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*'''Oppose''' Lots of people disagreed with the meaning. It should not move to Taiwan, but on my support vote in ], there is no primary topic on the word "Taiwan". Republic of China is still the article name like ] for Ireland itself, ] and ] for Congo, as for DRC, Zaire was the late 20th century era of the said country. ] <sup>]</sup> 08:29, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' Lots of people disagreed with the meaning. It should not move to Taiwan, but on my support vote in ], there is no primary topic on the word "Taiwan". Republic of China is still the article name like ] for Ireland itself, ] and ] for Congo, as for DRC, Zaire was the late 20th century era of the said country. ] <sup>]</sup> 08:29, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
* '''Very Strong Oppose''' Wow, 7 days? Are you joking? Is that a bad joke that should be deleted nonsense? That is an unspeakably brief time period for a move of this magnitude. Put on the brakes, people! Give it 30 days. ] (]) 10:16, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
* '''Very Strong Oppose''' Wow, 7 days? Are you joking? Is that a bad joke that should be deleted nonsense? That is an unspeakably brief time period for a move of this magnitude. Put on the brakes, people! Give it 30 days. ] (]) 10:16, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' ] (]) 11:59, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' ] (]) 11:59, 22 February 2012 (UTC) {{Spa|24.22.232.117}}
*Strongly '''Oppose'''. Republic of China is still used by the government and why some of us can decide it should be disappeared?-] (]) 16:21, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
*Strongly '''Oppose'''. Republic of China is still used by the government and why some of us can decide it should be disappeared?-] (]) 16:21, 22 February 2012 (UTC) {{Spa|Cobrachen}}
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Determine whether Taiwan should be called a 'country' or 'state'
Complete: Consensus has been reached for Taiwan to be called a 'country'. The consensus was 33 for country, 10 for state, and 5 for some variation of state. Here is the page on which consensus was reached
Consensus does not equal unanimity. It is about broad agreement, based on policy. One or two editors trying to veto by saying they do not like something or other that has been proposed doesn't count for much I'm afraid. N-HHtalk/edits19:07, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
It's clear at the moment that there are a number of vocal editors on either side of this issue - this is not consensus. It may eventually come down to polling as did the naming of Republic of Ireland (not a brilliant solution). It would be nice if consensus could be achieved, but I worry that we'll simply fall into a war of attrition, with the "winners" being those who don't lose interest/patience first. To be honest, there's a handful of arguments for each position that have to be weighed against each other, and most of the discussion is a series of rehashings of those arguments. I'm not that optimistic, but I think we could help ourselves a lot by adding some structure to the debate environment. LukeSurl00:07, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
The problem around Taiwan and China are a lot more difficult than Ireland. Ireland is English-speaking and most of the people who vote know sufficiently about the then and now about the island. This isn't the case for Taiwan and China. 203.145.92.208 (talk) 20:06, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
As with anything that changes in a natural fashion over time, precise dates can't be pinpointed. Nevertheless, there is clear evidence that right now (and right now is what matters for this article title) the common name for this country in English-speaking sources is Taiwan. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 21:59, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
In that case shall we go on to say in this article that "Taiwan, officially the Republic of China, is a republic in East Asia established in 1912 with Dr Sun Yat Sen as its founding provisional president." and "Taiwan was a founding member of the UN and a permanent member of the UN Security Council until 1971, when its UN membership was replaced by the People's Republic of China."? 218.250.159.25 (talk) 17:40, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
That's bring us back to the same question. From when on did Taiwan become a common name for the ROC? From when on did the ROC become Taiwanese and no longer Chinese?
Don't know. It's not important at all for the naming of this page. Prose, which has the room to explain, will handle it fine. CMD (talk) 18:37, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
Some editors here are proposing to rewrite these few articles and to remove the pre-1945 part of the ROC from this article. If you can't name a date it's basically impossible to do the rewrite and removal. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 18:53, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
The cut off date for what? Everything is potentially non-neutral, which is the whole point of COMMONNAME. I'm glad you now understand. CMD (talk) 21:41, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
IMHO, There is no need for the move. This article is about the Government in Exile, or Rump State (depending on your opinion), of the Republic of China. There is already a separate article about the island of Taiwan.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 01:34, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
But the point is that we should really, per the rest of the world, be referring to that rump state as "Taiwan". That's the problem - the article about the island has "taken" the name Taiwan, even though Taiwan refers usually to the state as a whole and not simply the island (see Madagascar); and the article that is primarily looking at the modern state (with backstory), ie this one, is currently living under name "Republic of China", which no one really uses for that state in 2012. History of the Republic of China, Government of the Republic of China and associated historical articles can cover and explain the politics and history of all this. WP:COMMONNAME is the key when it comes to the simple question of what we call this article and how we refer to this entity in contemporary accounts. N-HHtalk/edits11:31, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
Do Madagascar, Iceland, Sri Lanka and the like have the same path of history that their main islands at present weren't part of them years ago? Does any of them have any island that is not associated to its main island? 218.250.159.25 (talk) 22:14, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
As CMD says, there is nothing stopping us from including some information about the beginning of the Republic of China, as it was in the early 1900's, since this information is clearly related to the modern entity (which one might call a "country", for short) of Taiwan. WP:CONCEPTDAB suggests to me that, in a case like this, an article titled "Taiwan" should be about the broad concept; there is no need to be overly precise in the article's scope. Mlm42 (talk) 01:42, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
I agree that the article for this country (or rump state) should focus more on the landmasses that are now administered from Taipei. But it doesn't change the fact this country hasn't yet been superseded by Taiwan or a Taiwanese state. At some point it's closed to, but it hasn't yet reached that stage. For instance, it hasn't got its constitution replaced or substantially redrafted, its flag and its coat of arms replaced, nor has it got any diplomatic recognition as Taiwan. I based my position on these facts. I remain firmly open to change the title of this Misplaced Pages article when that stage is eventually reached. (And, for the record, I actually want that to happen.)
On comparison with other island countries - The ROC isn't comparable because the islands on the coast of Fujian and in the South China Sea aren't part of Taiwan. Iceland, Sri Lanka, Madagascar, etc., got no similar situation. It's a little bit like Monmouthshire before the 1970s, that it was treated as one with Wales, rather than part of Wales until the Welsh Language Act of 1967 or the Local Government Act of 1972. Monmouthshire was once unambiguously defined to be part of England but a large number of legislations apply to Wales and Monmouthshire, and as a result commonly though not legally considered part of Wales. I'd love to see these islands being re-defined by the ROC as part of Taiwan, but, again, as long as that hasn't been done, they remain not part of Taiwan in reality. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 06:38, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
I think I'm beginning to understand your position; you appear to be waiting for an explicit piece of legislation, or something, that would declare some unambiguous statement like "Kinmen is part of Taiwan", and without that, we can't go forward.. is that correct? The problem with that reasoning, is that with don't need to unilaterally declare something like this before we change article titles. Explaining those sorts of details can always be done in the text, regardless of the title. Does that clear things up? Mlm42 (talk) 20:35, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
Not necessarily as much as a piece of legislation. General acceptance will be fine. The problem is that Kinmennese and Matsuese people don't considered themselves Taiwanese in strict sense.., and they didn't have the same experience as a result of Japanese rule. The Japanese didn't leave any fingerprint there as they did on Taiwan (including the Pescadores). The Matsuese (and people from Wuchiu too) don't even speak the same native languages as the Taiwanese people do. The de facto US embassy, the AIT, don't let applicants from Kinmen to fill in Taiwan as their country of nationality in their visa applications. Some Taiwan independence supporters call for pulling out the armed force from these islands, and these islands don't appear on the proposed flag for independent Taiwan. Furthermore, ROC ≠ Taiwan isn't only about these islands, but also about its laws, constitution, state organs, flag, coat of arms, monuments, and so on. And as a matter of geography these islands are in no way similar to the islands of Malta, Iceland, Cuba, Jamaica, Sri Lanka or Madagascar. They are politically part of the ROC but not geographically part of Taiwan. We really haven't reached that point yet to equate Taiwan and the ROC, and to call those islands Taiwanese (although my very personal position is that I want it to happen as soon as possible). 218.250.159.25 (talk) 22:17, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
You're looking for a rather universal acceptance, rather than a general one. What is the strict sense of being Taiwanese? In the English language, this means being from the country of Taiwan, which all these islands are part of. This isn't about a new government system replacing the ROC, or new laws redefining it, or a redefining of geographical terms. Taiwan, as the country is most commonly called in English, geographically includes all these islands. Taiwan has a political system, laws, constitution, state symbols, etc., that came with the government when it took over in 1945 and when it moved there in 1949. This is generally accepted. CMD (talk) 22:33, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
Not necessarily universal. But your approach is effectively (well, better say potentially) imposing an exonym onto people who don't identify themselves with it. When we talk about Taiwan in English, these islands are unimportant and it's difficult to conclude whether these islands are included or excluded. But it's like by common sense few people would agree that Hawaii became geographically part of North America at the time when it became politically part of the US in 1898 or 1959, these islands don't become geographically part of Taiwan just because they are politically ruled from Taiwan. The political system, laws, symbols of the ROC have all remained Republic of China's instead of Taiwan's. Supporters of Taiwan independence call for their replacement. Former president Chen actually took the very first steps to remove the word "China" or "Chunghwa" from some of the institutions and state-owned companies, and to rename some of the monuments associated with the ROC. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 23:07, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
Your argument is flawed as it doesn't take Taiwan to be the name of the country. You argue the territories are not "geographically" part of Taiwan. I don't think it's common to refer to areas as geographically part of countries. They are part of the country, or they aren't (or they're disputed, but this has nothing to do with geography). If we do use this terminology, would you agree that Hawaii is geographically part of the United States? It's the same as saying that Kinmen is geographically part of Taiwan. CMD (talk) 23:37, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
All very interesting IP, but none of these points are relevant to the article title issue, which is not about pure geography or about outlying islands and their status or identity. Nor is it about having to wait until the "Republic of China" becomes "Taiwan" in some purportedly fundamental or substantive sense. The basic, broad meaning of "Taiwan" is pretty clear by common usage and common definition in 99% of serious real-world sources in 2012; as it is pretty clear that ROC is barely used at all when referring to the thing that is the subject of this article, with its country template and categories and all. Stop dragging in these academic - in the pejorative sense - and tangential points. N-HHtalk/edits23:47, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
The fundamental problem is that this country hasn't yet become Taiwan. It isn't only about how it is called, but also what it actually is. On Misplaced Pages we aren't dealing with only one article. We have to work on other related articles too. There are many articles around other more in-depth topics related to the ROC and Taiwan. We have to be consistent with our nomenclature. We are not here to introduce confusions. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 12:58, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
To refute a claim about Kinmen, consider the google searches: "Kinmen, Taiwan" (~126,000 hits) and "Kinmen, Republic of China" (~8,000 hits). So it's not Misplaced Pages who is trying to "impose" anything on anyone; we are just trying to reflect actual usage. As this discussion unfolds, it becomes more and more clear that the current article titles do not reflect actual usage. Mlm42 (talk) 00:16, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Or consider that the US state dept's country profile on - guess what they call it - "Taiwan" explicitly states: "The authorities in Taipei exercise control over Taiwan, Kinmen, Matsu, Penghu (Pescadores) and several other smaller islands"; or that the CIA profile explicitly includes Kinmen as part - indeed a county - of Taiwan; or that the New York Times does so too, at least in this sample feature. First, this point is indeed marginal when it comes to the basic, broad issue of article title; secondly, it doesn't even work in the IP/sock's favour anyway if we look at what appears to be common usage and definitions. And no, "the world being biased/confused" is not sufficent argument to refute that. N-HHtalk/edits01:19, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
The US is using "Taiwan" as a euphemism for "Republic of China", since they cannot actually use that name at all. It has been for decades that the media follow the same nomenclature. There may be some historical or practical reasons (they simply can't decode every single time when officials talk about the ROC). But it doesn't mean that the ROC has already become a Taiwanese state. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 12:58, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
The New York Times feature story didn't even touch on the fact that Kinmen has never been part of Taiwan, it wasn't part of the Japanese colony, and it hasn't been part of Taiwan Province of any Chinese state. It only put in vaguely "The people of Kinmen consider themselves culturally closer to the nearby mainland province of Fujian than to Taiwan". That's indeed a problem that newspapers or the media in general can never go too much into the details. They aren't an encyclopedia like Misplaced Pages. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 13:46, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
Can make separate statements in this section summarizing their arguments? That will make it easier for unacquainted editors to take a stand on the discussed issues. Right now, looking at the mass of text above, it's practically impossible to make head or tail out of it unless one decides to read every line of text. Thank you. — Nearly Headless Nick{C}17:18, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
Republic of China should be re-named and moved to Taiwan
Taiwan has in English become associated very closely with the state, and no evidence has been produced showing that discussion of the island is separated from the state of which it makes up basically all of. A clear WP:PRIMARYTOPIC.
WP:CONCEPTDAB suggests that the "Taiwan" article should cover the broad concept, which includes - but is not limited to - the main island.
There is potential confusion, for unfamiliar readers, between "Republic of China" and the "People's Republic of China"
The concepts of ROC and Taiwan are not identical, so some content would need to change after a move; but that is not a problem, since this work has mostly been done already in userspace.
Republic of China should not be re-named and moved to Taiwan
The ROC is not the clear primary topic for the term "Taiwan", which often clearly refers to just the island.
The ROC's continued control of Kinmen, Matsu, and Wuciou as part of its own province of Fujian (which is in turn controlled mostly by the PRC) legitimises the name "ROC". In addition, a Google search for "Kinmen, Fujian" (without quotes) returns about the same number of results as "Kinmen, Taiwan" (without quotes).
The ROC has not controlled Taiwan for all its existence—the history of the two do not neatly coincide.
Confusability with People's Republic of China can be dealt with via a {{distinguish}} hatnote.
Incoming links can be fixed and patrolled with Taiwan being a disambiguation page, and readers who type in the URL bar can be navigated by redirects and disambiguation pages.
