Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Macedonia

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellany page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was overwhelming consensus to Move to Portal:Republic of Macedonia. Xoloz 05:10, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Portal:Macedonia

This portal (Portal:Macedonia) should be renamed to Portal:Republic of Macedonia. This country's name is subject to a naming dispute, which has reached the highest diplomatic level. The current name is too provocative, POV, misleading and potentially may be found offensive. Macedonia is a region in southeastern Europe (see Macedonia (region)) and is divided between four countries. The Republic of Macedonia has approximately 40% of this region, the rest being in Greece, Bulgaria and Albania. The current name is misleading as it could lead to the belief that the portal deals with the whole region rather than just the Republic. In fact, as one point, it seemed that the portal was about the wider region, before our Bulgarian colleague, User:FunkyFly noticed it and removed it (twice he had to, because it was reinserted in a modified form). The reason that this is such as sensitive issue is the suspicion, held mostly by the Greek government that the Republic of Macedonia has territorial ambitions beyond its own borders [1]. Whether this suspicion is unfounded or not, is IMO completely immaterial, but this portal, appropriating the name of a region, which spans four countries, for a country which accounts for 40% of the whole region is a blatant monopolisation of the name. When this portal was first created, it attracted the interest of some Bulgarian and Greek Wikipedians on the portal's talk page who are of the opinion that a portal which uses the name Portal:Macedonia should be for the whole region, not just for the Republic. Not to mention the fact that there are ambitions to start a portal on the legacy of the whole region in the near future. I think that the controversies surrounding this name (which have yet to be settled at diplomatic level) alone merit the renaming of the portal. It will not be the first time the full name for a portal has been used; there is, after all, a Portal:People's Republic of China and not a Portal:China (which is a redirect - Portal:Macedonia could be a redirect until a portal dealing with the whole region is made). --Latinus 12:33, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Because I created the portal, please see my reasons:

  • Almost every Wikipedia country portal is named by the most common English name of the country, as: Spain, Poland, Bulgaria, Australia, portal:Greece etc… (for example, the official name of Greece is Hellenic Republic, but the portal is simply named with Greece, or Bulgaria, the official name is Republic of Bulgaria, but the portal is Bulgaria). The portals about China and Ireland are probably the only such examples, but the vast majority of portals are using the short common English version of the name.
  • There is a naming dispute about the official name of the country, but that is already appropriately described in the article about the country:[2] and the dispute shouldn’t interfere with the name of the portal.
  • The argument that a portal for the wider region can be created is great, but that portal can be named with portal:Macedonia (region), for example. Also, I must say that, by my opinion, this portal will be very hard for maintaining, regarding the opposite opinions of the principal editors of the Macedonia articles that already produced a lot of edit wars on Macedonia articles. However, I’m not against the creation of such portal.
  • There are regions in Greece and Bulgaria that are called Aegean or Pirin Macedonia (for example Greece is divided on 13 regions and 3 of them are containing Macedonia in the name) and that can be described as they wish in the portals about that countries (Greece and Bulgaria), or a sub portals can be created for that regions as well (we have such examples on Wikipedia: United States (New York City, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin).
  • This portal is not intended to monopolize the name, it is intended only to describe in good faith all aspects of one independent country. As in every other WP article, there are problems and some editors made edits related to the region, but I and other Macedonian editors reverted them several times and I intend to do it in the future:[3],[4],[5],[6]

