. If you rewrite every article into the local variety of English that happen to be used there, it may be gratifying from people who come from that country, but for a non-native speaker who was taught British English in school it may be off-putting to read about Indian demographics given in crores and lakhs.

Don't get me wrong. It is perfectly OK to take regional variants of English into consideration when writing articles, but if we throw all standards out of the window, English Wikipedia will become increasingly unusable. And if we want to promote diversity it is far better to promote linguistic diversity, than diversities within a language. Right now, the largest Wikipedia after English is German Wikipedia. Chinese, Hindi or Arabic are not even close. And there are only 111 articles in Burmese Wikipedia.--Amban (talk) 18:25, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

• Support — I am a well-educated resident of an English-speaking country, and haven't heard the name "Burma" used in many years, so I was rather surprised when this article was renamed back in October. It needs to be moved back. "Myanmar" is the name used by the UN, ISO, IOC, FIFA, and whatever news organization supplies international stories for my local newspaper. I believe it is the most neutral POV of these two options. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 23:16, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

• The UN, IOC and FIFA all abide by whatever name the country chooses, so that's not conclusive. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 20:41, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• No one is pointing a gun at any of the said organisations to use the same name chosen by the governing body of the said political entity. What is conclusive, however, is that all major international organisations affiliated to the UN, plus the majority of major organisations around the world has chosen on their own accord to use the name the country calls itself. This is by no means insignificant.--Huaiwei (talk) 04:32, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

• Support It has never been shown that one name is overwhelmingly more common than the other. In the absence of a clear common name, we should use the official English short form name as determined by the ISO. --Polaron | Talk 23:29, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

• My comment at bottom has links to English-speaking governments proving the Burma usage is more common, thus fulfilling the criteria of WP:COMMONNAME. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 20:41, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• First, there is a contention on what is defined as "English-speaking". Second, there is a contention on whether "Governments" are the deciding factor on common language usage. Until these two factors are roundly resolved, you have little ground to proclaim fulfillment of WP:COMMONNAME based on the above assumption.--Huaiwei (talk) 04:38, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

• Support Both names are used in English but Wikipedia:Naming conflict suggests that Myanmar is the better to use - see Talk:Burma/Archive 5#Ongoing dispute for my detailed reasoning as to how this policy applies here. The previous move discussion had many people playing the POV card about the regime but I don't believe this should influence the outcome. Timrollpickering (talk) 23:52, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support - regardless of how much we may dislike the occupying regime, they control the nation, totally. At such time as the legitimate government of Aung San Suu Kyi or Sein Win takes power and formally renames the nation Burma, Wikipedia should follow suit. Until then, we should respect the controlling party's decision of Myanmar being the short-form name of the country. --Golbez (talk) 23:55, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

  This is a misinterpretation of policy. Wikipedia should never "respect the controlling party's decision" unless it is subsequently adopted by the majority of English speakers. The over-riding criteria is "article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize". Thus the name change should be totally unaffected by a change of goernment. SteveRwanda (talk) 11:35, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• Support move This is the more common name in common parlance as shown by google, the current name, and the most used name by prominent international sources. I don't like the current regime but that's no reason to use a name that is non-neutral and outdated. Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:57, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

• Please see my comment at bottom for a list of how Burma is the accepted name by all English-speaking governments. Google is not reliable, and I don't know what "prominent international sources" you're referring to. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 20:41, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• Support I have the impression that the name Myanmar is more commmonly used by English speakers worldwide, if not in the US. I'm a US expat and, AFAIK, I had not heard the name Burma (except, probably, as "Myanmar, the country previously known as Burma, ...") in some years before the recent coverage of news events on the US-based news programs which I watch. Even there, I frequently heard "Myanmar". If (1) Myanmar has the edge usage-wise or (2) Myanmar has similar usage to Burma but UN, ISO, etc. conventions lean towards Myanmar then (IMO) WP should use "Myanmar" with a redirect from "Burma". -- Boracay Bill (talk) 23:58, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

• Please see my comment at bottom for a list of how Burma is the accepted name by all English-speaking countries. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 20:41, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose. Exactly what has changed since the last round 3½ months ago? Anyway, as I said then, "Wikipedia is not bound to throw out the English name of the country and follow SLORC's weak transliteration system. (The Americans don't even say it right — most tack on a alveolar approximant becuase of the final 'r.')" —  AjaxSmack  —Preceding comment was added at 00:43, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment One key difference is that there are no monks murdered on the streets now, or at least according to what leaks out from that country into the international press.--Huaiwei (talk) 05:39, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose "Burma" is the most common designation used by English speakers. "Myanmar" also lacks recognition by the governments of the US and UK, where most English speakers live. Húsönd 00:54, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment This is not a US/UK encyclopedia, please. Thanks, SqueakBox 01:02, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Nobody said it was. Húsönd 01:04, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
      • You certainly implied it. Thanks, SqueakBox 01:06, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
        • No I didn't. What is implied is that a majority of English speakers live in areas where the name "Burma" is given recognition over "Myanmar", something that will often affect public displays of the name. Húsönd 01:10, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
          • Your comment about the majority of English speakers is not valid, unless you again imply that English speakers = native English speakers. --   Avg    01:12, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
            • I was referring to native English speakers. Obviously (US speakers + UK speakers ≠ majority of world English speakers). Húsönd 01:18, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
              • So again, are Anglophone nations dictating the content of the English Wikipedia?--   Avg    01:26, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
                • Not directly, no. But if a majority of users come from Anglophone countries that don't recognize "Myanmar", they are bound to be more familiar with "Burma". Húsönd 01:36, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• While the US government doesn't recognize "Myanmar", the National Geographic Society apparently does [7]. Thus I don't think it's really accurate to consider Myanmar a term not recognized in the United States. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 02:17, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• So you can neither prove that the UK and US people say Burma nor prove the relevance of what the people in these countries. This is an encyclopedia about the whole world that happens to be written in English. It is not the encyclopedia of how the English speaking people see the world, as your initial comment implied Husond. Thanks, SqueakBox 02:22, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, this is an encyclopedia that happens to be written in English, not an encyclopedia of how the English speaking people see the world. I can't see why should my position imply the latter. Húsönd 02:37, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• So is the "English" used by non-native English speakers any lesser than that used by native speakers? You apparantly attempt to discount the net effect of the entire world's English-speaking population, native or otherwise.--Huaiwei (talk) 05:30, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• Burma may be more widely used but Wikipedia does not have to perpetuate mistakes. A redirect and an explanation about the name will more than cover it. An encyclopaedia should use the correct name. Yohan euan o4 (talk) 23:14, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Because of teh weight you are wanting to give to US and UK people on a subject which is not specifically related to either of those countries. Thanks, SqueakBox 03:22, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Google stats for US & UK just to get a feel for things:

• about 458 for allintitle: myanmar site:.gov.
• about 1,420 for allintitle: burma site:.gov.
• about 30,200 for myanmar site:.gov.
• about 54,700 for burma site:.gov.
• about 856,000 for allintitle: myanmar site:.com. !!
• about 579,000 for allintitle: burma site:.com.
• about 6,880,000 for myanmar site:.com. !!
• about 1,270,000 for burma site:.com.
• about 1,460 for allintitle: myanmar site:.edu.
• about 2,760 for allintitle: burma site:.edu.
• about 101,000 for myanmar site:.edu.
• about 117,000 for burma site:.edu.
• about 9,240 for allintitle: myanmar site:.uk.
• about 25,600 for allintitle: burma site:.uk.
• about 407,000 for myanmar site:.uk.
• about 389,000 for burma site:.uk.

My guess about the items flagged !! is that this shows the effect of pages from non-US owners which have been placed in the .com domain. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 03:13, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• • Comment Husond, have you ever wondered if the number of "English-speakers" in US and UK combined can ever be larger than the English-speaking peoples of just India alone?--Huaiwei (talk) 05:28, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support It's the official name of the country (and has been for 18 1/2 years), is the official name in the UN, and ismore common now (a quick Google search brings 40.8 million hits for "Burma" [8] and 88.1 million for "Myanmar" [9]). While I normally support the US goverment in cases like this (I don't consider Palestine a country either), the goverment in Myanmar doesn't look like it's going anywhere. TJ Spyke 03:36, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• Please see my comment at bottom for a list of how Burma is the accepted name by all English-speaking governments. Furthermore, the UN and Google are not reliable in this matter. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 20:41, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose "Burma" is the most common name to English speakers. It would be like calling Germany Bundesrepublik Deutschland and not Germany. The Canadian government also gives prominence to the name Burma.[10] Leave as Burma with Myanmar redirecting to it. —MJCdetroit ^(yak) 03:43, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Where is the proog Burma is the more common name? Also, your example of Germany is wrong, Myanmar is the English name of the country (whereas "Bundesrepublik Deutschland" is the German name for Germany, not the English name). TJ Spyke 03:46, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Please see my comment at bottom for a list of how Burma is the accepted name by all English-speaking countries. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 20:41, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support -- It's been nearly 20 years since the official name change, and my perception is "Myanmar" is now the better-known name in the English-speaking world. When the country was in the news a few months ago, I mostly heard "Myanmar" from the North American media. We may not like the name, but that's not the way Wikipedia policy works. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 03:47, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• Please see my comment at bottom for a list of how Burma is the accepted name by all English-speaking governments. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 20:41, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• Support - for the simple reason that the name is the one used by the de facto government of the country. On almost any other issue I would agree with Husond that we should not be dictated to by governments but it is not for us at Wikipedia to decide whether the SPDC is the de jure government. If Wikipedians have accepted the SPDC decision to move the capital to Naypyidaw then we should also accept that the name of the country should be the one used by the SPDC. My comparison with Persia/Iran seems to have not gone down well, so I will point to another example - DR Congo/Zaire. Whilst Mobutu was hardly a democratically elected leader, much of the world including the US and the UK accepted the change of the country name to Zaire. It was only with his overthrow that the name was changed to DR Congo. With that comparison in mind, we should await the overthrow of the SPDC and an official change of the name back to Burma before we change back to Burma. Green Giant (talk) 04:16, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • But there's a huge difference: the US, UK, and all other English-speaking governments haven't accepted the name Myanmar. By your logic of follow the governments' lead, we should use Burma. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 20:41, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
    • See the Discussion below for my response. Green Giant (talk) 01:58, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
• Strong Support - I refer to Wikipedia:Naming conflict when deciding on this one, and it is clear that after months of discussions, there has never been a clear establishment of either term being far more commonly used over the other. Based on the "three key principles" therefore, points one and two are out, leaving us with point 3: "If neither the common name nor the official name is prevalent, use the name (or a translation thereof) that the subject uses to describe itself or themselves." The "subject" as it is now is represented by a government which calls itself Myanmar, and that is the name we should adopt. Whether that government is representative of the people's wishes, or whether it is legitimate in itself is simply not the business of wikipedia to delibrate over.--Huaiwei (talk) 05:24, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose - "Burma" is the preferred name not only in historical contexts, but also in common use in English-speaking countries today. That, and not the fantasies of a tyranny, should dictate our naming choice. Biruitorul (talk) 06:21, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Are we dictated by English-speaking countries (ie, governments), or English-speaking peoples (ie, any English-speaking person the world over)? How is not being dictated by the "fantasies of a tyranny" be in accordance with our NPOV policy?--Huaiwei (talk) 06:58, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Peoples, a good number of whom continue to use Burma. Well, just like we don't call him Turkmenbashi, but Saparmurat Niyazov, and just like we recognise some status for the Republic of China, against the pretensions of Red China. Biruitorul (talk) 12:56, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

