Talk:Freedom in the World

message: I don't see why the neutrality of this article is disputed. The actual ranking itself may be biased, but that does not mean the article that merely lists the results is biased. If this article is called "Ranking of freedom" and it pretended Freedom House was the sole authority on freedom, then it would be biased, but it isn't. Hypothetically speaking if Adolph Hitler made a freedom ranking and it was notable enough, then it would deserve an article here. That doesn't mean the ranking itself is neutral.
Freedom House is a notable ranking because it is taken seriously by some, and besides the Economist's Index of Democracy there isn't an "overall" (i.e. not press or economic") rating out there: see list. If Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch wants to make their own rankings, they'll be listed there too - but they haven't as far as I know.
From the list Freedom House appears to be credible because their rankings correlate with the other rankings. Someone pointed out that having the US as "free" and Russia as "not free" is biased, but the other indices rank Russia lower than the US too. Are we going to say that the Canadian Fraser Institute, French Reporters Without Borders, and British The Economist are run by American "neocons" too? I should also point out that if you look at their country reports, they're well aware of Gitmo and the Patriot Act, it's not like they're just heaping praise on the US. 
Hypertall (talk) 02:34, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: This article is not biased

message: I do not know if I have to change it since I did not put it in the "electoral democracy" definition in "Freedom in the World 2007", and there was no link to check it, so I put it here: 
"3. Regularly contested elections conducted in conditions of ballot secrecy, reasonable ballot security, and in the absence of massive voter fraud that yields results that are unrepresentative of the public will;"
No dae 12:11, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "Unrepresentative" in definition of democracy

message: I think the problem with this article is the second paragraph.  It is essentially just a quote from Freedom House and as such makes the article biased in favour of Freedom House.  The paragraph should either be removed or another paragraph quoting an alternative source should be introduced. Otherwise the article looks like a mouthpiece for Freedom House's POV. Pexise 21:58, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no prohibition in Wikipedia against such quoting. If you want to clarify, you might add, "According to Freedom House..."Ultramarine 22:01, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That is not the point, I am questioning whether the paragraph belongs in this article. Pexise 22:04, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: NPOV states that all views should be presented. That includes FHs view. If you want to add other views, that fine.Ultramarine 22:05, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Could someone other than Ultramarine offer their opinion on this?  I am concerned that Ultramarine does not have a neutral stance concerning this topic (see discussion on Freedom House entry.) Pexise 08:50, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Spare me the ad hominem. What is important is Wikipedia policy, like WP:NPOV, not the personal opinions of anonymous Wikipedia editors, my own or others.Ultramarine 09:01, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Me: 'That is not the point, I am questioning whether the paragraph belongs in this article.'Pexise 09:49, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Me: 'Could someone other than Ultramarine offer their opinion on this?' Pexise 09:49, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You have offered no explanation for why a valid view should be removed. Looking at the edits you have made in Wikipedia, they have only been about criticizing FH, nothing else, so I am also concerned that you do "not have a neutral stance concerning this topic"Ultramarine 09:54, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

text: As a side note, while Freedom House as a whole gets a lot of its money from the Government, the Freedom in the World report is privately funded, not government funded.  So this discussion of government funding seems particularly moot here, and like it belongs in the main article. 63.138.81.98 16:59, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: BTW - it is interesting that you mention that Freedom in World is privately funded, indeed making the discussion about govternment funding even less relevant here.  Although I would argue that this does not make FITW an 'independent' piece of research - far from it. Pexise 08:41, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Second paragraph introduces bias

message: It says this in the intro, does it need to be in EVERY caption for the maps? Seems a little POV to me "It is US-based, so take it with a grain of salt".  user:Pzg Ratzinger
:Indeed, once in the intro is enough. —Nightstallion (?) 19:02, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "predominately US-funded"

message: What about countries with de-facto one=party systems? Would South Africa not qualify? There is little powersharing mechanisms in that country and the ANC dominates all organs of state. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.41.142.242 (talk) 10:42, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: de-facto single party states

message: Why is russia not even considerd partly free?
* The article is somewhat misleading, apparently Freedom House is a neo-conservative organization.  Nothing Russia or Cuba can do will put them on good terms with neo-conservatives.  Basically, it's more useful as a measurement of agreement with neo-conservative politics than actual freedom.  I'm not really convinced that this is a balanced study at all, why is America given top marks even after passing things like the Patriot Act and the alleged voting fraud of the 2004 elections?  Oh yeah, FREEDOM!!!!  Does this really belong on Wikipedia?  Too POV.   ≈Superbeatles™  01:12, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Regarding why Russia is considered unfree, see this:  Other nations can be found by changing the drop-down choice.Ultramarine 09:24, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

text: It is a respected list often used in research on democracy.Ultramarine 19:04, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

text: This is ridiculous.  It does not need to have bias tags "all over it."  Other articles are not treated like that.  If someone has sources that differ from Freedom House, please write it into the criticism section on Freedom House's page.  As for it being a conservative organization, I will remind all that it was founded by by liberal lions like Eleanor Roosevelt and has used the same criteria for decades (since before neocons had any influence in D.C. or elsewhere.  --Tjss(Talk) 21:24, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Russia 

message: Most Countries in Western Europe (like Britain), plus some others, like Canada and Australia have bans on hate speech, as well as on some forms of demonstrations and rallies along similar lines. There is a page on Wikipedia that mentions this. Wouldn't Countries with laws such as those be less than entireley free if certain speech is prohibited?205.188.116.9 03:46, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  hate speech ban 

