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Welcome to the Misplaced Pages!
Hello, and Welcome to the Misplaced Pages, AuH2ORepublican! Thanks for the contribution over on the Dave Weldon article. Here are a few perfunctory tips to hasten your acculturation into the Misplaced Pages experience:
Hi, I've noticed you have a bad habit of not signing your posts. You may add four tildes (ie: ~~~~) to have Misplaced Pages automatically attach your name and date. Also, please be sure to observe our neutral point of view and original research policies. Thanks! /Blaxthos22:12, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Sorry about forgetting to put the four tildes, and not making clear that my comment was tongue-in-cheek (I added an explanation to the Discussion comment to which you refer). I'm still getting the hang of things. Thanks for the heads up. AuH2ORepublican18:27, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
My edit that was deleted was for the Duval County page, not the Jacksonville page (I have no idea where to get election results for the City of Jacksonville). I guess that the Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/, is not considered a "relible source" (despite the fact that it bases everything on government sources and is used by thousands of political professionals who pay for its premium content), so I went to the Duval County Supervisor of Elections website and confirmed that the numbers I had gotten from the Atlas for 2004 and 2000 were indeed correct. Here are the numbers for 2004: http://www.duvalelections.com/ERSummary.aspx?eid=9 and here are the ones for 2000: http://www.duvalelections.com/Election.aspx?eid=2 BTW, the Duval elections site only goes back to 2000, so I *did not* change the incorrect results for prior elections (which, BTW, were input without a source by whomever it was that did so). I apologize for having previously fixed obviously incorrect (and unsourced) information without meeting with Misplaced Pages's "reliable sources" criteria, but I honestly did not think that the Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections would not be deemed to be "reliable." AuH2ORepublican16:32, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
In any event, Butch Lee happened to be born in Puerto Rico, his parents were from the U.S. mainland, he was raised in the U.S. mainland from the age of 1 or so, and the only reason he played for the Puerto Rico Olympic Team (he qualified to play for Puerto Rico solely due to his accidental birth on the island) was because his college coach wouldn't recommend him for the U.S. Olympic Team; it wouldn't be until many years later that Butch Lee would move to Puerto Rico, to coach in the Superior Basketball League. It seems to me that, if one wanted to make a sociopolitical statement regarding Puerto Rican "nationality," Butch Lee would make an especially poor test case. AuH2ORepublican23:12, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
According to the House & Senate clerks offices, all thirteen draw retirement, although that's unnecessarily esoteric (and private, though public office) and former does work better in case someone included in the future is not. I've started reformatting Congressional links (for those whose article names include accents) e.g. Raúl Labrador. If there is anything you need help or "how to" with, I've had great success at the help desk, requests to edit semi-protected pages, and page move requests. I'm using generic IP in the 75.200 (thereabouts) for another 2 weeks, and then registering. Welcome to Misplaced Pages and HNY2011! 75.202.126.167 (talk) 03:14, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
That's clear enough. :D Thanks. Noticed after the fact that you've been here awhile; my welcome was intended sincerely, and I hope it was taken as such. Old enough to understand the name, though not old enough to remember personally; still cool. 75.204.43.120 (talk) 17:19, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
Longevity of service
True, but since the date formatting counts from greenwich time, it showed their service as longer and they look out of order; knowing that that is just the computer doing its programming, however, I'm willing to hold off until after reality is correct, but we don't truly know which days Sen. Inouye or Rep. Young, as the examples who come to mind, are in HI & AK, respectively, without a lot more checking. Is there a guideline for this other than the one about future events? 75.202.106.96 (talk) 02:39, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
I have a question. In the lede you added, "... and were not subsequently elected by the people" to the sentence, "Of the nine senators, five were popularly elected, two were elected by the Mississippi State Senate, and two were appointed by a state Governor."
Which individuals that were appointed by a Governor sought to be elected? Thanks.
Mitchumch, neither of the two African Americans that were appointed U.S. Senators and that were not subsequently elected to the office ran in a subsequent election (Roland Burris considered running if a special election was held (eventually, the Sixth Circuit forced Gov. Quinn to schedule the election for a date not later than the regular Election Day in November 2010) or in the regular election for a new six-year term, but eventually decided against it). However, I decided to refer to the appointees as not being "subsequently elected by the people" instead of "not having sought election" because it was immaterial whether or not they had sought the office (and had Tim Scott lost the 2014 special election, he would be one of the three appointed Senators that were not subsequently elected). The reason for my change was that, given Tim Scott's election and the commencement of his term as an elected Senator, it was incorrect to state that there only have been four African Americans popularly elected to the U.S. Senate, or to state that there only have been two African Americans appointed to the U.S. Senate without limiting the clause to those that were not subsequently elected (and I couldn't refer to five popularly elected Senators, two legislatively elected Senators and three appointed Senators without creating confusion given that there only have been nine African-American Senators).
Thank you for promptly responding to my question. I have decided to remove the above questioned clause. In order for the appointees not to be "subsequently elected by the people," they must be a candidate in said election. Mo Cowan and Roland Burris retired from office. The subsequent election of appointee Tim Scott does not validate the use of questioned clause. However, I do understand the explanation for including it. I wish I didn't have to remove this edit, because I have supported all of your other observed edits to this and other articles. Thank you again. Mitchumch (talk) 10:06, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
Mitchumch, thanks for the response. I believe that we're on the same page here, and have no problem with your edit. However, for the sake of clarity, I will add a parenthetical to the clause that states that five African Americans have been popularly elected to clarify that one of them previously had been appointed by his state's governor. Cheers. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 14:59, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
If edit warring is you way of getting what you want. Then, I won't trouble you any further. PS: I recommend you change your habits though, in future. There's some editors out there, who aren't gonna put up with your agressive style. GoodDay (talk) 15:08, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
GoodDay, I left you a message on your Talk Page explaining the reason why I undid your edit; no offense was meant, nor did I mean to start an "editing war." AuH2ORepublican (talk) 15:35, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
Hello, Doniago. When I added John Bernardino (as Sgt. Emile Klinger) in the cast of North by Northwest, I did not include a specific reference to the Internet Movie Database (IMDB), my source for that fact, because (i) none of the other cast members had footnotes for the source of the information and (ii) the North by Northwest article already included a link to the movie's IMDB page. ~~
Hi there. IMDb generally shouldn't be used for citations in any case as it's not necessarily reliable, as discussed at WP:RS/IMDb; when available, other sources are preferable. The other cast members aren't cited because they're listed in the credits of the film itself, not because of any external sources. If you wish to add someone who isn't credited in the film itself though, you should really provide a source so that readers can verify where we're getting the information from. Hope this helps! DonIago (talk) 16:01, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
Thank you for your contributions. Please mark your edits as "minor" only if they are minor edits. In accordance with Help:Minor edit, a minor edit is one that the editor believes requires no review and could never be the subject of a dispute. Minor edits consist of things such as typographical corrections, formatting changes or rearrangement of text without modification of content. Additionally, the reversion of clear-cut vandalism and test edits may be labeled "minor". Since the purpose of marking an edit "minor" is to suppress notifications to any editors watching a page, use of this box should be very limited. Generally, adding, removing or altering content, no matter how short the passage, is not a minor edit. Thanks, and happy editing!Ibadibam (talk) 19:25, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for your comment, and I certainly will keep that in mind. For the record, when I described my modification of the year of release of "Pumped Up Kicks" in the singles-chronology box as a "minor change," this was not due to the brevity of the change, but because I merely was correcting an inconsistency with the rest of the page (throughout which it correctly was pointed out that the single was released in 2010). AuH2ORepublican (talk) 19:34, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
You're absolutely right about the inconsistency on that page. I decided to drop a line when I saw this one. But I'll admit that I had just messaged a newer editor about this topic and I was on a bit of a tear, so I apologize for the pedantry. Ibadibam (talk) 19:44, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
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I deeply considered your message go me. For the following reasons below, I am requesting that the number of sovereign states in all wikipedia related articles be 195- the 193 members of the UN, observer Vatican City, and observer state of Palestine (note; this was written in a fully objective and fact based basis and holds no prejudice or double standards in any of the sovereignty disputes regarding the partially recognized states);
- unlike the other states with limited recognition (abkhazia, Taiwan, North Cyprus, Kosovo, etc), all have 113 (~57%) or less recognitions by the UN, while Palestine has 136 recognitions, which amount to ~70.5% of the UN, which gives it limited recognition, but far beyond the partially recognised level. Additionally, states like China, Cyprus, Armenia, and Israel are also disputed by one or more UN members and still have sufficient enough recognition
- None of the states with partial or no recognition (including Kosovo) have neither member or observer status in the UN and do not participate in anyway while palestine is an observer (alongside Vatican City, another non member sovereign state)
- Contrary to popular belief, despite its limited recognition, no country (not even the ones that do not recognize Palestine) except Israel disputes palestinian sovereignty over the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem and actually support the creation of a Palestinian state in these territories, a goal also recognized and supported by the UN while the rest of the partially recognized states all are either (partly or fully) recognized as part of other countries and neither is their right to statehood.
