Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries

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RE: Subdivisions and names

It would be better to have the section titled as "Administrative Divisions" for each and every country, rather than the title as the name of the respective division/subdivision - only for the main page. Corresponding pages could then be the name of the appropriate division/subdivision. Would you agree? I only speak from the standpoint of standardization... with a small input from working with the UN. Rarelibra 13:13, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't it have been better if you had discussed it here before making mass changes to the pages? This apart from the minor MoS violation of having "Division" in upper case. =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:53, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the point is that I DIDN'T KNOW until now, but the changes have been happening. As stated, the wiki project isn't an "end all, be all" of things - and for standardization ease, it would make more sense to call it "Administrative Divisions". As for the "minor MoS violation" you mention - again, it isn't an "end all, be all". I can definitely show you in an official MoS that it is proper to title as such, not to leave a lower case name in the title. So two things - one, this discussion comes at a time when the wiki project has been pointed out to me, and two, same with the "MoS" you mention. Be careful with assumptions, as your "wouldn't it have been better..." statement suggests. I work with this type of data on a daily basis, thus, I think it qualifies for me to have at least an input. Rarelibra 17:01, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the purpose of a Wikiproject is to standardise related topics. Considering the magnitude of the change, consensus must be sought to effect the changes; that's part and parcel of wikipedia functioning. (See Wikipedia:Consensus) Secondly, I don't believe that I have mentioned anywhere above that it is an "end all, be all" as you have put it. Neither have I denied your right to post proposals. Your contributions (Uzbekistan, Greece, Ethopia, Bulgaria, India) suggest that you have made unilateral changes before waiting for more input from the community.

Correct, however - when one is working with Wiki on a daily basis - as I have for over a year now, and making additions or changes, etc. without the knowledge of such projects, well, you can't point a finger of 'blame and shame'. Fact is, I have helped a lot in having to touch almost every country page as I go, and helping to alphabetize, add wiki links, correct spelling, correct format... the list goes on and on. In the meantime, you accuse me of a blanket-style effort like my only motive is to visit these pages just to change this. As far as the "magnitude" of the change - remember, Wiki is a living and breathing environment, full of constant change. Be very careful as to take personally my edits of standardization as I work with the pages on a daily basis (and it makes sense for the user to find the information quickly, as is one of the reasons I need such). A user may not know right away the name of the division of a country, and it is quite easy to find as an "administrative division". Give me credit, please. A good example of this, too, is the fact that I wasn't aware of such a wiki project until now (this week). Other users of the 'community' you speak of may also not know. Just FYI - your verbage of "unilateral changes" and "waiting for more input" etc DO speak of "end all, be all" solutions. Rarelibra 16:34, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As for the Manual of Style, please see this: Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Wording: Capitalize the first letter only of the first word and of any proper nouns in a heading, and leave all of the other letters in lowercase. Use "Rules and regulations", not "Rules and Regulations". Regards, =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:22, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just for your benefit, I will go ahead and get you the proper reference of rules of style in regards to headings and such. I worked as an editor for several years for US Government publications, so again - I know a little bit about style. 16:34, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

So here you go:

3.49. In matter set in caps and small caps or caps and lowercase, capitalize all principal words, including parts of compounds which would be capitalized standing alone. The articles a, an, and the; the prepositions at, by, for, in, of, on, to, and up; the conjunctions and, as, but, if, or, and nor; and the second element of a compound numeral are not capitalized. (See also rule 8.129.)
8.129. To enclose titles of addresses, articles, awards, books, captions, editorials, essays, headings, subheadings, headlines, hearings, motion pictures and plays (including television and radio programs), operas, papers, short poems, reports, songs, studies, subjects, and themes. All principal words are to be capitalized.
3.51. In a heading set in caps and lowercase or in caps and small caps, a normally lowercased last word, if it is the only lowercased word in the heading, should also be capitalized.