And just who constitutes these "peoples"? Are the inhabitants from "Red China" excluded, for example?--Huaiwei (talk) 19:08, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Precisely because of that vagueness is the reason we should use the governments' preference, since they are chosen by, for and of the people. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 20:41, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. Did you see István's comment below? So is the opposing team unified on whether we should assess usage by governments or the people? In addition, how did you deduce that all governments on planet earth are chosen by, for and of the people? Kindly do not assume democracy prevails across the globe, for it does, this "counter page move" would probably not have happened in the first place.--Huaiwei (talk) 21:02, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I was obviously referring to the governments I had cited in my comment below, not all governments everywhere. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 21:35, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I see. So why these specific governments, Hemlock Martinis?--Huaiwei (talk) 19:08, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Because they're English-speaking and this is an English-speaking encyclopedia. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 20:51, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

So whatever happened to the other 70 or so governments of political entities who also use English in official capacity? Are they not English-speaking?--Huaiwei (talk) 04:43, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose per AjaxSmack and the fact the demonym for Myanmar (Myanma) is far far less common than that for Burma (Burmese). пﮟოьεԻ 57 08:19, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • No, your comment above is factually incorrect. Internet search generate far more results for Myanmar than Burma. Mynanmar is now the more common name. All professionally written almanacs, sourcebooks, and encyclopedias use Myanmar. U.S.-governement publications like CIA Factbook do not count, as they are political documents. Maglev Power (talk) 00:55, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
• Strongly Oppose There is a convention that unless there is a very good reason for reopening contriversial WP:RM moves they should not be requested in less than six months. Otherwise people can game the system unitl they get the restult they want and in the mean time take up lots and lots of other editors time. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 09:19, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • This is nonsense. What you're advocating allows the procedures on Wikipedia to undercut the purpose of Wikipedia, which is writing an encyclopedia. Names should be determined by consistent encyclopedic guidelines of using the English term for the offical name, not by polls and bureaucratic nonsense. Maglev Power (talk) 00:55, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
    • This is a terminological inexactitude. Our guidelines do not support using official names when English usually uses something else; they oppose using www.google.com results. See WP:Search engines and WP:NCGN. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:09, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support - per Heimstern Läufer’s and Andrwsc’s remarks above. --Van helsing (talk) 11:04, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose - and speedy close? This issue was hashed out just a few months ago. It is not time to "do it again". In any case, it is my belief that the most common English name is Burma so that's what it should be. SteveRwanda (talk) 11:29, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • The problem is that the previous move was a mistake and politically motivated. We have the reponsibility of correcting the mistake. Maglev Power (talk) 00:55, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose Nothing has changed since last time. --Folantin (talk) 11:39, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
• Strongly Oppose and speedy close per Philip Baird Shearer and SteveRwanda and common sense and courtesy _{(i.e. why should those who don't have lives have the right to dictate usage and/or waste the time of those who do have lives and don't have time to rediscuss things every few months and check WP every few days so they don't miss a rehashed discussion)} and because of these simple reasons: 1) This provides clear proof of strong preference for B in reliable sources (especially in running text, which shows that M is mostly used only once as in "also/officially called M") See below for similar results on UK academic websites. 2) This is a fairly clear UK/US difference and WP policy is clear on those. What makes it different than most of these (and justified the original move to B) is that US government sources do the same as UK English generally does. See details in discussion below.--Espoo (talk) 12:05, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment I am far from convinced such uncivil bad faith comments should be other than ignored. All this talk of people who have lives and people who don't is sheer trolling and editors should not have to suffer this kind of abuse. Thanks, SqueakBox 16:23, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
    • I'm sorry i let off steam but you weren't very constructive in ignoring all the real arguments and sources i provided and only reacting to my even physically very small additional comment. Philip said much better what i said clumsily about common sense and courtesy: There is a convention that unless there is a very good reason for reopening contriversial WP:RM moves they should not be requested in less than six months. Otherwise people can game the system unitl they get the restult they want and in the mean time take up lots and lots of other editors time.--Espoo (talk) 18:32, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
      • Since this refers to me (I reopened the issue), I have no intention of gaming the system whatsoever. It is my firm belief though that the previous move was under the massive pressure of the junta abuse and was based more on sentiment than reason.--   Avg    18:39, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment I think Andrwsc's comments in the preceeding section (dated 19:38, 21 January 2008 (UTC)) says it all as to why there is a good reason to reopen this case yet again. Only when some users began to mass rename this country's name across wikipedia did it spark alarm from a much larger pool of editors, myself included. I missed earlier debates completely until I noticed someone attempting to change the country name in Southeast Asian Games-related articles. I believe the shock I felt when realising this page move was carried out was felt but many others as well, hence culminating in a reopening of the case. Three months is not a short time to change concensus, especially when it has serious implications on the perception of this site's nuetrality.--Huaiwei (talk) 19:23, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
• Neutral Mmm this is a difficult one I've always referred to it as Burma and when referring to people from Burma even when we used the name Myanmar even them we referred to them as Burmese. Wikipedia up until mid 2007 always used Myanmar -does anybody know why we changed it to Burma again?? -it seemed to happen during the 2007 protests. Officially it is recognized by the current government as Myanmar - I remember a Burmese wikipedian named Ekyaw jokingly saying its not Burma -maybe in the nineteenth century !!-indicating it is way out of date. It would be like the United Kingdom page as Great Britain. Personally I wouldn't mind if it stayed as Burma- in the United STates and the UK we ten dot refer to it as Burma, but officially an encyclopedia should recognize it as Myanmar. After all we use Cote d' Ivoire for the Ivory Coast etc. The only thing all of the categories and articles have been changed back to Burma and I feel it was unnecessary to change it in the first place. ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^Talk? 12:41, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• Please see my comment at bottom for a list of how Burma is the accepted name by all English-speaking countries. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 20:41, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose per AjaxSmack. --ざくら木 15:27, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose nothing has changed from the previous attempts to move this page no new evidence presented....Burma remains the primary name used in the major English speaking countries from what I can tell, nothing here has convinced me otherwise. Narson (talk) 15:32, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • No it is not. Again, Myanmar comes up in more search engine results than Burma, and is used by Reuters, AP, and just about all professionally-writen English-language sourcebooks, encyclopedias, and almanacs. (The CIA Factbook is an exception; but it is a poor example for us, as it is a political document. Maglev Power (talk) 01:01, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose per all above. There is no good reason to move it back, and I see no reason to even raise the issue again except attempting to stir up the political cauldron. K. Lásztocska^talk 15:48, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • It is interesting that the oppose votes offer such flisy reasoning and so many ad populum fallacies. Myanmar is the offical and common English name. Myanmar comes up in more search engine results than Burma, and is used by Reuters, AP, and just about all professionally-writen English-language sourcebooks, encyclopedias, and almanacs. (The CIA Factbook is an exception; but it is a poor example for us, as it is a political document. So talk about the real issues, rather than just saying 'well, we did this three months ago and we want to leave it alone.' Maglev Power (talk) 01:01, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support per the same reasons that I and others have constantly brought up. -BaronGrackle (talk) 16:20, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose per all above, and simply because there is some doubt of the legitimacy of the name change and Burma is still in common usage. U-Mos (talk) 16:22, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose Nothing new has justified anything other than Burma. All the previous reasons were valid, and still are valid. Biofoundationsoflanguage (talk) 17:06, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose - Current name is more sensible for a number of reasons. Jooler (talk) 18:12, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • What reasons? Making a political statement?Maglev Power (talk) 01:01, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. "Burma" remains the most common English-language name for the country. Or — while we're at it — should we move the articles on the country's largest neighbors to Bhārat and Zhongguo? —WWoods (talk) 18:23, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Then the obvious question is: are "Bhārat" and "Zhongguo" in the English vocabulary? Is "Myanmar" not in the English vocabulary?--Huaiwei (talk) 19:06, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment I'm sorry if this comes across as rude or incivil but I'm sick of reading dumb arguments. The government of the countries of India and China DO NOT refer to their countries as Bharat and Zhongquo in the English language. The government of Myanmar does. This is the reason why all neutral organisations who accept that the government is the government, no matter whether you like the government or whether it's undemocratic and brutal, like the UN and the OIC call the country Myanmar not Burma. Nil Einne (talk) 11:54, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support I strongly disagree that Burma is more common than Myanmar. Not only is Myanmar more commonly use now, it will continue to grow in dominant usage as Burma becomes more antiquated. One only needs to look at the news coverage of last fall/winter when it seemed that only the BBC used the archaic Burma (and for apparent political reasons) while most major news sourced used the official UN-sanction named of Myanmar. It seems very POV oriented for Wikipedia to ignored the more common and officially recognized name-something that we should certainly avoid. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 18:37, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Take a look at this. WP is not based only or mostly on news coverage, on the contrary. And even in the news using B, most experts said B and even the news had to report the names of the books on B, which mostly used B. --Espoo (talk) 18:53, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
    • I look at the supposed "representative" list with great concern, for it appears that a majority of sources listed are American.--Huaiwei (talk) 19:26, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
      • I never said it was representative, it simply consists of all reputable online sources i could find. And the fact that most are apparently (it's been too long for me to remember) US only further proves that we should not let widespread US media use of M determine WP naming. US scholars and experts and the US government prefer B and all sectors of UK society prefer B.--Espoo (talk) 21:45, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose - Current name is the most commonly used name in English. Kaldari (talk) 19:10, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose as per WP:NAME and WP:COMMONNAME - btw, people, not nations, vote comment here - to invoke that this-or-that-nation(s) are "controlling" things is a ridiculously hamfisted attempt to impune an individuals' contribution by reference to something thoroughly immaterial and is no more than grasping at straws. Your langauage ability, not your passport, is your full credential here on EnWiki. István (talk) 19:49, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment You may wish to note the number of times "English-speaking countries" is mentioned, both here and in past discussions.--Huaiwei (talk) 20:02, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Noted! and thanks for illustrating my point. You may wish to note the WP guideline summary:

