Talk:Myanmar/Archive 5

message: This section needs to be examined.  The first paragraph has way too many differing points to be cohesive.  For example, one sentence says that "Myanmar’s comedian Zaganar and star Kyaw Thu brought food and water to the monks."  Although it is an interesting tidbit, it seems out of place in the abbreviated article section. Achika54 18:55, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Or the nazi-germany government...Slipzen 00:14, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: 20,000 Monks Protest

message: This kind of sentence "It is somewhat smaller than the US state of Texas and slightly larger than Afghanistan" is ridiculous.  This is Wikipedia not Americanpedia and we don't need every non-American country, city or region to be compared to an American state just because many Americans are so stupid that they can't understand sizes quoted in square kilometres or square miles.  I'm just relieved that you don't refer to London as "London, England" or Slovakia as "Slovakia, which is in Europe" (like frequently happens on US TV).  Let's develop a proper encyclopaedia and not a fact book for stupid people. 213.230.130.54 18:50, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Silly comparisons 

message: Are we going to retitle this article, or are we going to start a new one under the Burma title, a la the Soviet Union and Russian Federation? --Hemlock Martinis 20:05, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Move it now, as below. The Russian Federation is not the same thing as the Soviet Union; it used to be a subset. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:50, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What happens if the junta is overthrown? 

message: Is this information corroborated by other sources? --Espoo 02:07, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, we know that many former Chinese Nationalists from when Chinese Communists came to power fled to northern Burma and went on to the drug trade.  - According to Prof Alfred McCoy in his "The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade" as well as other sources. 67.53.78.15 00:31, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  CIA heroin connection? 

message: I'd like to protest against the use of the term "former British occupied territories" in the history section as that is not a neutral PoV. Wiktionary, which I think is the best source for how words should be used in Wikipedia, defines occupation in that sense as control by a hostile army, and so while the British Army was certainly occupying territory during the Anglo-Burmese wars, a permenant and recognised civil administration can never occupy territory. And I think saying British colonialism was overtly hostile is not entirely neutral. Stupid, mismanaged, insensitive, yes. No dispute there. But not universally "hostile." Wiktionary says "belonging to an enemy, showing the disposition of an enemy" (again, can't apply after Anglo-Burmese wars), "showing ill will and malevolance, or a desire to thwart or injure" (I've yet to see proof that mainstream colonialists were in any way malevolant. Never ascribe to malice what could be ascribed to mere stupity), "occupied by an enemy or enemies" (bit of a loop, isn't it?), "inimical, unfriendly" (this one is the only one even debatable, but doesn't get past my civil administration argument.
For a comparison, since the United States has its borders recognised almost universaly, but is built on land annexed from the original inhabitants, the entire country should be declared "occupied" unless this is changed. More importantly, since the Burmese annexed independant kingdoms several times, a lot of Burmese territory was "occupied" before Britain turned up.
And another thing: "Kipling’s poem 'Mandalay' is now all that most people in Britain remember of Myanmar’s difficult and often brutal colonisation." That's I'd like a source on that, because I live in Edinburgh and I can say with confidence that it's an outright lie. Most people here either have absolutely no idea where Burma is, know about it from the recent events but have never heard "The Road to Mandalay", or are educated folks who know plenty about Burma. That sentence is not neutral, is aseemingly innaccurate, and needs a citation.
An Anonymous Contributor.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.192.125.107 (talk) 10:26, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting.  How would you approach the use of the term "Occupied [Palestinian] Territories" then, to describe the situation with Israel?  Tomertalk 05:26, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: One can not compare the situation of military occupations/annexations before and after the introduction of the IV Geneva Convention. Military occupation used to end when military law ended and a civilian law was introduced. Today this is no longer the case because annexations are not accepted as lawful under international law unless the population of the occupied territory clearly express a wish to succeed from the state to which they belong.  So today a territory remains occupied even if the occupier declares an annexation and puts in a civilian government. --Philip Baird Shearer 13:00, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: By your definition, then, the occupation of the "Occupied [Palestinian] Territories" ended in 1967 (several years before the term came into widespread use), since Jordan annexed the West Bank, while Israel has not.  I think this pretty clearly demonstrates the extent to which political agendas drive usage in the media, including naming, as I've commented on elsewhere on this page.  Tomertalk 17:15, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not my definition. Israel occupies the West Bank (Israel agrees that it does). International opinion is that Israel is also still in military occupation of East Jerusalem, something which Israel does not agree on as it says the capital of the State of Israel. BTW the the term territory is not a new one it has been around a very long time when describing issues like this one (see paragraph one of the The Palestine Mandate "to entrust to a Mandatory selected by the said Powers the administration of the territory of Palestine, which formerly belonged to the Turkish Empire". --Philip Baird Shearer 00:34, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What you're talking about has nothing to do with the point I was making, namely, that nobody ever called the territories "Occupied" when they were occupied by Jordan and Egypt, and, in the case of the WB, annexed by Jordan.  They only became "Occupied [Palestinian] Territories" in 1967.  The point I was making had nothing to do with status of the territories, legality of occupation or annexation, etc.  It had exclusively to do with the way that political agendas drive language usage in the media and how that "trickles down", if you will, to popular usage.  The relevance here, of course, as I have said elsewhere, is that people get much more media exposure to the Israelis vs. non-Israeli Arabs fracas than they do to the ongoing situation in Burma.  The media's adoption of the term "Occupied [Palestinian] Territories" has, consequently, had a much greater impact on popular usage not only because of the bizarrely disproportionate (one might say "obsessive") amount of coverage given to Israel and her neighbors, as opposed to Burma...but also because the media's adoption of the junta's respelling has been much less uniform...driven, I maintain, by the political views of journalists and editors.  Nothing about what I said should be misconstrued as a desire to go off on a tangent about the situation in the Middle East, however, my sole purpose was to point out the relationship between journalists' politics and their consequent usage, and the further relationship between what the media obsesses about and what goes from media usage to popular usage.  Tomertalk 01:47, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

