Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-06-08 Burma/Consensus

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Ok, hello everyone, I am Atyndall and am currently mediating the Burma/Myanmar case. I have decided, after reviewing this case that a compromise cannot be met (as there are only two options, not a middle ground) and that concensus must be found out and acted upon. So basically here we are, at a subpage of the burma mediation and we will try and determine the consensus on the issue. I request both groups to list their arguements in the corresponding sections, as explained below and please remember to be civil. After a period of 14 days I will gather several experienced users to evaluate the consensus then we will act on this issue.  Atyndall93 | talk  07:01, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Discussion will end: 13:13, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Contents


[edit] Info

[edit] Frequently asked questions

Q. Why is this on a Wikipedia page?

A. I didn't want to show bias to either groups by putting it on their talk pages, so I put it in the wikispace. When the issue has been decided this page will be moved to the correct articles Talk subpages.

Q. I am not involved in this issue but I want to comment, where do I put my comment?

A. Put your comment here.

[edit] Listing your comment

To list your comment, pick which side of the issue you are on, either Move to Myanmar, Keep at Burma, split the articles or neutral and use the format below to list your comment.

* your reasoning ~~~~

NOTE: Do not just put a support or similar comment on this page, explain your reasoning behind the issue or your comment will be discarded.

[edit] Move to Myanmar

People who support the moving of the article to Myanmar please place your opinions here.
  • Myanmar seems to be the more common name used in English across the world [1], whatever one may wish for otherwise. All the political arguments should be irrelevant. Equally it should be acknowledged that there are some regional variations on this - most notably use in the UK, a country that has a long history with Myanmar, tends to still be "Burma" for a combination of historic and political reasons. (The BBC citation for "common usage" is based on UK usage only as that is the BBC editorial can take into account.) The article should be at Myanmar because of usage but if dominant usage is impossible to determine the Wikipedia naming conventions point to the official name as the solution to such a problem. The article was at Myanmar for a long time until it was moved to "Burma" as a knee jerk reaction to protests last October in a very controversial RM where clear consensus was not determined and many editors openly stated that their desire for Burma was based on political reasons. Timrollpickering (talk) 13:13, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
    • Note: I added the in-text citation above in response to a previous editor's "citation needed" comment. The applicable naming conventions clearly state "The best method of establishing that a name is widely accepted, or is the name most often used or understood by English speakers, is a statement to that effect by a neutral and reliable source", and the Reuters post I referenced makes a specific comment that they "switched to Myanmar when the term became widely used... Myanmar was becoming common usage." I have been unable to find an equivalent comment by another reliable source stating that Burma is more common worldwide; instead, publications that insist on using Burma tend to explain that it is because the opposition and/or the U.S. government never accepted the change, thus indicating (to me at least) that their usage is for political reasons rather than reflecting common usage. On the whole, though, I am most won over by the argument that since the commonly used term is in doubt, we should use the local official name Myanmar, as Timrollpickering (with support from the Wikipedia naming conventions) has pointed out. --Rundquist (talk) 23:07, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Timrollpickering summarized the basis of the Myanmar argument nicely. I’d like to answer some frequent objections:
    • Members of the older generations would have to avoid nearly any media source around them in order to avoid contact with the name "Myanmar". Newspapers and other media favor Myanmar by a slight majority, and even those that use Burma will address the alternative of Myanmar 1 2.
    • Members of younger generations who see "Myanmar" in their headlines would have no more reason to recognize Burma than older generations would have to recognize Myanmar.
    • If an older generationer were to look up "Burma" in an encyclopedia, he or she would be referred to the Myanmar article. This is because every single major online encyclopedia, including Britannica, uses "Myanmar". I cannot speak for elsewhere, but in the United States written encyclopedias, atlases, and textbooks overwhelmingly use Myanmar for the modern nation.
    • While it is true that "Burmese" is still overwhelmingly the adjective used for this country, this is irrelevant to which country name is commonly used. Similar examples are the Dutch people, Peking duck, and the Persian language.
    • "Burma (Myanmar)" appears as frequently as "Myanmar (Burma)", so the former cannot be understood as merely a clarification for English-speakers. Compare the country on Google maps and Yahoo maps for an illustration.
    • As has been said above, Wikipedia conventions claim that the official name should be used if no common name is determined. Myanmar is both commonly used in the English language and the country’s official name.
    • The official name is Myanmar, as that is the name selected by the nation’s ruling government. There is no organized, democratic government in exile to contradict this. -BaronGrackle (talk) 19:50, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
    • From what I have seen from the news, books, and other media, Myanmar is the most common name. The use of Burma is reactionary and it is usually used as a political statement (i.e. The junta is an illegal government). Wikipedia is not a place to make political statements, it is an encyclopedia. MethMan47 (talk) 20:24, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
  • I find the above two arguments very clear and convincing, whereas the only comment in favour of Burma right now is based on a claim (that Burma is more common) that is consistently based on personal impression rather than fact. A simple test shows that at best, Burma is close in popularity to Myanmar. Then there are the several noteworthy sources (all cited at Names of Burma, by the way) which discuss the dilemma between names and come out with no conclusion as to which is more common. Nobody has produced any source to the contrary. I think this is a convincing enough demonstration that the usage in English is divided, and the above posts make several excellent cases for using Myanmar in this event. BigBlueFish (talk) 22:50, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
    Really? I seems to be a detailed generic reply. The first three points you could insert Burma instead of Myanmar and they would be the same, so those points are useless. Point 4 on "Burmese" I agree is irrelevant. Point 5 really says nothing. Point 6 is interesting because that is not what wikipedia says and is a point of contention because some factions in Burma don't recognize the name Myanmar nor does the US or UK governments. Don't even get me started on the UN. The people in the country use both Burma and Myanmar depending on who you talk to so that point is drubbed also. Then there is the general "news, books and other media." Wow-wee, and you find that to be clear and convincing? I don't. I can find just as many "news, books and other media" in the opposing camp. What gets put into an encyclopedia is ALWAYS political up to a point and this article is no different because it's human nature. Can you imagine democrats and republicans trying to write each other's platforms and do it without being political? Politics will creep in here and both sides of this issue have legitimate claims. Without splitting hairs, the world is pretty close down the center of this issue. I do believe that there are more people on this globe that know of Burma rather than Myanmar, heck before the disaster there I'll bet many had never heard of Myanmar. They are probably looking it up and going "Oh, it's Burma." 66.81.202.218 (talk) 08:54, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
    The bullets you comment on are refutations of previous arguments in favour of Burma. You are simply agreeing with the list of what are not good reasons to choose the name. The result of this and all the things you say in your post is that the official name should be used. Oh, and your last point about recognition is answered by the first two bullet points which you dismissed. Recognition is literally irrelevant; we go with the world's published media. BigBlueFish (talk) 11:30, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
  • I have proposed a Gdanskesque (not a word) split on the RfC and dedicated talk pages. It puts the main article at Myanmar, but refers to the country as Burma for the majority of its history. By my reading of WP:NCGN, if common usage is clearly divided, we go with official name for the title of the article (the government is broadly recognized, even by countries that dispute the name change). Most of the primary sources on the country's history that were written in English were during the British period and will use Burma, so the history should be consistent with those sources. The British period and two of the post-Empire governments also used Burma (or Union of Burma) and there was no dispute what the country was called at that time. Myanmar Road would be silly. Somedumbyankee (talk) 02:07, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
    I regretfully disagree with this idea until the name Burma becomes known as a name which describes the pre-junta history of Myanmar. We aren't here to make up meanings for terms, and if somebody looks up Burma, they are still likely to be looking for Myanmar. BigBlueFish (talk) 11:33, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
We should be consistent with relevant sources, that's all. Articles about World War II in Asia that talk about Myanmar will contradict their sources. Neither Burma nor Myanmar is "correct", it's just what the country was called at the time. Somedumbyankee (talk) 12:53, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
  • agree: It helps eliminate the systematic bias of wiki just a little more. Hooper (talk) 14:44, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Keep at Burma

