Talk:List of sovereign states/requested move

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I recognise that there's going to be some debate around the fringes, and I don't think micronations should be on the list, or areas under the temporary control of warlords. But I don't see the harm in erring on the liberal side in general.

Frankly the way this page and its related pages are structured seems blatantly POV to me. To adopt a neutral point of view we shouldn't be deliniating between different degrees of sovereignty. We should mention the issues (concisely), link to the territory's main article, and let people make their own distinctions.

Has this been discussed somewhere else? I'd really like to understand the arguments that led to the status quo.

Ben Arnold 02:45, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The problem would be how to select what entities can be in wand which entities don't belong to the list. Personally I would like to have an integrated list with all de jure and de facto sovereign states as wll as the dependent territories. I agree we would have to exclude micronations (like Sealand) and areas under the temporary control of warlords. I will make an effort to include the dependent territories in the new layout. Electionworld 08:06, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
This sounds good to me. I suggest bold text for de jure countries, bold, italicised text for dependent territories and italicised text for de facto countries. Micronations and integral territories (Hawaii, Réunion et al) should be excluded. - Randwicked 05:28, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What counts as "de jure"? "de facto"? what counts as an non-integral territory? Without clear criteria for the labels, we are bound to trample on npov.--Jiang 06:38, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Agree as per Electionworld and Randwicked. I was hestitant but after reading the worked example I knew it was a nice proposal. — Instantnood 08:51, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Requested move

See the debate above on this talk page. When we create a list of countries page, it is possible to list of countries, independent and dependent, in one list with avoiding discussions on a the question of an entity is a sovereign state. When this move is agreed, the content of Talk:List of sovereign states/new layout would be the new content of List of countries.

  • the reasons for move copied from WP:RM
Add #Support or #Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation and sign your vote with ~~~~

[edit] Support

  1. Support, see above Electionworld 21:26, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  2. Ben Arnold 00:45, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  3. Instantnood 08:51, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Oppose

  1. Jiang 21:34, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  2. john k 23:58, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  3. Jerzy (t) 20:29, 2005 Apr 27 (UTC)
  4. Tuf-Kat 20:33, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC) (two topics sufficiently distinct to make two lists)

[edit] Discussion

I oppose the move because the distinctions are already made in the intro and the criteria is clearly spelled out. Adding entities that are obviously not sovereign states just makes this article less useful. Are we to delete the footnotes too? The article is fine as it stands.--Jiang 03:34, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I oppose the move on two grounds:

  1. IMO sovereignty is an important property, considerably better defined than "country". "Country" fades away into expressions like "the Piney-Woods country" and "Pennsylvania-Dutch country", and even short of that, devolves into PoV debates about whether The People (of Quebec, of Brittany, of Normandy, of the American South, and the new Soviet man) have made a choice to abandon some probably current but allegedly former ethnic identification in favor of one that is either less or more inclusive. These are especially poisonous, since they
    • turn ethnocentricity into a virtue, and
    • tend toward decisions by political sects that The People have chosen them to lead, because anyone who says that most people would rather be left alone to live their lives as they have been is ipso facto a sell-out who is too cowardly to lead the masses on to the glorious (bloody) future the sect has in mind for them.
  2. In any case, the question is mis-stated. If my point 1 above didn't make you angry either at me or at someone you anticipate arguing against my point 1, you may be capable of closing your eyes to an edit war in the offing. There can be two articles with two different purposes; one of them already exists, and IMO it was far better for me to create the other one as well, than for anyone to try to suppress either. If either of them really serves all the legitimate purposes of the other, the extraneous one should be VfDed. But that prospect is far too big an issue for a vote on this page, and if this vote doesn't fade away quietly, work will stop on both articles when news of this move proposal hits Wikipedia:Village pump (policy).

--Jerzy (t) 20:29, 2005 Apr 27 (UTC)

If I understand you well, you want to have two articles. I can live with that, so I will withdraw the request. Electionworld 21:09, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC).