Talk:Macedonia (Greece)/Archive 2

message: DO NOT EDIT OR POST REPLIES TO THIS PAGE. THIS PAGE IS AN ARCHIVE.
This archive page covers approximately the dates between Novemeber 21 2005 and 15 January 2006.
Post replies to the main talk page, copying or summarizing the section you are replying to if necessary.
Please add new archivals to Talk:Macedonia (Greece)/Archive03. (See Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page.) Thank you. Jkelly 23:04, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

message: The majority of Greeks living in Northern Greece are the decendents of Greek (Pontic) refugees who have arrived from Turkey in the 1920's. This has caused major population changes in Greek Macedonia which made the Macedonians a minority in their own land. Although Greeks today argue that the modern Macedonians have no right to use Macedonian symbols because they are the "decendents of Slavs" who have arrived in the 5th century AD, there is no doubt that they inhabited Macedonia before the Greeks. 
Ok Jkelly ?
:Er, no.  The above paragraph is completely unreferenced.  It also presents as fact the claim that much of Northern Greece is the "own land" of Macedonian Slavs.  I would encourage you, instead of adding more unreferenced material to this article, to instead take the approach of cutting to this page any claims that the article makes that are unreferenced.  Jkelly 03:40, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Macedonians 

message: :The official Greek position is that the name Macedonia is Greek and should properly apply only to the region of the historical kingdom of Macedon, which is almost entirely contained within Greece. Thus, Greece uses the term Μακεδονία or Macedonia to refer to that specific part of its northern region.
The above needs to be cited.  Jkelly 03:46, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Paragraph appropriately cut by [[User:Makedon45]] 

message: 27 November 2005, 1 December 2005 now we know who did it... +MATIA  ☎ 00:30, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  well... 

message: I came across a source, citing the book Who are the Macedonians? (Hugh Poulton, 1994), which says: "Macedonia [the geographical region] is not understood to include the peninsula of Khalkidiki". Can anyone confirm this? -- ChrisO 11:15, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps it's the pov of Mr Poulton. You may also find, other definitions for Macedonia, which include Albania, Bulgaria, Thrace, Epirus etc. The definition that we currently have in WP for the geographical region is a third definition, and there are probably more variations. +MATIA  ☎ 12:01, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: some paragraphs have disappeared here too (the adjective macedonian - greek: makedonas - for example). +MATIA  ☎ 12:04, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Khalkidiki not part of Macedonia? 

message: Is this term used anywhere other than by Republic of Macedonia sources and Wikipedia?  Jkelly 02:00, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As I've mentioned on my edit summary, it should either be removed, or placed in a paragraph later in the article (not in the intro) documented and analysed properly (the usage, the "birth" of the term etc). The weasel term "some" must be avoided. It is much worse than the "Macedonians Slavs" term and probably the "Aegean Macedonia" is indeed offensive (see also this about "historical content usage" in .mk domains). +MATIA  ☎ 09:56, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Google returns 14,400 results (see ), so it clearly has some degree of usage. I've moved and reworded the sentence to make the context clearer. -- ChrisO 10:40, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Someday it must be noted in the relavant policy/guideline page that google search can be misleading. I could also provide book sources that use that term. If you want, ChrisO, to include that highly controversial term (if not indeed offensive), add also who created that term, why, when and how it is and was used. +MATIA  ☎ 11:01, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I encourage you though, to check a previous section. +MATIA  ☎ 11:08, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: See what you think of the current version. -- ChrisO 15:27, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that ChrisO's version is better in terms of neutrality, but it would be helpful to start working actual citations into this constellation of articles.  Referencing where this "Aegean Macedonia" expression comes from and who uses it, referencing an actual objection to it, that sort of thing.  WP:CITE goes a long way to helping WP:NPOV arguments.  Jkelly 17:38, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Aegean Macedonia

message: I am not certain that the article's current word usage is ideal.  I do, however, feel very strongly that this article should not present to a hypothetical uninformed reader the idea that there is a language "Macedonian" that is in some ambiguous relationship to this region.  Identifying the language of the Republic of Macedonia as Slavic, I suggest, helps keep it clear to the reader that they, for instance, don't need to learn it to order coffee in Thessaloniki.  There is a significant danger that, because the language is called "Macedonian" that we can unintentionally mislead readers into thinking that there is a continuity between the Ancient Macedonian language and the modern Slavic one.  A long discussion about this would be an odd thing to include in this article, but simply identifying the language as being part of the Slavic family of languages adds some clarity.  To summarize, I want to encourage editors to imagine an uninformed English reader as the audience, not someone well-versed in the history of the region.  Jkelly 17:38, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Mention Slavic origin of Macedonian language

message: Why was the following cut?  "Though mostly mountainous, the region also encompasses the valleys of the Aliákmon, Axiós, Nestos, and Strymon rivers, all of which drain into the Aegean Sea."  Jkelly 23:05, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Umm, it's still there, but reworded. I suggest you re-read the geography section! -- ChrisO 23:08, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Missed it while looking at the diff.  Great map, by the way!  Jkelly 23:12, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Geographic information cut?

message: Can the following paragraph be properly referenced?
"Following the 1913 Treatry of Bucharest, the original Macedonian place names that existed in Aegean Macedonia were gradually changed to Greek names, as well as the surnames of all Macedonians, according to the 1927 Greek Government Legislative Edict. The Greek Government Gazette declared that "there are not any non-Greek people in Greece". This was part of a process called "Hellenization" whereby all the names of Macedonian villages, towns, regions, lakes, rivers, mountains, etc. were changed, together with the surnames of ethnic Macedonians, into Greek-sounding names. For example, the village of "Lerigovo", on the Chalcidice peninsula, was later renamed to "Arnaía" by Greek officials in 1927. Although many modern Greeks will argue that the Greek name was its original name before the Slav invasion of the 5th century AD, it is certain villages, like this one, had never existed in Ancient times but were originally established by the Slavs and other invaders."
Jkelly 17:38, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm going to have to go and actually buy this report, aren't I?  Jkelly 18:04, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Thanks, that worked fine.  Jkelly 01:40, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unsourced addition needing verification 

message: Before its re-incorporation into Greece in 1912, the territory of Greek Macedonia was inhabited by a variety of ethnic groups of whom Greeks were the largest, followed by a large Bulgarian minority. The rest, in order of population, were Turks, Jews, Vlachs, and Albanians. 
Stating that Greeks were the majority ethnic goup in Greek Macedonia before 1912 is false, and besides its unreferenced. Human Rights Watch specifically ststes that Macedonians were the majority []. Also Hugh Poulton of the Indiana University Press states numbers in his book "Who are the Macedonians" in Aegean Macedonia before 1912 as the following: (under Ottoman Rule)
326,426 Macedonians,
40,921 Muslim Macedonians,
289,973 Turks,
4,240 Christian Turks,
2,112 Circassians,
240,019 Christian Greeks,
13,753 Muslim Greeks,
5584 Muslim Albanians,
3,291 Christain Albanians,
45,457 Christain Vlachs,
3,500 Muslim Vlachs,
29,803 Roma Gypsies,
8,100 others.
Please stop changing the paragraph because Greeks werent the majority until the 1920's during the massive population changes and lets keep it at the original referenced paragraph. -user: Makedon45
::Human Rights Watch specifically states that Macedonians were the majority  Stop. you have now falsified serveral supposed references. do you think people don't read them? 
::a) 326,426 of 1,073,549 does not make a majority, it makes less than a third. 
::b) where are the Bulgarians in these numbers? well? You and I and everyone who has looked at this know they are included in  the Macedonians number.
::c) why are they included in the Macedonian number? hmmm. Well Human rights wacth is simply statingth claim of a nationalist scholar based in Skopje, Todor  Simovski, writing at the height of the cold war (which included a pissing contest between Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. ( Simovski denied any Bulgarian nationality, even those who claimed to be Bulgarian.
::d) You are forgetting that a huge number of those "macedonians" opted for Bulgarian citizenship and were replaced by Greeks mutually booted otu of Bulgaria.
::e) you are also forgetting the Greeks ejected from what is now Republic of macedonia. where do you think they went? 
DaveHM 04:54, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Is the relevent part of Poulton's book also available online?  Jkelly 01:42, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I have added actual numbers and used Wikipedia:Footnotes-style citations.  Jkelly 01:58, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: for goodness sakes Mr. Kelly, you have three sources all of which go to the same original Macednonian nationlist's numbers! simovski, poulton using simovski and HRW using simovski!DaveHM 04:54, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That is precisely the case.  Jkelly 04:59, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Some more data points are provided in the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, which is online here . It includes a fair amount of contemporary demographic data, including the statement that "The purely Greek population of Macedonia may possibly be estimated at a quarter of a million." Do note, though, that the article is about Macedonia as a whole (including parts of modern Bulgarian and RoM territory), not just about Greek Macedonia. -- ChrisO 20:43, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Exactly, the article is about the entire region, half of which is not in Greece but Republic of Macdonia or Bulgaria. Ulness you would use these statistics to show half of the Republic of Macedonia and part of Bulgara are mostly Greek, they are meaningless.DaveHM 04:54, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: changes by 72.137.187.99 

message: ::I have added actual numbers and used Wikipedia:Footnotes-style citations.  Jkelly 01:58, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: for goodness sakes Mr. Kelly, you have three sources all of which go to the same original Macednonian nationlist's numbers! simovski, poulton using simovski and HRW using simovski!DaveHM 04:54, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That is precisely the case.  Jkelly 04:59, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[User:Jkelly]]'s use of source 

message: *You didn't have to include numbers in the article, i was just trying to prove my point to 72.137.187.99.
Yes, Poulton's book is available online at google book search, only through an existing g-mail account.
:Some more data points are provided in the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, which is online here . It includes a fair amount of contemporary demographic data, including the statement that "The purely Greek population of Macedonia may possibly be estimated at a quarter of a million." Do note, though, that the article is about Macedonia as a whole (including parts of modern Bulgarian and RoM territory), not just about Greek Macedonia. -- ChrisO 20:43, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Exactly, the article is about the entire region, half of which is not in Greece but Republic of Macdonia or Bulgaria. Ulness you would use these statistics to show half of the Republic of Macedonia and part of Bulgara are mostly Greek, they are meaningless.DaveHM 04:54, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other data to consider 

message: Before its re-incorporation into Greece in 1912, the territory of Greek Macedonia had a total population of slightly more than one million people, of which more than 360,000 were Macedonian Slavs – whose allegiance was claimed by Bulgarian and Serbian nationalists.
You don't expect me to agree this is neutral after we've discussed it already, do you? I was clear that you can't doubtlessly prove whether the population was Macedonian Slavs or Bulgarians by 1912. I mentioned the Demographic history of Macedonia article two times already, where this is explained.  → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → Talk 18:24, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. I think the wording I suggested earlier is much safer - call them Slavs and say that their allegiance was contested three ways (Bulgarian/Serbian/Macedonian). If the Macedonians didn't consistently identify themselves as Macedonians at this time, we can't call them that. If we did we would be anachronistically imposing a modern ethnic identity on them. -- ChrisO 00:29, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I suggest that we take the Simovski statistics and add them to the table at Demographic history of Macedonia.  After that is done, we rephrase the sentence here to give our readers a sense of both high and low numbers, and what they represent, and make an explicit cross-reference to that article.  If there is agreement about this, please make sure that the referencing to Simovski is perserved in this re-arrangement.  Comments?  Jkelly 18:31, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, the Slavs wording is much more appropriate. One minor issue is that the Serbian claim isn't considered as serious as the other two POVs, but it could stay, since it indeed existed some time ago. The addition of high and low numbers seems fine too. I'm not sure about including my namesake Simovski's data on the Demographic history of Macedonia article, it's modern research and a bit doesn't fit with all those other censuses from a different period. But I'm not firmly contra.  → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → Talk 18:49, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

text: It's definitely a serious improvement from what the section used to look like. Keep up the good work!  → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → Talk 08:42, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Restored version issues 