This page in a nutshell: Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.

Specifically, 1. competency to decide rests with "people", and not governments; 2. "people" = "English-speaking people", with no requirement or differentiation between "native" or "non-native" (nor beteween one citizenship over another, which is impossible here anyway). 3. "...most easily recognize" is subtly different from "...most often use". István (talk) 20:18, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Comment I arent too sure if I am illustrating your point, because as brilliantly demonstrated in the comment immediately below yours, "English-speaking countries" is a concept most often cited by those who prefer "Burma" as the article name. You are most welcome to check all relevant discussions for yourself.--Huaiwei (talk) 21:12, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• Strongest Possible Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. Out of the governments of the English-speaking world, the U.S. uses Burma(see CIA and U.S. State Department), The U.K. uses Burma, Canada uses Burma, Ireland uses Burmese for the adjective and Burma/Myanmar for the country, and Australia uses Burma. The European Union isn't consistent but they do use Burma. (Warning: PDF). It's clearly in favor of Burma. End of story. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 20:28, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Entertainingly, you've posted this rationale directly under István's, one among your voting allies who reminds us that "people, not nations" is the basis for our decision here. You've also just illustrated Huaiwei's most recent point. -BaronGrackle (talk) 20:53, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment I was indeed entertained as well!--Huaiwei (talk) 20:58, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
    • So? Who said we had to be uniform in our reasons for opposing something? --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 21:35, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Whaddaya want....collusion? ;-) Seriously, my and HM points do not contradict - mine is simply that an INDIVIDUAL editor's views may not be discounted by his/her perceived nationality. More importantly, there are set criteria for deciding this issue (followed 3 months ago) and absent a compelling reason to depart from that, we should follow them. (note: this "debate" has not yet raised any new information, and doesn't yet hold a candle to the one previous) Here's something new - turn the question around: WP:COMMONNAME uses the phrase "...would most easily recognize" and not "...most often use". There is clearly a large group who recognize both; however among how many are either "Burma" OR "Myanmar" exclusively unfamiliar? My sense is (and I believe that someone showed this 3+ mo. ago) that there are more (esp. older people) for whom "Myanmar" is unfamiliar, and requires explanation as "formerly Burma" István (talk) 22:07, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• • Comment Btw, Hemlock Martinis, have you checked which is the Singapore government's preferred term in this regard? And that of India? The Phillipines?--Huaiwei (talk) 21:08, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Considering that those countries have it alongside many languages and not as a focus (Only 14% of Singapore speaks English, for example), I did not bother to check. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 21:35, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
      • What? Only 14% of Singapore speaks English? Are you serious? Frankly, I find your assertation that only the governments of English native countries offensive and silly. English is an international language and the use throughout the world including as a secondary language is just as important. Particularly since the only interaction that most English native country governments have with Myanmar is to criticise their government whereas Singapore, India, the Phillipines, Malaysia, Thailand, China etc have a far greater degree of interaction. Nil Einne (talk) 11:40, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose - not again. Will ^(talk) 22:05, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
• Strongly Oppose Nothing has happened since we discussed this three months ago to justify a reversion. I see no new evidence or arguments here. The BBC, a reliable source on English usage, still says thatBurma is the name most intelligible to their audience. And it is still our policy to prefer common names to official ones. It is also our policy to deprecate forum shopping and repeated polling until one gets one's way. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:20, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment The BBC primarily has the UK audience in mind as per its charter - the website follows style guides drawn up with domestic broadcast as the main medium. So I don't think that article can be taken as an indication of worldwide usage - its opening remarks are indeed "why is the country not known in the UK by its official name, Myanmar?" (my emphasis). Timrollpickering (talk) 00:51, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Which by the way, is not correct. I live in the UK. I have yet to meet a single person who doesn't know the name Myanmar. Even those who insist on "Burma", they always follow it with "or what it is called now"... pause ..."Myanmar". So everybody is aware of the change.--   Avg    02:05, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. No new evidence supporting the move, which was last rejected only three months ago. Andrewa (talk) 00:48, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose per Andrewa, Pmanderson, and others. Burma should be the name used. Burma is Burma, but Myanmar is very often Myanmar (also known as Burma) or Myanmar/Burma. :)-Roxi2 (talk) 02:24, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
• Strong support Myanmar is the offical name recognized by the UN and the majority of world states. It is the common English name coming up in far more internet sites than Burma. Myanmar is the name Wikipedia has used for years until the recent politically-movated move. Myanmar is also the named used in AP, Reuters, and just about all professionally written encyclopedias and sourcebooks. Maglev Power (talk) 02:40, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
• Strong support Per Maglev Power and Squekbox and my arguments in the previous move. It is unfortunate that this article was moved in the first place without consensus. The assertation that only the governments of English native countries is one of the sillest suggestions I have ever heard even more so since these countries rarely have any interaction with the government of Myanmar. Also as I said last time the idea that we should refuse to recognise the name because we don't like the government which was expressed numerous times in the previous move discussion, was hinted at by the moving/closing admin and seems to be coming across in this move discussion is dumb. It is not up to us on wikipedia to decide what governments we like and don't like. Ignoring the fact that the government has changed the name is a bit silly. If you really want to improve things for the people of Myanmar, your best bet is to at least recognise that the current government, as brutal and undemocratic as it may be exists and is in fact the current government Nil Einne (talk) 11:54, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose - Since when does Google searches decide what is the most common term in English? That is but a snapshot of what the Internet happens to look like at this point in time. I did a check in the academic database JSTOR and I got 1446 hits for Myanmar, whereas Burma got 25955.--Amban (talk) 13:04, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Jstor is a historical archive of journals, with some articles going back to the 19th century. So of course old names are going to appear more often than the names used by current encyclopedias and sourcebooks. The name Myanmar was declared in 1989. A Google search will give you a much better idea of what newspapers, encyclopedias, and sourcebooks use today. Maglev Power (talk) 00:38, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
    • I just made a search for the date range 1990-2007. The result? Burma: 4473 hits; Myanmar: 1443 hits.--Amban (talk) 01:44, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
      • Thanks, and as alluded before, this statistics is still not convincing enough. A 1990 article which goes "Myanmar (formerly Burma)..." will count in both statistics, while an article which chooses to use the word "Burma" in 2006 is unlikely to even mention "Myanmar" anywhere in the article. In other words, the staistics will weigh in more on politically-influenced academic articles as opposed to nuetral ones.--Huaiwei (talk) 04:26, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
        • Only 676 articles used both Burma and Myanmar; that leaves over almost 4000 which used Burma alone, and therefore did not discuss the name change, as opposed to 806 which used Myanmar alone. English usage seems clear. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:00, 24 January 2008 (UTC)\
          • Did you do a series of searches for each variable, for if 676 articles use both terms, how do 4473 - 676 = >4000? Next, what makes you assume that all articles post 1989 which uses both terms must be discussing the name change? Can there not be an article post 1989 which talks about the history of Burmese culture pre-1989? And how certain are you that the said search do not use algorithms which includes related terms like "Burmese" when searching for "Burma", for this then includes a whole lot of possible terms which are still in use today?--Huaiwei (talk) 18:04, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
          • JSTOR hits fluctuate slightly (it may also be that Amban excluded 1990, and I include it); my most recent totals since 1990 are 4573 for Burma; 1482 for Myanmar. None of this changes the overall picture; it merely shows the desperation with which Huaiwei argues an invalid point. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:22, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
• Strong support, NPOV requires use of the name Myanmar. Use of the name Burma makes a political point. The argument about it being the "common name" in English is very weak; while the principle applies well to certain things, like the full official names of countries, it should not be used when a name has such political significance—certainly we would not condone calling the Soviet Union "Russia" on Wikipedia. In my opinion, use of the name Burma is currently almost exclusively intended to make a political point. You can use the name Myanmar without backing the junta, but you can hardly use the name Burma in an informed sense without expressing overt or covert opposition to the junta. Everyking (talk) 00:55, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Use of the name Burma makes a political point. What is your evidence of that?--Amban (talk) 01:44, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Just look above, as well as in preceeding comments. How often do you see those supporting the word "Myanmar" also supporting the Junta, as compared to those supporting the word "Burma" and denouncing it?--Huaiwei (talk) 04:26, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

