Talk:Catalonia/Archive 2

message: Can the user "Peter Wye" explain exactly why did he unconsideratily revert last night's changes without bothering to discuss any issues he might have in the Talk page first?  If this happens again, I'll stick an NPOV banner on this page, as this page is in need of some serious work.
I have restored my version, and anyone wishing to improve it please leave your argumentations on this page first.
From Peter Wye,
:We've had this discussion before, please see above.
I've read everything on this page.
:I feel that it is correct to use the title of the government and region in both languages.
Please see my previous entry, where I pointed to the Linguistic Policy Act, which states that the only official name of Catalan institutions is the Catalan one.  That is because Catalan linguistic policy (which is modelled after Quebec's) practises positive discrimination towards Catalan and Aranese, unlike that of, e.g., the Basque Country.  Catalan names are also what we use in the expat community.
In addition, you should be aware that the use of Spanish forms for certain Catalan names (such as those of Catalan institutions and politicians) is considered by Catalonians and many Spaniards as a form of Spanish chauvinism, which is why they are not generally used even in the Spanish-speaking media, and part of what makes this article POV in its current form.
:I agree with some of the changes made by this anonymous user.  However, I feel other changes highlight Catalan-nationalist tendencies...
Please point out exactly which ones and why, and how that affects NPOV.
:...that seek to ignore the current, neutral reality that Catalonia is part of the Spanish state.
I shall note that we are writing an article about Catalonia, rather than Catalonia in the context of the Spanish State.  We should branch this out into "Catalonia" and "Catalonia (Autonomous Community)", following the example of the entries for the Basque Country.
:As a general comment, I toned down this article (by adding Spanish names), so as to make it more neutral.
In light of what I've indicated above, regarding the official and social use of those names, as well as the custom in the English-speaking community, I shall remove those again.  Please don't reinsert them unless you've got an irrefutable argument in favour of doing so.
Lastly, please be careful when making edits (says me who just forgot to save this), you've wiped out quite a bit of useful stuff added by user Error last night.  I'll simply revert back to his version because that leaves me happy for the moment. Please advise if any of the other text you dragged back in was intentional (such as the rather verbose explanation of what the Generalitat is, which I had replaced by a short sentence and a link to Generalitat de Catalunya)
Lots more work to do on this article.  Next day I'll copy it to a temporary subpage under Talk, which will be used as the basis for the "Catalonia (Autonomous Community)" entry (which is mostly what the current one deals with anyway).
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:OK, you can't complain that I "unconsideratily" (sic)(I think the word you are looking for in English is "inconsiderably") reverted an edit without justification and then do it yourself.
Grr!  I forgot to save my changes to this Talk page and had to retype them again, that's why the changes to the article went in first.
:I left essentially everything the same as the edits made by this anonymous user, but added the name of the region and government in Spanish. I believe that I have provided sufficient justification for doing so.
OK, now that I've finally provided the reasoning for my changes here, I'll revert one back, assuming your revert was due to this unintended absence of agumentation on my part.  Once again, pls. careful with those changes, you managed to erase Error's contributions a second time.
And now that you know that introducing the name in Spanish is considered as much of a political statement as is, in your view, not having it, I trust we can move onto more useful work.
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Update from 10:25, 12 Oct 2004: Added Italian and Arabic to the list of names of the country in various languages.  Rationale is that Italy has a (tiny) Catalan-speaking minority, and Arabic is the 1st or 2nd language of a significant part of Catalans.
:I deleted these references. This part of Italy never has been considered Catalonia, and Arabic (Berber is more spoken) is not considered a language of there, by both Catalan and Arabic people. ~~
::These languages are not needed.  Chameleon 16:17, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I knew they weren't going to last long.  The reason why I introduced the Arabic form was because I thought it might be of help to speakers of Arabic (also Farsi and Hurdu) to know the correct spelling of the name in the Arabic alphabet (the first a is short and thus unwritten).  Being unconvinced by the arguments for deletion, I might make an attempt to surreptitiously reintroduce it in the course of future edits.  Ideally, of course, one would translate the whole article into Arabic, but I'm not volunteering :)
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Modifications on 2004-10-29
Corrected a couple of misspellings, and rewrote the paragraph about the governing coallition ("Maragall's government will thus be an uncomfortable alliance between...") to correct a factual inaccuracy and eliminate its POV tone by removing assertions not backed by independent references and the accuracy of which was debatable.
More work remains to be done on this section.  To start with, could someone please provide references to support the paragraph that starts "One of the keys to Catalan politics is the fact that Barcelona..."  Seems very unclear to me whether any of the affirmations made there are anything else but the author's personal impression.  And what is that paragraph trying to say, anyway?
As for the passage that goes "Despite his radical background, Pujol..."  What is meant by Pujol's radical background?  Apart from the use of an emotionally charged word, this is the first time I hear someone label Pujol a "radical", and I'm curious as to the reasons why? :)
And now on to the second sentence on the same paragraph.  What is it trying to say by saying that "nationalist factions became increasingly dissatisfied with his rule"?  Whose rule?  Pujol's in Catalonia or Aznar's in Madrid?  And what is a "nationalist faction"?  The 47.3% of parliamentary representation from the fully autoctonous parties CiU and ERC, or the 85.8% of seats occupied by parties defining themselves or their programmes as "catalanist", or something else?  So, was CiU dissatisfied with their own representative's (Pujol) rule, or is CiU not a "nationalist" party, or were these "factions" (including the "faction" governing Catalonia) in fact dissatisfied with Aznar's Spanish government, or exactly what?
In order to improve the above, both from an accuracy, balance, and literary point of view, I suggest that contributions (especially on volatile topics such as politics) be solidly based on (and preferably limited to) factual data, and free of any kind of interpretative comment.  Personally, I think a minimal familiarity with the subject would also be beneficial, in order to lessen the risk of the author misinterpreting the data.
*Speaking as a complete outsider (I'm American, primary language American English) who until this very week had no idea Catalan was even a Romance language, despite being interested generally in learning most of the Romance languages (well... Italian, Spanish Romanian and maybe Portuguese, anyway, though that's somewhat beside the point) - I think to strike a nice balance between "coverage" and "not slanting towards a particular POV", having a section that includes the different names for the region/language in all possible languages, as opposed to just Spanish and Catalan, would be a good idea. Besides, first, the English equivalent terms are also given in this article, yet English is not an official language in the area. And what if somebody who otehrwise can read and write and understand English doesn't happen to know the English term for the region/language/whatever, or the Spanish, or the Catalonian terms? They might be even more fluent in English than other languages but not know the area even exists. I don't know if this is a standard at all or not for articles on countries and regions, but I don't see why it isn't, if it's not, because it would be really handy, and not all that hard to include/verify. 63.21.49.164 20:43, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reverts

