Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Macedonia-related articles

message: Is it really an invented name? What about Vardar Banovina then? Also I believe Vardar Republic was an official (unfruitful) proposition from the Greek side in the first round of talks. --   Avg    18:26, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Does it make a difference? This isn't an encyclopedia article about Macedonia. The only relvant point is, do these appellations come close to being serious contenders for general use by us in Wikipedia articles? No, of course they do not. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:03, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Is it entirely without reason or precedent? Not as long as the river flows. But if someone were to call Belgium Sambria tomorrow, I would describe it as an invented name, despite the Department Sambre-et-Meuse. So here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:42, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Republic of Vardar 

message: When the meaning is unquestionably clear, is there a need to use "Republic of Macedonia"? I'm referring to things such as templates and lists mentioning only sovereign states - where "Republic of - " is assumed, just like "Kingdom of - ". BalkanFever 05:46, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: My understanding is that there is, as "even then, the first mention should normally be a link to Republic of Macedonia". See for example User:ChrisO's edit here. That would cover templates, where there is only one mention. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 05:51, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Macedonia does this though. BalkanFever 07:01, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm pretty sure "a link to Republic of Macedonia" means precisely that, i.e. "Republic of Macedonia", not "Macedonia". Otherwise the entire sentence is redundant, don't you think? ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 08:00, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: But they're both links (to the same page), that's why there is confusion about what to use. BalkanFever 08:15, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: So you're basically saying that the MoS says "you can use Macedonia if the meaning is unquestionably clear, but even then the country should initially be mentioned as Macedonia". How does that even make sense? I'd also like other editors' thoughts on this. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 08:19, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It doesn't, which is why the wording should be changed. There is an ambiguity in regards to "link to Republic of Macedonia". BalkanFever 08:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

text: Alright then, my argument is that the spirit of the "law", regardless of the letter, is that "Republic of Macedonia" is the intended "first mention", being the "established" and unambiguous term. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 08:39, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have clarified. This was always intended to mean use of Republic of Macedonia, linked to the article, as first reference. This was not intended to include templates. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:38, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: So then we go by unquestionable clarity - Macedonia. BalkanFever 03:50, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Using "Macedonia" to refer to the country 

message: Amazingly, someone is actually reading this guideline. ;-) From this week's issue of The Economist:
:"Debates about the merits of articles often drag on for weeks, draining energy and taking up far more space than the entries themselves. Such deliberations involve volleys of arcane internal acronyms and references to obscure policies and guidelines, such as WP:APT ("Avoid Peacock Terms"—terms that merely promote the subject, without giving real information) and WP:MOSMAC (a set of guidelines for "Wikipedia articles discussing the Republic of Macedonia and the Province of Macedonia, Greece")." 
Weeks? They understate it - looking at this page's history, we started discussing it all the way back in May 2007... -- ChrisO (talk) 02:13, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: LOL. BalkanFever 02:19, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: And in answer to your question "Are you famous now?", the answer is... sort of. Take a look at this Economist article from last year: "This correspondent’s modest Wikipedia entry was edited this week by an anonymous contributor who posted a series of entertaining but defamatory remarks; a mere four minutes later, another user had removed them." The remover was me. I have a pretty good idea who wrote the latest article, too. ;-) -- ChrisO (talk) 02:23, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: What would be funny is the thought of Matthew Nimetz stumbling upon this :-) BalkanFever 02:36, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: What makes you think he hasn't? ;-) -- ChrisO (talk) 02:38, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe he would have told us more about himself. BalkanFever 03:30, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The poor fellow obviously has a severe conflict of interest problem. Let's help him out and fix that red link. -- ChrisO (talk) 03:39, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, if he can't write about himself in the third person from a neutral point of view then that's a problem for him. But yes, let's help him out. I'll let you start the article if you want - unless of course you are Matthew Nimetz ;-D BalkanFever 04:03, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: "You are Lobby Lud Matthew Nimetz and I claim my five pounds?" I deny everything! Seriously though, I'm off to bed now, so if you want to start the article, please feel free to do so. -- ChrisO (talk) 04:07, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I really can't find much info about him. I'll keep looking, but for now I'll make a subpage where anyone interested can add sources: User:BalkanFever/Matthew Nimetz.  BalkanFever 04:33, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

text: We really don't. Maybe I'm him. Maybe you're him. Maybe it's Fut. Perf. (not sure, but Nimetz does sound a bit German). It doesn't really matter though, but we should have an article on him. BalkanFever 05:28, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I swear I'm not! ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 05:44, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The search continues....BalkanFever 05:50, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Heh, I just stumbled upon this. LOL, just today I spotted that annoying red link in Macedonia naming dispute and clicked it! (Shhh, don't tell them I'm him, they'll delete my article on the grounds of WP:COI) NikoSilver 23:50, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: BTW, BF, your subpage is much more informative. Please transfer the content there, and sorry for creating it before you. If I had read this section I'd have contributed in your subpage. NikoSilver 23:52, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Hehe, I will do that now. BTW, I got the idea of creating a subpage then moving it to the mainspace from you ;-). BalkanFever 11:25, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for doing this, I've added a lot more info. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:56, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

text: My speculation is that it is German, but I actually have no clue. BalkanFever 13:00, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It's German, but ironically it actually has Slavic roots - it's derived from the West Slavic term for "German" (e.g. Polish niemcy). I'd guess Nimetz has Pomeranian or Prussian ancestry. -- ChrisO (talk) 17:29, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Right, the Slavic (not only West Slavic) root for German is derived from mute, and the root for Slav is derived from speech :) --Cameltrader (talk) 09:40, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: ZOMG, ethnic stereotypes! Who would have imagined it? ;-) -- ChrisO (talk) 10:53, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, not really, because the Germans were mute, in the sense that they could not understand, or utter anything comprehensible to, the Slavs. More of an observation than a stereotype. But I heard it was folk etymology anyway. BalkanFever 11:15, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''[[The Economist]]'' discovers WP:MOSMAC 

message: The current exception made for international organisations, stating that their usage should be followed, leads to untenable and absurd results. In one article, applying this rule blindly  recently led to a stage where the clumsy "former Yugoslav Republic" occured in a single short article twenty-seven times. That's a crime against the English language and against our readers.
This needs to be reviewed. The argument that we should follow the naming conventions of international organisations in talking about them was never a a very strong one in the first place. There is no good objective reason why we should have to do so, because in talking about these entities, we don't become their mouthpieces. The exception could be tolerated as long as it was handled responsibly. But if people are hell-bent on taking it to these absurd extremes, something needs to be done. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:41, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There you go again, trying to change the rules simply because you dislike them. Interesting, given that you are so quick to ridicule the dislikes of others. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· (talk) 14:50, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: My opinions are exposed in the relevan discussion of the article FutPer mentions above. I have nothing else to repeat, except for the fact that what he characterizes as an "exception" is a crome against common sense, since this "exception" is the only internationally recognized name of this country. I rest my case!--Yannismarou (talk) 08:51, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

text: Regarding consistency, I should refer you to the Gdansk/Danzig case. There certainly are cases where we shouldn't apply a single name. According to you then, who are the Macedonians? I could also very well support that FYROM should be the name used in all instances since it is the only one accepted by both parties of the dispute. --   Avg    18:12, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Int' Organisations, the n-th time 

message: Here is the Luxembourg (disambiguation) situation. Luxembourg (Belgium) is larger then Luxembourg, but they have no manual or there are any complains by Belgium about the use of Luxembourg. Can this example be used to simplify the Macedonia (disambiguation) and this manual? (Toci (talk) 23:42, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Luxembourg situation 

message: Its an odd situation as both names are fully legal. The matter is still undecided by the two nations nor the international community. Forcing one name or the other would mean breaking Wikipedias NPOV by offending millions of citizens of one of the two nations.  Let individual article contributers decide... don't attempt to censor them until the issue is resolved by the international community.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.161.233.155 (talk) 23:26, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  A singular name violates Wikipedia NPOV 

message: :Can someone described why it is offensive to Greeks because I don't understand how the term can be. Ethnic Macedonians from Greece call themselves Aegeans or Aegean Macedonians, that is different from forcing a name on the Greeks suck as "Grkomani" or "Christian Turk." It is also different from forcing a name on the Macedonians such as "Skopjan" or "BulgaroSkopjan." I believe the only way Aegean Macedonian can be offensive to Greeks is if ethnic Macedonians call Greeks that (due to past Hellenization). Ethnic Macedonians self determinate as "Aegean Macedonian," which cannot be offensive for another ethnic group (Greeks) since the name is not forced upon the latter.
:MY only other argument would be the term Aegean Macedonian shows ethnic Macedonians have lived in Greece in the past and live in Greece in the present. Since the Greek government denies the minority, it may be offensive since it goes against governmental policy (somehow the offensiveness of non-recognition of the minority isn't worried about).
:Anyways, ethnic Macedonians from Greece could also call themselves "Greek Macedonian" (which they have been called in the past) but that would conflict with the regional Greek Macedonians (Greek ethnicity, Macedonian regionally). Mactruth (talk) 14:27, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It is offensive to Greeks because Aegean Macedonia is an irredentist term used specifically to deny Greek sovereignty in Macedonia. Furthermore, if our neighbours to the north call Greek Macedonia "Aegean Macedonia" in order to deny its Greekness, then "Aegean Macedonians" implies that the population of the region is also non-Greek. It is the same as calling only the (non-Bulgarian, non-Serbian) Slavs of Macedonia "Macedonians", to the detriment of the Greeks and other ethnic groups inhabiting Macedonia. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· (talk) 15:26, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Aegean Macedonian 