- The UN did not fully reject Palestine, as it has granted it non member observer STATE status (along with some rights such as a permanent mission, it’s flag in its HQ, the right to join international conventions, etc), it is designated as ‘the state of palestine’ in official UN documents, and its observer status vote in 2012 ( among most votes on the issue ) witness an automatic majority. In addition, the security council did not reject the application for statehood in 2011, it just that UNSC members grew divided on the issue and was unable to muster a consensus. It is the palestinians that decided to put it on hold due to US pressure among other threats
I sincerely hope that the editing community will change Palestine’s categorization in all related Misplaced Pages articles, and this was all written in a neutral, objective, and fact based manner. Thank you
I see where your coming from when it comes to your views on the sovereign states number dispute, and I respect your opinion, but nevertheless the editing community is larger than just you alone and I intend, nevertheless, to keep fighting until all 193 + 2 UN countries are listed as sovereign states, REGARDLESS of whom. As i have stated nearly 4000 times to you in our earlier discussions but you still choose to disregard what I say, I hold NO bias towards any state under dispute by other UN members, even Palestine, and if Kosovo, Taiwan or even Antartica were observers in the UN and Palestine wasn't, then I would be fighting for Kosovos' or Taiwans or Antartica's inclusion instead. YES, Palestine is disputed by one UN member- Israel -, but so is Israel, as almost the entire Arab and Muslim world and a few others (Bhutan, North Korea, Cuba) dispute it sovereignty and are UN members and Israel is also recognized by a majority ( 161 UN members - 83% ) and the PR China is also majority recognized and a full UN member, but its also disputed by 19 UN members and vatican city and its recognition is also just below the 90s range. Besides, if you must include Kosovo and Taiwan as well, by all means go ahead and I have nothing against them personally. All in all, I too am tired of this numbers tit-for-tat and I hope that we can put our differences aside and hopefully reach a consensus
Thank you for your message. I certainly don’t have any animosity towards you or your views, either, nor towards the State of Palestine, Republic of Kosovo or Republic of China (Taiwan). The issue here is whether those countries with disputed sovereignty should be listed among the sovereign and independent countries of the world in articles on which both children and adults rely for information, learning and personal edification. As you noted, the decision is not for you or I to make, but one for which the editing community writ-large must achieve a consensus. My edits and comments have been in preservation of the status quo, not because I agree with the current presentation of sovereign countries (although I do agree with it), but because a major change in an area that is subject to subjectivity should not be done without consulting the editing community. And while I have not address every one of your arguments in my comments, that does not mean that I did not consider them, nor, indeed, that I have not had knowledge of such facts for several years. In several cases, I did not bother to dispute your assertions because I felt that getting embroiled in subjective matters would not add much to a debate that should be about objective matters. Please keep in mind that it is not an objective fact that the State of Israel is the only country that disputes the State of Palestine’s sovereignty (were that the case, it would not have been rejected for UN membership and no country would even consider moving its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem; while it is true that most countries officially recognize the State of Palestine’s sovereignty, in many cases it is recognition of an aspirational sovereignty that they hope will come to fruition following negotiations and a peace accord between Israel and Palestine), and that some observers posit that the State of Palestine is not even a de facto independent state, but a de facto occupied territory with aspirations of sovereignty.
But I am not interested in belittling the State of Palestine or downplaying the level of recognition that it has achieved. You will have noticed that I never have reverted your edits that inform readers about the State of Palestine’s status as a UN observer state (in fact, since you first joined Misplaced Pages a few weeks ago, I have added such information to several articles that omitted that important fact), and that, in the article listing countries and dependent territories in Asia, I did not revert your inclusion of the State of Palestine under a new header reserved for UN observer states. That particular edit of yours is not, I believe, inconsistent with the previously established consensus. In addition, it is an objective truth that the limitations upon the State of Palestine’s recognition as a sovereign and independent state are far different from those of de facto states that have virtually no international recognition (such as Artsakh), and I can understand your desire not to see the State of Palestine being grouped with such states. Actually, I think that it also is misleading to group the Republic of China (Taiwan) with largely unrecognized de facto states, but given that Taiwan is not a UN observer state it cannot be placed in the category that you created within the article.
I believe that the binary nature of the categorization of countries in Misplaced Pages articles—either a sovereign country like France, or else a state of limited recognition like Transnistria—is what is creating the problem here. The sovereignty of the State of Palestine, Republic of Kosovo and the Republic of China (Taiwan) is not in dispute in the same way that it is for Somaliland or the Republic of South Ossetia, yet their very different statuses are depicted in the same way in articles with information on countries of the world (with de facto sovereign states with limited recognition, as well as the two associated republics of New Zealand, having their names in bold italics). The most recent consensus on Misplaced Pages holds, and I wholeheartedly agree, that, for example, a listing of countries by GDP should include entities that are not generally recognized sovereign countries (such as dependent territories like Hong Kong and Puerto Rico and de facto states with limited recognition like Kosovo, Taiwan and the State of Palestine), but that such entities should be differentiated through a different font (and not being given a number in the ranking by GDP). But if generally recognized sovereign states are in bold roman, and dependent territories are in unbolded italics, that doesn’t leave many font options for de facto independent states, and currently all such entities (whether Kosovo, Somaliland or the Cook Islands) are shown in bold italics. The only way of which I can think to distinguish between Kosovo, Palestine and Taiwan on the one hand and Artsakh, Northern Cyprus and Niue on the other, would be to introduce plain, unbolded roman as a fourth font. Placing the State of Palestine, Republic of Kosovo and the Republic of China (Taiwan)—de facto independent states whose international recognition is limited but non-trivial—in unbolded roman would be consistent with the consensus that they should not be grouped with the 193 UN members and Vatican City but would acknowledge that they are not de facto states that are largely unrecognized. Would you be interested in such distinction being made?
Once again, I invite the editing community at Misplaced Pages, particularly those who have edited articles listing sovereign countries and dependent territories, to express your thoughts on whether the existing consensus should be changed. My own opinion, as set forth in this and in my prior post, is that only the 193 UN member states and Vatican City should be grouped among generally recognized sovereign states, and that the State of Palestine, Republic of Kosovo and the Republic of China (Taiwan), which are de facto states with disputed sovereignty but substantial levels of international recognition, should be classified separately from de facto states with trivial levels of international recognition. What do other editors think? AuH2ORepublican (talk) 13:03, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
I have a deal for you
Ok, I have agreed to come to a compromise with you and others who share your views- In all wikipedia articles, I will not object to you doing the 194 rule (193 UN members, Vatican), BUT...
Palestine be in its OWN category by itself INDEPENDENT from the de facto gang, and Taiwan and Kosovo in their own separate category as 'special cases' (if you'd like) (but WITHOUT Palestine) until further notice. If you agree with this compromise, you are to inform the wider community of this agreed interim solution and get them to agree as well. How would you like that?
I didn't think that we were negotiating, but merely trying to present articles in an unbiased way. As I have said before, I don't believe that the State of Palestine should be afforded preferential treatment over the similarly situated Kosovo or Taiwan. However, if you want to establish a separate category for "de facto states with limited recognition but which are UN observer states" in every pertinent article, and to use unbolded roman as the font for the name "State of Palestine" (to set it apart from the bold roman used for generally recognized sovereign states and the bold italics used for de facto states with limited recognition but that are not UN observer states), I'm not going to object. Of course, I can't speak for other editors, who may feel as strongly about Kosovo or Taiwan as you do about Palestine. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 15:39, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
Talatastan, I said that I wasn't going to object to your edits in which Palestine is set apart from Kosovo and Taiwan, but I certainly will object to your edits that groups Palestine with the 194 generally recognized sovereign states. As I and others have explained to you countless times, such a change requires that you obtain consensus from the editing community. So if you renumber all of the GDP rankings because you wish to group Palestine with the generally recognized sovereign states, I will revert it and ask you to seek consensus from the editing community before making such change. If you wish, make all of the generally recognized sovereign states bold roman and the State of Palestine unbolded roman, and add an explanation in the introduction about how Palestine is a UN observer state and as such will not be in italics, but, until you obtain consensus, do not add a number to Palestine's ranking as if it were one of the generally recognized sovereign states. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 15:58, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
re:
Yes will do. I will list 194 states, palestine by itself, taiwan and kosovo together, and the rest of the others together. Although I am working to change it, I will comply until consent is achieved. BTW, could you tell me where I can talk to the wider community to avoid further confusion, thanks.
In order to get input from the editing community, you should post your proposal on the Talk page of the article that you wish to amend. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 18:07, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
My response
Hi AuH2ORepublican,
I am so glad that the wiki community is having this much needed discussion, an also to hear your opinion. As to what I think of your views, however, You are correct when it comes to Taiwan, but as to Palestine, I'm gonna have to press the red buzzer. According to my research (including wikipedia), Yes, Palestine did not succeed in gaining full UN membership and yes, the majority of the 56 countries that do not recognize it as a state are significant players in the world economy but quantitatively speaking in the world, but we should not dismiss or negate the fact that 137/193= 71% members, as opposed to 56/193 members =29%, of the entire UN considers Palestine a state, which represents the myriad of the world, and in international law, the say of every already existing member of the family of sovereign nations, irregardless of their economic or political prowess, counts. Besides, there are several economic and world powers that you have not mentioned who acknowledge Palestinian nationhood, such as BRICS, GCC, Sweden, Turkey, Argentina and & Chile (both of which are far more better off economically than Mexico) Indonesia, and Malaysia. Furthermore, we must also not forget that, while its membership application failed, is was not rejected, as the matter was never even put to a vote by the Palestinian Authority and the official reason for this delay was the 'inability to reach a unanimous consensus', meaning that members were divided on the issue, as some opposed and some supported. We could, however, conclude that their application would be rejected if it was put to a vote and the vote did not succeed. Lets consider a hypothetical situation that Mahmoud Abbas is going to fly to New York in a week to discuss with Guterres his idea to table such a resolution to the security council over a beer (or, in this case, something non alcoholic) and Guterres does so; pertaining to current non permanent members, Bolivia, Ethiopia, the Cote Divoire, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Peru, and Sweden; pertaining to the P5, Russia and China will vote for as well. This equates to exactly 9 votes. Abstaining will likely be the Netherlands, Poland, (maybe) equatorial guinea, the UK, and (likely) France (two of five P5 members), amounting to 3 non permanent abstentions, and 2 P5 abstentions, meaning 5 in total. However, it would not pass as the US of A is (likely) to veto an application deemed to harsh to its oh so dear Israel. Say if it doesn't (which would be unlikely), the vote will go to the GA, which is Palestines home base. Therefore, the United States of America is arguably the only obstacle to full Palestinian membership, whereas for Taiwan, there are many more. All in all, I hold no prejudice towards your views, and I am nevertheless open to your proposal, and what I would propose is that either we do your proposal, or that, yet again, Taiwan be in an independent category, and the UN member and observer states are listed altogether. How does that sound?