As you can see, the CORRECT MoS is to capitalize ALL in a heading or subheading. The Wiki MoS is INCORRECT, according to proper references. Rarelibra 16:42, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And one other thing for you to READ and REMEMBER - this is directly from the Wiki MoS - "Wikipedia does not require writers to follow all or any of these rules, but their efforts will be more appreciated when they do so: the joy of wiki editing is that Wikipedia does not require perfection.". This also goes for Wiki projects - "Remember that everything below are guidelines. Not all countries are the same, and not everything can be pushed into a framework in the same way. However, having the same "look & feel" for the country articles would be great." So please - stop sharpshooting me, and concentrate on those people out there who exist only to ruin and vandalize our joint efforts to make Wiki a great place. Rarelibra 16:47, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I really don't like this idea that all country articles shoudl have a standardised "Administrative divisions" heading. It is much better to have a heading specific to the country. This attempt at standardisation seems to have been done without consensus, and so changes to the project guidelines shoudl be reverted. JPD (talk) 12:58, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's not clear and "user friendly" to use the country-specific heading, as it is easier and clear when looking at the administrative division/subdivision of each country, whereby there is a definition of what it is called, how many, and background information, etc. Just FYI read above - "Remember that everything below are guidelines. Not all countries are the same, and not everything can be pushed into a framework in the same way. However, having the same "look & feel" for the country articles would be great." Also reference the statement "This structure is advisory only, and should not be enforced against the wishes of those actually working on the article in question." Rarelibra 14:05, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are two points here - firstly that I disagree with your unilateral change to the guideline here. It may only be a guidleine, but it does purport to represent some sort of community view and so should not be changed without consensus. I find it more user-friendly to use the country-specific heading, at the very least where the names of the subdivisions are English words. Secondly, despite the statements that you draw my attention to, you are trying to enforce your idea of a standard against the wishes of those actually working on the article in question. Please stop. JPD (talk) 14:16, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I fully support JPD's position.--cj | talk 14:30, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Words like 'unilateral' are funny, really. I mean, I was working on the titles for a while and then suddenly there was this 'consensus' and my work started to be changed around - so who was or is right and who was or is wrong? And by what authority? Think about the common user going to a country page - it is easiest to access the information by finding it in a common place. YOU may find it 'more user friendly' to be country-specific, but can you tell me what the administrative division name is for Seychelles or Mongolia, for example? See the point. I am not trying to 'enforce' anything, I am trying (like many others) to standardize. And please don't 'order' people around, thank you. Rarelibra 15:59, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You made some changes which were intended to be helpful, and some of them were reverted because others did not agree. There is nothing wrong with any of that, and it is a matter of opinion, so there is no point talking about right and wrong. Changing the guideline is another matter. The guideline is only a guideline, so noone should be enforcing either version of it (note that standardising according to a guideline and enforcing a guideline are exactly the same thing). The guideline should, however, reflect a close to consensus view, rather than one person's opinion of what is right. Otherwise, there is no point to having any guidelines at all. Yes, I do think it is more user-friendly that way, and I find the Seychelles page better than the Mongolia page for that reason, even though I didn't know what the divisions were called before looking at them. I am not claiming to be right, or even to have a consensus, simply disagreeing with your changing and pointing out that you are not indisputably right and do not have a consensus for your change. JPD (talk) 17:16, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Territorial limits

Hello, I had a question regarding the territorial limits of countries as operationally defined on Wikipedia. With respect to Wikipedia categories that categorize things by if they are "in" a country, are the territorial limits of countries either a) Its land borders, not extending to sea, b) Limited by its furthest internal waters as defined in the article territorial waters, or c) something else? I believe b, but I sought confirmation. Any assistance with answering this question of what constitues a country's ultimate territorial limits would be greatly appreciated. Kurieeto 22:32, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries/Footers

I have applied {{Navigation Template}} to some of the navigational templates (mostly continental ones). I think other such templates would benefit from this format.

I haven't invented anything, this format was used for templates for europe asia etc, I just collected the elements into a single generic template for easier use (so as to evade the usage of a number of easy to break <div>s).

--Cat out 01:13, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Scotland peer review

Hi, I've just listed Scotland for peer review: Wikipedia:Peer review/Scotland - your comments on improving this coutry article are welcomed. Thanks/wangi 15:06, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi

In want to join this wikiproject and it said leave a comment on the talk page, well here it is! Jamie|C 01:13, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mass content adding to small Wikipedias

Hi, I am starting again to work on the project m:Mass content adding. One of the points of the project is to use templates from bigger Wikipedias (in general, from English Wikipedia), to localize them and to make bot-commiting to the small Wikipedias. For that purpose, I think that countries should be the first pilot-project. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 20:04, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In the developed situation I think that parts of that project should be leaded by projects like this. I.e., if you make some changes to the structure of template and/or data, you should commit that changes into multilingual project, too. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 20:04, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Project Mass content adding is not developed yet and I would like to hear your input, at least. There are a number of open questions related to organization of localization. Also, I am sure that some communities from bigger Wikipedias want to cooperate, too. For example, this would mean that all Wikipedias which participate in such project would have one, central organized templates for countries and data inside of that templates; etc. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 20:04, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, I would like to get some help from some of you related to the countries because I am sure that you are much better introduced into this field then me. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 20:04, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You can contact me via my talk page or, better, here. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 20:04, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One more information (I was a long time out of this project and I forgot that I made some text about countires there): look at m:Mass content adding/Countries of the world. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 20:27, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please add me

Hi, as an active participant in Malta article and in various geographical articles, I would like to join the wikiproject countries. Please add me to the members list. Also advise whether a userbox to this respect is available. Maltesedog 08:48, 27 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hello!