message: I have attempted a carefully-sourced re-write of the demographics section's beginning.  I'd like to hear some more feedback, and would be delighted if that happened on this Talk page instead of in edit summaries.  Note that the bolding is done because Demographic history of Macedonia is an "explicit cross-reference" per the WP:MOS, and not for purposes of emphasis.  Jkelly 02:04, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's definitely a serious improvement from what the section used to look like. Keep up the good work!  → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → Talk 08:42, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Attempt to fix over-reliance on Simovski 

message: Hi.  As much fun as having most of our conversation in edit-summary boxes is, I'd like to remind people that the Talk page exists for discussing, and that the world will not end if the article is "wrong" for a little while.  We have  number of discussions going on here, and the constant changing of the article makes it hard to keep track of what is going on.  And, if you must revert, please don't blank half of the article doing it.  Thanks.  Jkelly 23:52, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Friendly reminder

message: Should it be in the article or not?  I removed it as needing some discussion.  I also removed the "Former Yugoslavian" identifier this time 'round, but remain concerned about misleading the unaware reader.  Sun or no Sun?  Who wants what?  Jkelly 23:52, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see much point in including it. The image is asserted to be part of a flag, but the catch is that the flag has absolutely no official status - it's just something that local nationalists ran up in the mid-1990s. We should also bear in mind that the page is already well loaded with images, and it was starting to get a bit messy before you removed the image. Overall, I don't think including the sun delivers much value. -- ChrisO 00:18, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Please avoid the term nationalists, I have a problem when I read it, it's offensive and your guess about '90s is wrong. Unless you have in your mind the fake-banknotes with the White Tower that were printed in that era at RoM. The flag was used since the 1980s (yes before RoM "designed" the same flag in red background) but I cannot verify, yet, it's status. +MATIA  ☎ 00:30, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Flags of the World has some information - see http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/gr-maced.html . -- ChrisO 23:01, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I saw it few hours ago, today. But I do remember its use from the mid-80s and not the mid-90s. Flags of the world is a good site in general, but it's content depends on the editors (hm that sounds familiar for a wikiholic) :) +MATIA  ☎ 23:20, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

text: That's great.  Let us know what the research turns up.  Jkelly 16:55, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: An anon (User:Nestore, I think) keeps adding the Vergina Sun image. Can we wait until our Greek friends have confirmed its status before it gets put into the article? WP:CITE and all that... -- ChrisO 11:32, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Thanks, that's useful info. I think we can add it to Vergina Sun. Are you any further forward in discovering whether it's used as an official flag or symbol by whatever regional authority exists in the periphery? ChrisO 22:23, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As I said before our search isn't finished, I hope I can find more searching libraries and newspaper archives of the 1980s. +MATIA  ☎ 22:55, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

text: What are these pictures of?  Are they pictures of government buildings?  It's a shame that the flag in question is not more clearly visible.  Jkelly 18:14, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: They are in front of the Kozani Prefecture, the local administration hierarchy is periphery, prefecture and the municipalities. +MATIA  ☎ 18:47, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Sun image

message: I note that Makedon45 added a lengthy history section to the article. I don't see much point in including this - it's partly drawn from and partly a POV fork of the history that's already at Macedonia (region). I've added a link from this article to the history section of that article. Rather than create two separate, possibly duplicate and possibly conflicting histories, let's ensure that we have a reasonably good history that we can link to from the other Macedonia-related articles. There may be a need for a post-1912 history focusing solely on Greek Macedonia, but there's surely no need to fork or duplicate the pre-1912 history that we already have. -- ChrisO 00:23, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Nope, again. An anonymous user and User:Makedonas added many paragraphs, User:Makedon45 repeatedly removed them. User:Makedon45 added the slavic names, the "hellenization", the Simovski guy and the claim that there were MacSlavs (and not MacGreeks or whatever else) in 1912. And I added the tag needed for those fringe views (they are not even minority view). +MATIA  ☎ 00:33, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: History section

message: *before and after
**"On the Slavic side" to "Yugoslav side"
**"replacing Greek and Turkish place and surnames occurred." to "replacing non-Slavic (mostly Turkish) place names occurred."
+MATIA  ☎ 22:41, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No, Slavic names were attached to some settlements in southern Bulgaria too, not only Yugoslavia. In our case, I think they were mostly Turkish, but there were also a number of Greek ones (Stanimaka is the old Greek name for Asenovgrad and Gotse Delchev was once known as Nevrokop — Νευροκόπι, for example).  → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → Talk 17:51, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Todor, There's a Nevrokopi in Northern Greece, but I don't know anything about that place :) +MATIA  ☎ 19:32, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