text: I was asking a bit tongue-in-cheek.  The term "occupied" is used here, just as it is in the case of what I referred to, to elicit an emotional response rather than a rational response.  The relevance comes in in relation to my discussion higher up the page where I point out that the media warp public perception according to their own viewpoint.  This discussion has departed, almost from the beginning, from its intended direction because of more of the same.  Calling Burma "former British occupied territories" clearly falls under the rubric of sensationalism, but people too often only recognize sensationalism when it contradicts their own worldview, as has now clearly been demonstrated.  Tomertalk 15:51, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Occupation" 

message: Please only add information from reliable sources to the lists below. These include not only scholarly and academic publications, government websites, and reference works but obviously also reputable media sources. In a changing situation, in other words always, the media is usually able to provide more up-to-date and in that sense more reliable information on current use of a term than even scholarly publications if these are not very recent. 
* Some reliable sources state or imply that English use of Myanmar is still so rare in common usage that it is not understood by most English speakers and that it is still so rare or new even among educated speakers that at least 6(!) variant English pronunciations exist (in each dialect of English). A linguist will be able to tell us if this is proof that the term is not really yet established as an English word.
http://www.onelook.com/?loc=bm3&w=myanmar 
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/myanmar http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/cgi-bin/cmudict?in=myanmar&stress=-s#lookup 
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/burma.htm (makes Firefox freeze up) says: "It used to be the Union of Burma and even now most people outside of the country call it Burma"
* Below is a list of academic sites, institutes, and articles that use only or mainly B in official names and institutes or in articles, which is a strong indication that Myanmar is not accepted by scholars as the correct English term for the country. The world's only peer-reviewed printed research journal on Burma published outside of Burma is called the Journal of Burma Studies and was established in 1996, 7 years after the junta changed the name.
Center for Burma Studies
Journal of Burma Studies "The world's only peer-reviewed printed research journal on Burma published outside of Burma/ Myanmar. The Journal of Burma Studies was established in March 1996" 
University of Texas Libraries 
Cornell 
http://web.soas.ac.uk/burma/index.html
http://southasia.uchicago.edu
http://www.cis.yale.edu/seas/index.htm
http://www.indiana.edu/~bsa/burma.html
http://library.dartmouth.edu/guides/sub.php?page_id=3926&subject_id=25§ion_id=1
"For example, you want books about Myanmar, but does the catalog use "Myanmar" or "Burma"? If you do a subject search for "Myanmar," click here to see what happens."  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Espoo (talk • contribs) 10:18, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  reliable sources on English use of ''Myanmar'' and ''Burma'' and on the legality and validity of the name change 

message: No govermnent website nor mention of physical server locations of it nor of the "official Myanmar wireless internet service provider" http://www.myanma.net/ --Espoo 11:46, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  missing external links and relevant info 

message: This paragraph is only one sentence, and appears to be a list of newspaper headlines or something similar. I have to go to a class, but would suggest that someone rewrite this in a coherent fashion. Natalie 14:07, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Does this section belong under Economy? My understanding is that the protest was in regard to political suppression and a lack of democratic processes, not economic concerns. TechBear 16:40, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The paragraph I'm thinking of begins "On 29 September 2007, tourists vanished from Myanmar;" and continues on for eight more lines with only one period. I don't think it, in it's current form at least, belongs anywhere since it appears to be a bunch of newspaper headlines strung together as prose. I'm working on it. Natalie 19:23, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've ended up just cutting the whole paragraph, since it had no coherent narrative. The paragraph immediately above it has a similar problem, and someone (presumably the writer) provided Google News search results as a reference, which definitely suggests they were just copying newspaper headlines in a list. Aside from the complete lack of readability, this would also constitute copyright infringement. I don' want to just erase most of the section, though, so I'm going to try to copy some from the main article. Natalie 19:29, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  last paragraph of 20,000 monks protest section 

message: :Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *Support or *Oppose, then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.
*Support. It has been 14 years since the name Myanmar became standard in U.S.-published World Atlases. Georgia guy 23:39, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Survey

message: I am not from English wikipedia and I'm not English speaker too. So I can say, that You made stupid and political implication thing, when removed page to Burma. You should know, that English language is international and You should use international terms too. You changed page History of Myanmar and wrote, that "Pegu forces out of northern Burma by 1753, and by 1759" (and a lot of more false things). You should remember that Myanmar is old ancient word, and Burma was only on XIX century (British colonial times) and 1948-1989 m. (independent country, but only in English language, in Myanmar (Burmese) language it was always "Myanma"). I think wikipedia is encyclopaedia, and You shouldn't use term Burma to identify with protesters (it is a task for the media.)--84.240.6.224 09:59, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Moscow, is written Москва in Russian and is romanized as Moskva.  This doesn't mean that we will start changing the name of the Moscow article to Moskva, nor the Germany article to Deutschland, nor the Netherlands article to Nederland, etc.  The native naming does not impact the naming of an article in the English language.--Burzum 22:04, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: These examples keep getting brought up but they miss the key point - there have never been any drives to use "Moskva", "Deutschland" or "Nederland" in English and so naturally they're hardly ever used in English and are not considered alternative name forms in English for Moscow, Germany and the Netherlands. There have, however, been drives to use "Myanmar", "Côte d'Ivoire", "Yangon", "Gdańsk", "Torino" and "Kyiv" for those respective places (amongst others), to the point that all these names are now in use in English as alternatives to "Burma", "Ivory Coast", "Rangoon", "Danzig", "Turin", "Kiev" and so forth. Unsurprisingly they account for several of the longest running naming disputes on Wikipedia (and those six currently stand at 3:3 in terms of article location) because both terms are now used in English and "this is the English Wikipedia so we should use the English name" no longer means anything in such discussions. Timrollpickering 22:19, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I am interested to know which mainstream English language newspapers use "Gdańsk" rather than "Gdansk". --Philip Baird Shearer 06:55, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The distinction is often rarely made in English as the language rarely uses diacritics and their limited availability in print, typewriters and word processors have encouraged a habit of dropping them. So to be honest I doubt most people are making a distinction one way or the other on this one (and for that matter many other placenames and people's names). But the key point is not between whether they use "Gdańsk" or "Gdansk" but whether or not they use it instead of "Danzig". Timrollpickering 08:17, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