message: I feel that this article is being unduly critical of Catalonia.  While I personally do not agree with the separatist pretensions that often filter through this article, the edits that have occurred have in my opinion presented Catalonia in a negative light that it does not deserve.
These edits must be discussed.
Peter Wye 00:32, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Harshness of Article 

message: An anonymous editor recently made cuts without explanation. I have restored several where I can see no justification for the cuts. I let the following cut stand, though, because the content seems polemical, and should not be in the narrative voice of the article. If we want to get something like this in there, we should be citing someone as saying it. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:05, August 4, 2005 (UTC)
:However, this appears to be changing fast - the tendency of foreign companies to set up their headquarters and main factories in Madrid and the increasing popularity of other autonomous regions as destinations for foreign capital has accelerated over the last decade. Catalonia's traditional competitive advantages are being seriously eroded as lack of local and central government investment in public infrastructure (roads, schools, university research, etc.) becomes increasingly apparent. The region's educational system also compares poorly with several others in Spain, and very poorly at the European level. As a result, the risk of Catalonia failing to make a successful transition from an industrial economy to a knowledge-based one is looming ever larger. To make matters worse, various international companies have shifted their plants from Catalonia to former Eastern Bloc countries (where labour expenses are much lower and workers are generally more skilled).
A similar passage must have come in while I wasn't looking, and was, again, recently cut without comment. Again, if someone wants opinionated material like this in the article, they need to cite who says this. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:52, September 4, 2005 (UTC)
: Until recently, Catalonia was generally recognized as the second most economically dynamic region of Spain ( after Madrid ). Recent EU expansion to 25 nations may mean that Catalonia is no longer able to compete at either the technical level or on price with many countries in Eastern Europe - a fear that is widely expressed in specialist publications and in the local business press but which is omitted from official information for foreign investors. Tourism has been a bulwark of the Catalan economy ever since the late 60s. However, it shows signs of flagging, too, as tourists tire of the now overdeveloped and pricy Costa Brava and opt for more exotic destinations in the Caribbean and Indian Ocean. Several British tour operators have already struck large resorts like Lloret de Mar and Salou from their brochures. The local debate on promoting "quality tourism" may have come too late
I made some of theese cuts without explanation (the ones you kept). It was my first contribution, and don't know how to sign. Sorry. I just felt angered for the hostile style against my country. Thanks for your work! --Joan sense nick 22:41, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cut from article 

message: There is an edition war in infobox title. There seems to be some guidelines about writing down only the official name. I do not know how it would apply in this case, and I do not have a strong opinion about. However, I have added the Occitan name, since it's official as well in Val d'Aran. Finally, I would suggest all these anonymous people to go to Spain entry and add all the official languages apart from the Spanish Reino de España. Come on! I would like you to be as insistent as you have been here. Toniher 13:21, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Language war in infobox title