People who support the keeping the article at Burma please place your opinions here.
  • Burma is the more commonly used name. The US gov't does not recognize Myanmar and uses Burma officially. It is the name most recognized by the English speaking world especially to an older generation who might only view wiki occasionally and who are not savvy enough to voice their opinion on this page. If they pick up an ecyclopedia at home surely they would check the B's before they check the M's and entities such as Time Magazine and the "Human Rights Watch" use Burma exclusively. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:18, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Split

People who support the splitting the country (Burma) and the government (Myanmar) into separate articles please place your opinions here.


I do not "support" the splitting of the page but if it must occur it should be done at the 1989 time line. Really there could simply be two articles, one Myanmar and one Burma. All other pages on wiki should link to a third page titled Myanmar/Burma which has simply two links... Myanmar and Burma, which go to their respective pages. Over time one page will show itself to be the more used and we can reexamine the issue. Right now it's pretty evenly divided with likely vandalism if one side wins over the other. Even if one locks the ability to move the page people will be changing the words around the first chance they get. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:29, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

  • I too believe that this solution could be a possible compromise that might stem future conflict. -BaronGrackle (talk) 19:50, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
    • I believe in using the name Burma and will give a full explanation of my reasons above (when I have the time!), however, I would accept a splitting of the article into two parts, with the split date at 1989, when the unelected Military Junta made the proclamation that the country would now, in English, be known officially as "Myanmar", though this change was not recognised by the Governments of many countries throughout the world, or by the democratically elected leaders of Burma. (And, yes, there are democratically elected leaders of Burma[2]. They are not the ones changing the name of the country, though, they are the ones under house arrest.) I have mentioned this previously in support of the name Burma and it has been dismissed, by some editors, as being to do with politics (which has no place in Wikipedia), but my point was about whether the name was "official" or not. Many people have cited the fact that the UN recognises the name "Myanmar", but that holds no water because the UN, whose main policy in these matters seems to be not offending anyone, (look at their policies on Rwanda or Darfur or Zimbabwe) would rubber stamp anything put in front of them by any tin pot dictator or banana republic. If a group of armed thugs took over your house, and held your family hostage, would you use the original name of your family home, or what the thugs wanted to call it? The UN would use the name used by the men with the guns. Similarly CNN and AP. But not (bless 'em) the US Government, the UK Government, The BBC, Fox News, USA Today, The Washington post etc.. etc.. The one thing we can all agree on though, was that until 1989, the country was, both officially, and in common usage, called Burma. Having been following the changes on this article for a while I've noticed a tendency among some editors who support the name "Myanmar" to revise the whole article, so that the name "Myanmar" appears throughout eg. "Myanmar was part of the British Empire.." This is just wrong. "Myanmar" was never part of the British Empire. Burma was. Nobody claimed "Myanmar" as an official English name of the country until 1989. To revise the whole article, à la Winston Smith in The Ministry of Truth, and pretend that the country has always been called "Myanmar" is totally wrong, misleading and untruthful. Whether you accept the name change or not, the fact is, until 1989 the country was officially called Burma. Any final naming decision must, at least, recognise this. Angstriddenyouth (talk) 22:04, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