@Kawhilaugh42, thank you for responding to my comment to your earlier post. For the reasons I have stated before, I do not agree with listing the State of Palestine with countries whose sovereignty is not a matter of controversy. And while you are correct that Taiwan's chances of being admitted as a UN member are more remote than Palestine's, I think that the main reason for that is that China is a far more powerful country than Israel, so countries who wouldn't think twice about taking an action opposed by Israel wouldn't dare face the wrath of China, which is one of the largest markets in the world. I think that, if anything, Taiwan has more de facto control over its territory than the two Palestinian governments over do over the West Bank and Gaza, respectively (think of how the Israeli Defense Forces go into Gaza and the West Bank willy-nilly, while Taiwan has complete military and political control over its territory). So Palestine is ahead in the official international recognition game (although it still is missing recognition from the most important players), while Taiwan is ahead in the whole "controls its territory" question. Both countries have greater attributes of sovereignty than do Northern Cyprus, Abkhazia, etc., and my preference would be for Palestine and Taiwan to be in their own category of de facto countries with limited international recognition (with Northern Cyprus, etc. in a category of de facto countries with little ir no international recognition). AuH2ORepublican (talk) 01:49, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
Final response
After much consideration, I have come to the conclusion that I will have to agree to Palestine and Taiwan ROC can be put in the same category. Since I have agreed to this change, may I have permission to re-edit the Sovereign states of Asia page and all those subsequent to it as such?
By the way, despite my consent, you do know that the UN has, from 2012, considered Palestinians a state right? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kawhilaugh42 (talk • contribs) 02:27, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
@Kawhilaugh42, thank you for your thoughtfulness, but please note that you don't need my "permission" to edit that article: It is the editing community as a whole that decides what stays in and what comes out. That being said, I support your proposed edit, and will express such support publicly should other editors object to it. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 02:17, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
@Kawhilaugh42, I forgot to respond to your last point. Yes, I am aware that in 2012 the UN upgraded Palestine's status from that of an observer entity (which was the PLO's status) to that of an observer state. That the State of Palestine is a "state" is not at issue; the question is whether it is a *generally recognized sovereign* state. It's closer now than it was before 2012, but I don't believe it is there yet. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 02:47, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
Going forward
Hi AuH2ORepublican,
I am very relieved that a long running dispute on wikipedia is over. Given this, and given that we both have made some very difficult compromises, I would like the two of us to agree on something; the status quo will remain on all country related articles until further notice (I will get into that in a bit), but I am just proposing a few amendments. These are that
a) Palestine would not be depicted as minimally recognized
of course without putting it in the same list as full UN members until further notice
b) Kosovo be switched with Taiwan, as they have substantial control over their territory and the most recognized of the group
c) Palestine OR Kosovo be added to the un members list when either Palestine is more recognized by important world players (such as much of the EU) and Kosovo if it gains member or observer status and is more widely recognized, and rearrangements of countries should not succumb to political biases or favouritisms
Furthermore, what I meant by until further notice, to ensure the status quo, and to avoid much confusion and further debate, I believe that we should set a criteria on when should a state, by wikipedia categorization, can be permitted to be listed with the 193 UN members, and the Holy See? What are you're thoughts?
@Kawhilaugh42, I can only speak for myself, not for other editors. I think that your idea of setting up ground rules a priori to deal with changes in recognition of countries that currently have limited recognition is a good one, but I don't know if we'll be able to come with a completely objective, bright-line rule short of UN membership (I'm not saying that UN membership would be required before grouping a country with the unambiguously sovereign ones, just that for non-UN members it would require a balancing test of sorts, not merely following a pre-existing bright-line rule).
Let me give you my thoughts on the status of international recognition of non-UN members:
Vatican City is not a UN member, but it doesn't wish to be one, and the Holy See's sovereignty over Vatican City is not questioned by anyone (crucially, not even by Italy, which is the only state that could claim Vatican City as part of its territory, and which recognized the Holy See's sovereignty over Vatican City in the Lateran Treaty of 1929). In that sense, it's like Switzerland, which had been a sovereign for centuries, with unquestioned sovereignty over its territory and complete territorial integrity for well over a century, until it finally agreed to join the UN in 2002. For these reasons, I think that Vatican City should be grouped along with the 193 UN members as a sovereign state with generalized international recognition.
The de facto state that, in my opinion, is the closest to being a sovereign state with generalized international reognition is Kosovo, which has full control of its territory, is a member of the World Bank (the only non-member of the UN with such distinction), and currently is recognized by 111 of the 193 UN member states. While a greater number of UN member states recognize the State of Palestine, the countries that recognize Kosovo's sovereignty are disproportionately those developed countries with internationally important economies that I previously had pointed out did not recognize Palestine, including all seven G7 countries (US, UK, Germany, Japan, France, Italy and Canada) plus Australia, Netherlands, Belgium, South Korea, Denmark, New Zealand, Austria and others. Moreover, 23 out of the 28 members of the European Union recognize Kosovo's sovereignty (by contrast, only 9 EU members recognize the State of Palestine's sovereignty). That being said, Kosovo's territory still is claimed by Serbia, which considers it a breakaway province, and many countries will continue to refuse to recognize Kosovo's sovereignty either because of solidarity with Serbia (most prominently, Russia) or for fear that such recognition may encourage or facilitate independence claims by its own separatist provinces (with Spain being the most obvious example of that).
The State of Palestine has the next-best claim to being generally recognized, and the pros and cons have been discussed ad nauseam.
The Republic of China (Taiwan) has a claim to sovereignty that is stronger than Oalestine's in some aspects (which also have been discussed ad nauseam), but ultimately it is clear that it faces higher hurdles to generalized recognition than does Palestine.
The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic is in de facto control of a small portion of its claimed territory of Western Sahara, and the entirety of its claimed territory is also claimed by Morocco (which occupied it in the 1970s). Its sovereignty is recognized by only 47 UN members.
* The other de facto states gave virtually no recognition from UN members.
While UN membership would, in and of itself, confer the status of generally recognized sovereign statehood, there certainly could be circumstances in which an otherwise generally recognized sovereign state either doesn't wish to join the UN (such as Switzerland for many years and Vatican City today) or is blocked from joining by a UN member claiming the totality of that country's territory and a few powerful friends of such country. So how can we determine, short of UN membership, that a self-proclaimed state whose territory in its totality is claimed by an unambiguously sovereign state has generalized recognition of its sovereignty short? It would be difficult to establish a bright-line rule, but one thing that comes to mind is to ascribe generalized recognition of sovereignty to states that are recognized by at least 20 of the 25 unambiguously sovereign countries with the highest total GDP.
According to the most recent data compiled by each of the IMF and the World Bank (which is as of 2017), the countries with the 25 largest GDPs (excluding Taiwan, which is listed by the IMF but not the World Bank, and whose sovereignty, as we know, is questioned by many) are the US, China, Japan, Germany, UK, India, France, Brazil, Italy, Canada, South Korea, Russia, Australia, Spain, Mexico, Indonesia, Turkey, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Argentina, Sweden, Poland, Belgium and Thailand. Those 25 countries include both developed and developing countries, and countries of diverse languages and religions, and the one thing that they all have in common is that they are influential countries internationally (although, obviously, some more than others).
If six or more of those 25 countries refuse to recognize the sovereignty of a particular state, then it would be difficult to claim that there is generalized recognition of such state, especially given that those 25 countries, with few exceptions, recognize almost all members of the UN (for example, even Israel, which likely is the most influential state whose recognition has been withheld by many UN members, is recognized by 24 of the 25 countries with the highest GDP--all but Saudi Arabia, which nevertheless has unofficial relations with Israel).
Under that standard, Vatican City is generally recognized (23 of the 25--all but Saudi Arabia and the People's Republic of China, the latter of which refuses to reconize countries that officially recognize Taiwan as sovereign), and Kosovo is the de facto state whose sovereignty is the closest to being deemed to be generally recognized, as it is recognized by 17 of the 25 countries (all but China, India, Brazil, Russia, Spain, Mexico, Indonesia and Argentina). It is likely that Kosovo will be recognized by at least three of those countries during the next few years, and at that point the biggest hurdle for UN membership will be Russia's support for its ally Serbia's claim that Kosovo's declaration of independence was illegal.
The State of Palestine, on the othe hand, is recognized by only 11 of those counties (for the most part, the developing countries in the top 25 GDPs), and it would need to convince at least nine others to be able to claim that only five of those countries have withheld recognition. And Taiwan is not officially recognized by any of the countries with top-25 total GDPs, but it should be noted that it enjoys non-diplomatic, unofficial relations with 24 of the 25 (all but--you guessed it--the People's Republic of China; if the Republic of China were to abjure its claim to be the legitimate government of mainland China and instead claimed to be the government only of the current territory of Taiwan, it likely would be recognized by many of those 25 countries, although it is probable that the People's Republic of China would be able to convince at least five others not to recognize Taiwan. Meanwhile, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic is recognized only by Mexico among those 25 countries (India used to recognize it but it withdrew is recognition a few years ago).