text: "There's no reference..." Let me remind that even himself (Makedon45) said that Bitola was named Monastir. But Monastir is the greek Monastiri, the turkish name was Manastir... His edits make this article pro-RoM and inaccurate. (I still can't believe that we site Simovski here, his fringe theory can't even fit in Demographics of Macedonia, and here certainly has no place) +MATIA  ☎ 22:24, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: MATIA, do you actually refuse here to be mentioned some sources that don't fit you well? Regards, Bomac 22:47, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Read the talk page, think about these and then judge, Bomac. Thanks. +MATIA  ☎ 23:15, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name-changes (By who and from what?) 

message: This is an article on the Greek region of Macedonia. Accordingly, it is offensive to the majority of Greeks when the subject Slavic ethnic group is referred to as simply "Macedonians". A qualifier is needed, and using "Slavic Macedonians" or "Macedonian Slavs" is the least Wikipedia could do in order to remain at the very least neutral.
Again, this is an article about a modern region of GREECE...Wikipedia should not have any part in provoking Greeks when they want to read about their own country.
If you are writing an article about the country that the United Nations calls FYROM, by all means, refer to their ethnic majority as "Macedonians". Please, however, be sensitive to the Greek POV.
I will continue to edit any reference to ethnic “Macedonians” to “Slavic Macedonians”. Stop offending Greeks! --PrudenceBumpkin 05:57, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with the above said. I must remind everybody that Wikipedia:Naming conflict applies here, as well - that means that we should use the ethnic group's self-identifying term "Macedonians". That policy applies to every Wikipedia article, including articles related to Greece (these are not Greek articles, in the sense that Greeks do not own them somehow). --FlavrSavr 16:13, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Since they are many uses of the term "Macedonian", when need a disambiguation between them. The most accurate term for the ethnic group in question, IMHO, is ethnic Macedonians, which is used by the Greek Helsinki Watch, as well. There are many Macedonians, but only this ethnic group uses it as an ethnic identifier. --FlavrSavr 16:13, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

text: However, within Greece, this ethnic group is labeled "Slavs", and within Greece it is almost unthinkable (with the notable exception of the Greek Helsinki Watch) to refer to this ethnic group as "ethnic Macedonians". The ethnic majority of the Greek province of Macedonia is Greek, and they also have a strong regional Macedonian identity, and moreover, they feel they are the only true Macedonians. Some sources, such as Ethnologue, take this Greek sensitivity into consideration when referring to ethnic Macedonians living in Greece, so they seem to avoid "ethnic", and replace it with "Slav" or "Slavic", although, technically - "Slavic Macedonian" could also mean a Bulgarian living in Macedonia (Greece). Should we follow their example? Maybe - that would spare us from intense future edit wars. Is it just, or is it accurate? As a ethnic Macedonian myself, I feel to much involved and biased to answer that question. I'll leave it to neutral editors to decide on this controversial issue. Regards to all, I hope I haven't offended anyone. --FlavrSavr 16:13, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Suggestion - I propose that both terms be indoctrined.  Say what they call themselves AND what Greeks call them.  Whilst this may make the article slightly longer, it could be done with some kind of a disclaimer once at the top.  In this case, I believe that it would be most appropriate to default to what the majority view is, which is what the Greeks view them, i.e. Slavic Macedonians.  The disclaimer could say, for example "The country of Greeks refer to these people as Slavic Macedonians, while they call themselves Macedonians.  This encyclopaedic article will use the term Slavic Macedonians, as that is the terminology used by the majority".  Alternately, we could use both names in every spot in the article. Zordrac  (talk) Wishy Washy  Darwikinian Eventualist 13:14, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Slavic Macedonians 

message: Some of the links pertain to Macedonia (region), or in Foreign relations of the Republic of Macedonia. These should be removed from here. Andreas 18:51, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links