My impression is those proposing moves are in favour of combinations: either (i)+(ii) or (ii)+(iii). A third kind of change is a merge: a single article at "Taiwan" covering all aspects of the country, from its politics to its geography, like every other country article on Misplaced Pages. Kanguole23:10, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
China should be re-named to People's Republic of China; Republic of China and Taiwan (Island) article will not change.
The English word "China" spans 3 different states, each ruled by different governments (and ethnicities). 1 has disappeared, while 2 remain. Using "Qing Dynasty" (the Qing Dynasty of China fought against Great Britain during the Opium Wars), "Republic of China" (the Republic of China fought with the Allied forces against the Axis forces) and "People's Republic of China" (the People's Republic of China supported North Korea during the Korean War) will ameliorate the discussion when speaking both historically and politically and in more current terms. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.46.140 (talk) 19:30, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
Retain Republic of China as it is, and expand its coverage on the history and geography of all of its existing landmasses, including those outside of Taiwan,
I agree with the pre-1949 history for the People's Republc of China; they existed just as the United States existed as the Continental Congress before the establishment of the USA. Also, the current "China" article makes it look as though the Republic of China ceased to exist in 1949. Renaming ROC -> Taiwan would only serve to incorrectly reinforce that confusion.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.174.144 (talk • contribs)
For Nearly Headless Nick and any other new users, a new move request is due to be submitted quite soon, where the arguments will no doubt be presented fresh. CMD (talk) 21:23, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm very glad we have this, it might help everyone understand what's going on, because we have everyone all over the place with no organization. And yes, Chipmunkdavis is correct, my Taiwan article thing that I started back in December is preparing an RM to go along with the 1st opinion: Move ROC to Taiwan. Jpech9522:10, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
I, for one, oppose any move of this article: the Republic of China is far more than Taiwan Province and its name here on WP should reflect that. I smell politics in all of this. 86.45.54.230 (talk) 19:33, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
You've said this before, yes. Was there anything you wanted to add or are you just re-stating your position? There will be an opportunity to voice your concerns on Jpech95's proposal specifically when it is formally put forward, which doesn't appear to have happened yet. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 22:51, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanks TechnoSymbosis - Glad you understand where I am coming from. Well, specifically, I would like to ask about what this bit of the proposal means:
Does this proposal mean that the article will no longer be about the Chinese civilisation? If that is not what is proposed, I can't see the sense in changing the name of the article if it is about Chinese civilisation. 86.45.54.230 (talk) 23:58, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
You'd have to ask 218.* about that, the moves mentioned above are his suggestion. I believe what he wants is for everything to go back to the way it was before our article on People's Republic of China was moved to China, with WP:COMMONNAME as a strongly cited reason. The desire of some of us to move Republic of China to Taiwan is in line with the already-performed PRC->China move. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 00:04, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure if the above was a response for me (if it was, thanks but it did not answer the small technical questions I asked). I absolutely oppose any move of the ROC article. The notion that it is justified on "COMMONAME" grounds is misguided. The Republic of China is far more than just Taiwan Province. The proposal ignores that. 86.45.54.230 (talk) 11:10, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
Taiwan Province of the Republic of China (in dark grey)Another map of the Taiwan Province of the ROC (in red) - See the dotted lines on the other side of the Taiwan Strait for (from north to south) the Matsu Islands, Wuchiu, and Quemoy; Pratas and Itu Aba are too far away to be shown. "an area of 180.1 sq km and a population of 74,050" - As at 2012 ROC's Taiwan Province covers only about 70% of landmasses of the Taiwanese archipelago and about 40% of the population there. Even before 2010, Taipei and Kaohsiung, each with more than a million people, weren't part of Taiwan Province. Please.. please don't pretend you know the meaning of Taiwan Province while you actually don't. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 22:14, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
I agree. I suppose the next step for pro-PRC editors will be to get rid of all the articles that show that the Republic of China claims the Mainland as part of their territory. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.78.140 (talk) 16:43, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
The main proposal people are pushing for is not predicated on the Republic of China constituting Taiwan province and no more, but on the simple and incontestable fact that the common name for the modern state centred on Taiwan island (and officially and historically known as "ROC") is, in 2012, "Taiwan". We - along with every serious real-world source including the US State Dept, UK FCO, BBC, Britannica etc etc - all know that it includes other minor islands and territories, that there is history in respect of the name(s) and that there is a complicated relationship with mainland China/the PRC. As previous discussion makes clear. N-HHtalk/edits15:07, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
But wouldn't this renaming drawn attentions of readers who want to find information about the Taiwan island to the politic body? As in the case, would it be better to let the Taiwan be a disambiguation page which people can choose to redirect to Taiwan (island) or Taiwan (country)? But if it is to be called as , would it be simpler to call it as Republic of China? C933103 (talk) 17:07, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
Readers would find out just as much about the island hitting the state page, as the difference between the two is minimal and not significantly mentioned in either page. Also, there'd be a hatnote, like there is now, so same number of clicks for them, but with the possibility of getting the information they need anyway, and with the majority of users getting straight to the page they want. CMD (talk) 17:19, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
I'd bet most readers reach this country article through wikilinks. With Taiwan being a disambiguation page incoming links can all be fixed and patrolled. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 22:14, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
A user decided to split the topics for whatever reason deep in the depths of wikipedia history. That is no reason the situation can't be changed now. CMD (talk) 03:06, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
I for one oppose moving "Republic of China" to Taiwan. The "Republic of China" is far more than just Taiwan Province - and, for clarity, I am not just referring to ROC held islands outside the area of the "traditional Taiwan Province" or "contemporary ROC defined Taiwan Province". I am speaking of much bigger things. Any one who has ever visited Taipei will likely have been impressed by the CKS memorial there. Wouldn't it indeed be a monument well out of place if this was merely Taiwan. But it is not merely in Taiwan. It is in the Republic of China. That and so much more is the difference. You would be misleading readers if you were to rename the ROC article "Taiwan". Again, the "Republci of China" is far more than merely Taiwan Province. I support no further change to article names. 86.45.54.230 (talk) 11:32, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Common usage says "Taiwan" is the whole country. Last night I heard three separate TV programs from three different countries use that terminology. Politically motivated pedants, with no interest in making Misplaced Pages a truly accessible place are making this area a backwater. I withdrew from discussion here some days ago because of the ongoing obstinacy of this stubborn cluster of confusing IP editors who don't care how stupid this makes Misplaced Pages look. They just want to keep fighting old political battles. Having restated my position, I will probably again withdraw for some time. This is not a healthy area of Misplaced Pages.— Preceding unsigned comment added by HiLo48 (talk • contribs) 11:40, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Accessibility should not supercede accuracy. Most sources in the world use "Taiwan" because they bow to either political (CIA World Factbook) or economic (businesses and publications around the world that wish to do business in the PRC) pressure from the PRC. As a truly FREE and OPEN encyclopedia, Misplaced Pages does not have to bow to pressure either political or economic (this place gets its money from donations). We have a singular opportunity here at Misplaced Pages, we can do this better and more accurately than any other source in the world, whether the Encyclopedia Britannica or the CIA World Factbook; we are free from political pressure and we are open to all without costing anybody a thing; we are and can be beholden to no government nor business. We can be accurate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.174.144 (talk • contribs) 14:25, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Bowing to pressure. You start off from the false premise that they would prefer to use the term "Republic of China". What political or economic pressure is Encyclopaedia Britannica bowing to? Also, accuracy is a non-argument. Terms have the meanings they are given. Here and now, Taiwan has the meaning of the state. That makes it as accurate as any other name. CMD (talk) 17:23, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Some sources are obliged to follow the official positions or even legislations of their respective countries (e.g. the CIA World Factbook). Some sources got economic or business considerations. But I'd rather say in that process most sources simply yield to the predominantly common usage so as to avoid the need to "decode" or "translate" the euphemisms that government officials and politicians say. After then the ROC government under a pro-independence party does so as part of its effort to desinicise itself. It's politically and practically difficult for the KMT government that followed to re-sinicise everything, although they actually acted to undo what its predecessor had done. Anyhow, you'd be impressed when you look for Taiwanese products (particularly electronic products) at home or in a Walmart (or even food products in Chinatowns) and found that many of these products are marked "Made in Taiwan, R.O.C.", even 60+ years after 1949. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 18:32, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Re HiLo48: "is the whole country" - Do they specifically and explicitly include the non-Taiwan parts of the contemporary republic? If not, it probably doesn't matter whether they identify it as Taiwan or as ROC. It simply doesn't make any difference at all in those contexts. But anyhow this country as a whole isn't going to be Taiwan unless its government gives up the non-Taiwan parts (or explicitly and statutorily defines the non-Taiwan parts to be Taiwan), ceases to consider itself to be carrying on the republic founded in 1912, enacts a new constitution, and changes its name. The Austrians initially have their country named Republic of German Austria and identified their country as the rightful successor to the Austrian Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, but they eventually dropped the name and all those identifications. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 18:32, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for clarifying, 86.45.54.230. This viewpoint can of course be presented in article text, but promoting it with the article name leaves Misplaced Pages out of line with contemporary English usage, not just in journalism but also in scholarly books and real encyclopedias. Kanguole12:34, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
While I don't agree with 86.45.54.230, I am indeed worried that Misplaced Pages will soon be another venue of renaming en masse, repeating what'd happened in the ROC during the second Chen administration. The Misplaced Pages articles for China Airlines, China Television, Central Bank of the Republic of China, Chunghwa Post, The China Times, and so on and so forth will all have to be renamed just because of the notion that these names looks stupid and confusing to average lay readers. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 18:32, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
I have to say I am very much at one with much of what IP 159.53.174.144 said above. Also, some one suggested in response to me that somehow Taiwan is in contemporary usage and Republic of China is not. That is patently untrue. Just visit most ROC governement websites etc. Taiwan residents are generally proud of their ROC. Any way, again, I smell politics in all of this. The "Republic of China" has been the name of the article from the start. It is abundently clear that there is no consensus to move the article. Given this, I would hope this discussion can be brought to an end. If not, I will continue to participate as best I can. 86.45.54.230 (talk) 18:45, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Discussion about discussion
I will emphasise one more point before I again move on. This conversation is incredibly difficult to follow with all the unregistered IP editors contributing. I cannot keep track of who is saying what. Societies that want to dehumanise parts of their population take away peoples' names and give them numbers. Only a fool would do it to themselves. Yes, It's within the rules of Misplaced Pages to not register, but I cannot comprehend why you won't do it, just as I cannot comprehend your recalcitrance over the naming issue. Registering could only help your case. I say again, this part of Misplaced Pages is one of its ugliest parts. Newcomers will not comprehend the views of the IP editors for the many reasons already given. You will NEVER win your political fight here, so please stop destroying the place. You are not showing good faith in any way at all. Goodbye again for now. HiLo48 (talk) 20:08, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
From what I know there is no policy on Misplaced Pages to discriminate IP editors, and therefore register or not should make no difference to the case. Each IP editors got different IP addresses and therefore they can be tracked and identified, and it's your very own POV to call them fools. And further we don't label people by their names. We read what they actually said. I care only about the content of their arguments and I don't pre-judge one's arguments just because of their names. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 20:39, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, but I can't help myself. I MUST respond. If you think that post refutes ANYTHING I said, you are sadly deluded. Yet again, conversation here is appalling. A sick part of Misplaced Pages. HiLo48 (talk) 20:44, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. It's not clear who is the same person commenting on a rotating IP, which are deliberate socks, etc. Equally, they are all piling in out of chronological order, mostly to add irrelevant side-points and petty trivialities and/or bizarre suggestions about rewriting WP naming policies to avoid the "bias" of the real world. Even GotR, who at least has a named account, is a confirmed sock account that was created to evade a block, and has now taken to removing others' talk page contributions - not once, but twice. As you say, it's time-consuming for everyone involved and counter-productive for them, not least because it clarifies their agenda here, which is nakedly political and obscurantist. At least the most ubiquitous disrupter and spammer, who is also almost certainly a block- or ban-evading sock, has now finally and explicitly conceded that Taiwan is the common name for the country - just that they do not like it - so we now have agreement on the only significant, substantive point that needs to be debated for now. Hopefully the move request, when put formally, will be agreed more cleanly and more easily. I'd even go so far as to say that some of these IPs need to be barred from contributing to that. N-HHtalk/edits20:46, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
I don't think I had conceded anything in the diff link that you quoted. It has always been my position that while Taiwan is a common reference to the contemporary ROC, Taiwan ≠ ROC. The two aren't identical nor congruent. And no I am not a sock. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 21:54, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
As for deletion of your remarks: I was told that those subsections were meant to be collaborative (see Cybercobra 21:12, 6 February 2012), and aren't supposed to be debated point by point. And I have actually restored those comments that GotR had deleted. Keep calm and stay cool. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 21:57, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Let's not get back into a pointless discussion as to whether an editor understands why some editors prefer simply IP addresses. It's allowed on WP - period. We all have to abide by the rules (including against sock puppeting and intolerance etc). For what it is worth, I did recently explain why I prefer to edit as an IP. You can read the explanation at User talk:Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington (section) if you wish. Back to the discussion, the Republic of China is far more than Taiwan Province. That's the reason why I oppose the proposed move. I've already explaind a bit why I hold this view (as do many others). There is no consensus for any change in the article names. 86.45.54.230 (talk) 12:13, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
The discussion is not pointless. It's always useful in a debate to understand the true motivations of all participants. Understanding why you won't take the obviously (to me) helpful step of registering would really help me understand you better. Your link doesn't work. And you have repeated yourself without explanation, ignoring valid points made by others. Now, THAT'S a pointless post. HiLo48 (talk) 21:04, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
HiLo48, that's a pretty WP:BITE-y remark. S/he made a copypaste typo, and it really isn't that hard to figure out that copypasting the first half of the link in the URL bar leads to a working page. And yes, it does appear that your rhetoric so far has been rather belligerent, from what I have read above. -- 李博杰 | —Talkcontribsemail01:13, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
Congratulations. You've worked out that I am extremely frustrated with a group of editors deliberately avoiding constructive conversation here. Oh, and whenever I post something complicated like a link, I Preview it. (In fact I preview most of my longer posts to check for typos.) Our IP editors insist that they are skilled and experienced editors despite choosing not to register, thus making it look like they are not experienced. Why should I be the one to sort out their stuff-ups? HiLo48 (talk) 01:43, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
Well, we have WP-namespace pages regarding that, including WP:TEA, WP:BREAK and WP:COOL. Getting angry at people over the internet doesn't go anywhere, and it does give a novel impression towards the other people (if this wasn't Misplaced Pages, I would have uncontrollably put on my trolling hat and made a silly reply like "WHY YOU SO MAD YOU SO MAD YOU SO MAAAAAD INTERNET TEARS", but if I did that here I'd probably get my ass kicked by the community. That's exactly how I feel when I read people getting angry over the internet). You've given out your point already regarding your dissatisfaction towards other editors; any more than once and it gives people the impression that you're easy trollbait, and I'm practically grabbing my own nuts with my claws in stopping myself from behaving like I do on other websites. I'd advise you not to get internet-angry since it doesn't further your argument any better, and instead makes the situation more comic for people like myself. -- 李博杰 | —Talkcontribsemail03:48, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
That's actually a very unhelpful contribution. You have made it appear that I am the problem here. I can quite deliberately and consciously choose what style I post with. Many of us here have tried the nice, rational and logical approach to the editors that are destroying this Talk page. It doesn't work. If you've looked beyond my post you will know that. I am quite deliberately trying another approach. You have now destroyed its effectiveness. You have given strength to those who are really damaging Misplaced Pages, when you should be condemning them. We shouldn't allow truly disruptive editors to be protected by a façade of niceness from others. Can you solve the REAL problem here please? HiLo48 (talk) 04:10, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
"Our IP editors insist that they are skilled and experienced editors despite choosing not to register, thus making it look like they are not experienced. Why should I be the one to sort out their stuff-ups?"