• Strong support - Irregardless of what the country rightfully should be called, it's common name is Myanmar. WP:NCON is very clear on this subject: It supports the use of Google statistics, it supports the official name (which is controlled by the junta, not the people), it supports the use of international organizations such as the UN. Burma was the name of the country before - but that is no longer true. We, as an encyclopedia, need to recognize this. --Obstructio (talk) 04:28, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support - Seeing as I don't recall this country having chosen to change it's name back to Burma. GoodDay (talk) 15:06, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support - Let's say that the majority of Americans know Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as "that nutjob in Iran", we still don't put him under that title. People's Republic of China is known as China to most. We use correct and official country names, so shove your political !votes somewhere. --Saber^Excalibur! 19:02, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
  • No, we don't. If we did, Federal Republic of Germany would be an article, not a redirect. For a correct, if unofficial, statement of our policies and pracrice, see WP:Official names. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:15, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Inconsistency. Using official names and telling politically motivated warriors to shove it would be so much more productive. --Saber^Excalibur! 19:30, 24 January 2008 (UTC)\
      • (ec) Wouldn't work. They just claim their National Truth is the official name. See Talk:Shatt al-Arab, almost all of it - and some of the archive. English usage is our way of deciding between the competing official POV's; so also with the competing nationalist points of view on both sides of the Taiwan Straits, one of which is fiercely represented in this discussion. But the fundamental goal is communicating with our readers. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:55, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
      • I believe it is only a matter of time before we finally bring the debate to Wikipedia:NC#Use_common_names_of_persons_and_things, and onwards to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places) where it may soon be neccesary to include an exception when dealing with key geographic entities such as country names. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) is not a do or die guideline. Wikipedia clearly needs to rid itself of certain kinds of nonsense once and for all.--Huaiwei (talk) 19:46, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Interesting. WP:Official names was apparantly writtern chiefly by two editors since 21 January 2008, both of whom were involved in this debate.[11]--Huaiwei (talk) 19:35, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support and speedy close: There is only one possible correct name for the article; and the name is Myanmar. The poll here is irrelevant. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a democracy. I have contributed to this site for five years; I have never been so disappointed. This site will lose its chances of graining professional credibility if users here demonstrate that an article about a nation-state can be completely hijacked by a handful of users canvassing for support with simplistic emotional appeals, ignoring or even falsifying the facts at hand. Users here have been claiming that Myanmar somehow is not an English name. That claim is is factually incorrect. It is an English transliteration. Some have been claiming Burma is the "common" English name. That claim is also factually incorrect. AP, UPI, Reuters, USA Today, the New York Times, and other major U.S. media outlets use Myanmar. In the UK the International Herald Tribune and the Globe and Mail use Myanmar. Britannica [12] uses Myanmar, as does Encarta and scores of other encyclopedias and almanacs. The reason is not that the editors of these publications support the military junta. Myanmar is more frequently used in the English-language media because professional media use standards that Wikipedia is trying to adopt, but failing to implement here. In referring to nation-states, professionally written media use the names that are formally legally adopted by states, and thus used in diplomatic exchanges. Hence, names like Kampuchea and Zaire were used in encyclopedias after their regimes had renamed their nations, regardless of the perceived domestic and international support for these regimes. 172 | Talk 02:39, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
  • 172, the Globe and Mail is Canadian, while the International Herald Tribune is based in Paris and is closely associated with The New York Times. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 03:41, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. The UN will recognise whatever name is given to it and because most native English speaking countries use Burma- so should wikipedia. WHATaintNOcountryIeverHEARDofDOtheySPEAKenglishINwhat (talk) 05:21, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment. The English-version of this encyclopedia is writtern for all users of the English language. It is not writtern for the governments of native English speaking countries.--Huaiwei (talk) 07:33, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support Move to Myanmar — Myanmar is the name of the country. The move to Burma was a response to the junta's actions last year and was a political statement, pure and simple. Cut it out, move it back. --Jack Merridew 10:43, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
• Strong Myanmar support. I agree with the comparison made between Myanmar and Burma and Mumbai and Bombay, in fact, there are websites such as this one which call Mumbai Bombay, but don't call Myanmar Burma. Also, the majority of reference books call the country Myanmar. Myanmar is the official place name, as well as the one that is commonly used, even by sites that use English variants of other place names. If this page is titled Burma (an older name), why is the article on its capital titled Yangon (a newer name)? Calling that city Yangon and not Rangoon is rarer than calling the country Myanmar and not Burma. Finally (though this may not be the best argument), this page was Myanmar before, and it was moved. Someone the Person (talk) 21:28, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
• Strong support see User:172 and Heimstern Läufer. Wikipedia has a responsibility, as one of the largest educational resources in the world, not to perpetuate mistakes. People cite WP:COMMONNAME but what about Wikipedia:Ignore all rules? The common name argument might fly with some things but when it's something this important, it's better to just let it go. Myanmar is the official name; there can't be a discussion over that. Yohan euan o4 (talk) 23:15, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
• OPPOSE Burma is the english-language name, Myanmar is the Burmese-language name. Also support use of Burma per the Burmese democracy movement. The *government* of Burma calls it Myanmar in English, the *people* of Burma do not consistently do so. Argyriou (talk) 07:13, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Nonsense. "Burma" is the English name for the Burmese "Bama", while "Myanmar" is the English equivalent for the Burmese "Myanma" both of which has been used to refer to the country even before the Junta's actions. "Myanmar" is not in any way "less English" than "Burma".--Huaiwei (talk) 07:31, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Can you provide a citation where the name "Myanmar" is used to refer to Burma, as the English-language name for Burma, from before 1989? The English-speaking people have often chosen names for places and peoples which aren't terribly consistent with what those people call themselves: the people who call themselves "Deutsch" are called "German" or "Dutch" in English, and their country "Germany". We have no obligation to change what we call the country between Thailand and India just because a gang of thugs from that country has told us to make that change, especially when the English name is based on one of the names used by the people of that country for that country. Argyriou (talk) 19:49, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
      • My comment was clearly on the status of the words "Myanmar" and "Burma" in contemporary English usage. The fact remains that both terms are now in the English vocabulary, irrespective of your personal definitions of just what constitutes an English word. This has nothing to do with the behavior of a "gang of thugs" (which again hints at the politics influencing many users advocating the name "Burma"). It is everything to do with whether the name selected by this "gang of thugs" has been accepted into the English language, and whether this word has then obtained widespread usage. Considering the realities of life, this "gang of thugs" has certainly accomplished something notable!--Huaiwei (talk) 17:08, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
• Comment"SLORC changed the country's official English name from the "Union of Burma" to the "Union of Myanmar" in 1989."Charles 17:49, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
• Strong oppose per my comments during previous rounds of this seemingly endless argument in which no new points ever seem to be made... Tomer^talk 05:16, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment It is a debate that has ragged since the October 2007 military crack-down, when the article was moved to Burma after being at Myanmar for a good six years. Four months of intense debate to move it back is not exactly "endless" in comparison.--Huaiwei (talk) 06:47, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
• Strong oppose support, speedy close - this is farcical. The name of the country is the name of the country as decided by leaders, or representatives. Wikipedia is not the arbiter of "what the name of a country is (or "should" be)". Achromatic (talk) 07:01, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I think you mean strong support, then, surely. Aridd (talk) 14:23, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Ack. :) Achromatic (talk) 17:53, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

• Strong Support - This article was named Myanmar for a very long time. All of the sudden Myanmar came into the news in a negative way and political activists pushed for a name change without a proper consensus. I do not recognize the previous Requested Move as legitmate because a biased admin closed it prematurely and said there was a consensus for the move when there clearly was none. It has never been proven that "Burma", the British imperialist name, is more common amongst English speakers. The activists making this false claim base their theory on WP:OR. It has been proven, meanwhile, that hundreds of English speaking media sources use Myanmar. Maps prefer Myanmar. The vast majority of international governments also use Myanmar. The evidence overwhemingly favors Myanmar. The current title of this article for the soverign nation of Myanmar is an embarrassment to WP and all of its editors. Let's correct this awful mistake. --Tocino 07:16, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support. We don't insist that Yangon is the "legitimate" capital, so why do we keep calling Myanmar "Burma"? The fact that the military regime is abominable is not a factor we should take into account as an encyclopedia (at least not when it comes to the country's name). Its official name in English is Myanmar. Anything else is POV. Aridd (talk) 14:23, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose. Reasons:
  (1) While I would normally prefer to use the official name of a country, Burma is a special case. The facts are that the name change was instituted by a government not supported by the people and the legitimately elected government of Burma (the NLD won almost 60% of the votes and 392/492 seats in the 1990 election while most of its leadership was under house arrest) has requested that the world not recognize the name change.
  (2) The stature of wikipedia will be greatly enhanced if it makes its decisions based not on (1) google hits (2) JSTOR hits (3) the decisions of governments (be they the US, UK or that of Burma/Myanmar), but rather on a case by case consideration of what the right thing to do is. --RegentsPark (talk) 14:52, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I understand your stance on principle. The current government in Myanmar is loathsome, and widely recognised as illegitimate. However, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Its role is not to denounce unpleasant regimes, nor to act in conformity with the requests of the NLD. Trying to determine the "right thing to do" from a "moral" perspective (which is what you appear to be advocating) is the very definition of POV, and should be avoided. "Myanmar" is the official name in English, recognised by the United Nations. Calling it "Burma" means pushing a POV. An understandable and commendable POV, but a POV nonetheless. Aridd (talk) 15:06, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if 'moral perspective' is right. More like what is legitimate. For the record, I pretty much use Burma and Myanmar interchangeably in normal conversation and so do most people, people connected with Burma that is, that I know. We usually (but not always) say Burma when speaking in English and Myanmar when speaking in Burmese (there are some exceptions but this is fairly normal even in Burma itself). So I'm not hung up on using Burma as a POV thing but do feel that the name change was not legitimate. --RegentsPark (talk) 20:33, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