Well, this has been a much longer post than I originally intended, but trying to find a completely objective measure of generalized recognition of sovereignty is not easy, and explaining why it might be worth adopting is very hard to do in few words or without real-world examples. So, what do you think of my proposed bright-line test? It's not perfect by any means, but it could be a good working guideline. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 06:02, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
Thoughts
AuH2ORepublican,
So it appears that you have a genuine desire to put an end to this controversy, given the discernible and considerable thought you have invested into the culmination of this criteria and your sporadical, objective, well-evidenced, and immense response, and I like that. As to what I think of it,
- Kosovo or Republic of Kosovo, is a definite contender, and the criterion you based Kosovo on- most de facto and de jure sovereignty of all states with limited recognition- is fully reminiscent to my interpretation, and Palestine, or State of Palestine, although it possesses more of the constitutional theory than the declarative theory and its the only one of these with some kind of UN seat, but then again has at least a slightly existent control over some affairs. Besides, the US, UN, UNESCO, France, UK, and China (those who know what they are talking about) all recognize 195 states (each of them recognizing either palestine or Kosovo)
- As to Taiwan (ROC) or Western Sahara, I would say that, considering that Western Sahara has only full membership in one important organization- the AU - but Taiwan has more (APEC, WTO, FIFA, IOC), and Taiwan excersizes 100% control over its territory (except the mainland) whereas the Polisario only controls 25% of theirs, but IF you count de jure recognition, western sahara has slightly more than Taiwan, although both have a roughly close number of embassies (in the official capacity; Taiwan 16, SADR 18). However, Taiwan is more "de facto" recognized. Therefore, I believe that western sahara should be reconsidered a dependent territory, not a partially or mostly recognised state) since we are going by UN guides here, add Taiwan should remain as on the list since, like Transnistria, it is sovereign fully de facto, but barely in the de jure sense, and Kosovo and Palestine move to round two
- As for the rest, I completely agree with you that they should remain as they are
- To be fair, we technically speaking should categorize Vatican here since, like Palestine, is not a member, but observer of the UN, while we should maintain that it has the highest and distinct status among them all
- Lastly, as for your criteria, YES, we should base recognition on influential world powers and middle powers, and we should consider de facto existence as well, but I also believe that, as to recognition, the minimum level of recognition where we should draw the line is ANYTHING above 110 (56% or higher) the number of large influential players should be at least 2 world powers and at least 5 middle or regional powers, it should be at least a member or observer of 5 or more important regional and international organizations, have a resident government, not in exile, controlling at least some important affairs and and acceptable portions of its territory
If you agree with most or all of these suggestions, I suggest that we JOINTLY propose them to other influential decision makers on wikipedia and see what THEY think
@Kawhilaugh42, thank you for taking the time to respond once again and to make a counter-proposal. However, I have thought about this carefully, and I do not agree with the criteria that you set forth, as I believe that it would make it too easy for a country without generalized international recognition to be deemed to be a sovereign state.
First of all, I don't think that there should be any controversy about Vatican City being deemed a sovereign state. No country disputes that the Holy See is sovereign over the entirety of the territory of Vatican City, the only country that feasibly could claim such territory (Italy) recognizes the Vatican City's sovereignty by treaty, and the only reason why Vatican City is not a full member of the UN is that it never has applied for membership. So Vatican City should be listed with the UN members, unless and until Italy disputes its sovereignty, at which time we would need to apply whichever criteria are adopted by Misplaced Pages editors by consensus.
Second, I think that we can all agree that the Somalilands and Abkhazias of the world should be in a category of de facto states with little or no international recognition. The only de facto states that would be in a category of de facto states with limited, but substantial, international recognition are the Republic of Kosovo, the State of Palestine, the Republic of China (Taiwan), and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. Please note that, while you are correct that most of the land known as Western Sahara (formerly the Spanish Sahara) is a dependent territory of Morocco, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic describes the de facto state that controls a portion of the territory that it aspires to control someday, and such de facto state has sufficient international recognition as to place it on the list of de facto states with limited, but substantial, international recognition.
Third, we don't need to place the four de facto states with limited, but substantial, international recognition in any sort of pecking order. I think that, if we were to rank the four in how close they are to being generally recognized as sovereign by the international community, then it would be Kosovo, Palestine, Taiwan and SADR, in that order, with Kosovo and Palestine being the only ones with a relatively good chance of being admitted as members of the UN during the next few years. But if we were to list the four in an article, we would order them alphabetically among the de facto states with limited, but substantial, international recognition, just as Liechtenstein is listed before Turkey despite the latter having far stronger attributes of sovereignty than the former.
I think that we need to acknowledge that, now that even Switzerland has joined the UN, UN membership is pretty close to dispositive in determining whether a de facto state is generally recognized as sovereign by the international community. For a non-member of the UN to be deemed to be "generally recognized" as a sovereign state would be, quite literally, an exception to the general rule. I explained above how Vatican City is such an exception, given that it is recognized as sovereign by just about every country, and no one disputes ownership of the territory that it unambiguously controls. So the four de facto states with limited, but substantial, international recognition have a high hurdle to clear to be able to be deemed a generally recognized sovereign state prior to their admission as a UN member state.
Recognition by regional groups and international organizations other than the UN matter very little when it comes to whether a country has general international recognition. True, being admitted as a member of such groups may tell us something about what the countries that belong to such group think about the de facto state in question, but the only measure of generalized international recognition is recognition of sovereignty by other sovereign states. Puerto Rico was admitted as a member of the International Olympic Committee and participates in Olympic Games and other international competitions as if it were a sovereign state, but that by no means is evidence of Puerto Rico being a sovereign state or, more to the point, of recognition of sovereignty by the countries that comprise the IOC.
The results from a mechanism whereby a de facto state with recognition by a lot of small or poor countries and a couple of "major powers" would not necessarily favor only such de facto states that are generally recognized. For example, a couple of major powers might recognize the State of Palestine merely to stick a finger in the eye of Israel or, by proxy, the United States. But, so long as 14 of the countries with the 25 highest GDPs do not recognize the State of Palestine, it would be silly to believe that Palestine is at the cusp of being admitted as a member of the UN, and thus it would not be correct to say that Palestine is generally recognized as a sovereign state. Similarly, having a few countries in all regions recognizing one's sovereignty doesn't tell us much about the odds of eventual admission as a UN member state.
That being said, you raise an excellent point that a de facto state that is not recognized by at least a majority of the members of the UN shouldn't be considered to be generally recognized internationally even if, say, all 25 of the countries with the highest GDPs recognized such state's sovereignty. For this reason, I hereby amend my proposed definition of "generally recognized as a sovereign state" so that it reads as follows: "A state that either (i) has been admitted as a member of the United Nations or (ii) has been recognized as a sovereign state by (A) a majority of the members of the United Nations and (B) at least 20 of the UN members with the 25 highest Gross National Products as most recently measured by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund."
If you agree with the new definition that I set forth above, you have my permission to present this as a joint proposal from the two of us. It's certainly a tough standard, but, in this day and age, for non-member states of the UN to be deemed to have generally recognized sovereignty should not be easy. I think that the best thing that such definition has going for it is that if a de facto state meets such standard it only would be a matter of time before it would be admitted as a member of the UN.
You and I both understand by now that yes, Palestine may not qualify at the moment to join the primary list, yes, it only partially, if at all, succeeded in getting a UN seat (in the form of a non member observer state), and that 14 of those 25 nations don't recognize it as a state but we can both agree that 71%, although not from important players, of the UN 193 states deems Palestine to be a mostly, but not generally recognized state and we cannot ignore the fact that, despite not being a member, in the eyes of the UN (save for the states that don't recognize palestine in the assembly), Palestine is, viewed as a state (hence the usage of state of Palestine in official documents and non member observer STATE status as opposed to entity status (something that the wiki community acknowledges) but nevertheless, it can remain on this list until further notice. Second of all, I certainly agree that membership in regional bodies and sport competition ones like FIFA do not make one a state, nor was I insinuating that. Nor was I "countering" your criteria, but was simply adding a few changes. Third, we must remember that, while economic influence makes a state influential, it does not repudiate the fact ALL sovereign states, from Nauru to the US, are, in fact, equal, so I would say that everything you proposed except the part about top 25 GDP states should be kept. Additionally, I would say that, to be fair, I think that the Sahrawi republic will join kosovo and Palestine, but Taiwan should not, and to to be honest, it is not technically correct to call Palestine a "de facto" state since it actually is the far opposite. Also, Im not trying to interiorize others to Palestine, nor am I favouring it over others, but in terms of state recognition, the facts objectively speak for themselves. Therefore, I will accept your new definition, but just to replace the to 25 GDPs thing with the state that has the least legal dispute, meaning the least unrecognized. Also, may you accept that, with the adoption of our definition, we both agree that the above mentioned "de facto" states be removed from all limited recognition states and be put in their own category?
PS lets be honest with ourselves- if were gonna get anywhere, we must both make compromises, as it seems like im giving up too much at the expense of you, but nevertheless, I look forward to finding a solution, just as Israel/Palestine, Kosovo/Serbia, and SADR/Morocco will someday (I hope)
I also hope that Israel/Palestine, Kosovo/Serbia and SADR/Morocco find a solution to their problem, and would add that I also hope for the same for China/Taiwan.
But I don't understand why you think that this is a negotiation with winners and losers "giving up" things. I am not advocating for Serbia, Israel, Red China or Morocco when I assert that Kosovo, Palestine, Taiwan and SADR are not generally recognized sovereign states, and I am not trying to keep them off such list out of spite. I'm just one editor, but as long as I am allowed to express my opinion I will do so with the aim of providing the best, most unbiased information for readers of Misplaced Pages. My audience, so to speak, are my daughters, whom I would like to be able to tell that if they read something in a well edited article on Misplaced Pages that they can count on it being correct. I wouldn't want them to go to an encyclopedia article that claims that Kosovo or Palestine are generally recognized sovereign states any more than I would like them to read that, say, the Sumatran rhinoceros is extinct (it isn't, although it is critically endangered) or that Congressman Justin Amash is Asian-American (he isn't, at least as the term is defined in the U.S.).