(indent) You still don't get it? I'll try and explain this a bit further:
A decent discussion of a controversial topic
A: This is my point.
B: I disagree with your point, here are my reasons.
A: I support my point with these reasons. I debunk your reasons with these points.
B: There is a flaw in your reasons in this section. Also, these points.
What I seem to be seeing from you
A: This is my point.
B: Your point is wrong.
A: This is another aspect of my point.
B: As explained ad nauseam above, your point is wrong.
B: OH GOD, I TOLD YOU ALREADY, YOUR POINT IS WRONG, IT IS NULL AND VOID, IP EDITORS THESE DAYS, JESUS CHRIST
If you truly are getting frustrated, then take a break. Otherwise, change your rhetoric a bit, it's not constructive. I get the impression that you are selectively reading people's posts, selectively ignoring parts of posts, and then stating that other people's points are incorrect without effectively addressing them. Not only on this page; I've seen this elsewhere as well; it's not what I think to be the right way to deal with controversial issues. -- 李博杰 | —Talkcontribsemail04:40, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
Again, you seem to want to make it look like the problems with this page are my fault, and you know they are not, so please put your effort into criticising those creating the problems. To help you understand, I'll provide you with a correct description of the flow we've seen above....
A: These are my points.
B: This is my point
A: I believe your point is wrong and/or irrelevant because...... Can you please respond to the points I made.
B: This is my point.
A: Can we please have a conversation here. Please respond to the points I have made
B: This is my point
...etc, etc, etc.....
There is no real conversation occurring. I have wondered how to use Misplaced Pages's processes to address this, with no success so far. You know I am not the only person here experiencing the same difficulties. Please suggest a solution that doesn't involve allowing the deliberate (or incompetent?) obfuscators to keep damaging Misplaced Pages. If you keep telling me to give up, I can only assume that you are taking sides with those blocking progress here.
The solution quite simply is to ignore them. If "B" is repeating the same point, to which "A" has already addressed, then there is no need for "A" to respond to "B" a second time. Increasing the volume of text on this page ends up scaring away the bystanders rather than enlightening them.--Jiang (talk) 20:43, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
I must confess I have not read every word posted above....But if we are still discussing IP editors and the supposed difficulty of reading posts by IP editors, I am disappointed. Frankly, I think such discussion is at this point simply disruptive. This is a talk page for the Republic of China article. If an editor has an issue with basic rules on Misplaced Pages (like the right of IP editors to participate), such editor should take that up elsewhere. If the discussion is again back to what it should be about, the article - again, I see no consensus here for the change proposed. 86.45.54.230 (talk) 20:53, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
(←) Re HiLo48's remarks at 01:43, 12 February 2012: "Our IP editors insist that they are skilled and experienced editors despite choosing not to register, thus making it look like they are not experienced. Why should I be the one to sort out their stuff-ups?" - Please be civil and familiarise yourself with Wikiquette. Meanwhile, while I do know the shortcomings for not having a registered account, I hope you can understand that Misplaced Pages isn't a place for labelling, but a place for meaningful and intellectual collaborations. Even if people are named and therefore can be more easily identified, we don't rely on their names. We rely on the actual content of their contributions. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 22:46, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
I am desperately trying to understand why some editors, such as the incognito one above, ignore things that others post. Possible reasons include bad manners, incompetence, illiteracy.... Hmm, I'm running out of ideas. My point is that I've already made many posts explaining why there are problems in the approach described in that post, and I've been ignored. If there is any possible positive explanation for that, can someone please tell me. HiLo48 (talk) 00:04, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
HiLo, I don't think you've been ignored, but I really don't think this discussion is going anywhere (which is possibly why it's mostly only the IP editors who are responding).. Does anyone mind if I collapse this "discussion about the discussion" section? People have vented a bit, and Benlisquare's posts were pretty funny, but it's probably time to wrap this one up, yes? Mlm42 (talk) 00:45, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
You have been told that the ROC isn't readily comparable with other island-countries. No other country (currently exist in 2012) has relocated its territorial existence in the way that the ROC did, and no other island-country has similar islands like Kinmen, Pratas, etc., like the ROC does. Have you ever tried to understand that? Who's ignoring who? 218.250.159.25 (talk) 06:38, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
Who mentioned island countries? I certainly didn't. I don't think anyone else taking my perspective has either. It's irrelevant. The history is irrelevant. What is relevant is that almost all of the rest of the world uses the name Taiwan to refer to the whole country today. Ignoring that point just makes you look silly, stubborn, rude and stuck in the past. What I also understand is that you and several other IP editors here are obsessed with a very narrow issue, and cannot see the damage they are doing. HiLo48 (talk) 07:13, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
Sorry for referring to the wrong argument. That point about island-country was indeed presented but that wasn't yours. I have gone through your comments again and indeed your only argument was that "Taiwan" is the common name for the whole country, and it isn't political. That's how the whole world call this country. It's completely neutral and that's just the name of the country. The statement "China welcomes second term for Taiwan's leader" is 100% clear. It's the common name among 99% of the English-speaking world.
And your responses to the background detail about this country, from its founding across the strait back in 1912, its relocation, its geographical extent as at 2012 beyond the Taiwanese archipelago, its constitution, etc., were: absolute rubbish, unhelpful, obfuscating, fighting 60-year-old wars (you didn't use the hyphen according to standard English grammar, by the way), obscure, irrelevant, off-topic, absolute crap, insulting, politically-motivated pedants, and pointless. And you assert that IP editors aren't experienced. You simply didn't want to go into any detail and to engage in any intellectual discussion.
As a matter of fact you'd even failed to understand that journalistic statement like "China welcomes second term for Taiwan's leader" wouldn't ever be accepted by Misplaced Pages. That isn't something Beijing can actually say with such wordings, and Misplaced Pages has an official policy not to endorse or reject ROC's existence as a sovereign state.
You claimed that "almost all of the rest of the world uses the name Taiwan to refer to the whole country today. Ignoring that point just makes you look silly, stubborn, rude and stuck in the past.", but you didn't even reply to my question two days and a half ago at 18:32, 10 February 2012: Do they specifically and explicitly include the non-Taiwan parts of the contemporary republic? It's really time to ask who's ignoring who, and who's ignoring the hard fact and doing the damage. It's perhaps time to follow Ireland's path to submit this trouble to the ArbCom for considerations. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 09:24, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
Most references to "Taiwan" include all those territories under the direct current control of the government, including Kinmen etc. See the factbooks and country profiles referenced ad nauseam. Even if some do not, that doesn't affect the fundamental point about what the broad entity is called (and such issues, to the extent that they are issues, would of course still arise whatever it was called). People keep telling you that, and keep pointing out that plenty of countries have similar issues of sovereignty and integration at the margins. The wider issue about overall sovereignty/independence is irrelevant to the name too, and again would arise whatever we call this thing. Also, plenty of countries have come into existence out of nothing or out of other, previous countries; and also have moved their territorial bases or centres over time, even if not quite as dramatically as ROC. Everyone else in the world copes with these difficulties while referring to "Taiwan" in 2012. Misplaced Pages can too, despite what you happen to think. All your points have been answered to the extent that they ever can be - that's why people are getting p#ssed off with you for continually raising them. ROC is not what the country is called by anyone today - it is called Taiwan. Hence, the WP article that purports to be about the country cannot be called ROC - it should be called Taiwan. Perhaps we can also have a more esoteric article about ROC and its history (indeed we do already of course to some extent eg the History and Government pages), but the basic point here is really very, very simple.
If in case you don't already know, one of my questions was that: Are the islands along the coast of Fujian and in the South China Sea ever considered part of Taiwan, on the condition that the term "Taiwan" isn't used as a euphemism for "Republic of China"? My another question was: For how long has it been known as Taiwan? I also asked: How are we going to explain topics like Taiwanese independence movement? All these questions met with answers like silly, stubborn, rubbish, unhelpful, irrelevant, fight a 60 year old war, crap, or vague answers like "addressed in the text". We also talked about neutral point of view and common name issues, and acceptability of exceptions for special cases. The only answer was that it's common, as common as 99% English speakers do, and no one bothered to discuss Republic of Ireland as a precedence. Not even the neutrality issues in the World Factbook was ever considered. Coupled with the problem that some had exhibited quite a lot of misunderstandings about the subject matter, I don't think the discussion here had ever got those fundamental questions answered. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 18:09, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
This is precisely the problem. None of those things you mention are "fundamental questions" when it comes to the basic point at issue, but you keep repeating them. Issues about Ireland, outlying islands, history and supposed bias (unless severe) etc etc are simply neither here nor there. You seem to be under the misapprehension that we are here to debate what the article title ought to be, based on detailed analytical argument and debate. We are not. The fundamental issue is very simple - not what this thing ought to be called (or what random WP editors think it "ought" to be called), but what it is called. I'm not interested in having a debate about the first aspect, let alone by way of rehashing the same old arguments over and over again. Nor do we need to. Do you get this? N-HHtalk/edits19:10, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
Those questions are relatively more important than common name. Do you get this? Misplaced Pages isn't about what lay people thinks about. It's about neutral presentation of hard facts. That's the aim, goal and duty of Misplaced Pages. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 19:48, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
To put my point my clearly: I want the ROC to be replaced by Taiwan. And I want them to either define all those remote islands as part of Taiwan or to pull out from them. But before that actually happens, don't pretend it has already happened. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 19:52, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
"You seem to be under the misapprehension that we are here to debate what the article title ought to be, based on detailed analytical argument and debate. We are not." - With all due respect, I'm afraid that's an unencylopedic approach and is counter-constructive to any encyclopedia project. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 19:56, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
I did not "assert that IP editors aren't experienced." I pointed out, with very positive intentions, that people who choose not to register run the risk of looking inexperienced. Any mistake they make will be put down by others to the fact that they are only posting from an IP address and therefore probably don't know the rules properly and don't really have a strong background on Misplaced Pages. I still cannot comprehend the logic of why so many editors on this page remain unregistered. And before anyone says "because they can", that is simply not a reason. HiLo48 (talk) 19:41, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
It may well be stereotyping, but don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger. (Or don't you understand that yet?) And I would please request that you don't move my posts again. I put it where I put it for a reason. You are the one who has put my post out of logical sequence, but the damage has been done. Unlike you, I'm willing to move forward. HiLo48 (talk) 21:30, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
You may perhaps read #2 and #3 of WP:Indentation again. I know that's a shortcoming for not having a registered account. But no you didn't appear to be just a messenger in your remarks at 01:43, 12 February 2012. But anyway, that isn't important. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 22:17, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
I've created this break in the discussion as it was getting sidetracked on irrelevant points (General Wiki principles etc). Again, there is no consensus for any change so I do not see where this discussion is going. The Republic of China is far more than Taiwan Province. Hence, the article's name is appropriate. 86.45.54.230 (talk) 10:52, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
Shouldn't that be the Republic of China was far more than Taiwan, but now is only a little bit more? So while we should have an article on the history of the ROC, when naming the article on the country as it exists today we should also follow the preponderance of usage in reliable English-language sources. Kanguole11:43, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
I don't get this argument at all. Even the island of Taiwan is more than Taiwan Province. Is that articles name inappropriate too? CMD (talk) 13:33, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
Ah, the traditional province. That's very in the past. Anyway, as we're not renaming this page "Taiwan Province", that shouldn't be a problem. CMD (talk) 14:06, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
I guess he or she's talking about the geographical limit of the province in 1895, between 1945 to 1967, or the Japanese colony, which is the domain of benshengren and aborigines in the cultural and historical sense. And yes the difference between the ROC and Taiwan isn't only about the tiny remote islands, but also the laws brought in by the ROC, the state organs, the constitution, the flag, the coat of arms, the many monuments around the country, and so on and so forth. These aren't only about names, but also values and ideologies. People from the ROC may identify themselves as Taiwanese and call the country "Taiwan" in common speech. But if they're asked whether or not their country has essentially been transformed into Taiwan, that will be a much longer and more difficult story. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 20:17, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
The amount of text people have written going in circles on this talk page nearly deserves to be on WP:LAME, along with 'aluminium vs aluminum', 'colour vs color' and others of their ilk. Not quite, but nearly. 86.*, you keep saying there's no consensus for change but that's not what this discussion has been about, and you've been told this more than once. What we're discussing here are our options, and out of those options a formal proposal for change will eventually come about. That hasn't happened yet. Repeating yourself over and over the way you're doing is the argument equivalent of putting your hands over your ears chanting "lalala I can't hear you". You're effectively trying to shoot down a proposal before you've even seen it. That's hardly a collegial way of going about things. Why don't you wait to see what the proposal ends up being before you insist it has no consensus? TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 21:50, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
218.250.159.25 - I have already set out my arguments for why the proposed move is not suitable; I have also pointed out several times that there is no consensus for the change. I think the entire discussion is counter-productive is productive is defiend as a good ROC article. But the discussion will go on, it seems, for what I regard as "political" reasons. If you wish to be productive, 218.250.159.25, why not help improve the article rather than pushing this "article name" agenda. Again, the Repuhlic of China is far more than Taiwan Province and the name of the article is approriate. No consensus for change exists. 86.42.18.148 (talk) 11:54, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Taiwan will be sovereign when there is Taiwanese independence and most countries in the world acknowledge independent Taiwan. Most countries don't acknowledge Taiwan as an independent nation including the United States, Japan and vast majority of European countries. Taiwan legally is not sovereign. Including "Taiwan is a sovereign state" is factually incorrect and POV. 174.51.176.22 (talk) 04:26, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
No it is not. you used the word "de facto." So in other words in truth it is not sovereign. Republic of china didn't declare independence. Sovereign technically means independent. ROC is not independent. They themselves didn't officially declare their independence and other countries didn't acknowledge anything. Country is independent or not. if they are not independent they are not "sovereign." I understand your Taiwanese nationalism, but in common sense around the world Taiwan is not really a sovereign country. 174.51.176.22 (talk) 08:38, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
How is Taiwan not independent? They were never under another power that they had to declare independence from. CMD (talk) 10:32, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
174.51.176.22, I don't know where you learned your history, but you're wrong. The ROC did declare independence. The ROC declared independence from the Manchu Qing Dynasty and has been a sovereign state ever since.