Perhaps WP should name the article Burma/Myanmar and redirect from both "Burma" and "Myanmar", and cover the naming issue in an early section of the article (That would probably result in hissy-fit wars on the talk page over "Myanmar/Burma" vs. "Burma/Myanmar" — perhaps a bot needs to alternate those two names on a regular basis. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 23:58, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Name forms of that kind are very awkward for technical reasons as the "/" creates a subfield. And variants such as hyphenating tend to imply it's a name that is or was actually used (e.g. Zimbabwe-Rhodesia) so it veers into original research. Plus as you say no-one would be satisfied either with the order or the basic construct used. Timrollpickering (talk) 00:38, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, Burma & Myanmar, and Myanmar & Burma, or whatever variation fits the technological constraints. This present discussion, however individually expressed views might be fluffed up for presentation here, is (IMHO) POV-driven and unlikely to be resolved by logical argument. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 11:20, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Just to comment on this. There is no technical issue. Slash can be freely used in article titles. However, I'm strongly against using it in this article.--   Avg    20:38, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I wrote this a few months ago after the discussion as a summary, and nothing has changed: What's ironic about this B/M debate is the hours of discussion wasted despite 1) clear preference for B in academic and expert use as shown here and 2) the fact that B/M is apparently a traditional, clear UK/US divide, and these are known to cause much more interest in WP naming discussions than the sufferings or the wish of an entire people. Most of those discussion members accused of being political activists were probably just defending their regional speech preference. It's also quite funny that it took so long to find out that this is a UK/US difference. If someone had bothered to contact a professor in both a UK and a US university, we could have saved huge amounts of time and energy. If this is such a clear regional English difference, we should of course consider renaming the article Burma/Myanmar, but we should definitely consider the declared wish of the elected B government and of the majority of Burmese people in deciding which to use mainly in the article. The biggest irony is namely that the fervent defenders of M basing their arguments mainly on Google news hits and ignoring more reputable sources (the ones i documented) also blindly or dishonestly ignore the fact that most experts quoted in the news and most Burmese who are able to speak freely (e.g. demonstrators abroad) in those same news sources use mostly B. The US news stories also regularly have things like "who wrote a book on B" or "the Open Society Institute's Burma Project/Southeast Asia" which clearly demonstrate what experts on B say and use.

Especially interested outsiders would be interested to know that the whole problem was much less political than it looked even to those participating in the discussion. Basically it was a fight between UK and US common usage (that ignored use in professional sources), which almost none of the participants were aware of until afterwards, and even then only some realised this.

Even more importantly, most discussions about language use on WP are just as chaotic because there are not enough professional linguists among WP editors and because even very intelligent discussion members believe in Google statistics without knowing enough about language to interpret them correctly and don't have enough sense and leisure to call a few experts in at least the 2 "most important" English-speaking countries. The insanely short 5-day period for discussions is a major cause of the lack of common sense and lack of input from experts and of the excess of emotions and feelings of panic in these discussions. Due to the 5-day limit, WP is reducing the input to mostly very active WP editors and ignoring the fact that real experts have real lives and jobs and do not spend enough time on WP to have even a small chance of noticing such discussions in time.--Espoo (talk) 12:15, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Your claim that 'demonstrators abroad' represent the people of Myanmar is silly. Clearly they have their own POV from their own experiences. There is simply no way we can know what name they prefer since the government of Myanmar does not allow people to determine such things. Personally I suspect they do in fact prefer Burma but as I've stated many times there is no way we can know and anyone who claims to know what the people of Myanmar want is speaking bull. We can't even know for sure that they don't want the current government although the evidence strongly supports that. Besides that, I think the people of Myanmar have more import things to worry about then whether their country is called Burma and Myanmar. Also what are the two most important English speaking countries? I would say India and China, particularly when it comes to Myanmar... Also what's an expert? I have seen a lot of experts using Myanmar, particularly those who feel it's best to ignore the politics surrounding this and recognise that there is a government there who have decided to call the country Myanmar. P.S. as an example of how foolish it can be to rely on demonstrators, if we rely on most Cuban-Americans, we would assume that Castro is an evil person hated by all Cubans. The evidence suggest in fact this isn't the case and the majority support him. Nil Einne (talk) 12:33, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia was doing just fine for years calling the country Myanmar. Suddenly, at the surge of the junta brutalities against the monks back in October, a plethora of editors called for immediate change of the name to Burma. And not only this article, but ALL the articles concerning the country. For me, this is nothing more than a WP:POINT case. And that's even if I (and the overwhelming majority of WP editors) strongly condemn the junta. --   Avg    17:42, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

It may be that many of those in favor of the move to B had political motives, but the fact remains that serious academic publications and experts use mostly B, as my link clearly shows. That means that using B is definitely based on the core element of WP naming policy and WP general policy. Just because the US media and uses mostly M and because many US Americans therefore do the same does not mean that the term more common in UK general usage and in both UK and US academic usage should be replaced; that's another core element of WP naming policy and WP general policy. --Espoo (talk) 18:48, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

The only official policy is WP:Naming conventions, which is not enough to choose between Myanmar and Burma. The (disputed) guideline WP:Naming conflict is the closest we have in deciding when there's a conflict. The objective criteria are: common usage, official use, self-identifying term. I think Myanmar prevails in all three. If you support changing the guideline, I will actually side with you, but for the moment that's what it is. --   Avg    19:07, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I think B prevails in at least 2 of the 3 objective criteria of 1) common usage, 2) official use, 3) and self-identifying term. 1) M is used more in the US than in the UK but it's still not well established even in the US. Most English speakers in the UK and especially the US have no idea where M is but most have an idea where B is, most of those that do know where B is don't know how to pronounce M, and those that do know how to pronounce M use 6 or more different pronunciations. The last claim is objective and says a lot already, but i'm very convinced of the others although i (and others) don't yet have any published source on those matters. 2) The junta (who chose M) are "official" in the sense of "in power" but the opposition (who prefer B) is official in the sense that its leaders are the elected representatives of the Burmese people. 3) Most Burmese who are not afraid of political and economic reprisal (i.e. most but not all who live abroad, especially business people have to be careful) prefer B and almost all Burmese self-identify as Burmese, even those who call the country M.--Espoo (talk) 22:08, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Well on 1) I'm not convinced it is the case that Burma is more prevalent, and certainly not that it's overwhelming (whereas for some other countries there is very clear clarity - e.g. "Czechia" has never taken off in English for the Czech Republic). It's true that in the UK it is, but I'm not convinced this is the case in the rest of the world. The whole thing is complicated by historic references that still use Burma - e.g. one would talk of the Burma Campaign, the Secretary of State for India & Burma and so forth without implying that the word should be used for the present day. And the UK and US are not the total sum of the English speaking world - what name is most common in Myanmar's neighbour, India?

On 2) I think it gets into subjective territory for Wikipedians to start trying to recognise the opposition as a "government in exile" and there are numerous cases throughout history of name changes of equally disputed legality where a precedent based on this will cause problems - for instance between 1964 and 1980 the place now known as Zimbabwe was strictly and legally "Southern Rhodesia" because the colonial executive's moves to rename the country to "Rhodesia" was not passed by the imperial power; the 1965 declaration of independence was not recognised by any country; and nor was the 1979 internal settlement that renamed the county Zimbabwe-Rhodesia (with or without a hyphen) - see Southern Rhodesia#Legal aspects of the name since 1964 - but the Wikipedia articles follow what actually happened, not the legal fiction that the territory was "Southern Rhodesia" right up until its independence as Zimbabwe. Or there's the First Slovak Republic which was only recognised by a limited number of countries and retroactively nullified.

As for 3), we're into awkward territory and getting close to POV opinions on the regime. Timrollpickering (talk) 22:42, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Claims that "serious academic publications and experts use mostly B" has never been adequately established, especially when the assessment list is a short one dominated by American publications. I also bring to question the true accuracy of an attempt to use academic sources for this purpose. An academic article on Myanmar is far more likely to mention the word Burma, usually in the context of the Burmese language, Burmese peoples, or of pre-junta Burma. An academic article on Burma, if it delibrately chooses to use the name "Burma", is far less likely to mention the word "Myanmar" at all. Academics and experts are not as politically nuetral as made out to be. In fact, they often believe they are the agents and catalyst for social and political change.--Huaiwei (talk) 19:37, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

You're free to look for and present more scholarly and expert sources. I presented all i could find on line. You also prefered to ignore Use of B instead of M is twice as high in Google Scholar hits when used in normal running text at the link provided. And then you try to turn around and say academics and experts are not politically neutral. If you're not interested in their opinion on this issue, why first claim i wasn't presenting it correctly? In addition, the simple fact is they never stopped using the correct English word B. It's pretty funny trying to frame them as trying to bring about change by continuing to use B. M is simply a joke. If some dictator decided to change the name of his country against the will of his people to some strange new word for political reasons, academics and most other well-informed people would continue to use the old name for a long time. I'm guessing that it will take at least another 10 years before M is used in serious publications (and that will probably never happen because the junta will probably not last that long).--Espoo (talk) 22:24, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

British academic pages prefer Burma even more than US edu do. A simple Google search seems to show equal use, but most prefer B and only mention M as "also called" or "officially called" as proved by the following Googles for use in page titles and in running text:

• 30,200 from ac.uk for burma
• 30,100 from ac.uk for myanmar

• 1,390 from ac.uk for allintitle:burma
• 76 from ac.uk for allintitle:myanmar. (that's no typo!)

• 249 from ac.uk for "burma is".
• 46 from ac.uk for "myanmar is". (that's no typo either)

--Espoo (talk) 12:28, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Question. How many of those scholar sources on Google Scholar are recent (e.g. past 5 years)? How many are from the Western, developed countries? Is there a divide between their use and scholars and experts from non Western developed countries? Is there a reason why the English usage of scholars from Western developed countries should overide the usage of scholars from non-Western and developing countries? Nil Einne (talk) 12:04, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Since we don't know whether there's a difference here, it's senseless and a waste of time to speculate on what we'd do if there is. In fact, scholars usually agree on these matters, and if there are disagreements, the differences are not automatically or even often based on geography.--Espoo (talk) 12:28, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

But you're presented your analysis as evidence. However as I've pointed out, it's a flawed analysis because 1) You have not apparently tried to differentiate historical usage from current usage (i.e. recent articles) 2) You have not apparently tried to differentiate differences relating to geographical factors, and there are ample reasons why there may be a geographical or more particularly a country by country variation 3) (forgot to mention this) You are relying on a hit count which is easily distorted by things such as 'Myanmar, historically Burma' and by historic usages (talking about Myanmar under British colonial rule is mostly unnecesary and confusing). I don't really know much about scholars in a field like this, but I see no reason to trust your presumption that there is definitely no disagreement. But from my experience, disagreements do occur all the time for all sorts of reasons Nil Einne (talk) 12:43, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Canvassing

It appears that an established user has logged off to canvass anonymously as 76.241.189.89 (talk • contribs • info • WHOIS). — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:06, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• Interesting. I also noticed the voting trends seem to suddenly swing in the opposite direction after 12 hours...presumably when the American continent is in daylight hours!--Huaiwei (talk) 19:29, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I think it's the other way around; most US users are voting for M because that's all they see in the US media, which mostly uses the same 1 or 2 stylebooks.--Espoo (talk) 22:51, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
    • That is unrelated to canvassing which is against wikipedia policy. And there is little doubt in my mind that canvassing occured here, specifically one sided canvassing. All the first 10+ names on the list of people who have gave an opinion have supported Burma (I think I counted about 5-7). One person didn't say here but said he/she didn't care as long as it was a redirect. One other person hasn't been online since 2007 but his/her last 'vote' was in support of the move to Burma. I would suspect if you would look into the history of all the people canvassed, you would similar find all of them voted in support of the (then move) from Myanmar to Burma. Nil Einne (talk) 12:31, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

"Most commonly used name in English"

I keep seeing comments that Burma is more commonly used in English. I strongly dispute that — at most, I think we could say that usage is split in English-speaking countries. I know that the Associated Press have been using Myanmar for some time, and every single newspaper report I read when the nation was in the news last year had "MYANMAR" in the headline. I explicitely looked for mention of Burma as a former name, for example, and never saw that. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:21, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

WP:Google test: Total pages - Myanmar: 82,200,000 Burma: 37,200,000. Pages in English - Myanmar:6,870,000 Burma: 2,130,000 --   Avg    20:52, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Please read the old discussion before again starting this kind of undigested Google analysis. Quotes from Talk:Burma/Archive_3:

Google searches are not an accurate metric of actual English-language usage by any stretch of the imagination. dcandeto 15:21, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

One point I'd like to make is that the analysis of Google News, or any other news survey, will be badly distorted by newspapers' utilization of the AP Stylebook. If the AP Style Guide has decided, on whatever evidence it wishes, to standardize on the name Myanmar, then virtually all newspapers in the United States will follow. This doesn't mean there is a consensus among 58,000 newspapers that Myanmar is correct; it's a consensus (or maybe just a majority vote? Who knows?) of whatever few individuals write the AP Style Guide. Tempshill 21:01, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

• Google Scholar: Burma 60,400; Myanmar: 48,000;
• Google Books: Burma 41,000; Myanmar 3,800
  • This is not a typo. If it is restricted to recent books, there is still a 2:1 ratio in favor of Burma (and some evidence, btw, that Myanmar was not invented by the present regime). Many of the hits on Myanmar, including two of those on the first use "Myanmar (Burma)" in the title, additional evidence that Myanmar is not English, but requires translation. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:05, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

The sometime occurrence of "Myanmar (Burma)" is no more evidence that Myanmar is not English but requires translation than the sometime occurrence of "Burma (Myanmar)" is evidence that Burma is not English but requires translation.

• Google: "about 5,670 for allintitle:"Burma (Myanmar)"
• Google: "about 12,700 for allintitle:"Myanmar (Burma)" -- Boracay Bill (talk) 23:45, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • That particular subpoint was never the strongest; but I thank Bill for showing that Myanmar more often requires explanation than Burma, as PBS suggests below. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:58, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

In my experiance, if Myanmar is prefered by an English language publication they usually qualify the first usage of Myanmar with Burma by way of an explanation. But if an English language publication uses Burma qualification with Myanmar is less common. It seems that most publication expect their readers/listeners/viewers/ to know what Burma is, but do not expect them to know what Myanmar is. I think the article should be at Burma with a redirect from Myanmar. --Philip Baird Shearer 11:06, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

end of quotes--Espoo (talk) 22:40, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• Okay. So which part of "common use" states that the media is less reliable because of style guides, or that internet hits are unreliable? I'd guess that scholarly articles or books use traditions/practices similar to style guides in the publishing world. And even if they don't, what does it matter? With no sarcasm intended, which part of our Wikipedia guidelines states that books or scholarly articles are more accurate reflections of the English language than media or internet hits? -BaronGrackle (talk) 23:15, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

  Our guidelines on

  • geographic names
  • WP:Naming conflicts
  • and WP:Search engines all deprecate raw google searches. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:30, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Thank you! However, glancing at geographic names, it seems there is a number listed above the endorsement of Google Scholar and Google books:

"1. Consult English-language encyclopedias (we recommend Encyclopedia Britannica, Columbia Encyclopedia, Encarta, each as published after 1993). If the articles in these agree on using a single name in discussing the period, it is the widely accepted English name." All three of these encyclopedias use "Myanmar", with their equivalents of redirects from Burma. According to this, Myanmar is the widely accepted English name. If anything, it makes it at least a draw with Burma. -BaronGrackle (talk) 00:16, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

• • • I wrote the original text there; the number is just a label, not a statement of precedence. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:19, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
      • Fair enough, though it does still indicate that there's discrepancy between the methods Wikipedia would use to determine this article's title. Is there any reason to NOT use the official name, if the alternative is not clearly the one most dominantly used in English? -BaronGrackle (talk) 00:27, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
        • Yes. The most significant method is a verifiable assertion on which name is most common/most understood, which we have here in the BBC article. Following that are the six methods, of which (1) supports Myanmar; (2) (the LC country studies) invariably use Burma, (3) and (6) support Burma, (5) does not exist, and (4) is divided. I will note, however, that claims above of English usage for Myanmar are rare; and its not my experience. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:21, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
          • In geographic names, (1) Supports Myanmar in 3/3 online encyclopedias suggested; (2) According to PMAnderson's post of the results above, Google Books has Burma trouncing Myanmar, but it is nowhere near the recommended 3x number in Google Scholar. He claims that if you reduce the Google Books to recent books, the ratio is only 2:1; no longer the 3x majority recommended. So it's not just a half-victory, but a narrow half-victory for Burma here. (3) Cambridge Histories has a single author with a single book on Burma during the 19th century. Library of Congress uses Burma much more than Myanmar (500 to 174). Oxford dictionary uses Burmese, but the definition for it states: "a member of the largest ethnic group of Burma (now Myanmar) in SE Asia." This is similar to its definitions for Persian: "a person from Persia (now Iran)." I agree with your assessments for #4-6, though #6 in our conventions does seem rather silly: Taiwan, Zaire, Danzig, Bombay, and so many other names are used as clarifications for proper nouns that people may not recognize. -BaronGrackle (talk) 17:46, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Here are what some media use:

• Associated Press: Myanmar ([13])
• BBC: Burma
• New York Times: Myanmar (but adjective "Burmese" commonly used)
• The Times of London: Burma
• The Guardian: Burma
• Canadian Press: Myanmar
• The Age of Australia: Burma

It does appear that there is a geographic divide here. The name "Burma" has had more staying power in the former British Empire, save Canada. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:23, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

• Not necessarily so: see this piece on the CBC website. CP may prefer "Myanmar", but its usage does not necessarily pervade all of Canadian journalism. --SigPig |^{SEND - OVER} 03:57, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
• Addendum: ctv.ca seems to prefer M over B; there are also a few instances of "M aka B" and "B aka M", but overall "M" predominates. --SigPig |^{SEND - OVER} 04:04, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

In response to Hemlock Martinis's comment below my vote:

• • Do not attempt to misrepresent what I have said above - my logic is quite clearly laid out. I am not advising that we should adhere by the opinions of the US or UK government and I refer you to Wikipedia:Naming_conflict#Types_of_entities where it states that a:

"city, country or people, by contrast, is a self-identifying entity: it has a preferred name for itself."

and:

"These names are not simply arbitrary terms but are key statements of an entity's own identity. This should always be borne in mind when dealing with controversies involving self-identifying names."