The reason why I came up with criteria for deeming a non-member of the UN to be a generally recognized sovereign state is that you requested that we have rules in place a priori so that, when Kosovo or Palestine (which you accepted, albeit reluctantly, currently are not quite at the level of international recognition that UN members and Vatican City have) gain additional international recognition, we can upgrade them to the list of unambiguously sovereign states without any controversy. After thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that no numerical percentage of UN members recognizing Kosovo or Palestine would be sufficient, by itself, to endow such aspiring states with generalized international recognition, because, no matter how much we say that of course all sovereign states, large or small, rich or poor, have the same dignity and authority, the truth remains that what China or the UK or the U.S. or India think about a country's claims of sovereignty matters a lot more than what Monaco, Kiribati, the Seychelles or Bhutan think about it. Powerful countries have the ability to wield power over other countries, and if the biggest economies don't want a particular state to be admitted as a member of the UN it is unlikely that such state would be admitted.
If you recall, I originally noted Palestine's lack of recognition by major economies by pointing out that it wasn't recognized by any of the G7 or by many other large and affluent countries. I then realized that I was being unfair in not acknowledging that some very large (albeit, mostly, developing) economies did recognize Palestine, and that looking only at developed countries failed to take into account the power that large, developing countries wield not only in the UN but in the world economy. That's why I proposed that we cast a wider net and look at whether the top 25 countries in GDP recognize a state when weighing how generalized is the recognition of its sovereignty. By looking at the 25 biggest economies, quite a few developing countries go into the list, and it includes a very diverse swath of nations. I don't think that it would be objective to claim that a country whose sovereignty is disputed by 6 or more of the top 25 GDPs nevertheless is generally recognized internationally. The only way that I could be convinced that a country with so many powerful objectors to recognition nevertheless could be deemed a generally recognized sovereign state would be if it was recognized by 15 of the top 25 GDPs *and* 8 of the top 10 GDPs, since being recognized by 8 out of the 10 biggest economies would compensate for not being recognized by as many as half of the countries listed between 11 and 25 on the list. But making such change would result in Palestine having a more difficult path to meeting the standard, since the 11-25 countries have numerous developing countries and Muslim countries that tend to recognize Palestine, and I certainly am not trying to keep Palestine out once it obtains the support of 80% of top-25 economies.
In conclusion, agreeing to an objective, a priori standard of generalized recognition is as difficult as I feared that it would be. Maybe it would be best if we just waited for Kosovo and Palestine to be admitted as members of the UN, which would make the issue academic. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 01:19, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
re:
AuH2ORepublican,
Despite our differences, you have been very fair and objective throughout entire debate, and you have a good reason for suggesting why this priori is the most suitable option, but what I meant is compromises on the part of personal biases. Also, I acknowledge that, despite both our biases, you are trying as best as you can to do things in a purely objective manner, and I don't dispute that whatsoever. However, I too will try not to succumb to personal biases when it comes to the following countries. Once and for all, I will fully accept your latest reformed version of the criteria, and keeping in line with being recognized but the top 25 GDP states, my final suggestion is that either Palestine or Kosovo be moved to the unambiguously 193+1 list of countries when Palestine is recognized by more EU countries or Kosovo is more recognized by more middle powers, such as BRINCS and Iran. That way, when most on both sides of the world order recognize Palestine, Kosovo, or both, then they can unambiguously be considered generally recognized and That the Sahrawi Republic be so moved when they fulfill this criteria and gain status in the UN or that Taiwan will be replacing the PRC when it does so. Nevertheless, I hold no prejudices towards either's cause, and as a mater of fact, I am somewhat sympathetic with them given their unfortunate political situations. Nevertheless, I regret that you percieved my last post to have a somewhat assertive and aggressive undertone, and that no such intention was there. Also on an important note, since we have finalized discussions on the matter, I am looking to bring our case to other prominent decision makers on wikipedia, so would you mind providing me with a list of some of their talk pages? It was a pleasure working with you!
@Kawhilaugh42, if Palestine is recognized by EU countries with large economies, and Kosovo is recognized by most of the BRIC countries and other large, developing economies (Russia won't recognize Kosovo while its little brother Serbia maintains that it is Serbian territory), then (i) they probably will have been recognized by 20 of the top 25 economies and (ii) they likely will be admitted as members as the UN unless the U.S. (acting at Israel's behest) or Russia (acting at Serbia's behest) can use their Security Council veto to block Palestine and Kosovo, respectively.
The State of Palestine is recognized by 11 of the UN members with the 25 highest GDPs, and only 2 of those are EU members (Poland and Sweden); if the seven other EU members in the top 25 (Germany, the UK (which hasn't left the EU yet), France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium) plus fellow European Switzerland were to recognize Palestine, it would be recognized by 19 of the top-25-GDP UN member states, and surely a 20th country (such as Mexico or Canada) would join them to maje it 20. And with more of the big, developing economies recognizing Kosovo, it easily would reach the 20-country threshhold. So I don't think that Palestine could be widely recognized by EU countries but not by 20 of the top 25 economies, or that Kosovo could be recognized by most of thr large, developing economies but not by 20 of the top 25 GDPs.
However, if we replace the objective standard that I propose with a subjective standard of "recognition by more EU states" for Palestine and "recognition by more developing economies" for Kosovo, we could have Palestine and Kosovo reach a threshhold of supposedly "generalized recognition" despite most of the top-10 economies refusing to recognize such states. For example, Palestine easily could gain recognition by 15 out of 28 EU members without making any leeway among the largest economies--it already is recognized by 9 EU members (Poland, Sweden, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Malta, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary), so adding, say, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Croatia and Slovenia (none of which is exactly a superpower) would give Palestine recognition by a clear majority of EU member states. Given that I think that recognition by a large majority of the top economies is a prerequisite to being deemed as generally recognized internationally as being a sovereign state, I don't think that I can support a threshhold that would not insist upon recognition by at least 80% of the top 25 economies (which is not so high a standard as to permit a "heckler's veto" by 4 or 5 countries). (But, as I stated previously, I agree with your assertion that a country can't be considered to be "generally recognized" if less than half of the UN states recognize its sovefeignty.)
Regarding what other editors to consult in order to develop a consensus, probably the best way would be to post something in the talk pages of articles in which generally recognized sovereign states and states without generalized international recognition are listed under separate headings. Given that Kosovo and Palestine are the only two aspiring sovereign states that could achieve the status of general international recognition within the next few years, with Taiwan as a third possibility if it stops pretending to be the legitimate ruler of all of China and instead claim sovereignty over Taiwanese teritory, I would recommend posting on the talk pages of List of Sovereign States and Dependent Territories in Asia and in the similarly named article for Europe. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 05:28, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
Final offer
AuH2ORepublican,
It surely has been an arduous and contentious process to reach to a (almost) middle ground between our understandings, and we both have made significant concessions to which we were not able to make prior to this point. While we may not agree on everything, one thing that we both have established is that the current organization of states needs to be slightly rendered in order to accustom political sensitivities, and I hold no prejudice towards the generous concessions that you have made. As to the ages old question of Palestine, I recognize and agree that it is generally understood that while Palestine may be majority recognized numerically speaking, it lacks sufficient political weight in the absence of recognitions from major world and western powers, all key players in IR, and that the US, at the present geopolitical circumstances, will not permit Palestine to upgrade to full membership and will force it to keep its albeit limited and peripheral form of membership in the UN alongside the Vatican (who prefers its status for the foreseeable future). Furthermore, we can also all agree that Palestine is not in a flimsy self governing position and that Israel and 55 other UN members in the world currently object to Palestines claims but not rights to be a sovereign nation. This is why I will accept, for now, them not being on the fully sovereign states list. Furthermore, your criteria seems well formulated. However, in the combined interest of you and me, I will make this LAST AND FINAL offer, in which i have tried so hard to take in your and my considerations. This is as follows, no more no less and will remain so - To be part of the 194 and indisputably sovereign, a country needs to be recognised widely both in the de jure and de facto senses. To be considered generally recognised de jure, the following criteria must be met in full;
a) it must be recognised by 75-80%+ of the 194 aforementioned states, of which a considerable portion is made up by key players (the 20/24 largest GDPs)
b) the extent to which the states sovereignty is disputed must be maximum 25% and minimum 20% (Israel and the reset of the SWLR are currently at 16.5%+)
c) It MUST be recognised by (most or all) the following; the P5, the EU, the UN (independent of the opinions of the 194 states but its organizational views, such as any status that confers 'state'), BRINCS, the G7, G25, and G77
d) it MUST have full membership or observer membership in (most or all of the following)
i. UN
ii. all MANDATORY regional organizations
iii. at least 7 UN specialized agencies
e) the state must conduct foreign diplomatic relations at a substantial and normal rate (unlike that of north cyprus or abkhazia leaching onto Turkey or Russia for survival or like Kosovo SADR Taiwan having very minimal diplomatic outreaches or like Palestine having very few full diplomatic missions within its territory, which has more to do with practical impediments rather than lack of recognition, whereas Kosovo and Taiwan have some full diplomatic missions, the rest do not)
furthermore, my FINAL EVER proposal will be that Kosovo, Taiwan, and SADR remain in their current taxonomy and Palestine, apart from the 194 list but equivocal to that of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and is to be considered not a state, but a 'legal entity under international law' analogous to that of SMO. I believe this because Palestine does not fully satisfies this criteria, but it does to the extent that its kind of 'in between' the two categories and that the SMO and Palestine are in practice and law, more or less the same because they are 'states' that conduct foreign relations equivalent to that of 194 countries, are considered 'sovereign' by major world bodies like the UN (but not some of its members) and can accede to int'l treaties because they have some legal privileges that the 3 de facto states do (although Palestine is still de facto). Honestly, I truly emphasize with the people of all disputed countries and regardless of ones stance on their disputes, it is very unfortunate that they are affected by the hardships and ambiguities caused upon them as a result of these disputes as we speak not just on a political level, but on all levels and social worldwide understandings, and honestly, each and every single one of them deserves to live like any other person from any non disputed country on earth, and to a considerable extent, its the conflicting interests and greed of the major powers and on a sociological level, the inability for mankind to agree on everything as proved throughout human history. This is the last and only other offer I will be making. If you do still disagree, however, this will still remain my offer but you are more than welcome to keep the status quo of our agreements reached throughout these extensive discussions and to raise the issue with other editors of the wiki community. I am officially, for now, will be taking a moratorium on these efforts. Thank you.