Ok here is the issue. ROC existed after the Qing dynasty, but they lost the civil war to people's republic of china and the moved to Taiwan. PRC is much more acknowledged by the world as being an independent sovereign state. ROC lost their position in the UN Security Council to PRC, another sign that ROC is not legitimate country. Read the Taiwan independence article. It states that Taiwan didn't officially declare their independence from PRC. PRC claims ROC is not legitimate country and will militarily attack ROC if there is "official" written declaration of independence. Taiwan claims it has defacto independence, but it is not official. It is not written. Taiwan lost their legitimacy around the world after the Chinese Civil War. Taiwan got lucky because US and other western nations vowed to defend Taiwan if PRC attacked them on the island. The west saved Taiwan otherwise the PRC would've finished Taiwan off after World War 2.
I can understand that Taiwanese can say they are independent country in Taiwan, which is fine, but around the world Taiwan is not considered independent country acknowledged by the powerful countries. There is certain level of independence like elections, laws and military, but there is huge dispute happening about whether taiwan is totally "independent" country like, Iraq, India, Vietnam, US, Canada. Mentally it is ok to claim that Taiwan is independent, but officially/technically it is hard to say it is a sovereign state. Taiwan can be a "country" but not necessarily a "sovereign state" right now. It is psychological vs. reality. Taiwan psychologically claims that PRC is a "free area" of the ROC, but that will never be reality. Reality is ROC will never invade PRC and the communist party. It is a little bit of dream and reality contradiction. For Taiwanese living in Taiwan, Taiwan seems independent, but looking at closely and from the outside (non-Taiwanese) perspective, it is an island that has dispute with its huge neighbor and can't 100% control its destiny right now. 174.51.176.22 (talk) 16:03, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
The PRC has never controlled Taiwan or the other areas currently administered by the Republic of China. What about the countries which do recognise the ROC? Note also, that the ROC did not lose UN membership seat until 1971, 22 years after the founding of the PRC, with some countries, including the United States, continuing to recognise the ROC up until the end of that decade, and some beyond that even, i.e. South Africa. As explained, the ROC is a de facto (and de jure to the states which still recognise the ROC) sovereign state. It seems more of a personal analysis of the situation, which in fairness, does have some factually accurate information, however, the reality is that both the PRC and ROC exist, and they don't control each other's territories. If the ROC is only recognised by a minority of states, then equally the PRC is partially or wholly unrecognised by that same minority.--Tærkast (Discuss) 17:25, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
PRC never controlled Taiwan, but Taiwan is not 100% recognized by any members of the UN Security Council and the powerful countries officially. Couple of small and poor nations recognize it in Oceania and Africa. 12.190.142.192 (talk) 17:49, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
I came here was after a headline in a major newspaper clearly recognising the results of what it described as the national elections, and describing the whole country as Taiwan. HiLo48 (talk) 19:58, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
If we change this article to "Taiwan" and remove all references to the fact that the ROC (Taiwan) is a (de facto) sovereign state, most people unfamiliar with the situation will then assume or believe that it is not and that it is a part of the People's Republic of China. The wheels of changing, diminishing and erasing (in literature if not in fact) the ROC's status as a sovereign state on Misplaced Pages has already begun to spin. Next, the Pro-PRC crowd will start insisting that "Taiwan" be labeled as a de facto Special Administrative Region. By propogating inaccurate information and thereby changing perception, the ROC will one day be forced to capitulate to the PRC as a SAR (or worse, just another rovince) without the PRC ever firing a shot. We need to be accurate.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.78.140 (talk) 22:04, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
This is literally the worst reason so far that somebody has offered in favor of moving the article one way or the other. But you do bring up a good point: it's not a good idea to describe Taiwan as a "de facto" this or that, whether a sovereign state or something else. We should make plain and immediate the fact that the overwhelming majority of states don't consider Taiwan/ROC to be a sovereign state. Using Misplaced Pages as an activist platform to deny this reality (even for a good cause for which most of us would agree; that is, undermining those evil Chinese Communists) is still activism. Shrigley (talk) 22:46, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
159.53.78.140, you're clearly declaring that your intentions here are political. Misplaced Pages should not make decisions on such grounds. We need to be neutral and make decisions on the basis of providing encyclopaedic content in the best way possible. We must consider this debate as one between Misplaced Pages's desire to have names which are common and the competing desire to be accurate. We should not be having a political discussion. LukeSurl00:03, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
As I mentioned in my reply near the beginning of this thread, Taiwan is already by definition a sovereign state. De facto is just a descriptor, it helps clarify but it's not essential. International law holds that recognition is not necessary for a state to be considered sovereign. Certainly we'd say that Taiwan has very little international recognition as a legitimate state, but we wouldn't say that this strips them of their sovereignty because that's not the case, by definition. Politics, which sadly have been involved in this discussion for the entire time, have no power to influence the decisions that we will make based on Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines.
I will point out again, for the benefit of some of the latecomers, that the ROC Government Information Office (GIO) uses the term Taiwan in reference to the country in many of its own official press releases. It's plainly not a case of the name Taiwan being inaccurate if the government itself has no problem making use of it. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 02:44, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
The precise status/description of Taiwan - unlike the name itself, despite the wrangling over that - is obviously quite tricky to define/agree and is something that will need to be agreed on in article text. Personally, I think an explicit description, unqualified, as a "sovereign state" lacks precision and accuracy. N-HHtalk/edits09:57, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
It's two questions, namely: (1) Is the ROC a sovereign state, and (2) Is this sovereign state a Taiwan state. From the international law point of view the ROC is certainly independent and sovereign, as TechnoSymbiosis has rightly pointed out. But it isn't yet independent and sovereign as Taiwan. It is still a rump state. It's carrying on the ROC within a much smaller territorial extent. The DPP administration under president Chen took the first steps to transform it into a Taiwan state. But those were very preliminary steps and some had already been undone by the following KMT administration under Ma. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 12:02, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
If you knew the issue, then you would understand what the IP is trying to state but I guess there is no point in arguing against people who have not read the articles or don't understand the complexity of the issue or care about it or outrightly ignore it.Typhoonstorm95 (talk) 03:20, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
I understand what they are trying to get at, but it is appallingly written and the points being made, to the extent that they are serious points at all, are irrelevant, eg "it isn't yet independent and sovereign as Taiwan". What does that mean? What does it have to do with anything? The politics of individual Taiwanese parties are equally irrelevant to the point in question. I am well aware of the complexities of Taiwan-China issues, thank you, which are and should be covered in article text (as I and everyone else have always said). I am also, however, aware of the rather uncomplicated nature of the issue we have been bogged down in here - which relates simply and solely to the article name. Anyway, it would seem the discussion has moved on, so, whatever. N-HHtalk/edits11:44, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Re-name, again
Having read ( and slightly contributed to) the previous renaming discussions, I am making another proposal. As a compromise solution, I expect it will satisfy no-one, but on the other hand as I think something needs to be done, I’m hoping there’s just enough for everyone to make it acceptable.
Therefore I propose this page be moved to “Republic of China (Taiwan)”, because a) it can’t stay where it is; ROC is not the common name for this country in most of the world outside Taiwan , but b) as it’s the official name for the country it should be acceptable to those who are unhappy with simply using Taiwan as the article name.
I propose to put this in as a request move, unless everybody dislikes it. Xyl 54 (talk) 22:38, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
I think you're jumping the gun. There is already a move request in the works to move the article fully to Taiwan. I suggest you wait until that proposal has been lodged, discussed and then a decision taken over it. John Smith's (talk) 23:04, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
I see no merit in this proposal at all. The state's name is the "Republic of China". That of itself is not exactly short. Adding 'Open Brackets Taiwan Close Brackets' to it is unnecessary and of no benefit. I also disagree with it because the Republic of China is far more than Taiwan Province....but if I get into the various reasons (see my postings above), I will be accused of repetition (rightly!). There is no consensus for any change either! 86.46.26.227 (talk) 23:36, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
"The Kuomintang lost the war in the 1940s. Why are we clinging desperately to this fiction that they won?" - Because they didn't lose. The island, that is (Verb, example 2), not the war (Verb, example 3). "When Chinese Canadians talk about what packaged food is safe to eat, they say food from China is dangerous, but food from Taiwan is ok." - anecdotal accounts don't prove anything; some people say that the Soviets liberated them from the Nazis, and welcomed them heartily, whilst others say that the Soviets gang-raped their wives and daughters. Individual sampling is not representative of an entire population; part of my university course (Physiotherapy) deals with statistics and quantitative research. In fact, instead of being on Misplaced Pages, I'm supposed to be finishing my essay on qualitative and quantitative research right now, whoops. "I have been to "China" twice. I got nowhere near Taiwan. No one flies to "China" and arrives in Taipei." - If you fly to Kinmen, you get nowhere near Taiwan. No one flies to Matsu and arrives on Taiwan. -- 李博杰 | —Talkcontribsemail02:17, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
There are many Taiwanese people in Chinatowns all around Canada (and the United States). And one may fly to Taipei or Kaohsiung with China Airlines. There they may watch the programmes of China Television, get a tank of petroleum from Chinese Petro, get a pre-paid telephone plan with Chunghwa Telecom, and send a postcard with a stamp from Chunghwa Post. Further, the full name of KMT remains Chung-kuo Kuo-ming-tang. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 12:02, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
No, benlisquare, but people alighting in Kinmen do arrive in Taiwan by common terminology, as do people travelling to Taipei. And neither of those, very definitely, arrive "in China" as commonly understood. As to Mr IP, I am very happy for all the people you describe. However, what other things might be called has nothing to do with anything in relation to this article. N-HHtalk/edits22:51, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm fine with "Republic of China (Taiwan)", as long as there is a relevant article dealing with the Beiyang and KMT on mainland governments. I can't be bothered with this anymore. -- 李博杰 | —Talkcontribsemail02:23, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
It's certainly wearying, isn't it. Do stay around if possible, it's nice to have rational input (not to mention a name instead of a number) from the opposing side. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 02:51, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
Having the article name "Taiwan" is the most logical move there is after the move of PRC -> China. It so happens this fits what the people who ride the WP:commonname argument want. But if you are serious about "Republic of China (Taiwan)", you better be ready for "Republic of China (mainland 1912-1949)", something along that line. Benjwong (talk) 03:04, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
While I appreciate the intention, this seems like one of those odd, bespoke WP compromises that go too far in accomodating an obscurity. The common name of this entity, as argued and evidenced ad nauseam above, is indisputably Taiwan. Nobody uses ROC any more, even the Taiwanese government half the time. Not only is this mix and match suggestion giving undue weight to that alternative, it also relies on us using the equally rarely used "Republic of China (Taiwan)" formulation. N-HHtalk/edits10:04, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm going to have to disagree with you there. ROC government publications in the English language use the ROC(T) form, and avoid using "Taiwan" directly on its own, unless referring to the geographical Taiwan. It's not a rarely used term as you might think it to be. -- 李博杰 | —Talkcontribsemail10:15, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
It may not be absolutely rare, in that it is never seen, but it is definitely rare in relative terms. I agree with N-HH, the formulation doesn't fix anything. Disambiguation is for when there is a clash of two identical common names with no primary topic. Not the case here. CMD (talk) 10:29, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
(EC) I agree the government sometimes use the ROC(T) form, as they do the straight ROC form (I said use was rare in both cases, not non-existent). They also use Taiwan on its own, and often fairly clearly about the state as a whole, not just the mainland. But virtually no one else uses the first two options - all serious global reference sources and world media use simply "Taiwan", as do most media in Taiwan as far as I can tell. An opening sentence that says "Taiwan, officially the Republic of China", to me seems to offer more than enough clarity, as well as due weight to the alternative. N-HHtalk/edits10:31, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
That likely is not going to happen. There are many supporters that PRC = China, the strongest supporter being the UN. Also I don't know who started the trend that government pages = country pages. They are two different things. Benjwong (talk) 13:02, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
The arguments are well known....Why go around in circles. There is no consensus for any change. The article has been stable at "Republic of China" for years and should stay there. 86.46.26.227 (talk) 13:16, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
That move discussion was a legitimate one. Like or dislike the result, that move lasted 3 years, and it was not rushed. The ROC article is anything but stable. It has been accused of not syncing with the times. Even ROC citizens call themselves Taiwanese, do you need any more evidence. Benjwong (talk) 13:26, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
It has long been the usual practice for country articles to cover all aspects of a country, from government to geography, both on WP and in paper encyclopedias. It is WP's ROC/Taiwan split that is strange. Kanguole13:53, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
No, it's wikipedia's crowd sourcing that makes it successful. All decent encyclopaedias strive for accuracy and neutrality. CMD (talk) 14:12, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
No. Just another deliberately sneaky distraction from and avoidance of the real issue here. The common name of the country is Taiwan. Anything else is local politics and not wanted here. HiLo48 (talk) 17:34, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