I just wanted to say hello to everyone in the wikiproject. I just joined the project and will be adding mostly to 3 countries. These countries are Cyprus, Switzerland and my favorite Thailand (Needs a lot of work!). If I can ever be of assistance just contact me on my discuss page and I will respond hopefully within 24 hours unless you post on the weekend. Felixboy 12:40, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Location Maps

A few days ago, I added a newly created series of maps to wikipedia, showing the location of European countries. The new maps are of higher quality than the old ones and I am of the opinion that they should replace the old location maps in the country infoboxes. The maps are available for all EU states and will soon be available for every other European state. The maps are already in use on the German wikipedia.

Examples

(Old Maps):

(New Maps):

But the new wikipedia user User:Cogito ergo sumo seems to be of an other opinion and reverted the implementation of the maps with the following comment: (revert: while new maps look nicer, restoring locator maps that are consistent among all country infoboxes, per Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countries/Templates#Article_template)

As a consequence of that the below shown discussion started. I would ask the other members of this project here to state their opinions to that and I'd be grateful to have a final decision on the subject whether those maps also shall be used in the English wikipedia - or not. --David Liuzzo 18:39, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Copied Discussion

______________________

(revert: while new maps look nicer, restoring locator maps that are consistent among all country infoboxes, per Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countries/Templates#Article_template)

Of course the new maps are not consistent to the old location maps, since they are nicer and more exact than their predecessors. The only thing you achieve by reverting those changes is preventing innovation and improvement in wikipedia. If all users thought that way, wikipedia would have to use the same old and bad pictures and materials for the next two decades, just because of their consistency among each other. Your argument of consistency among all infoboxes is already a very weak one for a revert, and becomes even weaker considering that those new maps with their common style are consistent to each other. Further they are available for all 25 EU states and they will soon be available for the whole continent. --David Liuzzo 21:32, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! Thank you for your note; I'm sorry to have reverted your contributions, but your argument is not wholly compelling. While your maps are potential improvements on the preceding locator maps, they are not necessarily innovations. As with any publication, standards are in place to ensure a degree of consistency for users when perusing Wp: the country wikiproject prescribes a certain layout for all country infoboxes (with consistent locator maps); this is no different than an almanac or other compendium. I see little reason to treat EU constituents differently; if so, perhaps it would be better to use the maps or variants already available. I also note that at least one other Wikipedian reverted your map change (at least for the UK); being bold notwithstanding, perhaps you should join the wikiproject, propose and discuss a new map style/change before going ahead and implementing wholesale changes that may not be agreeable and reverted again.

If you require assistance, please feel free to ask. I hope this helps. Cogito ergo sumo 22:00, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well those new maps do not only include the EU countries but all European states (for examples see:Image:Europe location CH.png). And I don't think that I'll require assistance. As far as I could see, you are quite new to wikipedia, so I should ask you that question. furter I should point out that reverting articles in that number without dicussing the topic before may be regarded as great impoliteness and as sort of vandalism. --David Liuzzo 17:26, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes: I'm fairly new but have joined the country wikiproject. That being said, I was equally bold and restored the status quo for reasons stated (and apologise for not discussing it beforehand): your maps are not agreeable to not only me but at least one other editor, so I'm not totally off base here. Through prior discussion, you may get buy-in and suggestions for improvement. Locator maps are not just to exhibit countries in and outside Europe/the EU (noted) but to exhibit territories in relation to others around them -- yours are too Eurocentric; for example, some of your maps exhibit territories less clearly than do the other maps, particularly for smaller territories (e.g., Luxembourg) or those on the periphery of Europe (e.g., Greece, Malta). They are also quite large and (IMO unnecessarily) detailed for locator maps and can be compressed. And I have provided sufficient edit summaries and discussion regarding this, so accusations of impoliteness and vandalism are non-starters. Cogito ergo sumo 17:53, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

__________________________
--David Liuzzo 18:39, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]