@Kawhilaugh42, I would be remiss if I did not point out once again that you and I are not negotiating terms of an agreement, but merely are expressing our respective viewpoints as to the way to present information in the most informative and unbiased fashion possible. Also, even if the two of us agreed to present information in a certain way, we are just two out of Misplaced Pages's many editors, and two persons do not a consensus make.
All that being said, I feel that your "final proposal" over-complicates things and that--far from its intent of avoiding future controversy--likely will create controversy unnecessarily. I think that the first thing that you need to understand is that if a state is admitted for membership in the UN then it is, ipso facto, generally recognized as a sovereign state, and there is nothing else to discuss in such case. It would be silly to claim that a UN member state is not "generally recognized" as sovereign just because 20% or 25% of UN members decide not to recognize such state, and including such requirement in your "proposal" takes away from any merit that your proposal may have.
You will not be able to convince anyone that, for example, the State of Israel (which currently is the UN member with the largest percentage of objectors to its recognition, and which obviously was the UN member that you had in mind when you proposed a minimum threshold of recognition for UN member states to be deemed "generally recognized") should be removed from a list of sovereign countries due to its lack of recognition by 20%-25% of countries unless and until Israel is expelled from the UN (which would be unlikely to occur, to say the least). And if the State of Palestine or the Republic of Kosovo are admitted as members of the UN, no one would care whether they are recognized by 78% or 82% or 90% of UN members, or whether they are recognized by 18 or 22 of the 25 largest economies; once they are admitted as member states of the UN, then, ipso facto, they would be generally recognized as sovereign. So any definition of "generally recognized sovereign state" should start by saying that all UN member states meet the definition and that only when a de facto state has not been admitted as a member would the other criteria need to be analyzed.
Moving on to the criteria that a non-UN member state must meet in order to be deemed to be a generally recognized sovereign state, I have thought it over, and you have convinced me that it would be appropriate to establish a threshold above 50%+1 for the number of UN states that must have recognized such state's sovereignty. Given that it would take a 2/3 vote in the General Assembly to admit a new UN member state (once the Security Council has approved such application for membership, of course), it makes sense to require that a non-UN state be recognized by at least 2/3 of UN member states (plus by at least 20 of the UN members with the 25 highest GDPs) before it is deemed a generally recognized sovereign state. However, it seems to me that establishing a threshold as high as 75% would be both arbitrary and excessive. The 193 UN members include a lot of small and/or impoverished countries with little international influence, and giving 50 of them the power to block an otherwise recognized country from being listed as a generally recognized sovereign state would be a disservice to the people who go to Misplaced Pages for information about the world. Even though all UN states get one vote in the General Assembly regardless of size, 50 UN members with little influence wouldn't be able to block a candidate for UN membership (it would take 64 UN members to block an application on the floor), so I see no reason to require recognition by more than 2/3 of UN member states.
As for requiring membership in international committees or supranational organizations, I frankly don't see what this would accomplish. If the State of California seceded from the United States and declared its independence, and it was recognized as a sovereign and independent state by 24 of the UN members with the highest GDPs and by 67% of UN member states, the U.S. veto in the UN Security Council would keep California from being admitted to the UN but it should not keep California from being listed as a generally recognized sovereign state even if California was not admitted as a member of the OAS or World Bank (because of U.S. influence) or chose not to apply for UN observer status or for membership in UN specialized agencies.
The same goes for requiring recognition from most members of different groups (EU, BRICs, etc.), which would be arbitrary and, given the criteria already established, unnecessary. And why would you you include a criterion as subjective as "conduct foreign diplomatic relations at a substantial and normal rate"? Reasonable minds certainly could disagree on what that means exactly, and, if we limited its scope to what most people would agree constitutes "conducting foreign relations" at the simplest levels, the potential countries that such standard would exclude would be the likes of Niue and the Cook Islands (which are self-governing "states" in free association with New Zealand but which do not conduct their own foreign relations), which *already would be excluded from the definition of "generally recognized sovereign state" because no state recognizes them as sovereign, much less 2/3 of UN member states and 80% of the 25 largest economies*. So I don't think that it makes sense to complicate things further by adding unnecessary criteria to what was supposed to be an objective, a priori definition designed to sidestep future controversy.
I truly can say that I do not understand your final paragraph, so I merely will comment that (i) outside of the 193 UN states and Vatican City, I believe that Kosovo, Palestine, Taiwan and SADR, *in that order*, have the best claims of general recognition as sovereign states, and that all four should be included in a category of de facto states with limited, but substantial, international recognition and (ii) the recognition by many countries of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta has nothing to do whatsoever with the recognition of a *state*, and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta should never be included in any list of sovereign states.
In conclusion, I think that the most unbiased way to present independent states in Misplaced Pages articles would be to separate them into three distinct groups: (i) generally recognized sovereign states, which should include all UN member states plus any non-UN member states that have been recognized by at least (a) 2/3 of UN member states *and* (b) 20 of the UN states with the 25 highest GDPs (which currently includes the 193 UN states plus Vatican City, but feasibly could include Kosovo and Palestine within a few years), (ii) de facto states with limited, but substantial, international recognition (which currently includes Kosovo, Palestine, Taiwan and SADR), and (iii) de facti states with little or no international recognition (the Northern Cypruses and Somalilands of the world). This does not constitute an "offer" of any kind, but my personal opinion of how to present such information accurately, factually and objectively to readers of Misplaced Pages. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 00:18, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
request for help
AuH2ORepublican,
there are currently numerous editors arbitrarily and disruptively editing on wikipedia, particularly in regards to the Arab Israeli conflict. While am strongly adherent and oppose arbitraily and disruptively editing, how may you suggest I deter such behaviour on wikipedia?
Kawhilaugh42, the only advice that I can give you when you wish to edit articles related to something as controversial as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (which is such a heated subject on Misplaced Pages that administrators have placed special protections on articles related to the conflict) is to try to avoid editing wars by going to the Talk Page of the article that you seek to edit and seeking a consensus for your proposed changes. Good luck. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 04:16, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
question
AuH2ORepublican,
Bearing in mind that we have long established a consensus on how to classify countries on wikipedia for the publics general understanding, could I just request that, despite being undeniably more sovereign than Palestine, Taiwan, SADR, and Kosovo and having no dispute over its statehood and that is chooses not to be one but will be unanimously accepted once it does, I am just requesting that it be put either separate from the main category of European states and separate from the former group, or it be put in the same category as kosovo as it is not a full UN member so as to be consistent with our policy of classifying only UN full members in the main category? Thoughts?
Hello, AuH2ORepublican. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 2 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.
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Hello, AuH2ORepublican. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.
The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Misplaced Pages arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.
Why do users label ihan Omar as African American, she's Somali American not African American, African Americans are an ethnic group of black Americans, not all Caucasians are Italian Hornets23 (talk) 17:05, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
As I have explained before, and just included in the explanation for reverting your most recent deletion of Ilhan Omar from the article on African-American Representatives, the term "African American" is not limited to Americans that descend from African slaves; as provided in the definition in the article, it includes Americans with ancestry from the native populations of sub-Saharan Africa (which certainly includes Somalia, Eritrea, etc.). Barack Obama descended from black East Africans (Kenyans) and white Americans, not from African slaves; should he not be deemed an African American because he does not descend from slaves? He's currently listed in the article on African Americans in the U.S. Senate, in case you hadn't noticed.
In the particular case of Congresswoman Omar, please note that reliable sources such as The Washington Post refer to her as African American:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/11/19/this-november-eight-mostly-white-districts-elected-black-members-of-congress-thats-a-breakthrough/. In addition, the Congressional Black Caucus, a group so parochial and protective of what they define as African-American identity that it refused to accept the membership application of a black congressman originally from the Dominican Republic (and a naturalized American) who descends mostly from African slaves brought to the New World, has accepted Congresswoman Omar as a member. (Before you say that it is the Congressional *Black* Caucus, not the "African-American" caucus, please note that the CBC was founded in 1971, when "black" had recently substituted "Negro" as the preferred term of self-identification for black Americans and long before the term "African American" went into vogue.)