It isn't only about local politics, but international relations and politics too. And no, common name isn't the sole principle or pillar of Misplaced Pages. There are other more important values. You don't belong to Misplaced Pages more so than I do just because you got a registered account. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 17:56, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
True, but for some incomprehensible reason you've chosen to make it appear that way. No matter how much you protest that it shouldn't, it does. And let's be sensible here. The name of the country isn't what makes the international relations work or not work. Grasping onto the China part of the name is just a desperate but ultimately futile distortion of reality by people still fighting a long lost 60 year old war. Calling your beloved country Taiwan would make no difference whatsoever to international relations. I do acknowledge that it may hurt some egos, but surely it's time to bite the bullet and move forward, rather than forever hoping to move backwards, and trying to use Misplaced Pages as a tool for achieving that unachievable goal. It's sad that the same people who cannot face reality over the name of the country cannot face reality over registering here. I do remember names, and the kinds of things different named editors post. I cannot remember 12 digit numbers, so I have no idea what you have said here in the past. There is no continuity to your persona and your arguments. If you did register, you would make conversation so much easier for us all, and be able to present your position so much more solidly and cogently. HiLo48 (talk) 19:42, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
@IP, as neither HiLo48 or I even mentioned IP vs named users in the posts you were replying to, I have no idea why you brought that up. CMD (talk) 21:07, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
There are so many reasons why the ROC name for the article is appropriate. Some one pointed out that the common name is not by any means the sole criterion. The same person noted the importance of the "Republic of China" name in terms of international relations. Another person has stressed its importance in terms of understanding that the state referred to has a history that goes well beyond Taiwan Province. I have pointed out other reasons and that there is no consensus for any change. Clearly no change commands any consensus support. The article name should remain unchanged. 86.46.26.227 (talk) 22:40, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
Immediately after the claim of the importance of the ROC name in international relations to which you've just referred, I refuted it, with reasons, yet you just keep repeating dogma. That shows both very poor faith (ignoring my post) and a foolish approach to discussion here. When this goes to a properly framed RfC, and quality of argument is assessed, you will get nowhere. HiLo48 (talk) 22:56, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
@IP also. I don't wish to be rude, but on what basis should the rest of us trust your forcefully put opinion when it comes to naming issues, and theoretical and practical points related to the English language, when you write things like "Efforts should be spent to restore that article" ... "You don't belong to Misplaced Pages more so than I do just because you got a registered account"? N-HHtalk/edits22:51, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
Taiwan could be added to the title of this article but I would be opposed to removing "Republic of China" from the title. Doing so would create several potential headaches that I don't think those who bang on the WP:COMMONNAME drum fully appreciate when they dismiss the thorny problems as "local politics." I'm opposed to this going to RfC simply because I don't think the complexities of this issue will be adequately analyzed when any editor can just drive by and cast a vote. The appeal to common knowledge should be considered in the context of an encyclopedia whose job it is is to educate.--Brian Dell (talk) 02:47, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
There should be no problem. We can educate as much as we want. The article can (already does) include heaps about the history. How the name has evolved over time is also important and should be included. But resisting modern reality is just foolish, as would be using a name that is not the current effective name of the country. That would not be educational, apart from showing the world the intransigence of some fighters of a long ago lost war. HiLo48 (talk) 04:27, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
I keep reading references to a "long lost war". The Chinese Civil War being lost doesn't mean that the Republic of China is lost; the only two scenarios where that is possible is if a) the PLA crosses the Taiwan Strait, or b) the Taiwanese people rectify their country's name via a referendum or violent coup. Equating the loss of a war with the loss of a country is like saying that de Gaulle's France was "lost", forever, during 1940. Sure, I don't expect the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China to be marching into Beijing next Wednesday, but that does not mean that the ROC is no more. -- 李博杰 | —Talkcontribsemail06:59, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
Though the ROC lost the mainland, Taiwan was never "liberated" by Mao's army (nomenclature and euphemism of PRC historiography used), and global recognition of Taiwan as a province of either the PRC, or as "China", is rectified de jure by name and rhetoric only. Until the People's Liberation Army "liberates" the hell of of Taiwan (like how the United States "freed" the shit out of Iraq), there still exists a polity named the ROC. This might happen at any time (after all, Zhejiang was not fully "liberated" until 10 years after most of the mainland was "liberated"), or never at all, and until then, the ROC is not de facto dead. Similarly, until "national rectification" (rhetoric of the Democratic Progressive Party used) occurs by popular vote, the ROC still exists. Until then, use of "Taiwan" can only be colloquial and informal, regardless of how commonly used, which is why "Republic of China (Taiwan)" is a feasible article title, but "Taiwan" is not (for the country article). ROC(T) clarifies the situation for those who are not familiar with the situation (the "(Taiwan)" makes it clear enough to even the dumbest of readers that it isn't the "other China"), whilst "Taiwan" takes one side that is not reflective of reality. -- 李博杰 | —Talkcontribsemail07:19, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
Oh, for god's sake, you really are still fighting that war, aren't you? Can't you see that the rest of the world doesn't care? There's a country there off the east coast of China. It's not called China. It's called Taiwan. Not your perspective? Tough. It's how the rest of the world sees it. HiLo48 (talk) 07:26, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
Yes, but the rest of the world is wrong of course. Britannica? Edited by morons. US State Dept, UK FCO and BBC country profiles? Slavishly following the dictates of their biased governments (unlike the Taiwanese government, whose occasional use of ROC or ROC (Taiwan) is decidedly neutral, naturally). Whitaker's Almanack? A fly-by-night publication with no authority whatsoever. The New York Times? Amateur tabloid whose writers are ignorant of world affairs. Taiwan's own media? Just confused probably. By contrast, a couple of Misplaced Pages editors know the wp:truth and can explain it to the rest of us at tedious length using their own original research, their powers of logical analysis, and their dedication to educating readers and purported neutrality (aka "the world as I see it"). Fortunately, they will save the rest of us from making fools of ourselves here by taking the easy option and doing what everyone else in the world does when it comes to the simple question of naming this thing. N-HHtalk/edits11:23, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
If you look at the Misplaced Pages sites for the "rest of the world", you'll see that having PRC=China and ROC=Taiwan is in the minority. Many use the full name of "People's Republic of China" and "Republic of China". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.78.144 (talk) 18:15, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
Wow, lucky for us wikipedia is a reliable source we must follow. But on topic, other languages=other terminology=irrelevant. CMD (talk) 19:34, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
What a strange thing for a Misplaced Pages editor, banging on the drums of WP:COMMONNAME neutrality to type; the whole idea behind using "PRC" and "ROC" instead of "China" and "Taiwan" is for the purpose of reliability and accuracy; why is that so difficult to graps? But, to your point: Do other countries have other terminologies for "People's", "Republic" and "China"? Is "Taiwan" somehow terminologically different in the parts of the world that do not speak English? How are they different? I don't see any differences (I don't think the Portuguese even still call the island of Taiwan "Formosa"). I don't know how many languages you speak, but there can be no fundamental differences for "People's Republic of China", "Republic of China", "China" and "Taiwan". "PRC", "ROC", "China" and "Taiwan" are proper nouns, there are very little differences in terminology for these places.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.110.144 (talk) 20:04, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
^Irrelevant, obfuscating post, again.^
(Well, I think it's "again", Being from an IP address rather than a helpfully responsible editor, I have no idea if that person has posted before. I'm certainly not going to go back and compare 12 digit numbers, and even if the same, that would still be no guarantee it was the same person.) HiLo48 (talk) 20:37, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm answering CMD's "on topic" response to "other languages=other terminology=irrelevant", so I do not know why you're pointing a me instead of him/her in regards to relevancy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.78.140 (talk) 23:04, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
Your post immediately followed mine and contained no indication that you were responding to anyone but me. What drugs are you on? (I am getting really sick of ongoing implications that there is something wrong with my editing style here while the rampaging hordes of secretive and anonymous, confusing IP editors are just perfect in all regards. There was no apology. No suggestion that they could have done better. Pure arrogance and absolute load of crap.) HiLo48 (talk) 00:20, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Does the character "China" in the context of "Republic of China" mean nothing to people ? "China" does not equal to "Taiwan",so I do not agree "the re-name" thing in any way and I think the main reason that people here have this sort of discussion is because some Taiwanese separatists really eager to use Misplaced Pages to achieve their political goals,pathetic! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.42.211.202 (talk) 17:02, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
That's a very poorly written post, perhaps from someone whose first language is not English, in which case I would suggest working on another language version of Misplaced Pages. What I do think I can discern is that I am being accused of being, or being led astray by Taiwanese separatists. WTF? It's laughable, pathetic, incompetent, and/or very bad faith. (English?) Misplaced Pages is not the place for you. HiLo48 (talk) 19:54, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
I think both parties on the opposing sides need to assume good faith. For what it's worth, I don't think calling the IP's views pathetic and incompetent is the best way to word your opinion. Equally, the IPs need to need to respect the views of other users. Both may have valid points, and attacking each other is going to get nowhere. It seems to show a lack of respect on the part of both sides. --Tærkast (Discuss) 20:06, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
I cannot assume good faith unless I also assume stupidity. How can I respect the position of someone who accuses me of being part of, or being led astray by Taiwanese separatists. HiLo48 (talk) 20:23, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Nevertheless, you need not resort to retaliation. It seems to me that this whole issue has caused quite a lot of hostility and resentment around here.--Tærkast (Discuss) 20:33, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
You're absolutely right. This "has caused quite a lot of hostility and resentment around here". No resentment on my part, but occasional mild hostility when I see really dumb comments posted here in alleged good faith. But you mistake my intent. It's not retaliation. It's an attempt to get very misled and mistaken (or stupid?) editors to see reality. I won't stop calling the nonsense when I see it. HiLo48 (talk) 20:50, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
HiLo, there's a difference between (1) pointing out others' mistakes and (2) calling them stupid. One is encouraged at Misplaced Pages, and the other get's people blocked. Mlm42 (talk) 20:58, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
I try to choose my words carefully. I truly believe that a comment accusing other editors of being or being led astray by Taiwanese separatists IS stupid. That does not mean I think the poster is stupid, although one inevitably thinks about why someone would post such rubbish. HiLo48 (talk) 21:07, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
I try to choose my words carefully. Please try harder. In my opinion, your comments on this talk page have reached an unacceptable level of incivility, which is counter-productive. Mlm42 (talk) 21:18, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
There's a number of IP editors here for whom niceness in others' posts made no difference. What's the point of continuing in the same vein? I firmly believe that with people who don't see my point when I'm nice to them, a more dramatic approach can be very useful. Again, I wasn't the editor who accused other editors of being or being led astray by Taiwanese separatists. THAT'S the real issue here, yet you're attacking my reponse. Have a think about the impact of your response here. You're effectively saying to the misled(?) editor who posted that garbage "Oh, that's OK, we understand, but that evil HiLo, he's the real problem here." You are endorsing the posting of stupid comments. Attack the real problem. HiLo48 (talk) 21:30, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
You may think that "a more dramatic approach" is useful, but I assure you that it is not. It may let you vent some anger, but it does nothing to change the behaviour of other editors, and in fact harms your case since it makes you look unreasonable. I have accepted the fact there are going to be some emotional and deeply misinformed posts on this talk page (as have most editors here); creating an angry dialog only makes things worse. That's why Misplaced Pages has a civility policy, which I strongly suggest all editors follow. Mlm42 (talk) 01:24, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
I still think calling stupid posts for what they are is appropriate, otherwise they stand without criticism and condemnation, and that definitely doesn't help Misplaced Pages become a better encyclopaedia. We clearly come from different cultures, with different standards of what is "civil", and you cannot see my point. I've made my point now for others to see. I'll stop now, but I do wish someone else would say at least something negative about that accusation from the IP editor that we are all dupes of Taiwanese seperatists. Otherwise, it appears that you agree. The IP editor will certainly be feeling comfortable with his allegation. HiLo48 (talk) 03:42, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
– The current Taiwan article treats Taiwan only as a geographic entity, while the WikiProject Countries template for countries is located at Republic of China. When referring to the Republic of China in the modern context as both a geographical and political entity in the English language, Taiwan is overwhelmingly the WP:COMMONNAME. Opponents of the proposed move claim that "Republic of China" is the more politically neutral title for the article about the modern political entity; similar claims were made by opponents of last year's PRC / China move. In fact neither name is completely politically neutral, so we should use WP:COMMONNAME to determine the article titles (see WP:POVTITLE).
The subtleties of meaning between the terms "Taiwan" and "Republic of China", and any purported political meaning, should be left to the text of individual articles. Mlm42 (talk) 23:26, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
”use Nationalist China or Taiwan for references to the government based on the island" and "use the formal name of the government, the Republic of China, when required for legal precision." Associated Press Stylebook 2005, p. 46. This is the most influential journalism stylebook.
“Taiwan”, Britannica. This is the title of their entry on this subject.
“Over the past three years, Ma said his administration has been committed to easing Taiwan-China ties.” CNA, Dec. 27, 2011. CNA is Taiwan’s official news agency.