message: This is why I keep noticing random changes of a few words to t-mobile huh? --UltraMagnus (talk) 19:07, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Are they former Yugoslav? then Yes. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:13, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: No, it's Macedonia without the "Republic of" part. Changed it. Thanks for the notification.--   Avg    19:31, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: A misunderstanding. We should link to the article on the Republic, Republic of Macedonia, but there is no point to changing the section header; no confusion is likely. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:49, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Again, the issue is not only confusion. We've been through that before.--   Avg    19:51, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The only other issue is the desire of nationalist editors (from both contending countries, although we have fewer editors from the Republic) to make gestures for their respective points of view. WP discourages this very strongly; the tendency to abuse this page to justify this sort of point-scoring is why it has never obtained consensus. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:56, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for clearing that up... I try to monitor articles that I have an interest in, but, damn it Jim, Im a geek not a politician! --UltraMagnus (talk) 20:02, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

text: I'm getting tired PMAnderson. There has been a consensus to use RoM. Now you say we're the bad guys since we try to implement this. It's you who is abusing this MoS and in a very bad way.--   Avg    21:40, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Only when it helps clarity or is necessary for disambiguation. There is no consensus for ethnic point-scoring. Fortunately the Greek nationalist faction is small, and the faction consisting of Macedonian Slavs is even smaller. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:04, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You are in no position to proclaim this MoS "rejected". Please refrain from substituting the template, it is getting annoying and you're being counter-productive. --   Avg    00:04, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: On the contrary, all of us are. It would require general consent to make this page accepted as a guideline, and you and ChrisO do not even agree what it means, still less that either meaning should be followed. If there is no hope of consensus for the page, it should be ; that's what the tag says. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:51, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  so.... 

message: I would like to ask, what is the current policy concerning use of the name Republic of Macedonia in non-Greece topics. Anon user continuously replacing Republic of Macedonia with FYROM in the Gazprom article. After I asked to look before editing WP:MOSMAC for guidelines, he responded by replacing again Republic of Macedonia with FYROM adding in edit summary "See UN site". I would like to avoid edit waring and therefore I would like to ask advice what is the correct way to handle this situation? As it is not technically WP:3R still, I posted it here and not in the Incidents notice board. Beagel (talk) 05:26, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: "FYROM" is generally unacceptable and against a very clear consensus. Such edit-warriors should be treated as vandals. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:01, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit waring 

message: United Nations organization is not enough for you?? This little country is FORMALY REGISTERED in the UN as FYROM, this and ONLY this should be its name in any formal document for any use, for the moment. Maybe Wikipedia… this "free" and "intersubjective" online encyclopedia is above the United Nations… Does Mr. Soros paying your bills too?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.166.130.65 (talk) 00:02, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I do. BalkanFever 07:30, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  And, to add to this, BalkanFever is notoriously slow in paying our bills. Last time I billed him for a page move fix I performed, it took weeks until the money arrived. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:26, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That's because I wanted to get the amount just right (in order to avoid a block) but the exchange rate kept adjusting. You Europeans are so picky. BalkanFever 09:14, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Nah, you insisted on putting a non-recognised name of a country in the "description" field. You knew I'd get in trouble with my tax return if I'd accepted that. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:44, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  That must have been the local mail man, Mitko. Sometimes he will "describe" mail that he processes. He only knows three words in English, unfortunately. BalkanFever 09:56, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  United Nations registered name 

message: A straw poll on the application of the name of the Republic of Macedonia/FYROM on the article Greece has started here. Advertisement on this talk page should be most relevant, as it should notify and attract all interested parties. Húsönd 19:32, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Straw poll 

message: Centralized discussion page set up to decide on a comprehensive naming convention about Macedonia-related naming practices is now inviting comments on a number of competing proposals from the community. Please register your opinions on the RfC subpages 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. 
Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:21, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Macedonia Request for Comment