For these reasons, a consensus emerged in the editing community that Ilhan Omar should be included in the article listing African Americans in the U.S. House of Representatives. If you visit such article's Talk page, you'll see that there was a debate on the issue, and the editing community quickly agreed, as the Congressional Black Caucus later did, that she met the criteria for inclusion. If you wish offer new information refuting the reliable sources that deem her to be African American, please feel free to post in on the Talk page to the article on African-American Representatives. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 17:25, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
African Americans
Just because references list her as African American doesn't mean shes really African American, I just wanted to say that because that's an insult to black Americans who's ancestors endured slavery in the United States, I recommend you do your research regarding African Americans on the wiki page regarding African Americans Hornets23 (talk) 17:34, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
With all due respect, if African Americans felt insulted because a Somali American such as Ilhan Omar is deemed to be an African American, then the Congressional Black Caucus (most of whose members are elected by a majority African-American electorate, at least in the Democratic Party primaries) never would have let her join. And if it indeed is "an insult to black Americans who's (sic) ancestors endured slavery in the United States" to deem a descendant of non-slave sub-Saharan Africans to be an African American, then I think we would have heard about that when the Kenyan American Barack Obama was described as an African American, and described himself as an African American, every day since he first came into national prominence in 2004. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 17:47, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
African American
I understand, but as an black American from the United States I can't go their countries and claim I'm their ethnicity because I'm not. Same case for Mia love her parents immigrated from hati and Kamala Harris dad is from Jamaica. That's just wrong of some media outlets of labelling people a certain ethnic group, I think some canidates should represent their own ethnic group Hornets23 (talk) 17:56, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
Of course you can't go to Haiti or Somalia and say that you're Haitian or Somali if you don't have such ancestry; similarly, a U.S. Hispanic of Mexican or Cuban ancestry can't go to Costa Rica or Bolivia and claim to be Costa Rican or Bolivian. But he truthfully can claim to be Hispanic (or Latino, if he prefers such term), which is something that he has in common with almost all Costa Ricans and Bolivians. Well, an African American can go to Haiti or Somalia and claim to be of sub-Saharan African descent, which he has in common with almost all Haitians and Somalis.
In the case of Mia Love and Kamala Harris, their ancestors were African slaves carried in chains to the New World. Does it make them any less "African" that their ancestors were slaves in Caribbean countries instead of in the U.S.? Or are you implying that they aren't really "American" because their parents were immigrants? BTW, if you start excluding persons with Jamaican or other non-American ancestries from the definition of African American, you'll get rid of quite a large number of African American leaders.
Please don't confuse my criticism for lack of empathy. I can understand that you wish that there was a term that described modern descendants of black American slaves in contradistinction to black Americans with other backgrounds. However, "African American" has never been that term, and it certainly is not that term today. The only thing that I can think that you could do (apart from creating a new term, such as "American-Slave-Descended American," and having it catch on) is to suggest on the Talk page to the article listing African-American Representatives that, just as there is a column for 19th-century black Representatives denoting whether they were former slaves, a column be added for 20th- and 21st-century black Representatives denoting whether any of their ancestors were American slaves. What do you think? AuH2ORepublican (talk) 18:36, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
African American
With all due respect forget about sub-sarharan African thing, the term African American refers to an ethnic group most often to people whose ancestors experienced slavery in the United States, go to the African American wiki page and click on reference 6 Hornets23 (talk) 19:37, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
Yes, the authors of Discovering Child Development claim that the term "African American" should be reserved for descendants of black American slaves, but that same "African Americans" Misplaced Pages article concludes its introductory section with the following sentence: "In 2008, Barack Obama became the first African American to be elected President of the United States." So the use of "African American" to refer exclusively to descendants of black American slaves may be aspirational for a certain segment of the African-American community, but it isn't how the term is used by over 90% of Americans, or even by a majority of African Americans. How many people do you know who would say that Barack Obama is not an African American because he did not descend from slaves? Or that Colin Powell, who descended from African slaves in Jamaica, is not an African American? I'm not saying that your search for a term that exclusively applies to descendants of black American slaves is pointless, only that "African American" is not such term, even if some academics and others want to co-opt it. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 20:25, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
African American
But African immigrants are distinct from African Americans because the ancestors of African Americans were brought from West Africa via the Atlantic slave trade, I Highly recommend you visit the African immigration to the United States wiki page and feel free to talk on my page? Hornets23 (talk) 00:55, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
Black American
Mia love's parents immigrated to the United States from hati, so that makes her Hatian American, not AfricanAmerican if both of her parents endured slavery like most American born blacks ancestors did she would be African-American, you have to realize their are different types of black people Hornets23 (talk) 14:23, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
Hello
Hello AuH2ORepublican,
I believe there is a slight objective error on your countries page. Although I am Bhutanese myself and have nothing to do with Palestinian issues, you are listing Taiwan in the same category as palestine, the substantially recognised states category. Assuming you forgot 'substantial' means, Taiwan, or republic of china, is only recognised by barely 20 countries while, according to the international recognition of the State of Palestine page, far more (137 states) recognise Palestinian state status, so why not put taiwan in the de facto category and leave palestine as its own section? just a suggestion ;) have a nice day!
Hello, Kawhilaugh42. I see that you're back with a new name; if you are allowed to stay, I hope that you don't post ad hominem attacks (against me or anyone else) like last time.
As you surely know, while few countries officially recognize the Republic of China (Taiwan), this is almost exclusively due to the fact that both the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China claim to be the rightful government of "all of China" (i.e., mainland China plus Taiwan), and a country that officially recognizes the Republic of China simultaneously would be expressing nonrecognition for the People's Republic of China. In fact, the People's Republic of China refuses to have diplomatic relations with any country that recognizes the Republic of China's sovereignty, which goes a long way towards explaining why such few countries have given official recognition to the Republic of China. (By contrast, both Serbia and the State of Israel maintain diplomatic relations with over 100 countries that recognize the Republic of Kosovo and the State of Palestine, respectively.) That being said, the Republic of China holds unofficial, non-diplomatic relations with almost every sovereign country, including 24 of the 25 largest economies in the world (unsurprisingly, the People's Republic of China is the sole exception). Moreover, the Republic of China has actual sovereign control over its territory (Taiwan), which is not true for the State of Palestine.
There are four de facto sovereign states that have a level of international recognition that, while it falls short of generalized recognition, is sufficient to merit being distinguished from de facto states with little or no international recognition (such as Abkhazia, Somaliland, Republic of Northern Cyprus, etc.). Those four states with limited, but substantial, international recognition are, in order of how I assess their respective strengths of claims to international recognition, are the Republic of Kosovo, the State of Palestine, the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (Western Sahara). I would place all four such de facto sovereign states in the intermediate category that I described above, since it would not be correct (and would not represent a NPOV) to list them among the 194 sovereign states with generalized international recognition (the 193 UN member states plus Vatican City) or to list them among de facto sovereign states with little or no international recognition.
For the reasons stated above, I believe that the best presentation in encyclopedia articles, presenting a neutral point of view, would be to list all four of the Republic of Kosovo, the State of Palestine, the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (Western Sahara) as sovereign states with limited, but substantial, international recognition. As always, the standard that I use is "what would I want my daughters, or someone else's children, to learn about the topic of the article in question," and I would not want them to learn disinformation regarding the level of international recognition of de facto sovereign states. Grouping Taiwan or Palestine with France or Bhutan would be just as misleading as it would be to group them with Artsakh or South Ossetia, and doing either of those things would be a disservice to those who come to Misplaced Pages for factual, unbiased information. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 23:40, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
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Your recent editing history at Yemen shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war; that means that you are repeatedly changing content back to how you think it should be, when you have seen that other editors disagree. To resolve the content dispute, please do not revert or change the edits of others when you are reverted. Instead of reverting, please use the talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. The best practice at this stage is to discuss, not edit-war. See BRD for how this is done. If discussions reach an impasse, you can then post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection.
Being involved in an edit war can result in you being blocked from editing—especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you don't violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly. I hope you arent doing this behaviour because of Ian Smith article.SharabSalam (talk) 17:12, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
@SharabSalam, if you check the record, you'll see that I made a constructive edit regarding the geographic location of Socotra and how it makes Yemen a transcontinental country (which is a subject of longtime interest to me, as is how small portions of Georgia and Azerbaijan are north of the Caucasus and thus are in Europe, making such countries transcontinental), and I was reverted by @User: Mathglot because he understood my statement not to be "generally accepted" and to constitute "original research." I resubmitted my change with a source for Socotra being geographically in Africa and with an explanation that Yemen has long been listed as a transcontinental country in the Misplaced Pages article on the subject, and Mathglot let the change stay but with a tag regarding "Synthesis," and with an entry in the Talk page, because, while Socotra can be considered geographically part of Africa, the second part (that that makes Yemen a transnational country) doesn't necessarily follow. I responded in the Talk page by noting my disagreement with his conclusion, but agreeing to keep the "Synthesis" tag while further research regarding "transcontinental countries" may be conducted.
It was at this time that you jumped in, ignoring the Talk page discussion, and reverted the portion of the edit that I had made and that Mathglot had agreed to keep (albeit with a tag) for the time being, calling my edit "unsourced." You explained your edit with the non sequitur that "being part of the African plate doesnt (sic) mean being part of the African continent," which is apropos of nothing given that (i) I never argued that Socotra was part of Africa because it's on the African plate (as someone interested in the concept of continents, I am well aware that tectonic plates are but a tiny part of the analysis of continental boundaries), (ii) the Socotra archipelago isn't on the African plate, but on the Somali Plate, and (iii) it was *you*, not I, who presented evidence of rifts from tectonic plates as "evidence" that Socotra is part of Asia. Your reading of the source that you provided (of which I only have been able to read the summary, as the article itself is not publicly available) is inconsistent with the widely held belief among scientists that Socotra separated from Gondwanaland around 20 million years ago; I suspect that the source's author's findings are more nuanced than what you presented. (I have since read more about it, and the Somali Plate--which includes the Horn of Africa, Socotra and other African areas, and which I presume was part of Gondwanaland back then--separated from the Arabian plate between 23-34 million years ago, and Socotra separated from the Horn a bit later.) For this reason, I reverted your reversion of my edit and added a second source (World Wildlife Fund, which has studied and written extensively about Socotra's geography) stating that the Socotra archipelago are part of Africa (to be precise, that it is a continuation of the Horn of Africa).