message: While understanding that any page on Wikipedia can be edited, I don't really see a need for any serious editing of this page. It isn't really up for discussion, as it is a published list. Formatting is one thing, but any content editing is more or less going to be vandalism.--Thomas.macmillan 04:34, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Some formatting should be done, the table is not at all in the common format in Wikipedia: it's not sortable, the colors make it quite unreadable, and why split it into regions? AtikuX 03:49, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Editing this page

message: Hi there you all! I took Turkey back to where it belongs! From Western Europe to Middle East!
Please don't change it back all you fans of Turkey just because you like it! The country isn't in Europe.
*No one changed Turkey to western Europe. It was listed as such, however misguided, by the people who made up the list and as such should continue to be listed as western Europe.--Thomas.macmillan 15:08, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not relevant to the article because Turkey was classified as western Europe by the Freedom House, not me or anyone else on Wikipedia. Randam (talk) 22:10, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  Turkey is actually not free.--Aitor Ayala (talk) 17:22, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Turkey

message: The Freedom in the World 2006 report also shows changes since last year.  Shouldn't such changes be noted here, and shouldn't it be mentioned which nations were upgraded and which ones were downgraded?
According to the report, Indonesia and Trinidad and Tobago were upgraded from Partly Free to Free.
Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon and Mauritania were upgraded from Not Free to Partly Free.
Guyana, The Philippines and Thailand were downgraded from Free to Partly Free.
Only Nepal was downgraded from Partly Free to Not Free. --Kitch 20:43, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I quite agree. Maybe an "up" or "down" field should be added to the list? Nach0king 12:18, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Changes since 2005

message: Hey there, Germany is Central Europe, not western Europe. And there'd be necessary a category "Southern Europe", being the common term for countries like Italy, Greece, Turkey, Malta, ...
Western Europe is considered to be only those countries in the west of Germany. And there's Northern Europe with the skandinavian countries. Maybe the best solution would be only "Europe" with no further distinctions, as it's the case with "Americas". My german keyboard layout is broken, so unfortunately i can't sign this comment.
:As noted previously for Turkey, the country areas are the choice of the freedom house who compiles the list, not Wikipedia.
:Here I think the distinction is between those countries in NATO / on the side of America in the Cold War and those who, well weren't. To be honest I don't think this list is appropriate for Wikipedia as it reflects the opinions of a single group, who seem to have an agenda, but for now it is inappropriate to move or reformulate country groupings. --Neo 18:18, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Geographical Mistakes

message: I think that the list currently seems to reflect the opinions of a single agency, and therefore wonder whether it can reasonably be called Th. That this is controversial can be seen in the disputes within the comments above.
The question though is what is an appropriate action for this - should the page be moved, for instance to Freedom House; Freedom in the World Index, or sent to AFD?
I'm *probably* in favour of the first option, but willing to change my opinion either way if convincing arguments are presented; however I would welcome input from other before proposing either action. --Neo 22:38, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The article is not stating that this is the truth, it only describes the report. It does not violate NPOV more than the article about Das Capital. Both articles simply describe reports or books.Ultramarine 09:43, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The problem is with the title, adding a "US-based" into the intro, will make the visitor research the controversial Freedom House, before taking the data for granted.--Gerash77 07:46, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Added a note to see the main article for a discussion of organization (and also it own view on the funding).Ultramarine 15:26, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I am not sure what are you trying to say. Could you elaborate on your position before an edit war? --Gerash77 22:16, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The article should be npov and also present the views of Freedom House regarding funding and that the report is widely used by reserachers. I think it would be better to discus that in the main article. If you insist, I will move all that material here.Ultramarine 22:21, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I think more discussion is needed to find an appropriate title. The findings of a government agency can't be titled "Freedom in the World". I am sure there are other more independent researches that are worthy of this title. I'll put an appropriate tag on it, in hope of finding a consensus on this.--Gerash77 22:16, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The former title was Freedom in the World 2006 which is the title of the report. We can change it back to that.Ultramarine 22:19, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Freedom House]] and [[Freedom]]

message: The 2005 map has Taiwan as "free," whereas the 2006 map gives it a Level 7 for political freedom and a Level 6 for civil liberties -- i.e., just as unfree as China. This is extremely misleading, since Taiwan's level of freedom did not change significantly between 2005 and 2006. It looks like the 2005 map is treating Taiwan as an independent country, while the 2006 map treats it as part of China. Shouldn't the maps be consistent? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 218.170.133.115 (talk) 15:07, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Note that all maps refer to the same report, the 2006 report which deals with the year 2005. But yes, seems to be mistakes regarding taiwan. You can try to contact the creator of the map or download it yourself, correct it, and upload it back.Ultramarine 18:45, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Taiwan 

message: I updated the status of Italy and Venezuela reflecting the lastest changes. Both got dowgraded - Italy from Free to Partially Free due to Berlusconi's extreme influence over most media and Venezuela from Partially Free to Not Free due to forced shut down of a major goverment-critial TV network. CharonX/talk 00:36, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Have you perhaps mixed up the Freedom House "Freedom of the Press" report with their "Freedom in the World" series, which is the subject of this article?  Checking their website, Venezuela is indeed show "Not Free" in the "Freedom of the Press" study, but this is not the same as the "Partly Free" rating it is given in the most recent "Freedom in the World", which is what is being listed here.  The first would be looking at press freedom specifically, the second at the country overall.  I'll revert your change - if I'm mistaken let me know. - David Oberst 00:57, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oops, you are right. I had gotten the pages mixed up (lesson learned: don't edit Wikipedia when you are tired) CharonX/talk 11:09, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Italy and Venezuela 

message: It would be much better if this page presented more than just this year's ratings. Dynamics is at least as important as current data. Colchicum 18:30, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Previous indexes

message: I mean how can be Turkey, Greece, Italy, Malta, Finland, Cyprus, Norway, Sweden etc. placed in "Western Europe"?
Please read some more western doesn't mean south, north or east...
No need to tell us that, explain it to the ones who did the report!That-Vela-Fella 21:02, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WOW! You guys really know geography! 

message: Because the article is about the Freedom in the World report by Freedom House and not about freedom in the world itself, the title is wrong and misleading. The title should be "Freedom in the World Report by Freedom House", showing exactly what it is. A real Freedom in the World article must have lost of sources and be open for discussion and edit.--ClaudioMB 16:17, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: True - I would be happy for this to be changed. Pexise 18:29, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Why not "Freedom in the World Report"? 68.49.245.207 15:45, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The source of any report is more important than the report itself. If the report has more than one source, than you could take from the title.--ClaudioMB 16:52, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

text: If there is no more discussion the title will be changed in couple days.--ClaudioMB 00:39, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is the standard way to name books and reports in Wikipedia. We do not write "The Capital by Karl Marx", for example.Ultramarine 13:17, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That is the standard way if the name does not conflict with an issue. Like Civilization article that is about human society, anything else with Civilization title must be differentiated, like the article Civilization (computer game). Also Collapse (book) instead of Collapse. Or Capital, where does not go directly to the Capital by Karl Marx. This case is even worse, because the report is about the issue, what could easily mislead people to believe that is an impartial article (because is Wikipedia) about freedom in the world, when it's one single point of view on the issue. A "Freedom in the World" article, where this report is used as one of many sources would be impartial. Here, a title like "Freedom in the World (report by Freedom House)" is suitable.--ClaudioMB 23:54, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Odd, it kinda makes sense to change it, but I don't see any other (disambiguation) for another similar topic on it. If there was then I'd fully agree to it.That-Vela-Fella 00:12, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I know there isn't a similar article at this moment, but it does not change the fact the title is wrong. The article is not about freedom in the world, but about the "Freedom in the World" report by Freedom House.--ClaudioMB 05:21, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

text: Understandably, but wouldn't the person seeing that read the 1st sentence of the article & realize it right away what it's all about? I highly doubt people are getting confused on it as the likes of other ones on here, like Das Kapital or Mein Kampf. I'd go so far as to agree with what was said before, just add in the word REPORT after it. That-Vela-Fella 06:10, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: More books by Marx: Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, The Civil War in France, or The Communist Manifesto. All of these could be mistaken for something more general if going by the title alone and ignoring the capital letters. But Wikipedia does not add a "by Karl Marx" or "Book" after these article titles.Ultramarine 12:04, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If there is any other article title that you feel could cause misunderstanding, you should argue in those articles to change their titles. It does not change the problem here.--ClaudioMB 22:51, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You should argue where the naming conventions in Wikipedia are decided that these should be changed. Until then, this article should follow established practice.Ultramarine 22:53, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

text: I think you underestimate people's ability to understand what they read. But how about "Freedom in the World (report)"?Ultramarine 07:40, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I know lost of people will read and understand that is a report from one organization, but also there are people that are going directly to the table and accept those marks as balanced and without bias (what's almost impossible since it comes from one single organization funded by one government). "Freedom in the World (report)" helps, even though I still prefer "Freedom in the World (report by Freedom House)" to show that's a one source report. Anyway, this open the title for an article about freedom in the world. Since this discussion has already 6 days and no one else opposes the change, I'll move the article to "Freedom in the World (report)".--ClaudioMB 15:55, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Title change 

message: I think this sentence is not clear enough: "The ratings in this table reflect findings based on global events from 1 December 2005 through 31 December 2006." Since the rating is define by Freedom House, it should be change to something like: "The ratings in this table are define by Freedom House, which says they reflect findings based on global events from 1 December 2005 through 31 December 2006.". How a rating is define is extremely important and should be very clear. The away is written now, sounds Freedom House does not define the rating but just collects from a source.--ClaudioMB 23:24, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: They do not define the ratings, they have methodology they follow when doing research which then gives the scores.Ultramarine 23:29, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Then, the methodology used should be explain (how works, who created and sources). The away is written now does not prove anything.--ClaudioMB 23:39, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You can read it here. But you are right, this should be expanded in this article, for some reason it is described in the Freedom House article. Will correct this in the coming days.Ultramarine 23:45, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Changing sentence

message: In this sentence "The ratings in this table reflect findings based on global events from 1 December 2005 through 31 December 2006. It is often used by researchers in order to measure democracy and correlates highly with several other measures of democracy like the Polity data series.[3]". What is it? The rating or the findings?--ClaudioMB 03:40, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What's so confusing on it? The table is just like what's shown on the map & says the ratings reflect the findings. Thus it is referring to the findings, just like several other measures that are used to determine the democracy of places. At least that's what I understand it to mean. That-Vela-Fella 08:45, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. It makes sense, even though could be better written. I'll try do it. --ClaudioMB 22:54, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Clarification

message: This article should explain the report. Could show the results of the report, but also should explain in a neutral point of view, by an expert on the subject, how that results were found. The way it is now, this article is just a propagation of the report, with only one point of view: the report's creator. So, I'm placing a npov tag until this be solved.--ClaudioMB 04:27, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree. This is just one organizations claims. It doesn't matter whether it's factual or not, but rather one organizations beliefs. Which would translate into the United States beliefs, considering the government funds the program.
-G  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.158.83 (talk) 03:02, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV

message: Use WikiScanner (http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/) and put "Freedom House" in the first box... Interestingly it will lead you back to this talk page, plus a handful more... All contributions made anonymously from IP address 63.138.81.98 are written by Freedom House employees... And the common point all these contributions have is that they try to convince us that Freedom House is an independent, unbiased, humanitarian, non-governmental organisation that works for the progress of humanity, while the truth is that it is a 95% US government-funded organisation that has been used as an instrument of propaganda since at least World War II. Schizophonix 10:43, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please see my response on the talk page for the main Freedom House Article.  I would not say "infiltrated".  63.138.81.98 17:42, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not infiltrated, but doing controversial edits. See here--ClaudioMB 23:04, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  !! Freedom House employees infiltrated in this talk page... 

message: Please be aware a Freedom House employee is participating in this talk page. User 63.138.81.98 is in fact a Feedom House employee, see discussion below for details. Pexise 12:09, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This was at the top of the page. Since another editor (below) states that the IP's edits have been undone, there seems no point to have this warning at the top. (There is a template for making such alerts, which should be used instead of such messages, btw.)  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 02:51, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

text: That does seem pointless to mention it on the top & also a bit mean spirited for doing that. A topic has already been done with the issue on here (see #21) & having a warning serves no useful purpose anyways. I have thus taken it out & I'll leave it with an administrator if they feel there has to be some valid reason it should be put back. That-Vela-Fella 18:00, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Right - I've changed the language, but the comment should stay - the fact that you are a FH employee is very important and new editors could miss the discussion about this.  Also, the fact that you were not honest about this in the first place and an editor needed to identify you using an esoteric piece of software makes this notice necessary. Pexise 12:08, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Pexise: WikiScanner is not an "esoteric piece of software" it is a tool that can be used freely by anyone to find if the IPs of anonymous editors are registered to "interested" organisations who use Wikpedia as a means of self promotion. I urge you to use it yourself (http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/). Just remember a couple of things 1) Not all edits from interested editors are self-promotional 2) Interested editors can conceal their ID by registering or by editing from a neutral IP e.g. from home. Schizophonix 10:01, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah - very interesting, you're right, it is easy to use.  Well done for spotting that 63.138.81.98 is from Freedom House.  I guess my point was that if it wasn't for your initiative, we would still be none the wiser about his/her identity.  Although the Wikiscanner is free to use, not everyone knows about it, and it requires some real detective work to find something out like the conflict of interest that was exposed here. Pexise 12:32, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that that warn should stay. As Pexise said, new editors could easy miss the discussion about it and the employee showed not good faith when he/she fail to warn other editors of his/her conflict of interest. Also, it should be warn that this could happen again, if a FH employee uses a neutral IP. --ClaudioMB 16:26, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What is the big issue here? This organization made this ranking, Wikipedia just basically copied it on its page. It seems accurate to me, besides there is nothing in this world which has no bias in it. (74.134.124.3 02:13, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Editing by an IP associated with Freedom House

message: I believe that the warning on the top of the page regarding my participation on this talk page is inappropriate.  The details of my affiliation with Freedom House has been discussed in detail on the talk page itself, and users who are concerned with that can read that discussion.  I have made a good faith effort to follow the Suggestiong for COI compliance [], and have explained my actions on this page.  You will note that the recommended method for other editors to deal with COI does not include posting a message at the top of the talk page.  I feel that in particular the language of this warning is inflammatory; the use of the word "infiltrated" implies bad faith on my part where none has been shown, and I do not believe that my comments bear out the statement that I have pushed a pro-FH point of view.  I respectfully request that it be removed.  Thank you. 63.138.81.98 17:27, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That does seem pointless to mention it on the top & also a bit mean spirited for doing that. A topic has already been done with the issue on here (see #21) & having a warning serves no useful purpose anyways. I have thus taken it out & I'll leave it with an administrator if they feel there has to be some valid reason it should be put back. That-Vela-Fella 18:00, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Right - I've changed the language, but the comment should stay - the fact that you are a FH employee is very important and new editors could miss the discussion about this.  Also, the fact that you were not honest about this in the first place and an editor needed to identify you using an esoteric piece of software makes this notice necessary. Pexise 12:08, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Pexise: WikiScanner is not an "esoteric piece of software" it is a tool that can be used freely by anyone to find if the IPs of anonymous editors are registered to "interested" organisations who use Wikpedia as a means of self promotion. I urge you to use it yourself (http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/). Just remember a couple of things 1) Not all edits from interested editors are self-promotional 2) Interested editors can conceal their ID by registering or by editing from a neutral IP e.g. from home. Schizophonix 10:01, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah - very interesting, you're right, it is easy to use.  Well done for spotting that 63.138.81.98 is from Freedom House.  I guess my point was that if it wasn't for your initiative, we would still be none the wiser about his/her identity.  Although the Wikiscanner is free to use, not everyone knows about it, and it requires some real detective work to find something out like the conflict of interest that was exposed here. Pexise 12:32, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that that warn should stay. As Pexise said, new editors could easy miss the discussion about it and the employee showed not good faith when he/she fail to warn other editors of his/her conflict of interest. Also, it should be warn that this could happen again, if a FH employee uses a neutral IP. --ClaudioMB 16:26, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What is the big issue here? This organization made this ranking, Wikipedia just basically copied it on its page. It seems accurate to me, besides there is nothing in this world which has no bias in it. (74.134.124.3 02:13, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Warning at the top of this page 

message: I noticed that Taiwan has switched back and forth between Taiwan and Republic of China a couple of times over the past few days.  Right now it is listed as "Republic of China"... may I suggest that it is listed either as Taiwan (as that is how it is listed in the Freedom of the World report) or else has both names presented- i.e. Republic of China (Taiwan)?  I feel like listing it just as "Republic of China" is confusing, as it is almost never referred to that way in common speech, and it is very similar to "People's Republic of China".... If that seems like a reasonable change, someone should make it, as I don't edit this page.  Thanks!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.234.233.58 (talk) 20:26, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Personally I think it should be called Taiwan (but if others disagree then "Republic of China (Taiwan)" would also seem OK). After all, the purpose of this article (as far as I can tell) appears to be to reproduce Freedom House's rankings of countries.  Freedom House's opinions are clearly non-neutral.  Not everyone agrees with calling Taiwan/ROC "Taiwan" - but nor does everyone agree with the rankings that FH hands out.  Why sanitize the naming, thus obscuring the bias of the rankings? 81.129.130.183 (talk) 23:56, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If it makes sense you to, go ahead and change it... We've had the comment up for about a month, and no one has disagreed that it should be listed as Taiwan.  I can't change it myself.  Thanks!  63.138.81.98 (talk) 15:55, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Taiwan 

message: I thought it would be red or something. I don't know where the CSS is, so could someone change this, if it's needed? ZtObOr 02:46, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Not Free is blue because Freedom House uses that (well, actually, purple) instead of red on their map.  Since this is a reproduction of Freedom House's map, it makes sense to not use red. 63.138.81.98 (talk) 21:33, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It had also been mentioned above under awful blue. That-Vela-Fella (talk) 01:46, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

text:  The bright blue in the map annoys me as well. In the Freedom house map, "not free countries" are coloured in a "dirty blue", not in the bright blue used in the map. Maybe someone could change it, thus making the map both more "intuitive" and closer to the original map?--Roentgenium111 (talk) 23:09, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why is "not free" blue? 

message: There seems to be some confusion about when Freedom House releases its rankings and reports for Freedom in the World.  (Note change that says that full reports are not released until one year later for free).  So I figured I would clear it up a bit.
In early January, Freedom House releases the scores.  They are titled with the current year (in this case, 2008), but cover events from January through December of the previous year (so in this case, Jan 2007-Dec 2007).  Because it requires a good deal more copy-editing and layout work to prepare hundreds of pages of reports for release than the score list does, the reports typically come out in late spring or early summer.  As soon as they are ready, they are posted, free for everyone to view, on the Freedom House website.  The printed version of the book, avalible for purchase, usually comes out a few weeks later, as it takes more time to print a book than upload website content.  
I think the most accurate way to phrase this paragraph would be "Detailed descriptions of all nations from the previous year's edition can be found online in Freedom in the World 2007. Please note that while the rankings below are from the current year's edition of Freedom in the World, detailed reports for 2008 will not be avalible online until late spring/early summer."  Once the reports come out, this can be revised.
Thanks!  76.111.114.169 (talk) 02:44, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Freedom in the World Release Schedule 

message: I would like to point out that Pakistan is shown as a "Not-free" country on the top map at the top right hand corner of the article. This needs to be corrected to "Partly-free" in order to reflect the results of the report.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cheese1125 (talk • contribs) 00:00, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That's because the map shows the 2008 report. It needs to be updated.--Roentgenium111 (talk) 13:37, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map mistake. 

message: Australia is de facto a colony and people living in Australia never get a chance to elect their head of state. How is it possible then that it is a free country???  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.82.92.134 (talk) 08:27, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: What year are you referring to? It hasn't been a penal colony for over a century now! Do you even have any legit source to back your claim? That-Vela-Fella (talk) 21:52, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe the anon user means Queen Elizabeth, who's still Australia's head of state, and still appoints a governor with some actual powers. okedem (talk) 09:29, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

text: in Australia we cannot even go live by ourselves in a remote area without being forced to vote forced to pay tax forced to have a postal address even if did no harm or even existed in most peoples minds. Yet you call Australia free? We are prisoners of the Australian Government. 27.32.141.11 (talk) 17:23, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Australia etc 

message: Why isn't the external link on the Freedom House Wikipedia page to the report on the Freedom House web site good enough? Is it really standard practice on wikipedia to copy reports from web sites and post their contents on wikipedia?
Anyone doing the slightest research on Freedom House knows that it gets about 66% of its funding from the U.S. government and has been accused by men like Noam Chomsky of being a propaganda arm of the U.S. government. The United States has 25% of the world's prison population and only 5% of the world's total population yet it has gotten perfect scores by Freedom House every single year.
Posting this report on wikipedia is essentially like posting a press release by the White House or Congress on wikipedia.
I vote for the removal of this article. 24.250.10.227 (talk) 08:18, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The report is not reprinted, a summary of its conclusions are. Freedom House publishes an annual article per country, arguing why they place each country in the bracket they do. Wikipedia is not censored so it doesn't delete articles simply because someone doesn't like the topic described by an article. Even if the rest of your comment is true (for which you have presented no sources at all, so your statement is unverifiable), Freedom House is an internationally well-known organization and its annual reports are reported by media around the world. If you wish to see other organizations' view on the state of the world's nations, List_of_indices_of_freedom is the list you're looking for. 80.167.179.233 (talk) 12:19, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Did you not read Wikipedia's own article on Freedom House?  That is where I got the funding numbers and the claims of Freedom House being a propaganda arm of the U.S. government.  My contention is that the whole article is NPOV which if others agreed would override Wikipedia is not censored.  Are you honestly telling me that if Cuba or North korea put out a Feeedom in the World report every year its conclusions would be contained in its own Wikipedia article? I don't think so. 24.250.10.227 (talk) 16:45, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal for Removing this report from Wikipedia 

message: On the chart plotting freedom over time, the colors are reversed from the map key, making comprehension of the trends very difficult. gnfnrf (talk) 14:14, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Color Error on Bottom Chart 

message: This is no longer the most current report, a new report was released January 13, 2011  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.96.217.172 (talk) 17:22, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  New report for 2011 

message: First, the israeli territories have an isreal flag, it should have a palestinian flag
also, it SHOULD be palestine! Not isreali territories!
This report IS biased, its ranked based on friendliness to the USA. I agree w/ the person that said this was ran by us government officails. AND it should NOT be based on democracy. Saudi Arabia is one of the most free and rich countries in the WORLD!!!!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.121.205.118 (talk) 21:57, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Many things wrong w/ this thing

message: I removed this section, which I think quotes dubious assertions from a fringe unreliable source:
BEGIN QUOTE:
In his article "Political and ideological aspects in the measurement of democracy: the Freedom House case", Diego Giannone made many criticisms of Gastil's methods and of Freedom House, using ideas of Gramsci and Wallerstein:Antonio Gramsci was an Italian Communist Party leader who was imprisoned during Mussolini's  fascist regime. Before his 1937 death, Gramsci wrote The Prison Notebooks, which advanced a theory of ideological and cultural class struggle, whose central concept was "cultural hegemony".Immanuel Wallerstein, Wallerstein, Professor of Sociology at SUNY, is the theorist of The World System.
"In accordance with the theoretical positions expressed at different times by Gramsci and Wallerstein about the function of scientific knowledge, we assume that FH [Freedom House's] measuring instruments have come to be part of those structures of knowledge that are an essential element in the functioning and legitimacy of political, economic, and social structures of the existing world-system.Giannone (p. 92) cites Wallerstein, Immanuel. "2006. European universalism: The rhetoric of power, New York: The New Press."   In fact, they (also) provide a scientific justification for the distribution of power and the legitimacy of the status quo, hinging on the twofold characteristic of their vast and ‘necessary’ use and their alleged neutrality. Thus the development of these instruments is fully linked to the battle for 'the creation of a hegemonic apparatus, because it creates a new ideological terrain, leads to a reform of consciousness and methods of knowledge’.The emphasis is in the original. This is Giannone's translation from Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebooks: "Notebook no. 10, part II, paragraph 12. Le Opere, 285" (p. 92),
One can consider measuring instruments as genuine methods for understanding social reality; however, they are not politically and ideologically neutral. Therefore, to the extent that they are not neutral, they can be used as tools for acquiring and/or strengthening such a hegemony." (Giannone, p. 70; emphasis in original)
Giannone criticized "ideological biases" in Gastil's methodology, which he says have been noted by several sources and countered by at least one.
Giannone asserted "a perfect coincidence between FH changes and the strategies of US foreign policy implemented in 1990s, and above all after 11 September 2001 by the Bush administration, to spread freedom and export democracy", with "Freedom ... defined almost always in a negative way, with particular reference to the role of the state, accused of undue intervention, indoctrination, and even equated with criminal organizations as obstacle to private economic activity".Giannone (2010), p. 89.
END QUOTE:
The problem is that this source doesn't lay out evidence for this conclusion, which would require at least a time series of changes in methodology and changes in the Bush administration policy. "perfect coincidence" is particularly dubious. From Giannone's methodological statement, which assumes similar claims, maybe he doesn't feel there is a need to present evidence?
Presently, the article only quotes criticism from Herman (a collaborator with Chomsky) and ignores any positive evaluations also quoted by Bollen, following Giannone. It quotes and uses results from the critical article by Mainwaring et alia (which is cited and quoted by Giannone). This makes me think that it has POV problems still.
However, with this material from Giannone gone, and the previous misrepresentations by Giannone corrected and the original source properly quoted or summarized, the NPOV problems are tolerable and I shall remove the NPOV tag.
If somebody restores this Giannone material, please restore it at the end, perhaps in a sub-sub section which should have a NPOV tag.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 22:53, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for doing all of this work and for explaining what you did and why. It would be wonderful of more editors did this more often. Jeff Ogden (talk) 18:33, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV: Giannone v. Bollen

message: I added Przeworski, who is a world leading researcher publishing in a high quality reliable source, as a critic.
I removed this paragraph, which arose from a good-faith summary of a low quality unreliable article, which misrepresented Bollen:
While Bollen surveyed many reviews of Freedom of the World, including positive reviews, this Wikipedia article will quote only two negative reviews, which were quoted by Bollen (1986, p. 585) along with neutral or positive reviews.The two quoted negative evaluations  were attributed mistakenly to Bollen by Giannone (p. 69), and Giannone's article used to be the sole basis of this section. Bollen noted that Scobel et al. raised the concern that "a conservative bias may enter Gastil's judgements" because it was sponsored by Freedom House; a charge of "Cold War and pro-market biases" was made by Edward S. Herman and Broadhead. Bollen also quoted positive reviews, which are ignored here.
The Scobel et alia paper is hard to review even at a university library and Ed Herman's research is not world-leading in this area, unlike Przeworski.
Like my edit with Mainwaring et alia, I have tried to find the best research that that should go into this article. I restate that our article previously had been based on only one source, an extremely left-wing ideological article that cherry-picked quotations from other scholars and mis-attributed some quotes.I have merely replaced low-quality resources with high quality resources and better represented the scholars previously cited. Thus, I don't believe that this edit may be credibly charged with bias.
So far, I have not tried to correct what seems to me to be a POV towards leftwing critics. There is no mention of right-wing critics or centrist appraisals.   Kiefer.Wolfowitz 21:47, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Herman v. Przeworski: Quality and reliability 

message: Freedom report for 2012 has now been released, could someone add in the new information please. --ERAGON (talk) 13:27, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: , images need to be updated though. Mushroom (Talk) 09:08, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Freedom 2012 

message: Why does the chart under 'Trends' use the color scheme that is the exact opposite of the rest of the article -- here blue means free?  Is there a special reason for this?
00:52, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I suspect that the answer is historical accident.  The trend chart is a couple of years out-of-date. The next time someone updates it, it would be good to change the colors to march.  It would be good to switch from a PNG image to SVG too. -Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 01:26, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: . This got addressed by someone (not me) in April 2013. --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 23:45, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trend chart uses opposite color scheme, why? 

message: I am wondering as to why Turkey is included in the 'Western Europe' section when it clearly belongs in the 'Central and Eastern Europe/Eurasia' section? Can this not be remedied? 178.193.178.203 (talk) 00:47, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: That's because for some reason Freedom House prefers to put Turkey in Western Europe (see here). I can see your point, but the article has to follow their categorization. Mushroom (Talk) 00:57, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Freedom House's categorization dates from the Cold War. "Western Europe" = NATO and neutrals [Switzerland, Austria, Sweden and Finland], "Eastern Europe" = Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries. Even though the Cold War is over, Freedom House continues to group Turkey under the "Western Europe" header. Which is also the reason why Freedom House describes Western Europe as 85 % "Free" countries. Turkey drags the score down. Valentinian T / C 21:45, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Status of Turkey? 

message: I've changed the current first map to accurately show what it now depicts (an updated freedom in the world 2013, not 2011) but I can't figure out how to change the name and description of the map file itself, or even if that's possible - it still says for the file itself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2011_Freedom_House_world_map.svg#filelinks
Can someone who knows how to do this please?
Nwrnr (talk) 17:15, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: . It looks like this got taken care of (not by me) some time ago. At least the name of the image file is now: File:2013 Freedom House world map.svg. --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 23:56, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Main map 

message: This is a remark on the Countries designated "electoral democracies" in Freedom House's Freedom in the World 2013 survey image at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Electoral_democracies.png
The talk page guidelines on that image say "try the talk page of an article that the image is used in" to request corrections to that image.
Freedom House lists Nicaragua as an Electoral Democracy at http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2013/nicaragua
Nicaragua is not labeled an Electoral Democracy in the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Electoral_democracies.png file.
Eharding (talk) 00:44, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: In the "Political Rights and Civil Liberties" section in the 2013 country profile for Nicaragua that is part of the Freedom in the World 2013 report it says "Nicaragua is an electoral democracy". But on page 17 of the Freedom in the World 2013 booklet Nicaragua does not have the asterisk (*) that "indicates a country’s status as an electoral democracy". It is unclear to me which one is correct. Does anyone know how to sort this out? --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 03:35, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Nicaragua has an aggregate score of 19 in political rights so it is not an electoral democracy. Have a look on the Excel sheet they posted on their downloads page. Jackninja5 (talk) 05:54, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nicaragua is an Electoral Democracy 

message: The map in the article which shows country ratings from Freedom House's Freedom in the World 2013 survey depicts Pakistan administrated Kashmir as part of Pakistan while it shows the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir as a separate country and that to with a wrong border, separating the state from rest of India by a horizontal straight line. Kindly correct the map by coloring the Indian administrated Kashmir with the same color as that of rest of India.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wiki.Gunjan (talk • contribs) 03:55, 6 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jammu and Kashmir 

message: The map image is from 2013. Can someone update it, please? Faltur (talk)   — Preceding undated comment added 04:56, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Countries map needs an update to 2014 

message: Freedom House no longer uses Eastern and Western Europe for its classifications, it now uses just Europe and Eurasia, this should be updated. Abrahamic Faiths (talk) 17:13, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eastern/Western Europe 

message: Although the article provides detailed criteria for "electoral democracies," I would have appreciated the definition and criteria used for the primary ranking categories associated with "PR- Political Rights" and "CL - Civil Liberties."  Criteria for each category value from 1 to 7 would also be prudent. SquashEngineer (talk) 15:07, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, I think I might be able to do that. Hold on. Jackninja5 (talk) 02:44, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Country Rankings 

message: The map of electoral democracies does not show Lithuania, which is classed as "Free" by these criteria. It should be coloured blue as an electoral democracy.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.24.185.202 (talk) 18:24, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lithuania is an electoral democracy 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The electoral democracies map needs to be updated for 2017.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.24.185.202 (talk) 13:35, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Electoral democracies 2017 

message: At this rate, the table rating every country for every year will get cluttered and hard to read. Maybe we should remove the oldest years and only have rankings for four or five of the most recent years? ProjectHorizons (talk) 03:21, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remove a year or two 

message: , I found you in the history, so I stopped before I did what I wanted to do: cut all of this, and leave what can be called an article about the publication, rather than a reiteration with sortable tables and maps of what's in the publication. I honestly don't agree with this content. Drmies (talk) 01:23, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: {{ping|Drmies} My involvement in editing this article has been tangential, so please don't worry about me as you edit it. However, lots of work went into those tables, so I suggest you might want to ping the editors who have added and updated them, instead. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:54, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  this content 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I couldn't help but notice that the lists are sort of sorted in alphabetical order, but not entirely, and there are many weird exceptions. Is there a reason for this, like being auto-generated? (if not I will fix this). —Ynhockey (Talk) 08:50, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I merged six regional tables and sorted the whole wikitext (which contains  Flag template names) alphabetically. So I sorted the table by  Flag template names not actual country names. The table should be corrected manually.―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 09:43, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I re-sorted programatically. It was reckless to sort the table by  Flag template names.―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 21:11, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alphabetization in lists 

message: Why are Saint Lucia and North Korea out of order?--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 08:48, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed. See above section.―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 09:19, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  why not in alphabetic order? 

