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| ::: Ah, no, we can exchange "historical" with "geographical" if you prefer. I felt it came down more or less to the same thing. Actually, most contexts where one would legitimately talk about the wider region is in fact in historical (19th-early 20th century) contexts, in my experience at least. ] ] 19:12, 18 April 2009 (UTC) | ::: Ah, no, we can exchange "historical" with "geographical" if you prefer. I felt it came down more or less to the same thing. Actually, most contexts where one would legitimately talk about the wider region is in fact in historical (19th-early 20th century) contexts, in my experience at least. ] ] 19:12, 18 April 2009 (UTC) | ||
| ==Question regarding name== | |||
| I wonder if the same sorts of statistics used here could also be used regarding ] and ]. I mention this because in that case the shorter name is used for the island, and the longer name is used for the country. If the usages are similar, then it would not seem to matter overmuch, as extant wikipedia policy states clearly that ] should be the name of the country, and ] the name of the island, as per ], which directly links to the MOS article which clearly states the ROI should be called that, and Ireland for the island and its history. In effect, this would seem to be setting a new policy for this name as opposed to extant policy/guidelines for perhaps the most directly equivalent name. I have to seriously wonder whether that makes sense. The only way I can see it being justified is if the usage of "Ireland" has roughly non-equivalent breakdown to that of Macedonia. Unfortunately, without such evidence available, and to date it isn't, there is no answer to that question. That being the case, all other things remaining the same, I can see no particular reason to make the usage of the ROM and M names different from the ROI and I names. ] (]) 21:48, 19 April 2009 (UTC) | |||
| : I'm not too sure the two cases are so easily comparable. For one thing, Ireland the island, being a physical, natural unit and undoubtedly an historical/cultural/political unit over many centuries, is a far more salient referent than the shadowy and ill-defined "]". The linguistic status of the "other part" in each case, i.e. Northern Ireland and Greek Macedonia, is also not easily comparable, in a variety of ways. Of course, if you want to test it, the corpora are there for everybody to check, it just takes an hour or two. ] ] 22:14, 19 April 2009 (UTC) | |||
| ::You are, of course, entitled to your opinion. However, without that information, your opinion remains at best less than fully substantiated. Basically, it isn't my proposal, it's yours. I am not, so far as I know, obligated to provide information to support someone else's proposal. I believe the person making the proposal is, if anyone, so obligated. If you choose not to provide evidence which would be in the eyes of at least some others directly relevant to your contention, that is of course your choice. However, lack of such evidence could help decide the opinions of others against the proposal. ] (]) 22:18, 19 April 2009 (UTC) | |||
| ::: Then I am missing your point. Why would I have to provide evidence about Ireland in order to support a proposal about Macedonia? My point is purely restricted to this one case. Whether it would ever be transferable to another case depends on whether that other case is similar; if somebody wants to find out whether it is indeed similar, that's up to them. I'm not interested in the Ireland naming. ] ] 22:23, 19 April 2009 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Your proposal would seek to meet the standard of a policy or MOS guideline, presumably. It is reasonable to request that we do not have policies or guidelines which are too widely divergent. To know whether they are or not would require evidence. That evidence, presumably, would be the burden of the person making the proposal. I am not saying that the proposal would have no chance of approval without it. However, I can reasonably see how some editors, without such information, might opt to not support a proposal, on the basis of insufficient evidence. Trust me, I've seen several proposals fail for lack of consensus. I am sure you have as well. | |||
| ::::One of the things that would probably be required for a consensus to be reached is sufficient informaion. Without such evidence, I have serious questions whether a consensus would be reached. That is not necessarily saying that it would have to be your work. It is possible that later someone else down the line might do it. Then again, it is possible they won't. If no one does, then the question could still be raised, and, without an answer, might be sufficient to prevent a consensus from ever being arrived at regarding the proposal. ] (]) 22:32, 19 April 2009 (UTC) | |||
| ::::: My proposal isn't meant to "meet" an existing policy, it is meant to ''apply'' it. To this one special case. Other people have applied the same policy to other cases, such as Ireland. I honestly fail to see what the two cases have to do with each other. ] ] 22:37, 19 April 2009 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::But how would anyone know whether the policy is being applied appropriately if they didn't know whether it adhered to extant policy? To know that, they would need to know how it directly relates to policy, and this is one of the possibly pivotal points to determine whether it is in compliance with policy. Of course, policy could be rewritten to accomodate the proposal without that information, but I rather doubt that would be done. But, of course, you are free to do as you wish. Personally, I would say unequivocally that without such information I would oppose the proposal because of insufficient evidence that it even conforms to policy. It is possible no one else will do the same, of course. Somehow, I doubt that will happen. ] (]) 22:44, 19 April 2009 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::: Huh? Are you saying the Ireland case is somehow a pivotal test case this case would have to be matched against? Wait. Slowly. Let me see. The policy we have is a set of ''general principles'' A (i.e. "common usage", "self-identification", etc.). I am demonstrating that if you apply the general principles A to case B, then you are led to result Bx. Now you are saying there is also case C, and somebody has determined that C should have result Cy. Now, it is suddenly ''my'' responsibility to demonstrate