You then reverted me a second time and said that I should discuss the change in the Talk page, ignoring the fact that it was *you* who had reverted the edit (which I had made and Mathglot had modified) without bothering to check out the discussion in the article's Talk page. Given that your source spoke about tectonic plates, and not whether Socotra is in Asia or Africa, it is irrelevant to the discussion. And since you messed up the paragraph by getting rid of spaces between sentences, deleting the link to the World Wildlife Fund source (but inexplicably keeping the Socotra Z.S. Society source), and eliminating the Synthesis tag that Mathglot had placed on the conclusion that Yemen is a transcontinental country, I described your edit as "sloppy" when I reverted it.
As for your statement that "I hope you arent doing this behaviour because of Ian Smith article" (sic), I honestly can say that I've had my current views on the boundaries between continents for years and that the same were not driven in the slightest by the fact that you've made spend so much time protecting the Ian Smith article from vandalism. And I can tell you that I do not believe that the reason why you are insisting that Socotra is part of Asia is because I stopped you (with assistance from the neutral third party that you requested and obtained) from adding an improper category to the Ian Smith article; I know from your Misplaced Pages page that you are a native citizen of Yemen, and it would be odd if you *weren't* interested in issues involving Yemen's territory. I actually am agnostic as to matters related to Yemen (other than praying that the cycle of violence ends soon) and am editing the page solely because of my interest in geography; while the fact that you are Yemeni by no means disqualifies you from editing Yemen's article (on the contrary, it gives you insights that someone like me never could obtain), you should consider whether your patriotism or Pan-Arabism (to which you, like all people, are entitled) is allowing you to analyze issues involving the status of Socotra (even if unrelated to politics, as is the case of to what geographic continent it belongs) in an unbiased manner.
So, in conclusion, I do not believe that I am engaging in an edit war by protecting an edit that already had been modified by another editor and which is the subject of discussion in the article's Talk page. As you may know if you've read my discussion in Talk pages for other articles, I have two daughters, and I strive to make Misplaced Pages an encyclopedia on which they and other children (and adults, for that matter) can count to provide factual, relevant and unbiased information. My understanding regarding Socotra is that it generally is considered to be part of Africa, which is why I made the edit that is the subject of this discussion. If some geographers believe that Socotra is part of Asia (which could be the case; heck, some geographers believe that North and South America should be considered a single continent and that Afro-Eurasia is a single continent as well), then maybe the way to go is to include both positions and state that, if Socotra is deemed part of Africa, Yemen is transcontinental, but if Socotra is deemed part of Asia then Yemen is not transcontinental. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 19:59, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
Your revert
Re this revert, please read the guideline MOS:JOBTITLES, which I linked for your convenience in my edit summary. "30th president of the United States" in the short description is equivalent to the example in the guideline, "Nixon was the 37th president of the United States." Would you like to self-revert or shall I do it? ―Mandruss☎03:55, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
It wasn't currently blocked because no-one, including you, had reported the IP. l reported the IP for resuming vandalism after a block and it was immediately reblocked. Next time just report the IP.
Please don't restore talk page material that a user is allowed to blank. See WP:OWNTALK. A user on English Misplaced Pages is allowed to remove almost anything (with very limited exceptions) from their talk page. There was nothing on that talk page that the user was not allowed to remove.
@talk, thank you for the information. I was not aware that block notices could be erased from Talk Pages while the exact same type of vandalism persisted. And how was the IP unblocked without any notice to such effects in the IP user's Talk Page? I thought that such actions were notified.
I also thought that, in the past, I had seen some IPs blocked indefinitely--I'm thinking specifically of IP accounts persistently abused by banned sockmasters, which IPs are blocked for being sockpuppets. I guess that I was mistaken and such accounts merely were blocked for six months or something long-term like that.
Regarding how I did not report the persistent vandalism, I thought that my reversions that specifically mentioned vandalism had the same effect. This may come as an odd question coming from someone who has been editing as long as I have, but how does one officially report vandalism to a particular article (or to several articles)? Thank you. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 18:31, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
IPs are virtually never indeffed. There are a few kicking around that were done in the past. The most you see now is a year or two if the IP is particularly troublesome and it geolocates to a static location that is prone to garbage (like a school).Unless blocks are indefinite they automatically expire after a period set by the blocking admin. See https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Special:Log/block&page=User%3A99.254.35.83 fr the IP's previous short blocks. .Vandalism reports are made at WP:AIV.
I've taken the liberty of fixing the level 1 header on the thread "Re" that was messing up your talk page levels. If you actually wanted it that, my apologies. Drop me a line on my talk page if you have more questions. Meters (talk) 19:16, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
@talk, thank you very much for your explanation (and for fixing the header on that troublesome thread in my Talk page).
I see from WP:AIV that an editor (or IP page) engaged in vandalism should be warned first (on his Talk page?), and that only after he ignores such warnings 3 or 4 times should one report him at WP:AIV. Is there any protocol if one warns an editor (or IP) at his Talk page and the editor responds by blanking his Talk page? Wouldn't that make it difficult for other editors (and even for oneself) to know how many times such user has been warned about vandalism?
Also, is there a boilerplate one should use when warning someone of vandalism? I've noticed that many vandalism warnings on Talk pages tend to share certain language, but I thought that it was because it was only moderators who gave such warnings.
Good questions. Yes, normally there should be a progression of warnings, but not necessarily all 4 levels. Experienced editors often tailor warning levels based on the user's previous history and the severity of the edit. .A questionable edit that looks like vandalism but might just be an honest mistake gets nothing or at most a level 1, but blatant vandalism, particularly with an effort to hide the vandalism, or a recent history of vandalism with no warnings may get something higher than a level 1.
Blanking warnings is allowed (on English Misplaced Pages). It's just seen as a sign that the editor has seen the warnings. You can check the talk page history to see if it has been blanked, and look at earlier versions of the page to see what previous warnings were left.
Warning templates are available here WP:WARNING. I review edits manually and use Twinkle to make giving warnings and reporting users easier. See WP:TW. There are lots of other tools available also. See WP:CUV/T. In my opinion, Huggle is not a good idea, particularly for newer users. It makes things too easy and quick, and sometimes leads uses into undoing edits that should not have been undone. Meters (talk) 08:00, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
I know what extant means, I was referring to the fact that the last male died that other day, making them soon to be extinct. Try to keep up. Joshjoshajosh (talk) 17:10, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
@Joshjoshajosh, I gave you the benefit of the doubt regarding your intentions when you edited the article on the white rhinoceros to refer to the species in the past sense, which is why I referred to your "good-faith edit" and noted that the species is extant (and explained what the word means, because, believe it or not, the word often is misunderstood by Misplaced Pages editors). In contrast to your post herein, there was nothing uncivil about my tone.
But since you know what "extant" means, let me explain to you what a white rhinoceros is. The white rhinoceros is a species composed of two extant subspecies: the southern white rhinoceros and the northern white rhinoceros. There are over 17,000 southern white rhinoceros in the wild, which is why the species itself--the white rhinoceros--is classified by the IUCN not as "Extinct" or "Extinct in the Wild" as your edit would lead one to believe, nor even as "Critically Endangered," "Endangered" or even as "Vulnerable," but merely as "Near Threatened" (which is only one step removed from "Least Concern"). This information is not difficult to find; in fact, had you looked at the Infobox to the right of the sentence that you edited, you would have found the current conservation status of the white rhinoceros. In other words, it was a display of willful ignorance when your changed the verb tense describing the existence of the white rhinoceros from "is" to "was."
Your confusion presumably stems from the fact that you read an article a few months ago about the death of the last known male *northern* white rhinoceros, and you (i) took it upon yourself to declare the subspecies extinct before the IUCN does (or even before the last known member of the subspecies dies) and (ii) decided to ignore completely the over 17,000 members of the southern white rhinoceros subspecies currently living in the wild in South Africa and neighboring countries and treat the white rhinoceros species as if it only had the northern white rhinoceros subspecies. So it seems to me that it is you who should "try to keep up." AuH2ORepublican (talk) 18:45, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
So in summery
It's better to accurately document the demise of wildlife than to scare people onto action. Misplaced Pages has more of a responsibility than looking backwards, at the very least you could have left the edit up longer. But no, you chose to feed your ego by insulting me. Good job, I hope your family money runs out soon so intelligent people are forced to act rather than sit around all day feeling smug. Joshjoshajosh (talk) 22:41, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
"Accurately." Good one.
As for preserving the white rhino, I think the market-based reforms adopted by South Africa and Namibia that have brought the southern white rhino back from the brink of extinction (there were fewer than 1,000 left in the wild in the 1960s, and today there are over 17,000, maybe more than 20,000, in the wild) will work better than you posting false information on Misplaced Pages to "scare people into action." In any event, posting false information is not allowed on Misplaced Pages; that's what Facebook is for. Oh, and if you (falsely) tell people that a species is extinct, they will think that it's too late to do something about it, so next time try a lie that isn't as counterproductive.
And as for your reference to my "family money," alas, I have to work for a living. But were I a trust-fund baby, I don't think that my family money running out would do much to force intelligent people to "act" to save the white rhino; in fact, had my grandparents left me millions I would have a lot more money to donate to the Nature Conservancy and to World Wildlife Fund than the modest amounts that I currently donate, so if you really cared about saving the white rhino you should be rooting for my inheritance of a few hundred million dollars from a heretofore unknown rich uncle. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 23:03, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
Excuse me
You have appeared to have reverted my edit to The Javan elephant It’s quite true that the Borneo ones are the same so be careful as I will think this is vandalism If this a mistake visit my talk page - I do not know what my name this
7&6=thirteen (☎) has given you a Dobos torte to enjoy! Seven layers of fun because you deserve it.
To give a Dobos torte and spread the WikiLove, just place {{subst:Dobos Torte}} on someone else's talkpage, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend.
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