From all the evidence I've seen, references to Burma and Myanmar (in the media or otherwise) seem fairly equal. Therefore there is no common name. If this is the case, DAS RULES state we use the official name. The official name according to this country (and moreover to the UN) is Myanmar. This means that there should be an article on Myanmar at least. Any argument against using Myanmar will most likely be based on an opposition to the military government and hence a support democracy. Note though, that Wikipedia does not advocate democracy or any principle, and while it is fine for us Wikipedians to do so, a reader should be given a balanced NPOV. This would mean that instead of Wikipedia saying, "democracy is good," it should say, "here is why people think democracy is good, and here is why democracy is bad" and infer that the reader should make up there own mind as to whether it is good or bad. If we are good enough editers, they should read it and come round to the view that democracy is good (since we are all convinced it is good). This illustrates a point (see [3] and [4]) I've made before on these Myanmar/Burma discussions: that right and correct are not the same thing. While we believe that democracy is right, it is not up to us to say it is correct. Hence, Burma is the right name (or at least any alternative not favoured by the military government is the right name), but Myanmar is the correct name. Now of course, the name was changed by the military government in a certain year, and the present military government came to power in a certain year as well. This means that there should be a Burma article too: for the historical country. This has been done before, with say China I believe, and the present article is already pretty hefty as it is. I don't particularly care what date you use to split it, so long as there is a good reason, and I at least see a Myanmar article, and a split at the very least. I also don't like the idea above of having two articles with the same content that someone suggested above. We shouldn't duplicate the content, and seeing which page is used most frequently could be open to abuse: someone could run a bot to just sit there all day opening the one page. Besides, a page entitled "Myanmar/Burma" would actually be called just Burma, though it would be a subpage of Myanmar as far as I know. And vandalism if someone wins? So? We shouldn't be frightened into providing misinformation. Deamon138 (talk) 22:03, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

      • You make many fair points, Deamon138, I agree with you, there should be a page on "Myanmar" and the first line should state that this was the name an unelected Military Junta, who are not recognised by the international community, decided should be the official name of Burma. And if people wanted to read about the country of Burma, they could follow the link. Angstriddenyouth (talk) 22:47, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
        • I don't know about the first line, and I personally would phrase it a bit more carefully than you've put it, but yes fair enough. Deamon138 (talk) 23:09, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
          • Yes, I would phrase it more carefully too, but as a general point the country was officially known as Burma until 1989. After that it's debatable. Angstriddenyouth (talk) 23:40, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Neutral comments

People who are neutral on this issue but wish to comment nonetheless, please please your comments here.

I would just like to register my concern that the proposed process here, aside from repeating what has now been done multiple times, does not seem to take into account the very likely possibility that there is no consensus to be found. What does the mediator intend to do if there is no consensus to be found? Moreover, the previous path of the dispute suggests not that the two parties need to be brought together to common ground (as would lend itself to mediation) but that there is no common ground and that any binding resolution will have to be outside of the consensus model - so I do not believe that mediation as such is likely to be effective. Christopher Parham (talk) 18:56, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

If we fail to reach consensus by discussion, the next dispute resolution channel is the mediation committee. I strongly suspect that if this does happen to be the case, it is because of some participants' refusal to accept that their reasoning isn't consistent with the editorial guidelines for Wikipedia. Neither the facts nor the Wikipedia policies here are ambiguous. I think Medcom can pass arbitration on the discussion so would be able to dismiss certain arguments and make it clearer what the informed consensus is. I really hope this is not necessary though. Let's stay on topic rather than branch into asides, and it might be clearer than it seems which name we should go with. BigBlueFish (talk) 22:34, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
"it might be clearer than it seems which name we should go with." You mean, you support the name "Myanmar"? Very NPOV. But I suppose you were only obeying orders. 81.208.106.64 (talk) 23:24, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
I am planning to bring in some crats (if I can find any willing to volunteer) as it is their job to work out consensus once this discussion concludes. If they can't find concensus then I think formal mediation is required.  Atyndall93 | talk  00:00, 11 June 2008 (UTC)