message: Can anyone find a verifiable source for a 2017 report for Puerto Rico? The latest report I can find https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2016/puerto-rico is 2016. --HighFlyingFish (talk) 21:11, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Hearing no response I'm going to be bold and remove the uncited content. If you have a source confirming that they reported on Puerto Rico in 2017 feel free to add it back cited. --HighFlyingFish (talk) 01:24, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Puerto Rico's 2017 Report 

message: The main list is getting incredibly crowded, which makes me wonder, why are we extending the chart even further back? why cant we maybe mention 2010 and 2015, but leave all the years between them out, focusing instead more on the most recent reports? 70.59.225.236 (talk) 23:57, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, that list looks incredibly cluttered. It just says 2018 and 2019 there now, but 2019 has tonnes of different columns showing different results with the same name...? I don't get it. –Jetro (talk) 01:36, 10 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Do we really need to have every year from 2009 listed? 

message: What is “related”? Related to what and how?—I presume to the sovereign state in parentheses, but what the symbol † adds is quite unclear. Is this language from the cited sources? I just added eastern Donbas, and it is not related to Ukraine but part of it (it comprises two separatist republics, but every recognized UN state recognize this territory as part of Ukraine), nor is it disputed like Crimea (no other state claims it). This categorization is confusing, and appears to represent a false dichotomy of classifying what Freedom in the World seems to refer to simply as “a territory as opposed to an independent country.”
I suggest we change or eliminate this. Links to Wikipedia articles serve to provide background. We could add a short description such as “the portions of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions that have been occupied by Russian and Russian-backed separatist forces since 2014,” which could be in a table cell or an explanatory note. —Michael Z. 17:18, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I’ve gone ahead and removed this. Also removed “Russia” from Crimea for consistency, where all other disputed territories show only the internationally recognized sovereign state the territory belongs to. —Michael Z. 21:55, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  “Related” and “disputed” territories 

message: Hi user:Dddrago. There are two sources cited for the Eastern Donbas line of the table only, and you changed the 2020 and 2021 figures to something else. Where did you get those numbers? Please cite your additions. Thanks. —Michael Z. 19:07, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I filled in the 2020 and 2021 columns, per the source, in the territories table. Since these values were wrong, and the rest of the table looked like random duplicates of one cell, I blanked the rest of it. —Michael Z. 21:58, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  References for territories 

message: I see that 2022 was not filled completely, and now the 2023 ranking is out. I tried to add the 2023 column, and I see that I just do not understand how i should fill our table in (I reverted myself). For example, in the 2023 ranking Afghanistan (alphabetically the first country; they also have Abkhazia) has 1 for political rights and 5 for civil liberties, 6 in total. Can anyone show me how I should add these numbers to our table, which has four or five different inputs, not three? If I learn how to do it I can then complete the 2023 column. Ymblanter (talk) 16:09, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: @Ymblanter Did you get any help? Is still still unresolved? (If so, maybe ask at WP:VPT?) Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:42, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: No, this is still unresolved. May be I will just set up a table in a different format on a weekend, if I have time. Ymblanter (talk) 05:46, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Filling in the table 

message: Right now we provide data just for 2019+. Historical data is useful and should be restored. See ex. 2016 version of this article which had data on years 2010-2016.
If the full table was too unwieldy, splitting it into a subarticle could be considered, but plain removal of historical data is wrong. Piotrus at Hanyang| reply here 05:38, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: PS.  - some folks who discussed this recently. I'll also add that historical data has additional value because it is very hard to find it on official FH pages, which are very biased towards recent status. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:45, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: User:Piotrus, you're not going to like my opinion: I don't think any of it should be in our article. And I wonder what these tables look like on mobile, or to visually impaired editors. Drmies (talk) 12:59, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: @Drmies I find this content encyclopedic and educational (I show it to my students, in fact). Now, long horizontal tables are not very nice in any medium, and thinking about anything wiki on mobile is painful, yes :P Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 23:22, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, , but you know as well as I do that "useful" is not a criterion for keeping content...there's lots of stuff I think is useful too. Drmies (talk) 01:13, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: @Drmies Sure, which is why I said I find it it useful, educational and encyclopedic. We have plenty of similar large tables on Wikipedia. PS. As for mobile issues, one good news is that each section starts collapsed, so readers can ignore tables and focus on prose. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 01:44, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why remove the historical data? 

message: I changed the file myself however Wikimedia wouldn't let me update the original. The current version of the 2023 map doesn't include the Azores and Canary Islands, Puerto Rico (considered part of the US on Freedom House's website) and Svalbard (considered part of Norway on Freedom House's website). I also think two pixels to the south of Hong Kong should be coloured yellow as the current map doesn't seem to include Hong Kong Island or Lantau Island. Koiramainen (talk) 20:26, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can someone fix a handful of map errors?