So recent English language reliable sources refer to the modern political entity as "Taiwan" (see also this list of sources) to such a degree that it is no longer controversial to do so. As evidence that the term "Taiwan" is widely used to include the smaller islands, and not just the main island, one could compare Google search results, such as in the following case of Penghu: "Penghu, Taiwan" (~191,000 hits), "Penghu, Republic of China" (~411 hits). Per WP:CONCEPTDAB, the article titled "Taiwan" should be about the broad concept of "Taiwan", and not just the main island. Mlm42 (talk) 23:26, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
State whether you support or oppose this proposal. Please do not respond to other people's posts here; use the "Discussion" subsection below. Thanks.
Support - Albeit very very reluctantly. All these arguments are getting nowhere, and it's not right to have a China (PRC) article and a Republic of China (ROC) article, so the overwhelming usage of "Taiwan" of which I was already aware, gives me no reason to neutrally oppose the move.--Tærkast (Discuss) 23:36, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
Support 100% support for this move to 100% neutrality. The name Republic Of China is the politically loaded one. The vast majority of those who use the name Taiwan for the whole country have no interest in and often not even any knowledge of the local political issues. Oh, and it's obviously the common name. HiLo48 (talk) 00:26, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Support. The most important titling criteria is recognizability, listed first in WP:NAMINGCRITERIA. The Google results for "Republic of China" -wikipedia suggests that a high percentage of those who search for the term "Republic of China" are looking for information regarding the Chinese government, i.e. they do not identify the term ROC with Taiwan. Vastly more readers search for "Taiwan" than for "Republic of China", according to Insights. Kauffner (talk) 00:30, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
SupportMisplaced Pages policy on article titles suggests that the common name should take priority over neutrality or accuracy considerations, and that an article should be located at where readers most likely expect to find it. I am supporting this proposal because people searching for the WikiProject Countries template will seek it at Taiwan and not Republic of China. Misplaced Pages policy on article titles should be distinguished from policy on article text: while supporting this proposal, I would strongly oppose a proposal to replace mentions of "Republic of China" in article text with "Taiwan" outright in instances where doing so would sacrifice the accuracy of the text.--Jiang (talk) 00:56, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
support per WP:COMMONNAME, both as the by far the most common use of "Taiwan" is for the country, and by far the commonest way to refer to the ROC is using that name. The current name is far less widely known and so confusing to many readers. It's not more or less neutral than "Republic of China", just a matter of common English usage.--JohnBlackburnedeeds01:26, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Support per WP:COMMONNAME and other comments immediately above. Misplaced Pages's use of "Republic of China" instead of the common name is pedantic at best and obfuscatory at worst. Just to provide an example that a disinterested reader might encounter before visiting Misplaced Pages for further info. The article "Ma Ying-jeou, Taiwan’s pro-China president, wins reelection from the Washington Post, a widely-read, mainstream English-language publication, which is a typical full-length article reporting the recent election results, does not mention "Republic of China" as the name of the country at all. — AjaxSmack02:03, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Support for all the reasons above and anything I've said for the 8+ years this has been argued about. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
Support (albeit reluctantly) in order to break the deadlock and move things forward. However, using the move as an excuse to unilaterally change all references to the Republic of China (e.g. President of the ROC to President of Taiwan) will be strongly opposed. In addition, I encourage all editors involved to chip in Jpech95's Taiwan draft article to ensure a smooth transition which content is acceptable to most. Lastly, all editors involved should start working on refining or renewing the WP:NC-TW guidelines so as to prevent more disputes over titles, referencing and thereof from occurring again. Raiolu (talk) 06:52, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Support per WP:COMMONNAME, making ROC into something like the Kingdom of Netherlands and the fifth French Republic is a really good solution iForce=10:05, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Support. The fact that the modern country/state (precise status perhaps to be defined) centred on Taiwan island is overwhelmingly known as "Taiwan" - and not Republic of China or any variation thereof - in every serious reference work, and in media and scholarship, is indisputable. In the absence of any significant reason in this case for us to ignore WP practice of placing countries at their common, short-form name, Taiwain it is. And we don't even need to debate this on a technical or analytical level - greater and more numerous minds have long since done that, and the results are in. N-HHtalk/edits10:56, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Support Reference to WP:COMMONNAME has been made already. We don't have to use a country's full or formal title. For example, I live in the United Kingdom. The article title is not "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", because "United Kingdom" is the common name in English. And that needs to be noted - COMMONNAME is about what is most commonly used in English by native English speakers. The fact Taiwan's official title is "Republic of China" doesn't matter. Furthermore, one should also note that whilst the country has not changed its name, this was a name imposed on it by the KMT. And arguably the name would have been changed if China did not threaten to go to war over it (and the US and other Taiwan-friendly nations didn't encourage it not to change its name). Even Taiwanese people very rarely refer to themselves as coming from the Republic of China and refer to coming from Taiwan. John Smith's (talk) 11:56, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Support. I've been watching this proposal develop for a while and I fully support each of the proposed changes. WP:COMMONNAME is the strongest applicable policy. The name is not 'wrong' or inappropriate as some opponents have argued, as even the ROC Government Information Office uses 'Taiwan' to mean the country in its official press releases . Also applicable is WP:POVTITLE, as even within Taiwan, the different political parties are divided on usage of both terms 'Republic of China' and 'Taiwan', relating to the ongoing independence matter. Finally, as our article on PRC was moved to its common name China after extensive discussion a few months ago, the ROC->Taiwan move is in line with our naming policies on consistency at WP:AT. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 21:05, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Oppose as inconsistent with WP:NC-TW. The NC-TW principles were challenged when an activist, who evidently found the "Text should not imply that Taiwan is a part of the People's Republic of China" stuff too restrictive, called for a review of them. Views came in supporting the status quo and the activists, apparently not happy with the direction the wind was blowing, starting deleting some of them. In the end, there was a 28 to 18 conclusion that the NC-TW principles represented consensus which, at a minimum, ought to have meant no consensus which in turn generally means a default keep, but the minority with the axe to grind took it upon themselves to delete the principles anyway citing WP:NOTAVOTE. The activist that had first called for a review then moved the deleted guideline to a separate page and titled it "This is a failed proposal." "Failed proposal" is a highly misleading characterization in my view as it implies a history quite at odds with the actual history of NC-TW and this ongoing mischief is going to be further encouraged if the editing community does not alert itself to this background to the question at hand. Previous steps in the activist campaign have been used to excuse additional steps such that this will undoubtedly be cited as a precedent for all sorts of dubious content changes. This is more than just a move proposal that can be considered in isolation. I might add that the common name argument is not determinative since if it were, "United States" should redirect to "U.S." or "US" or "USA" rather than the other way around.--Brian Dell (talk) 09:07, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Oppose - I am also concerned about the propriety of the procedures being followed here; Has this proposal been adequately publicised? I believe it should have been flagged well in advance, and then opened for comment on a fixed flagged date. As it stands, I could well have missed that this poll was even going on. 86.42.28.118 (talk) 10:39, 19 February 2012 (UTC)— 86.42.28.118 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
Oppose - Not least due to the ongoing move request at Taiwan (disambiguation) and the complete lack of reassurance that content at the new Taiwan article must not, apart from a brief mention in the intro, include any information on those islands which are not part of Taiwan Province, ROC. This is not to mention the inappropriate WP:CONTENTFORK (namely a full article at a separate title, Taiwan (island)) or something in the real world far more grave and dangerous that were to occur if this proposal were enacted. Also of note is the complete dissonance and lack of harmony amongst those involved in this proposal: Kanguole on one side advocates for brief inclusion of ROC 1912–1949 history at ], while the others, as far as I know, are mute about this. GotR16:23, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Oppose - A change based on common name alone would make "ROC" and "Taiwan" feed into the same article about the political entity now governing Taiwan and previously having governed the mainland. But the proposal also seeks to change the content of the ROC article such that it (a) exists in parallel to the new Taiwan article and (b) contains only a short summary of developments since 1949, which casts doubt about the continued existence of the ROC. The ROC still exists and has not changed its name. All official documents in Taiwan still bear the name ROC. Procedurally, the seven day voting period is much too short for Misplaced Pages. Most Misplaced Pages contributors do not check discussion pages once every seven days. Voting should be open for at least 30 to 60 days for ample participation. There is no urgency for this vote. NumbiGate (talk) 16:31, 19 February 2012 (UTC) (passport image evidence moved to discussion section below, due to it making the response section harder to read at lower screen widths - TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 20:10, 19 February 2012 (UTC))
Support Republic of China isn't the WP:COMMONNAME for the country - Taiwan is. We don't generally use official names for any other country, we use the common names.
While as a matter of process the Taiwan (disambiguation) move should occur first, and should have been allowed to be closed first, there is no reason for this not to be closed shortly after, that move isn't dependent on this one succeeding, and while if this move passes the other will be redundant I don't think that's a massive deal.
Oppose: Regarding WP:COMMONNAME, I suggest disregarding it per WP:IAR since citing it to support a move to Taiwan opens another dozen can of worms. A title under "Taiwan" can suggest various negative euphemisms, from both sides of the cross-strait politial spectrum, whilst ROC is the de jure name of the sovereign state. Might I add, at the time of the PRC to China move, those in support often made the reassurance that "the move wouldn't affect the state of the Republic of China article"; keeping this in mind, how can one trust the assurances made by those saying that this move to Taiwan wouldn't affect articles such as President of the Republic of China? Fool me once, and its your doing, fool me twice, and its my doing. -- 李博杰 | —Talkcontribsemail01:35, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
Support For too many political reasons. There is no point in promoting ROC anymore, when the island doesn't even collectively see itself that way. They see themselves as an independently managed Taiwan more than anything. Benjwong (talk) 07:09, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
Passport jacket used by Taiwanese independence supporters. Quemoy, Wuchiu, Matsu, Pratas and Taiping are missing, although the Pescadores, Green Island and Orchid Island appears.One of the proposed flags of Taiwan. Quemoy, Wuchiu, Matsu, Pratas and Taiping are missing, although the Pescadores, Green Island and Orchid Island appears.Oppose per Brian Dell, GotR, 119.237.197.247 and TechnoSymbiosis. Not even Taiwanese independence advocates agree that the Republic of China is now Taiwan. They call for a new constitution and a new flag. And they call for pulling out from Quemoy and Matsu. And they pulled out the navy from Pratas and Taiping islands. It was President Ma who redispatch the navy to these islands. Independence supporters call for secession of Taiwan, the Pescadores, Green Island and Orchid Island from the ROC, or handing over Quemoy and Matsu to the People's Republic of China. They don't put Quemoy and Matsu and the southern islands on their proposed flag or their passport jackets. It's apparent that the ROC is not yet replaced or displaced by a Taiwanese state. Furthermore, calling the ROC "Taiwan" isWP:RECENTISM. 147.8.102.172 (talk) 08:36, 21 February 2012 (UTC) This template must be substituted. blocked for ban evasion
Oppose. First, one of the reason why there are so many materials calling Republic of China as Taiwan is that it is promoted by countries that having closer relationship with People's Republic of China which they don't want to anger PRC so they just call that as Taiwan, following this naming method might not be a neutral move. Also, relationship of Taiwan to Republic of China differ from relationship of Netherlands to Republic of Netherlands or France to France Fifth Republic. Furthermore, no more calling it as Republic of China or Taiwan or even Republic of China (Taiwan) the name is still relativelyb short unlike the full name of the UK, which make it not that necessary to make the change. At the same time, neglecting that should it be called as Taiwan, I think it would be better to move Republic of China to Taiwan (country) leaving the Taiwan as a page that users can choose to view content about the island or the country if they type Taiwan in www.wikipedia.org (btw why all opposing vote and supporting vote are in the same section?) C933103 (talk) 19:04, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
Support - "Taiwan" is the normal English name of this country, and it is clearly acknowledged as a valid name by the government of the ROC (see government website, national currency, national passport...). However, I agree with Raiolu above that the move shouldn't be an excuse to change all references to the Republic of China, especially in political context. mgeotalk19:19, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
Oppose; the subject differs partially from the geographical location it is presently located within, that is the Island of Taiwan (formerly known as Formosa). Although it is a Rump State, and some consider a Government in Exile, the subject is greater than the geographical area that it presently governs. Changing to the name would, IMHO, be violating WP:RECENT given that the general use of the word China for the People's Republic of China in the United States didn't begin until after the United States changed who it recognized as the government of China, keeping with the One China Policy. I Support the present arrangement where there is an article about the Island under the namespace Taiwan, and there is a separate article about the government under Republic of China. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 22:01, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
Oppose The purpose and scope of the proposed resulting Republic of China article (compared against the proposed Taiwan article) is very problematic with regards to what the intended distinction between them is supposed to be, considering the goal of minimizing content duplication. --Cybercobra(talk)03:07, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Oppose The official name of the state is the ROC. Taiwan merely refers to the island. Should the United States of America be moved to US or America? The term Taiwan also has a political motive in that it is pro-separatist. Using the official Republic of China name is neutral. --TheAznSensation (talk) 05:39, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Very Strong Oppose Wow, 7 days? Are you joking? Is that a bad joke that should be deleted nonsense? That is an unspeakably brief time period for a move of this magnitude. Put on the brakes, people! Give it 30 days. Ling.Nut3 (talk) 10:16, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Although labelled as a move, this proposal involves a substantial re-arrangement of content, so I'll focus on the proposed distribution of content under titles. Based on the drafts supplied, the proposed end products are:
A new Taiwan article formed by combining the current Taiwan article with most of the content of the current Republic of China article, including the {{infobox country}}. That would produce an article covering the full range of aspects of the country, just like every other country article on Misplaced Pages, and would thus be a massive improvement over the current split between two articles. Calling this article "Taiwan" would bring us in line with usage in the great majority of reliable English language sources, as well as paper encyclopedias.
A new Republic of China article containing the remainder of the current Republic of China article, including the republic up to 1949, a summary of the republic since then, and the modern territorial claims. Such an article would cover the common aspects of the republic throughout its history. There's a possibility of overlap with History of the Republic of China, but it may be possible to distinguish them.
A new Taiwan (island) article containing approximately the contents of the current Taiwan article. Since the same text also forms part of the new "Taiwan" article, that would be a redundant content fork, especially since there is also a Geography of Taiwan article, following the normal summary-style structure used for country articles.