And to summarize, by my opinion a country has far more relevance than a region and I believe that the current name should stay. In addition, please see my view on the naming conventions regarding the Macedonia articles at [7]. Bitola 13:14, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Bitola. You have just described all the non-controversial cases - Macedonia is a controversial case. Look at another controversial case and how they resolved it: Portal:People's Republic of China, it's the full name! Are they being "punished" as well? Sometimes, the full name is needed due to a controversy. No one is disputing Poland's name, that's why we have a Portal:Poland etc. --Latinus 13:40, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Please Latinus, this is not the discussion page, we should stop that here! (Just to answer, there are two countries named China and maybe that is the reason, maybe Chinese people want to have such a portal name)
  • Rename per myself. --Latinus 12:40, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • speedy rename. the article about the country is at Republic of Macedonia after years of contention. This is a portal about said country, therefore, every argument that led to the article ending up where it is now will put the portal at the corresponding name, no need to go through it all again. dab (ᛏ) 13:04, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Rename, for the reasons said before. Aldux 13:18, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong keep - for the reasons said before. Bitola 13:20, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Rename - for the above reasons.--Odysses 14:22, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong keep - If you want to make a portal for the Greek region → Macedonia (Greece) or Macedonia (Bulgaria). Rep. of Macedonia has it's short name - Macedonia, like every other country. Bomac 14:26, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Rename as a matter of course. --Ghirla -трёп- 14:27, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Rename - for the above reason ("Macedonia" is too ambiguous - also see Portal:People's Republic of China).sys < in 14:31, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Rename The portal should be named Portal:Republic of Macedonia following the same arguments that lead to Republic of Macedonia. It is a controversial name and Portal:Macedonia would be misleading since it is only for the Republic of Macedonia. --Dada 14:39, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • speedy rename - Portal:Republic of Macedonia is more than enough. talk to +MATIA 14:44, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong keep, what the matter with you people, lets leave Greeks to talk about their region in their portal, leave the Macedonian portal as it is. Makedonec 14:56, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Rename. I was indifferent about this until I saw Bitola's comment "we cannot punish a country to have a portal with inappropriate name". Portal:Republic of Macedonia is not an inappropriate name (the way Portal:Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia could be considered to be), nor is renaming Wikipedia's portal in any way punishing the country! Angr/talk 14:59, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
    Note: Bitola recently edited his thesis. --Latinus 16:59, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Rename for the above reasons. → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → 15:00, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Rename: Portals should be named after the main article of their subject. If the article for the country is Republic of Macedonia the portal should have the same name. —Geraki ✉2006-03-3 T 15:07 Z
  • Rename. A few things I already mentioned in Portal talk:Macedonia: Portal:People's Republic of China has that name and not Portal:China because the name China is also claimed by other countries. Note that Portal:China still redirects to the People's Republic, and I find it logical to do the same with Portal:Macedonia -> Portal:Republic of Macedonia. Another example is the lack of Portal:America, despite the country being referred internally among Americans simply as "America". Therefore, the argument that citizens of Republic of Macedonia refer to their country as "Macedonia" and therefore the portal should be called "Macedonia" in my opinion does not hold grounds. Wikipedia is an international collaboration afterall. FunkyFly 15:22, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Rename. Although it may seem like this is POV towards the Greek side, the relavant page is at Republic of Macedonia, while Macedonia is a disambig. page. --Khoikhoi 15:37, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Rename. 'Macedonia' by itself is too ambiguous and too contentious. It should be 'Republic of Macedonia'. --Macrakis 16:31, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Rename, after the main article's title --Kalogeropoulos 16:48, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: This is a renaming discussion and should be conducted on the respective article Talk pages, not here. This page is for discussion of deletion nominations. Unless someone is arguing to actually deleted this portal, please move this discussion to the appropriate place. Rossami (talk) 16:44, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Rename: The current name monopolises the culture of a much wider region, hardly relevant to the 15-year old Republic. Miskin 16:53, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Rename:for all the reasons cited above-that's the only way not to create a new endless discussion about the name.--Hectorian 17:22, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Rename--Lucinos 17:31, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • STRONG KEEP-- Macedonia 21:30, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Rename: I find it very confusing, the portal seems to be talking about the whole region. NikoSilver 12:56, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

By the Way, here is a list of some countries which also recognized Macedonia as simply that, "Macedonia":

Note that this list is a few years old and that there are even more countries that have also recognized Macedonia. If Greeks and Bulgarians (ironically Bulgaria recognized Macedonia) find that the word "Macedonia" is "offensive" to be the name of the country, does this mean that all of these countries listed above are a potential enemy against them?