Burma/Myanmar is clearly a self-identifying entity and therefore we should adhere to it's preferred name. Since there is a de facto (albeit illegitimate) government in the country which identifies the country as Myanmar, Wikipedia should also use Myanmar. If we choose to name the article Burma, then we are effectively negating the identity of the country.

Perhaps those voting against the name Myanmar could also explain why Wikipedia accepts the SPDC decision to move the capital to Naypyidaw instead of keeping Yangdon/Rangoon? Are we to engage in double-standards?

That's a matter of fact: The country is de facto governed from Naypyidaw. This is a question of language: what is the clearest and most widely understood way to convey the facts in this article? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:25, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I would also point you to another naming conflict - the Republic of China is quite commonly called Taiwan in English but Wikipedia has used the preferred name of the country's government. This is despite the fact that the US and UK governments do not even accord diplomatic recognition to the country. Green Giant (talk) 02:03, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not governed by precedent. We do not need to justify one decision, good, bad, or indifferent, to make another. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:25, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

True. But it's worth noting that Wikipedia uses Mumbai and Kolkata (although they've drawn the line at "Bengaluru" for Bangalore), even though "Bombay" and "Calcutta" are far better known in English than the new names. Historical names will always have staying power just because they're what people remember. A lot of people still think Prague is the capital of Czechoslovakia. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 04:46, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

• Mumbai and Kolkata were very close calls, essentially decided by asserting that Indian English was a national variety, and that it uses Mumbai more often. This may have been a mistake, and the first element in the claim does not exist here.
• We should use what people remember as a means of communication. We chose Pilsen over Plzeň, and that's much older than the breakup of Czechoslovakia. (I supported moving, but the fact I can't spell Plzeň suggests I was wrong.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:57, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

That's a tricky one but not an analogous case. I know the history, but for our purposes, it's really an issue of an English exonym vs. an indigenous endonym rather than an issue of name change. I don't think we should use what people remember if it's no longer legally accurate. I mean, a lot of people remeber southeast Nigeria as Biafra because that's what it was called the last time it was regularly in the news in the US. But Biafra no longer exists. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 05:36, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Burma has always been an English exonym. Like India, it has indigenous roots; but no government can decide English, or should decide our naming policies. If Burma comes to used historically, fine; then we will have two articles, as we have Biafra now. But that has not happened; I see no sign of it happening, and looking for one would violate WP:CRYSTAL. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:21, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I have to say, Pmanderson is pretty much summing up my feelings on the thing constantly so I don't have much to say, though, the one thing I did want to add is that one big argument seems to be 'self detirmination'. The problem with a military junta that was voted out of power years ago is that it can't be said to automatically represent the people (Now, personally, I am no great preponent of democracy and acknowledge dictatorship can work very well for a country) and the self detirmination issue therefore becomes sticky. If Argentina invaded the Falkland islands again, lets say, no population transfer, would be change its name to Islas Malvinas? The De Facto government would be at conflit with the people in the naming. However, I acknowledge that it is less clear cut here, just something to ponder. There are some other arguments that have been put forward for the move that do make some good sense, however, I do not feel they outweigh the arguments on the Burma side. Google test seems to be getting us no where, so, I think this is going to end up as no consensus either way. Narson (talk) 08:22, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

The point is though that the government is the government, whether or not it truly represents the people. There is no such thing as a country Burma anymore. There is a country called Myanmar ruled by an undemocractic, brutal military regime. When or if the people of Myanmar overthrow the current government or perhaps the current government gives up, they may decide to call their country Burma and I'm sure most people here would support such a move then. But as it stands now, Myanmar is both the official name and the most common name in the English language. Burma is a historical name, used by some people who haven't yet learn that things changed and also some people and governments who think ignoring the problem is the best way to make things go away. There is no reason we should give precedence to these people over the many other people and governments who use English and do call the country Myanmar and regard Burma as a historical name Nil Einne (talk) 11:59, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

The preference of the present Burmese Government is notable; it should probably continue to be mentioned when they are safely in the ashcan of history. But they do not determine English usage; no government does. I strongly oppoae the suggestion that WP should try to catch up with this Wave of the Future as it rolls past us into oblivion. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:50, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

• If Myanmar were an English word, it would have an adjective. What is it, pray tell? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:50, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

• I didnt know in all my years of using the English language that all English words must have an adjective. Come to think of it, is Beijing an English word?--Huaiwei (talk) 05:17, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
• I guess "Netherlands" must not be an English word... The demonym for Myanmar does not have to look like M-y-a-n-m-a-r. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 05:24, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

• Dutch is used for Netherlands, as I gather Andrwsc realizes. That he is unwilling to reply Burmese is sufficient answer to my question. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:50, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

• Andrwsc has roundly discredited your point over the adjective requirement thou, if you are unwilling to realise. No one doubts that a citizen of the Union of Myanmar is referred to as a Burmese. If this is your reason to support the use of the word "Burma" as a country name, I recon, we should change The Netherlands to Dutchland since we don't exactly use the word "Netherlandians?--Huaiwei (talk) 17:56, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

It is frequently claimed that this was decided 3 months ago. This is bull. The previous move was clearly WITHOUT consensus and should NEVER have taken place. I raised this point at least once after the previous move occured but had no desire to try and get it reversed then as I had (and still have) better things to do then to fight a clear violation of wikipedia policy that many people were ignoring. Nil Einne (talk) 11:46, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

On the contrary, it is this post that is -er- nonsense, as is Nil's unsupported claim that Myanmar is more common. It is regrettable that so much energy should be spent on opposition to our policy here, which should be spent, if at all, on changing our naming policy to always use official names. There is definite support for this, but it has never been a majority; let alone consensus. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:50, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I think this could be a big issue here. The previous move was made with (in retrospect) inconclusive opinion, and therefore should not have been made. If the current move request results in inconclusive consensus yet again, as it appears it will, then procedure would dictate that it not be moved. In effect, the move would have been "ratified" without consensus, then or now! — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 16:49, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

What is the evidence that Burma has "always" been English exonym (and hence should not be used)? As far as I know, both words have roots in the Burmese language and are used in Burmese to denote the country and the language. It may very well be the case that the Myanmar/Burmere government wants to score a point by telling other people what to call Myanmar/Burma, but how far shall we take that? Shall me call South Korea Hanguk and North Korea Choson? Not long ago, the Chinese government tried to enforce the term Xizang for Tibet in the English language, or Qomolangma for Mount Everest. So far, these efforts have largely failed.

• It has always been the English exonym (and therefore should be used; for we should use English); just as India has always been an exonym, although related to Hind. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:12, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

No matter what a Google test or what TV stations in Singapore say, Burma is by far the most common term for this country in the English language. That is a statement of fact, not a value argument. I am not going to waste my time arguing for this, and if people wish to make Wikipedia unusable because of their eagerness to "correct exonyms" in the English language, I am not going to shed any tears. Wikipedia is a laughing stock in many quarters because of these kinds of deabtes.

People may dislike "Burma" or "Tibet" for whatever reasons, but we are not here to pass judgment on the appropriateness of names - whether we like the current regime in Burma or not. Wikipedia should not be a soapbox for various nationalisms or resentments. I have no idea why we should even argue about the very obvious fact that Burma is the most common English name, but debates like this is one of the reasons I rarely edit in English Wikipedia. Here, talk pages are often longer than actual encyclopedic pages. This is not the way it is supposed to work.--Amban (talk) 00:50, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

If you've read the discussion above, you'd see that it's far from "very obvious" that Burma is the "most common English name." In the United States, which is a pretty big place, "Myanmar" is not the term most often used in discussion of the country. That doesn't necessarily mean we should adopt the term, but it does mean you're way off-base in your assumptions. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 03:40, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I have read the discussion and I stick to my opinion. Wikipedia is not a news service that photgraphiccally reflect usage on the Internet and mass media. We should stick to credible, academic sources and as of now Burma still dominates and should be the obvious candidate. As you can see above, I checked with JSTOR and "Burma" is still the dominant term for academic publicatoons between 1990 and 2007. Language changes slowly and we should not try to be normative, which seems to be the aspiration of a lot of peopole in this discussion, who infuse all kinds of ideas into Burma and Myanmar.--Amban (talk) 04:12, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia may not be a news service, but it is very much supposed to be up-to-date. If you look around Wikipedia, you'll see that previous discussions of this type have used searches of news reports and the Web to try to discern what prevailing usage is. Academic sources should be relied upon to determine the accuracy of scientific claims, such as whether secondhand smoke is a carcinogen. This is not that kind of controversy. It's not a matter of something being factual or inaccurate. It's a matter of which name is "most often used or understood by English speakers," as Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) puts it. One way to judge that is to look at mass media and online communication. That's not unscientific. Linguists themselves use corpora with that kind of material to track changes in language. Certainly, academics are people, and the language they use in their work is relevant to a discussion like this one. On the other hand, one could say that since academic language tends to be quite different from the language used in most communications, it might be inappropriate to draw too many conclusions from academic sources. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 05:22, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

If you scrolled down and checked the section on Widely accepted names and false positives, you would realize that it is Wikipedia policy to give credence to academic sources and the careful use of an academic database such as Google scholar. My own searches there indicate that Burma is almost three times as common as Myanmar. I still think that a reasonable interpretation of WP naming policy would lead to the conclusion that Burma is the best name for this article and not Myanmar.