In short, the proposed redistribution looks good, except for the proposed "Taiwan (island)" article, which seems to be a pointless content fork. Kanguole01:41, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
There is no reason for Taiwan (island) to exist. Consider this proposal the equivalent of a merge of Republic of China into Taiwan. Before late-2003, the countries template resided at Taiwan before I moved it over to Republic of China and narrowed the focus of the Taiwan article to be just about the island. From 2003 until sometime around 2010, the Republic of China article sought to cover both the pre-1949 historical entity and the post-1949 existing entity, with corresponding subsections most sections, before someone went along and deleted the pre-1949 material. Though the intended results are the same, when considering the most logical way to preserve edit attribution, I believe a merge would be more appropriate than a move.--Jiang (talk) 01:57, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
@Kanguole, thanks for the summary; yes, that draft article for "Taiwan (island)" would need to be trimmed quite a bit, to avoid unnecessary duplication of content. I think the focus of this RM should be the "ROC -> Taiwan" part of the proposal, which is the more likely to be disputed / controversial. Mlm42 (talk) 02:01, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
My main problem here is with the new Republic of China article. It seems like it will duplicate large swathes of content from the new Taiwan article, and I don't find the suggested articles to be good models. The Netherlands example doesn't seem relevant at all; can someone explain the intended analogy/similarity? --Cybercobra(talk)05:16, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
I agree that unnecessary duplication of content should be avoided. I suppose the analogy in the Netherlands example, is that the main "country" article is The Netherlands, while the article Kingdom of the Netherlands is an article about a closely related (and often informally equated) concept, which is not as widely used, and is less likely to be sought after by readers (see also this section). Beyond that, I don't think you should read too much into the analogy. Mlm42 (talk) 05:46, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure how we can avoid content duplication. Under WP:CONCEPTDAB, Republic of China cannot be made into a redirect, as was proposed under the previous move proposal, and must continue to exist as a separate article. Assuming Taiwan (island) will not exist for long, the amount of overlap between the future Republic of China and Taiwan should be a bit less than that currently between these two articles, so the total mix of content duplication should be reduced by the current proposal.--Jiang (talk) 08:20, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
As you say above, there's no reason for a duplicative "Taiwan (island)" to exist at all, and the proposed change is most simply described as merging most of the current Republic of China article into the current Taiwan article. Regarding the residual "Republic of China" article, how would you see that differing from the current content of History of the Republic of China? Kanguole10:57, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm wondering about both those points as well. Between a refactored Taiwan article (which will inevitably be to a large degree about the main island) and the existing ROC history and government articles (which both deal with the present day), my thoughts would be that we have everything covered. Having said that, I wouldn't outright object to separate (and possibly fairly short) island and ROC articles, and having them may help bat off complainers in respect of the main issue. Btw I'll take this opportunity to say thanks to everyone who worked constructively on the detail of this, as opposed to simply fulminating on the various talk pages, which has been my preferred contribution. N-HHtalk/edits11:06, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
IMO, "Republic of China" should refer to the historical state. History of the Republic of China is a more reasonable target than Taiwan. "History of Foo" is certainly not a common name article title. It is normally overflow for an article at the "Foo" base name. So History of the Republic of China can get recreated when there is too much material for one article. Kauffner (talk) 19:16, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
The Republic of China still exist on Taiwan. The government, the constitution, the military, their symbols, their principles is all part of the Republic of China. This proposal might replace the Republic of China with common name but calling the ROC a historical government/state is out of the question.98.110.211.50 (talk) 20:13, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
UnderWP:CONTENTFORK, the Republic of China article must refer to the Republic of China from 1912 to the present, with use of summary style. I'm not sure if you're proposing to purge all post-1949 material, but under policy that would be unacceptable.--Jiang (talk) 22:14, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Replies
The Republic of China is the official name for the government on Taiwan. The proposal creates unnecessary doubt about the existence of the ROC. (image and caption added by NumbiGate (talk) 16:31, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
(Reply to 86.42.28.118) Publicize this move request wherever you want, but if you're going to oppose it, do so on more substantive grounds. Shrigley (talk) 16:44, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
(Reply to GotR) Out of curiosity, what is the "something in the real world far more grave and dangerous that were to occur if this proposal were enacted"? I think it's very narcissistic of us to assume that what we do in this move will have dangerous real-life geopolitical consequences. In any case, Misplaced Pages policies don't allow us to stop valid, policy-based moves for that reason. And isn't it great that people with "complete dissonance and lack of harmony" on other issues can come together to draft such a move proposal? This is collaborative editing at its finest. Shrigley (talk) 16:44, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Well I'm not so sure geopolitical events that actually occur have no effect on moves here. If the PRC happened to successfully invade and annex Taiwan (and even make it part of Fujian) tomorrow, this proposal would have zero standing.
And sure, in general it may be collaborative editing at its finest, but the shifting of article content is of utmost importance in merges, which is what this proposal appears to be, and specificities (obv. apart from individual sentences, images) should be ironed out before a proposal comes out. As solid it may seem to others at first glance, this proposal is actually piggishly sloppy for the reasons I gave above. Excellent work (not really), Jpech. GotR17:15, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
(Reply to NumbiGate.) Maybe you're referring to Chinese-language documents that bear the name ROC, but even Taiwan government publications use "Taiwan" more commonly than "Republic of China" in English. By the way, this is not a vote, and your contribution will be judged by the strength of your arguments. Shrigley (talk) 16:44, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Shrigley, did you see the passport cover I posted above? It says "Republic of China" in English on the cover. In official English language documents, the ROC government still refers to itself as such. Simply download any of these visa applications and see for yourself: It would be extremely difficult for you to back up the statement that "Taiwan" is used more commonly than "ROC" in official documents. Virtually every official government document in English bears ROC on it somewhere. NumbiGate (talk) 17:42, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
I moved the passport into the discussion section, Numbi, just for readability reasons - on low screen widths the image throws out the bullet point votes and makes it really difficult to see who added the image. If you disagree with this, please feel free to revert. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 20:13, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
The passport is actually a better argument for Taiwan as the common name. Why else would Taiwan be printed there if the official name were also the common name? Celestra (talk) 22:47, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
I agree with that. I was thinking at first that's why the picture was given. Why would Taiwan be on there for the Republic of China passport if it didn't associate. And I'm pretty sure citizens who don't live on the island still get a Taiwan passport, so right there is shows WP:COMMONNAME for the entire country, not just the island (or at least the territory directly controled by the ROC). JPECH9502:33, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
I am opposed to the proposal insofar as it moves the current ROC article into Taiwan and leaves a separate dangling ROC article. A merger based on common name alone would merge the two together. Eraserhead, your reference to the UK article is not on point. In the article entitled United Kingdom, the lede restates the full official name of the United Kingdom -- United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; there is no separate article called "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland"-- UK and UKGBNI feed into the same article. NumbiGate (talk) 05:48, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
Republic of China passport article said In September 2003, under the administration of President Chen Shui-bian, the word "Taiwan" was added to the ROC passport cover in English (but not in Chinese). The premier when asked during question time in the Parliament stated that this was to facilitate travel and did not change the name of the nation.C933103 (talk) 19:20, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
(Reply to Benlisquare)I just want to add to this to say that I was not aware of said promise that ROC would not be changed, but I do know that the people there are not the same people supporting it here, and I will fight along side you to see that President of the ROC does NOT move to President of Taiwan, because that is a political office refering directly to the government (Republic of China), just as President of the People's Republic of China has remained where it is. JPECH9501:41, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
I haven't looked at the move over there recently, and I am sure that this was influenced very much by it, although from what I've seen from others, even before August people have wanted to have the move. Regardless, this promise, whether or not it existed, was doubtfully made by the same people that are on here now (it certainly wasn't me). JPECH9502:49, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
I should point out that the PRC -> China did not directly affect this article. This is a separate discussion; though it was probably inspired by that move. In any case, there was certainly no promise that this page couldn't be moved. Mlm42 (talk) 02:21, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
Let's inject less feelings and more facts into the discussion. There was no "trust" broken, because nobody promised—or ever had the authority to promise—that the ROC set of articles would never change their titles. What was said was that moving "People's Republic of China" to "China" doesn't necessarily mean that a move from "Republic of China" to "Taiwan" is immediately necessary. Some users are disturbed that we have both a "China" article for the PRC, and a "Republic of China" article for the ROC. I am not one of those users, which is why I haven't (yet) thrown my support behind this proposal. Also, anyone could propose a successful move from President of the Republic of China to President of Taiwan regardless of the name of this article, because that's what the post is called in reliable English-language sources. Shrigley (talk) 02:32, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
Okay then, that's settled (would have been much easier for me just to have looked at the move), no one ever promised anything. Waste of time then. And I'm going to agree that we need less feelings and more facts, but of course now that you say that, as it's evident in the past, that's going to just cause more reason for people to argue about nonsence. And I'm just stating that in my opinion, if someone does try to prove Pres/ROC to Pres/Taiwan, I will oppose it, not to say that they themselves can't do that, obviously they have the right to do that, I was just stating my opinion for future reference. JPECH9502:49, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
(Reply to TheAznSensation)"Taiwan" is the common name, just as "United States" or "US" is for the United States of America. Furthermore, arguably the use of ROC is not neutral as it implies that Taiwan is a part of China. Even China refers to Taiwan as "Taiwan" because they won't accept it's a de jure state. So by using Taiwan we would actually be avoiding politics. John Smith's (talk) 07:33, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
The People's Republic of China prefers the title Republic of China over the Republic of Taiwan. Beside that both the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China view Taiwan belongs to China. PRC views Taiwan as a renegade province not a sovereign state. Calling "Taiwan a sovereign state" means complete independence from China and the abandonment of the ROC's claims to the Mainland. As TheAznSensation said a political move by the Taiwanese independence supporters support the claim "Taiwan is a soveriegn state" which is still a sensitive political matter that the Taiwanese people have yet to resolve for themselves.Typhoonstorm95 (talk) 15:41, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Again PRC views Taiwan as a renegade province and the ROC is only a title to them instead a sovereign state. The Anti-Secession Law says very clearly if Taiwan declares independence from China the PRC will invade it. The ROC's claims to the Mainland means Taiwan is not independent from China which contradicts Jpech95's proposal as he says "Taiwan is a sovereign state".Typhoonstorm95 (talk) 18:06, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Relationship to Naming Conventions
Dollars to donuts after this move is made, people will start wanting to change President of ROC to President of Taiwan under WP:COMMONNAME, it's the way it's going to go; there are already plenty of references to Ma Ying-jeou as "President of Taiwan". This will not end well where NPOV is concerned. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.40.129.169 (talk) 17:17, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
If "there are already plenty of references to Ma Ying-jeou as President of Taiwan", how can it "not end well"? Misplaced Pages reflects what the sources say, and that's the whole point here. The name Taiwan is completely NPOV. Most of the people around the world who use that name have no interest in and often have no awareness of the politics you are presumably concerned about, so using that name cannot be a POV position. One cannot take a biased position on something when one neither knows nor cares about it. HiLo48 (talk) 20:03, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
After People's Republic of China was merged into China, the Naming Conventions were rewritten so that there would be no wholesale move of articles from "...of the People's Republic of China" to "...of China". It is possible to support this proposal and oppose those moves as I have done to reflect usage by reliable sources. For example, using Taiwan is more appropriate when referring to the political entity geographically while using Republic of China is more appropriate as part of the name of institutions and documents.--Jiang (talk) 22:14, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
And I had said this myself just an hour ago. I entirely agree. Just because we want to move ROC to Taiwan just not mean that the President of ROC gets moved to President of Taiwan. That's evident from what happened in China's move. And if anyone does try to move President to ROC to President of Taiwan, or anything else akin to that, I would oppose that for one reason: Searching for the President of Taiwan and President of ROC are the same, searching for Taiwan and ROC are different, and the article already says that the Republic of China is Taiwan. Besides that, I would still use the term Republic of China in a specifically-governmentally related way, which is evident at the proposal's article. JPECH9522:35, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Comment. It is common for an RM to go against an earlier consensus. In fact, that is usually the reason they are proposed. The result of this RM will be the new consensus. Kauffner (talk) 00:51, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Of course. But the requested move proposal you co-wrote gives no indication of the view you've stated here that a consequence of this would be an over-write of NC-TW. And John Smith's says below that this move decision is going to be used to support changes across Misplaced Pages. It is this sort of lack of disclosure that should be objected to whatever the merits of the particular point that is being advanced under these tactics. I should add that I don't believe that Jiang's "people searching for the WikiProject Countries template will seek it at Taiwan and not Republic of China" has weight because that can be done over there without a name change here. Whether the rest of Misplaced Pages uses Taiwan or ROC can be dealt with on a case by case basis on the rest of Misplaced Pages. The double bracket Republic of China bar Taiwan double bracket formula can be used wherever necessary.--Brian Dell (talk) 01:18, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Hi Brian. While a consensus at this RM may be used in future discussions, that is different from automatically making other changes without further discussion. This RM is only about these articles, and has no direct implications for other articles. It may lead to other changes, but they will need to be discussed on a case-by-case basis, after this RM is closed. Mlm42 (talk) 01:34, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Comment. Further to Kauffner's comment, the naming conventions are largely derived from how articles are titled in Misplaced Pages. If we refer to the state as "Republic of China", naturally that will affect how it is referred to more widely in Misplaced Pages. If, however, the title is moved to "Taiwan", the naming conventions will be changed. You don't put the cart before the horse. John Smith's (talk) 01:11, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