Nope, all of these countries have recognized it as "Macedonia", they only use the term "Republic of Macedonia" in formal use. -- Macedonia 22:08, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • It would be nice if you could adduce some evidence to support this claim. --Latinus 22:12, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Bulgaria specifically has never recognized "Macedonia". It has recognized the "Republic of Macedonia". FunkyFly 22:10, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • You dont understand, when these countries recognied Macedonia under its constitutinal name, they use Macedonia for short and use "Republic of Macedonia" for formal use. An example would be President George Bush and his many speeches who reffers to the country as simply "Macedonia". The CIA World Fact Book prepared by the US government even refers to it as "Macedonia" [8] --Macedonia 15:57, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Inappropriate request. -- Not sure whether there is a connection with the revived nationalist bickering on RFAr by Vergina et al. (which does not belong there either). Anyway, this page is for deletion discussion and nothing else. A page move should be discussed on talk pages among involved parties. Kosebamse 21:40, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Rename. Etc. etc. Alexander 007 22:03, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Rename. it should change immediately into the proper name which is accepted broadly. --Nakos2208 22:13, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Rename please. Here are my reasons and thank you for inviting me to vote.

Also, to highlight my impartiality, I should say that I expressed concern over the Wiki article called 'Cyprus', I was called 'anti-Greek'. I did so because under 'Cyprus' we only read about the government controlled Republic of Cyprus, but the island represents two areas and both should be mentioned. Perhaps I am wrong, especially since north Cyprus is not recognised, but a name cannot be monopolised by one side. Likewise with Macedonia. It covers three main countries and none should be seen as monopolising the name.

  • I have written professionally on the area with no complaints (but am not infalable). The following quotes will be made without commentary.
  • The Ministry of Information in Skopje hands out an official fact guide on the Republic. The first one came out in 1993, Its title was, 'This is the Republic of Macedonia'. Its first line is, "The Republic of Macedonia is situated in the southern part of the Balkan Peninsula and covers an area of 25,713 square kilometers". Under 'history' (p.20), it gives one paragraph on Ancient Macedonia. Then we read, "The long process of Slav colonization which ended in the early 7th century created an entirely new situation: Macedonia received a new population and became a Slav territory."
  • The second edition came out in 1996, titled, 'Facts about the Republic of Macedonia'. Here, the inhabitants are called "Macedonian Slavs".
  • The last edition (2004?), can be seen as reflecting a diminished recognition of the borders. It seems to identify the region of Macedonia with the Republic. [I translate] The title is, 'Macedonia'. We read, "Macedonia is a land at the centre of the Balkan region. It includes Halcidiki, the territory of Macedonia is around 66,600 square kilometers with around 4,5 million inhabitants; most of them are Macedonians but there are also Greeks, Albanians, Bulgarians, Turks, Vlachs, Rom and others [...]" The booklet places the borders from Mount Olympus in the south to the Macedonian Black Mountains in the north. Then this passage conclues with, "The Republic of Macedonia covers the central part of the Balkans".
  • Finally, I should point out that no one actually asked for the appellation, Portal:FYROM. Neither do I.

To conclude. My greatest frustration is that the Republic has so much going for it, its emergence is quite unique, its identity still being formulated but its internal dynamics kept quiet; it is a very real and unique country. But the world knows so little because there is repeated blurring between ROM and Macedonia. Help us to discover the 25,713 square kilometers of the 'Republic of Macedonia'. Politis, 3 March 2006