But this is not a reasonable debate and it is just one of many of a similar kind. Just look at the editor who started this proposed change. He is using an account that was created on January 19 and most his edits are on talk pages, where he has removed tags and proposed controversial changes. He is now serving his first 24 hour block for a 3RR violation. Clearly this is an editor who has been around for a while and has quite possibly been blocked indefinitely, or is not using his regular account for some other reason. The result? The actual article is around 117k, whereas the current talk page has grown to now around 140k and there are no less than five archives talk pages. What is going on with English Wikipedia?--Amban (talk) 14:46, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

• In a comment from below, "Maybe I learned using old maps, but Myanmar is completely lost on me but Burma is instantly recognizable. I don't think it's a British thing, either as I am a native of the midwestern US." I think it is old maps, at least if you're in the United States. Looking at my pocket atlases, the Merriam Webster's Pocket Atlas of 1998 uses "Myanmar", without "Burma" mentioned anywhere. The New Signet World Atlas of 1998 uses "Burma (Myanmar)", with both names in their alphabetical spots of the index. To be fair, when I look at the Random House Geographical Dictionary of 1992, it uses "Burma" while defining "Union of Myanmar" as the country's official name (in contrast, however, "Deuschland" is listed as Germany's GERMAN name—Myanmar has no similar linguistic distinction). The World Almanac, printed in New York, calls the country "Myanmar (formerly Burma)". My occupation gives me access to a handful of textbooks, and—not that it's anything definitive—out of the few applicable indexes I looked through, the 1980 book uses "Burma", the 1995 uses "Burma (Myanmar)", the 1999 has separate entries for Burma and Myanmar depending on the time period, and the 2008 uses "Myanmar (Burma)" with a redirect entry on "Burma. See Myanmar". These are only a few books, and only from the U.S., but it does seem like reference materials nowadays are more likely to use Myanmar (including all the major online encyclopedias), despite what scholarly articles and non-reference books use. What do you find when you look in your reference books or textbooks? -BaronGrackle (talk) 00:52, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

No consensus

I'm a supporter of the proposed move, but it's clear that there is no consensus to move the article. Therefore, the article must remain where it is now. I recognize that some people say the previous move to Burma also lacked consensus. That may be, but the proper action for someone who felt the previous move was improper would have been to challenge the move immediately through one of Wikipedia's several dispute-resolution channels. At this point, the status quo is Burma, and without consensus to move the article, it must remain there. Supporters of a move to Myanmar can try again down the road. If the official name remains Myanmar, it presumably will continue to gain traction in the English-speaking world. (It might take some time, though -- the entry for Soviet Union in the 1964 World Book Encyclopedia still said "See RUSSIA.") It may take a while to move the article, but any consensus-based system is inherently conservative. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 05:35, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually this request can be considered as an effort to reverse a move that was performed by gross disregard of Wikipedia guidelines on consensus. You cannot refer to a status quo of three months, when the previous status quo of five years was deemed irrelevant.--   Avg    13:16, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

The fact that this vote has been reattempted from the moment the article was moved is testament enough that the decision was highly disputed. I suppose none of us used the correct channels, however. -BaronGrackle (talk) 16:19, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

The status quo title is definitely Myanmar. Everyking (talk) 06:29, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Can I make a suggestion?

In the survey above (or any future surveys which will probably happen), can there be a refrain from "tit for tat" rebuttals on each support or opposition comment? Both sides are guilty of this and I don't think it helping either. All you see are the same rebuttal points being brought up over and over again. Conversation is healthy but it should be consolidated and contained in the discussion section. Editors can review the arguments for both sides and alter their opinion in the survey above if they are persuaded. These "tit for tat" rebuttals to survey responses comes across as rather combative and encourages a respondent to take a defensive posture for their "vote". It is not going to change any minds and certainly won't help with progress towards consensus. Just my two cents. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 13:44, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Compromise Proposal One

Although I remain convinced that Burma is the proper name for the country, it has become increasingly clear that neither side has been able to gain the upper hand in the debate. We are hampered by our inability to determine the proper criteria by which to judge which name is more common in the English language. The lack of such a consensus about criteria, as well as increased emotions on both sides and growing polarization among editors, leaves us deadlocked. We have to seek a new solution.

Fortunately our division is politically-based and not motivated by racial tension or national pride, allowing us to more easily seek a compromise. I have a proposal that hopefully will allow us to resolve this dispute completely and even prevent a mass article renaming flood, as well as allow us to preserve our categorization structure.

I propose we have two articles: an article about Burma and an article about Myanmar. To explain this, I will refer to Burma/Myanmar collectively as "The Country" to maintain neutrality. Basically, there would be two articles about The Country. One would be Burma, which would be about The Country from its independence in 1949 to 1989. There would be a second article, titled Myanmar, which would describe The Country from 1989 to the present. Separate categorization structures would be maintained for both articles. Topic in country articles, such as Economy of Burma, would have to be analyzed individually to determine whether or not to split them in half, move wholesale to Economy of Myanmar, or keep as Economy of Burma.

There is no precedent for this anywhere in Wikipedia, but there are similar divisions of a country's history. For example, our article about the Soviet Union is separate from Russia and our articles about the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, East Germany and West Germany are separate from Germany. An example of a similar politically neutral divide is having China separate from People's Republic of China and Taiwan.

I left the proposal intentionally vague so that we could move in a new direction before we haggle over details. The crux of my proposal is separate articles; please focus on that first. Also, I know it is unusual to have two proposals open simultaneously, but this is not exactly the average article dispute. Please do not close this without allowing at least some editors to weigh in first.

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons.

• Support as author. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 21:32, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose I applaud Hemlock's initiative, but I don't really think this idea would ever work. Furthermore, the examples cited are not the same situation we have here. Those were countries that once existed but not anymore. While Burma is the name of a modern country, with current and widespread usage. Húsönd 22:10, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
• Doubtful — basically a POV-Fork. Issue is political; the junta is reprehensible, and the name of the country is Myanmar. Please note that a lot of the usage of Burma in the world is politically motivated. --Jack Merridew 07:25, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

  Not in its historical context. Nobody here will dispute that name for that time period. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 17:08, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose Seems like nothing but a POV fork. This has been done with other countries that changed their name though (for example, Zaire and Democratic Republic of the Congo are seperate articles even though it's the exact same country). TJ Spyke 08:38, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose In that this is a case of the exact same entity referred to by different names. Comparisons to the Russia/Soviet Union, Germany and China situations are entirely different, as all of the later do not involve the same territory nor the same government, amongst a whole host of other factors. While we can substitute between the names of Myanmar vs Burma today, it is not sensible to do the same with Russia vs Soviet Union, Weimar Republic vs Germany, and China vs Taiwan.--Huaiwei (talk) 17:02, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose - The name is Myanmar. This is an encyclopaedia. 1+1=2. --   Avg    23:18, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. No justification for the split. We need to decide on a name. Andrewa (talk) 06:54, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose This will only invite further debate on the extent of the POV fork. The English name for the country is Burma, until and unless English adopts the preference of the present Government; the Myanmar argument is entirely political, as much as adopting Kampuchea in 1977 would have been; Huaiwei makes his political purpose plain. (For what it's worth, I do not propose to move the Republic of China.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:22, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Come now, several of us on both sides are making our political, grammatical, logical, and/or vernacular purposes plain. A quick scroll up the survey will show this isn't just some initiative pushed by Huaiwei, any more than it is pushed by you or any other single person on the other side. It's pretty much authentic disagreement on what this English word is, a disagreement not helped by conflicting sources in online encyclopedias, scholarly articles, joe shmoe articles, popular media, official English names among different countries and organizations, and the like. -BaronGrackle (talk) 18:56, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
    • It is partly that; I have always hoped to move this to Burma because that is what I call the country, and what it has always been called. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:15, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

It does sound tempting, but is there enough information to make separate articles? -BaronGrackle (talk) 21:42, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I would think so. The Google Scholar results did overwhelmingly favor "Burma", after all. Besides, I doubt any country could exist during decolonization, the Cold War, and the rise of Southeast Asia and not be noticed. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 23:57, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Comment: Maybe I learned using old maps, but Myanmar is completely lost on me but Burma is instantly recognizable. I don't think it's a British thing, either as I am a native of the midwestern US. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.80.221.34 (talk) 00:13, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I didn't think this warranted its own section, so I'll post it here. Why not just make the article named Burma/Myanmar, with redirects from both? And don't even get started on which one comes first. Another thing to think about is, does the name really matter? Seriously, is the title of a wikipedia page worth getting worked up about, as long as the people who search for it get the information they need? 75.45.160.30 (talk) 01:52, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I already suggested that, semi-seriously, and that a bot might alternate the naming order in the title on a regular basis. The suggestion was nitpicked because of the technical difficulty of including the slash character in article titles, and I didn't pursue it. How about an alternative suggestion: name the article The country known both as Burma and Myanmar, with redirects from Burma and Myanmar — roughly building on the convention exampled by The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (TFYRM). -- Boracay Bill (talk) 03:37, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I think inventing composite article titles is the the worst of all worlds - it will just encourage other controversial article titles to move to composites that no-one uses and imply they are valid terms. And the Macedonia situation isn't comparable because the FYRM monniker was an official description used (unwillingly) by the country for applications pending settlement of the naming dispute with Greece. It certainly wasn't invented for a website. Timrollpickering (talk) 11:39, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah. I actually did know that. I suspect that we may already be at or near the worst of all worlds on this point, except for the truism that when you think that things can get no worse, they probably will. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 13:09, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

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