that the general principles A when applied to C will indeed lead to result Cy? And if they don't, then A is wrong, or what? – But in any case, as far as I know, the application of A to case C is currently quite heavily disputed, right? That doesn't change the fact that A is consensus, and that's all that matters here. Whether people have been applying A to C correctly or not is entirely immaterial to my case. ] ] 22:52, 19 April 2009 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::For what it's worth, I note that you, as an individual, agreed with the name change almost immediately. This could be seen as calling into question your own objectivity, perhaps? Therefore, I as an individual see this proposal as at least potentially being made by a party who could have a preexisting bias. If that were the case, I would want to see that that party's proposal were completely free of bias. Without the information I seek, I have no way of knowing that. Personally, I am not going to search for the information I requested myself, because I have at best a slight interest in this subject and also any number of other things to do. However, I can and now do unequivocally say I '''oppose the proposal as it stands without the information I have requested as being relevant to determining whether this proposal adheres to extant policy'''. Good day. ] (]) 23:12, 19 April 2009 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::: This is just plain idiotic. ] ] 23:14, 19 April 2009 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::::A clear statement calling into question your objectivity has been made. You have responded with a ] of "idiotic". Great way to prove your own lack of bias, pal. (That's sarcasm, by the way.) ] (]) 23:21, 19 April 2009 (UTC) | |||
Revision as of 23:24, 19 April 2009
Greek Macedonia (language, people)
There seem to be two gaps.
- the Greek people who live in Macedonia. How should they be referred to, and does it depend on context?
- and the variety of Greek spoken by Greek people who live in Macedonia. Have you thought about that? Is the language variety distinctive? I recall editors claiming that there is at least some difference in pronunciation. True? At the level that we should note?
Jd2718 (talk) 15:15, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks for the comments. I don't really think these two items require much extra trouble. Their importance for our disambiguation practices has often been over-stated by interested parties in the debate. Truth is, for normal article writing purposes we have very few occasions for ever explicitly referring to either of these. Neither of them has a (legitimate) Misplaced Pages article: for the simple reason that nobody ever found anything worthwhile to write about them. There have been numerous attempts at creating such articles (one is currently at AfD). But it was all for the sole purpose of having a pretext to link to them and thereby "outbalance" the corresponding links to the Slavic items, or for proving the point that the latter must carry some extra disambiguation burden, not because the articles themselves contained anything of interest.
- The inhabitants of Greek Macedonia are simply that: Greek Macedonians, Macedonian Greeks, people from Greek Macedonia. How often do we need to talk about them? How often do we mention Euboeans, Thrakiots, Thessalians or Peloponesians? Or, for that matter, Oregoneans, Floridans, Swabians, Yorkshireans, or Bourgogneans? Note that in these "but-there's-also-the-Greek-Macedonians" debates, there's sometimes something fishy going on about the definition of this group. Are we talking about just all inhabitants of Greek Macedonia? Or are we claiming that "Macedonian" can refer specifically and exclusively to ethnic Greeks from the region, to the exclusion of the local ethnic minorities (including the "other" Macedonians)? Greek editors sometimes seem to think in terms of such an emphatically Greek notion of "being a Macedonian", but I would contend that a group defined like that is simply never an object of the English language, and certainly not known under that name. "Macedonian" alone, in English, means either ethnic Macedonians, or all inhabitants of the region independent of ethnic affiliation. Never only and exclusively Greeks.
- As for the dialect, there is a passing mention of it in varieties of Modern Greek, and that's about as much as we need. It's "the Macedonian dialects of modern Greek", or, in a context where Greek dialectology is already clearly established as the topic, simply "Macedonian". We don't have much to say about it. It's not highly distinctive among the general field of "northern" varieties. Northern Greece is apparently relatively homogeneous internally, and whatever people perceive of as characteristic of Macedonian speech seems in reality to be shared with a larger group of neighbouring varieties, and can thus be better described in a larger framework such as a general dialects article.
- Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:45, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
- Quite reasonable. Did I indicate my general approval of your essay? I should have. Very nice job, thank you. Jd2718 (talk) 16:07, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
geographic region
This essay doesn't directly address naming the region. Either an odd turn of phrase: Macedonia is a republic in wider geographic region of Macedonia or disambiguation: Macedonia (geographic region) stretches from the Aegean Sea in the south... Would those do the trick, consistent with this essay? Jd2718 (talk) 18:00, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
- Actually, I thought I had covered that somewhere, lemme see: section "Referring to the wider historical area". Does that work for you? Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:25, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
- The word "historical" throws me off a little. But I was wondering if your intent was to cover the geographic region. Did you mean just articles about old stuff? Jd2718 (talk) 19:06, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
- Ah, no, we can exchange "historical" with "geographical" if you prefer. I felt it came down more or less to the same thing. Actually, most contexts where one would legitimately talk about the wider region is in fact in historical (19th-early 20th century) contexts, in my experience at least. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:12, 18 April 2009 (UTC)