You seem to think that if the entire world knew about the dispute, they would side with Greece. Unfortunately, they would go right on calling the place Macedonia. That's the term in English, and it's irrelevent whether its usage is compliant with the whims of the Greek people.--naryathegreat | (talk) 03:43, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong keep - is it too late to vote? --Daniel Tanevski talk 01:03, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep- if you can't back it up elsewhere, you can't back it up here. The name's Macedonia and darn it, the temper tantrums of Greece are not going to change that.--naryathegreat | (talk) 03:40, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Rename. Although Bitola does have a point about consistency (e.g. we call the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg "Luxembourg", without worrying about the overlap with the wider region of Luxembourg or the Belgian province of that name), we shouldn't be dealing with this in a piecemeal fashion. If we are to call the RoM "Macedonia" we need to agree to apply that consistently across Wikipedia. I'm not opposed to calling this portal "Macedonia" in the future if there is a general agreement to do so, but as there isn't I think we have to be consistent with the current name of the RoM article. By the way, I'd also like to say that I deplore the ethnic hatred being displayed by some editors on the subject of this portal (e.g. [9]). -- ChrisO 10:50, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Rename. I also fully agree with ChrisO's remarks on the ethnic hatred being displayed on this whole topic. Septentrionalis 18:40, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Rename. I explained in the discussion page, why should it be renamed.--Makedonas 19:52, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Rename, but, for now, redirect as in the Portal:China's case. I mean, as a Macedonian, I understand the Macedonian defiance - the Greek overblowing pressure on the naming issue is taking surreal extents. However, I see absolutely no harm in having a Portal named Republic of Macedonia. I find it extraordinary encouraging that the Greeks participating in this vote actually admitted that there is nothing wrong, nor "confusing" in the term Republic of Macedonia. I also find the idea of a portal for the whole Macedonia region as a real challenge. It would be good for all Macedonians (regardless of their ethnic feelings), to actually collaborate on the common Macedonian portal. (Although, I would really, really recommend avoiding any historical or political topics). I know it sounds like a bit utopistic, but... who knows, it might work out well? --FlavrSavr 02:17, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
    • Not surprising that you <<would really, really re(c)com(m)end avoiding any historical or political topics>> - hiding the historical truth about Macedonia is what the M in FYROM stands for. Regards, sys < in
Oh, please, that is so lame of you! Your statement is precisely why I wouldn't recommend any sensitive subjects for the time being - I mean, I offer you a hand, and your response is what? God damn it, will we ever stop sharpening our knives at every dumb national myth? I lived in a country which actually fell apart following those chauvinist historical narratives, leaving thousands of people dead, and millions scattered all over the world. Your country also has skeletons in it's closet, as mine, and virtually everybody on the Balkans has bloody hands. Would you prefer another Wiki-battlefield instead of a community project? Wouldn't it be nicer if we actually cooperate on something, for a change? For Christ's sake, let's finally grow up! --FlavrSavr 17:03, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
You still live in that country, my friend. For as long as you allow the lies that Tito forced down your ancestor's throats to determine your self-identity, the SFRY and all its mess will be with you wherever you are. Regards, sys < in
Whatever. Let it be noted that I've tried to establish some kind of a communication. It's a pity that you have a collection of ethnic stereotypes instead of a real attitude. If this is a PA, you can report me somewhere. Regards, my friend. --FlavrSavr 22:56, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong keep.Republic of Macedonia is Macedonia(apsolute)nor greek,bulgarian,serbian as so and the region ,try seeing it this way.I choosed not by my self to be the apple eathen by all.

By the way the countries that have recognised The Republic of Macedonia,completly refer to it as Macedonia in every concerned matter.--Vlatko 22:05, 5 Mach 2006 (UTC)

First of all, if I were you I would not advertise my en-3 skill :)). Second, make up your mind, is the portal about Republic of Macedonia, or the region of Macedonia?! FunkyFly 21:14, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

By the way the countries that have recognised the People's Republic of China,completely refer to it as China.what does this suppose to mean in here?--Hectorian 20:45, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

By the way we are talking about Republic of Macedonia.

And for you Funkyfly:We are not talking about my english level,but for somethjing else ,if you have difficulties understanding me than start writing in bulgarian to see if i can understand you.And the portal is about Macedonia(Republic of Macedonia is Macedonia)-Write about the other parts of my land in the portals of Greece and Bulgaria....and ask me if i do agree to . .--Vlatko 13:58, 6 Mach 2006 (UTC)

  • speedy rename, after the main article's title. --Asteraki 20:32, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Rename --Kamikazi2 12:51, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.