Talk:Cordillera Oriental

message: It seems to me that dividing the Cordillera Oriental of the Andes up by country is counter-productive to adequately describing the geography of the Andes which doesn't respect country borders.  A country based breakdown also tends to encourage POV edits by nationalists.  I suggest that the main article about the Cordillera Oriental of the Andes should be here instead of a disambiguation page.  Then individual ranges in the Cordillera Oriental could each have there own article, by range name and extension, not country.  What do you all think? --Bejnar 18:40, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. The three articles (or however many there are now), should all be merged into one article for each range. I am currently working on marking the articles for physiography, and the Cordillera Occidental, Cordillera Central, and the Cordillera Oriental are all distinct physiographic sections of the larger Northern Andes province. This breakout by country overly complicates the issue, as these are multi-country 'areas'. wbfergus  Talk 18:14, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, the Cordillera Oriental is combined and redirected. Now to try and get the same done for the Central and Occidental. wbfergus  Talk 11:39, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: One range three (or more) countries

message: new page                              	current page                    	comment
Cordillera Oriental (Northern Andes)  	Cordillera Oriental (Colombia)  	
Cordillera Central (Northern Andes)   	Cordillera Central, Ecuador     	Article is actually Cordilla Real, which states "They are continued in the Cordillera Central of Peru in the South and Cordillera Central of Colombia in the North. The Cordillera Real includes the Antisana, Cotopaxi, and Cayambe, while Chimborazo is in the Cordillera Occidental."
Cordillera Central (Northern Andes)   	Cordillera Central, Colombia    	
Cordillera Central (Northern Andes)   	Cordillera Central, Bolivia     	
(leave as is)                         	Cordillera Central, Peru        	Article is actually Cordillera Blanca, which doesn't really appear to be part of the Cordillera Central, which seems to only exist in the Northern Andes.
Cordillera Occidental (Northern Andes)	Cordillera Occidental (Colombia)	
Cordillera Oriental (Central Andes)   	Cordillera Oriental (Bolivia)   	
Cordillera Oriental (Central Andes)   	Cordillera Oriental (Peru)      	
Cordillera Occidental (Central Andes) 	Cordillera Occidental (Bolivia) 	
Cordillera Occidental (Central Andes) 	Cordillera Occidental (Ecuador) 	
:Where the range already has a given name such as Cordillera Blanca or Cordillera Real I would keep them, I would view the breakdown of northern, central (middle) and presumably southern as more appropriate within the general "Cordillera Occidental", "Cordillera Central" and "Cordillera Oriental" articles.  If pinpoint linking were required, then #-ing to the appropriate section could be used.  I still see the real meat of mountain range description being in the individual mountain ranges, such as, in the middle section of the "Cordillera Occidental", we have the the Cordillera Blanca, the Cordillera Huayhuash and the Cordillera Raura, all of which are distinct. --Bejnar (talk) 20:10, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Table offered for compromise resolution

message: Request for comments on whether the Oriental, Central and Occidental Cordillera should be discussed in three separate articles with those names, with subdivision by mountain range, or whether these article should be done by nationality.:
*Statement in favor of three main articles and subdivision by range:
:The point is that mountain ranges do not respect country borders.  Countries have nothing whatsoever to do with the physical geography and geology, and in most cases little to do with the economic geography either.  In most physical geography books the Andes are discussed together, with each of the three cordillera discussed independently as mega-ranges (cordillera) without significant mention of country borders other than for reference points.  Having articles such as the Cordillera Oriental (Ecuador) is not productive, duplicates information and adds nothing. Any text in them that is not appropriate in the larger cordillera article belongs specifically in a Geography of Ecuador article.  Worse, subdivision of mountain ranges by country unfortunately leads to nationalists edits. Again, the individual cordillera should be subdivided by mountain range and not by country for the same reasons. --Bejnar (talk) 20:36, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Some examples of other wiki articles done (more or less) properly are: Pamir Mountains, Pyrenees, Hindu Kush or the Alps. For that matter, most of the articles in the following categories: :Category:Physiographic divisions, :Category:Physiographic provinces and :Category:Physiographic sections. Except for these three mountain ranges, none of them are piecemealed out by country, like "Alps, Switzerland", "Alps, Germany", etc. wbfergus  Talk 20:52, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Mostly agree While it looks like wbfergus' compromise table was created after the RfC was started, it seems like it works better than the original wording of the RfC. It clearly meets the NPOV required of all Wikipedia articles, which having a country name associated directly with a mountain range like that does not accomplish. I would accept wbfergus' table offer as that seems the most equitable solution to what is clearly a POV (and complicated) situation. Those names Northern, Central and Southern are also clearly in use within USGS literature when describing the entire range. We (USGS) only 'limit' ourselves when a study area for a manuscript is confined to a country (as many are), but when describing the entire range we tend to go with the more common and 'generic' approach so as to not make one country seem more important than another. OracleDude 12:46, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Also, I fail to see what the disagreement is all about. It seems rather childish. Wbfergus seems to have addressed all of the major points with his table. The part of the ranges in Colombia merely get renamed to (Northern Andes), so they are still separate and distinct from the ones in Bolivia or wherever else, which are named appropriately as (Central Andes) or (Southern Andes). I don't how ZG can claim a city in Colombia would point to a mountain in Chile. I don't see the connection at all for that statement or several others. OracleDude 13:00, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Bejnar's statement that mountain ranges do not respect country borders. But it is also true that the Cordillera Central in Bolivia is not at all the same mountain range as the Cordillera Central of Colombia. One could, I think, readily make the point that the ranges in Colombia continue into Venezuela, or Ecuador, with different names, but it is all a matter of convention. Given that these articles are primarily geographic, and geographic names are largely for human convenience, and given the great capability for interlinkability, redirects, internal references, and disambiguation that comes with Wikipedia, why not have separate articles, at least for those that are by consensus distinct (e.g., Cordillera Central in Bolivia vs the same name in Colombia). If usage of different names for the same range exists (e.g., Cordillera Orientale of Colombia is either continuous with, or branches into the Sierra de Perija and/or the Cordillera de Merida in Venezuela) then it comes down to an argument over which one should be the "main article" and which should be subsumed in that main article. Nationalism apart, how can it matter very much if an article starts by saying "The Cordillera Orientale of Colombia continues into Venezuela as the Sierra de Perija and the Cordillera de Merida." If those ranges (or sub-ranges if you like) have enough distinct information, they can be separate pages that begin with something like "Venezuela's Sierra de Merida is a northeastern branch of the Cordillera Orientale of Colombia..."  And I agree with OracleDude that it seems like a bit of a tempest in a teapot; provide whatever information there may be, interlink alternative names, and go forward. There's my 2 cents (US) worth. Cheers Geologyguy (talk) 19:55, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Looks like 4 vs. 1 for changes, with a week since the last comment on how to handle this. I'd say wait until at least Monday, just to give the rest of the weekend for any further comments from others, but it looks like making the changes is a 'go'. wbfergus  Talk 13:04, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Those subsections are, for the most part, irrelevant to the articles.  Links in the articles to specifics that are tangentially related may be sufficient. Appropriate subsections might be:
*Water
*Agriculture
*Folklore
with the various cultures or actions compared and contrasted.  --Bejnar (talk) 16:59, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: RFC South America cordillera articles