text: If History of Myanmar has mistakes or deceit in it, please, by all means, go correct the mistakes and deceit, using citations.  Tempshill 22:30, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Another comment: FWIW -- Google search results (hl=en): Burma 16,400,000 hits, Myanmar 29,800,000 hits. (your mileage may vary) -- Boracay Bill 00:01, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the reason is that all news organizations in the US follow the AP Stylebook on naming conventions, and if it says to use Myanmar then several thousands of newspapers will use it, filling up the Googler with Myanmar.  And of course every story from the AP itself is rehosted several thousand times on the web, multiplying each usage.  Tempshill 22:30, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The confusion seems adequately presented on the article. The article is called Burma, and yet the opening line says the official name is Myanmar. Yep, the confusion is well presented. GoodDay 21:11, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Arbitary section break

message: It is really bad form to renmove a POV tag without resolving the dispute. There clearly was no consensus to change the name of the article and the only reason it cant be changed back is because a vandal messesd up the myanmar page, SqueakBox 19:25, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: 75% of people supported the move to Burma. Sounds like consensus to me.  --Hemlock Martinis 20:39, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Consensus doesn't mean majority, nor does it mean super-majority.  It means that all concerns have been addressed, and that everyone agrees that we're going with the best solution available.  It's an ideal we strive for, and it has not been achieved on this page. -GTBacchus(talk) 21:08, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What is your major concern? --Philip Baird Shearer 00:23, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My major concern?  Did I say I had one?  I was just pointing out that 75% isn't a consensus.  I might add (lest I seem to pick on only one side) that SqueakBox also erred above when he suggested that whoever edited the Myanmar page, preventing a quick move back, is a "vandal".  That's a totally out of line accusation against a good-faith editor.  Duja added a redirect category to the page, which was entirely appropriate, and that's what made a quick move back impossible.  Calling that vandalism is inaccurate and uncivil. -GTBacchus(talk) 02:11, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Ha! Where did you get 75% from? It was much closer to 50/50. Now that Myanmar isn't in the news as much as it was a week ago, it seems more and more users are commenting in favor of Myanmar. I think this is because a lot of the people who supported "Burma" were anons and/or politically motivated people who don't actually care about the quality of WP or what's in the article. --Tocino 23:39, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's quite simple. I counted up the comments (60), then counted up the supports (46), then divided the supports by the total number of comments.--Hemlock Martinis 00:21, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Tocino, you may be right about "a lot of the people" who supported the name change, but this round is over.  It's best to let it be for a while, and in a few months, it could be appropriate to reopen the discussion. -GTBacchus(talk) 02:11, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't agree with that - there's no reason to have a rest period during which debate should be stifled.  Tempshill 22:31, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't favor "stifling" any debate.  Perhaps it would have been better for me to say that we should give it some time before opening a formal move request again, as it will likely generate more heat than light.  I won't tell anybody what not to talk about, although I'm curious as to just what productive line of discussion is open to us at this point. -GTBacchus(talk) 01:00, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV

message: I've moved most of the subpages. Someone else might want to check and make sure there are none that have been missed Nil Einne 06:54, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Subpages 

message: Please participate in this more general discussion on WP:NAME. --Espoo 09:25, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You know, someone brought up that Burma (Myanmar) or, alternatively, Myanmar (Burma) might be the best title for the article.  (There will then be a fight on which one goes first.)  I agree that the country is in a unique situation AFAIK at the moment and I don't think there is any choice that is actually correct.  Tempshill 22:37, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well quite apart from the fact that the inclusion of words in brackets normally signifies disambiguation (and I don't think anyone's arguing that this country is not the primary use for either "Burma" or "Myanmar"), compromise name forms rarely get anywhere. They're not indicative of the usage and this form still "takes sides" by implying one is superior to the other and we'd have as much discussion over which should come first with many suggesting removing the second name altogether. Plus this does open up wider discussion - why allow it for Myanmar but not for Gdansk, Kiev and other places where there's been endless debate over the article location? Timrollpickering 22:43, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  avoiding offensive names 

message: The capital is Yangon. I've been there. Everyone pronounces it that way. Using Rangoon is like using Calcutta and Bombay where Kolkata and Mumbai are preferred, isn't it? Or Peking and Beijing? I suggest that Yangon be used throughout the article. -- Evertype·✆ 09:46, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually I heard that people in Mumbai want to change it back to Bombay... Gustav von Humpelschmumpel 12:55, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, the capital was moved from Yangon/Rangoon to some backcountry in the middle of nowhere called Naypyidaw, look it up if you don't believe me. 68.36.214.143 16:42, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Beyond Rangoon