(Someone deleted my comments. I'm reposting) Dollars to donuts after this move is made, people will start wanting to change President of ROC to President of Taiwan under WP:COMMONNAME, it's the way it's going to go; there are already plenty of references to Ma Ying-jeou as "President of Taiwan". This will not end well where NPOV is concerned. — Preceding — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.40.129.169 (talk) 01:57, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
(reply to Brian Dell moved from Response section.) There's nothing mysterious about the background, it's visible in an IP editor's extensive alteration of the poll results and close decision here, by a Hong Kong IP user. Of the 28 votes you think contributed to the conclusion, 11 were from single-purpose IP addresses from Hong Kong ISPs, almost none of which had edited on anything outside that specific discussion, and that are known to be used heavily by a particular user who is banned from the project. Those sockpuppet votes were removed in due course per WP:DUCK as they hold no weight. At the time of the close, the conclusion was 14 to 15, not 28 to 18. Your statement that a "no consensus" result on the question of whether a section has consensus to remain is absurd; if there's no consensus that a section has consensus to remain, it means it has no consensus to remain. Policies and guidelines have higher standards than articles. From WP:No consensus: "in a discussion regarding a section of policy or guideline, "no consensus" means that a proposed section should not be added. If the discussion is about a section already in the policy, that section should be removed". TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 09:49, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
I note on Mlm42's (the editor who introduced this Requested Move asking who supported the entirely one-sided argument he presented) Talk page a call to "just ignore all IP editors from Hong Kong (as we have at Talk:China and other places)." The problem with this is that it is the job of the invited previously uninvolved closing admin to decide how to weight, not self-appointed vigilantes. None of the arguments against NC-TW explained just what wrong with it such that it needed to go. Mlm42 argued over there that "it seems apparent from the discussion at that..." while over here Mlm42 declares, in a reply to me earlier in this section, that this RM is "only about" this article as opposed to the rest of Misplaced Pages. In other words there was just an appeal to keep sliding down the slippery slope over there, while over here I'm told there's no slope to be concerned about. See here for an example of a properly closed discussion, and specifically the "there being no consensus for deletion, the page is kept by default" part. That essay you link to is simply out in left field, as was pointed out on that page's Talk page. In any case, deleting "Text should not imply that Taiwan is a part of the People's Republic of China" was a clear violation of WP:NPOV such that I do not accept your implication that a pillar of Misplaced Pages can be ignored not merely by a consensus to ignore but even by the absence of consensus to respect.--Brian Dell (talk) 11:00, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Your opinion on the validity is noted, as well as the single objection to that section made three years ago. Clearly multiple editors disagree with you. Secondly, your characterisation of editors who participated in the discussion as "activists" and "vigilantes" betrays your bias in the matter and undermines the objectivity of your argument. Thirdly, your NPOV argument is a non-sequitor: the only way simply removing an instruction could introduce POV into the guideline is if there was another point of view there that now has undue weight. What other point of view regarding the naming of Taiwan exists in our current guideline? TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 19:46, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
The fact that NC-TW was recreated on its own page as a "failed proposal" suggests that even those who want it deleted considered it more analogous to a page than a section but, more importantly, I'd note that, contrary to your contention that "multiple editors disagree," the number of editors disagreeing with the single objector on that Talk page is even lower than one (as in zero!). Unlike you, however, I'll grant that this may be due to the obscurity of the essay. Compare the number people who have edited that essay since 2007 with a real policy. If you can get that essay, and in particular that section, elevated to policy I would concede the point, but I don't believe there is even a modest chance of that happening given the way policy discussions have been working for years. If deleting and editing what others have written on a Talk page without permission is not vigilantism show me at Misplaced Pages:Talk_page_guidelines#Others.27_comments where this is authorized. What's the other POV? That Misplaced Pages should adopt an asymmetric policy with respect to PRC claims to ROC controlled territory and vice versa. When I asked for "an explanation" for why "Text should not imply that Taiwan is a part of the People's Republic of China" was deleted, I was told that "'Taiwan is not part of the PRC' is a minority position" and warned against "delegitimizing China's claims and administrative structure "--Brian Dell (talk) 22:24, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
I didn't say where it is that editors disagree with your interpretation, so pointing to the essay talk page is largely meaningless. For clarity, editors disagreed with your interpretation when they supported the removal of the text from the guideline pending further discussion, an action that was performed or reinstated by more than one editor. I have no reason to address your misdirection about essays and policies as it has no relevance to the discussion. Deleting or striking talk page comments is covered in the second bullet point in the very link you provided: "Removing prohibited material such as libel, personal details, or violations of copyright, living persons or banning policies" (emphasis mine). Instantnood is a banned user who has extensive IP activity trying to circumvent his ban. Preponderance of evidence indicated that the vast majority of IP addresses who commented (11, per my comment above) were from Hong Kong IP ranges that are known to be used by that banned editor, many other addresses of which have been blocked previously. The comments were altered in line with our talk page guideline. You're free to disagree with the conclusion that multiple editors came to regarding the evidence, but you have no cause whatsoever to accuse people of vigilantism. I suggest you go and brush up on WP:AGF and I strongly suggest you retract your accusations. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 22:47, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
I agree that that essay "has no relevance." I would think there would not have been so many complaints about the manipulation of that Talk page if the measures taken there were as uncontroversial as you suggest. Blocking and banning etc should be left to a closing admin who can do an authorized investigation using tools like Misplaced Pages:CheckUser.--Brian Dell (talk) 23:14, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
I plainly said it was your misdirection that had no relevance. Stop being combative and intentionally misreading comments, Brian, it is not productive and does more to damage your argument than it does to support it. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 23:23, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
(another reply to Brian Dell.) I object to being called "an activist" on this issue, and consider it a personal attack. First of all, I was not always opposed to NC-TW; I even helped to move article titles to comply with the standard. The big problem with NC-TW came when People's Republic of China was moved to China. NC-TW was based on the premise that "both the ROC and PRC have equal claim to China". When this claim came under scrutiny in the China move, we discovered that this idea had no basis in English-language reliable sources. That's the context in which many users, and not just me, came to question the NC-TW guideline. When we discounted the disruption of the sockpuppets of community-banned user Instantnood, the "no consensus to keep" result is clear. I didn't cite any lines of the guideline that I opposed when I asked for a review, so your idea that I asked for a review because I singularly found "Taiwan is a part of..." "too restrictive" is entirely speculative, and also a personal attack. This move does nothing to slip down a slope of assuming PRC sovereignty over Taiwan; in fact, by equating Taiwan with the ROC instead of keeping it as an island of ambiguous sovereignty, it climbs up the slope and makes such assumptions more difficult. Shrigley (talk) 16:44, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Elsewhere I asked for an explanation for why you and others wanted "Text should not imply that Taiwan is a part of the People's Republic of China" deleted and you indicated that you wanted claims that Taiwan is a "part of the PRC" given the green light (as I just noted above). It's the segue from the asymmetric ordinary usage environment to this substantively asymmetric position with regard to the claims of the PRC and the ROC to the territory effectively controlled by the other that constitutes "activism." As long as the "ambiguous sovereignty" of the ROC remains in the real world it ought to remain equally ambiguous on Misplaced Pages.--Brian Dell (talk) 22:42, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Brian, if you insist on this incivility, you give me no reason to respond to any more of your comments. Unfounded accusations are a form of personal attack, and it has been suggested to you by more than one editor here that your comments regarding vigilantism and activism are unfounded accusations. If you have any intention whatsoever to participate in good faith discussion of this matter, please cease using accusatory language. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 22:54, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Observation on IP editor 86.42.28.118
Can I just point out that 86.42.28.118 has been canvassing for feedback on the move request purely on China/Chinese talk pages (it looks like he's trying to muster opposition by his selective messages). He also started editing suspiciously recently. Should he be classed as an SPA like 119.237.197.247? John Smith's (talk) 12:01, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
I meant if he should be tagged as an SPA - his location isn't especially relevant (is it)? Also I just wanted alert people to the canvassing, which I felt was quite blatant. John Smith's (talk) 12:21, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Because of the amount of garbage posted from many "old time" IP addresses on this topic it's harder than usual to respect any content from an IP address. I've given up trying to differentiate between them. My mind just doesn't work that way. They just merge into a confusing blur. Humans give their children names rather than numbers for good reason. If there are new IP editors contributing here I strongly and firmly recommend registering very quickly so that their posts gain some attention and respect. HiLo48 (talk) 07:28, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
I won't respond to remarks that are not in keeping with Misplaced Pages principle of assuming good faith etc; Nor will I respond to yet more attacks at IP editors generally. Specificially, this is what I posted above in relation to the ongoing vote:
Oppose - I am also concerned about the propriety of the procedures being followed here; Has this proposal been adequately publicised? I believe it should have been flagged well in advance, and then opened for comment on a fixed flagged date. As it stands, I could well have missed that this poll was even going on.
@HiLo48: "I've given up trying to differentiate between them. My mind just doesn't work that way." - That's just like saying, "My wallet has been stolen buy a black man. Ever since, I've given up trying to differentiate between them." If you have trouble assuming good faith and engaging in the community in a decent and humanly manner, I suggest you either fix up your attitude issues, or leave altogether. -- 李博杰 | —Talkcontribsemail12:09, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
No, it's nothing like saying "My wallet has been stolen buy a black man. Ever since, I've given up trying to differentiate between them." I gave reasons for my difficulty. It's about numbers, not skin colour. Most people have skin, and names. Most don't have numbers as their primary identifier. I still haven't seen a good reason for an experienced editor not registering. BTW, to someone not familiar with them, Chinese characters aren't very good identifiers here on English Misplaced Pages either. HiLo48 (talk) 20:04, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
HiLo48 many people around the world can read and understand English. You have been nothing but insulting to us, ROC supporters. The ones who went in an argument with you have never called you names or swear at you like you have. Respect our views in this sensitive matter.Typhoonstorm95 (talk) 20:26, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
Back to the main issue at hand, the IP did not break any rules regarding WP:CANVASS. The purpose of a discussion like this is to gain input from the wider community. Posting on various article talkpages, WP:CHINA et cetera is fine, posting on specific editors' talk pages (especially those with partisan views) is not. For example, if the IP had posted on a dozen user talkpages of users known to be pro-ROC, then that is potentially a violation of the rules. Keep in mind that this move discussion isn't just for your super secret club. So far 80% of !votes are those who have posted in the ROC talkpage at one point in their life, and thus have the ROC talkpage on their watchlist; this is by no means "wider community discussion". Of additional note, the original wording by the IP was, to some variation of, "wider participation from the community is desirable, feel free to participate", not "HEY GUYS, VOTE OPPOSE, DO IT FOR FREEDOM THESE GUIZE R NAZIS". I don't see how that supports a particular side, nor how that qualifies for "gathering votes". -- 李博杰 | —Talkcontribsemail23:44, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
Glad you think what I did was basically ok. I am curious. Why do you think the Hong Kong post is "borderline"? My logic was that it is a part of "Greater China" so to speak and so its editors could well be interested in what was proposed re the ROC article. Thanks. 86.42.178.193 (talk) 18:58, 21 February 2012 (UTC) This template must be substituted.
Need to appropriately notify Wiki Community
Re the immediate above, obviously I rightly regarded this vote as requiring to be flagged. I flagged that a poll was going on (not asking people to vote one way or the other) on the Misplaced Pages Project China page (which naturally pertains to Taiwan); the PRC page as that too obviously relates to Taiwan and the Hong Kong page for the same reason....Ma Ying Jeou was even born there. If there is an agreed list of places where this topic should be flagged, I would welcome that. 86.42.178.193 (talk) 11:14, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
Glad you think what I did was basically ok. I am curious. Why do you think the Hong Kong post is "borderline"? My logic was that it is a part of "Greater China" so to speak and so its editors could well be interested in what was proposed re the ROC article. Thanks. Agree that the Taiwan project page should be notified - and it has been. 86.42.178.193 (talk) 19:00, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
IP blocked for ban evasion
Other articles and categories
This move request has attracted a lot of "voters" who only care about the title of this single article. They don't care about the content of this article and related articles, and the titles of other articles. Yes this article can be easily renamed, but that's going to leave a whole mess to the rest of Misplaced Pages. It's going to create a lot of ambiguous situations where no term will be precise and accurate. No one has yet to suggest any practical solution to prevent the mess. 147.8.102.172 (talk) 08:36, 21 February 2012 (UTC) (IP blocked for ban evasion)
Credibility of the proposal
User:Jpech95/taiwan/Taiwan got lots of errors even in the lede. The island of Taiwan had never been ruled by the Ming dynasty (but only a Ming loyalist after Ming had fallen). And the size given, 36,008 km², is for the island of Taiwan but not the entire ROC. The credibility of the proposal is in doubt. (Furthermore, nominators of move requests don't normally vote. By the same token the co-movers of this move request should not vote.) 147.8.102.172 (talk) 08:36, 21 February 2012 (UTC) (IP blocked for ban evasion)
Reason being for the area, is we want Taiwan to represent the country, not the island. As for Taiwan not being ruled by the Ming, it never says that it was, but rather says that it was ruled by Koxinga, the Ming loyalist. JPECH9512:14, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
The draft says "Besides the island of Taiwan, the state also governs Penghu, Quemoy, Matsu, and other minor islands, a total area of 36,008 km²", and "The Dutch East India Company had a trading post on Taiwan in the 17th century. It was later ruled by China's Ming and Qing dynasties.". The hard facts are that Ming dynasty never extended its governance to the main island of Taiwan (they stopped at Penghu), and 36,008 is the figure for Taiwan including Penghu. The figure for Taiwan, Penghu, Quemoy, Matsu, Pratas, etc., is 36,192. If this is going to be an article on the country, but not just Taiwan including Penghu, then 36,192 should be used.
I have not gone through the article. But with such errors within the first two paragraphs of the lede of the draft, as as demonstrated by statements like "Reason being for the area, is we want Taiwan to represent the country, not the island.", it's doubtful whether the co-nominator of the move request actually understands the complex nature of the subject matter. We should stop this move request. We should go through RFC first and get back to the move request procedure according to the RFC results. 147.8.102.108 (talk) 12:47, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
The lede of WP:Recentism reads "Recentism is writing or editing without a long-term, historical view, thereby inflating the importance of a topic that has received recent public attention.." 147.8.102.108 (talk) 12:59, 21 February 2012 (UTC) This template must be substituted.
The Ireland case is relevant for comparison since since part of the present dispute is over Island-vs-state nomenclature, but the resolution was basically holding a structured RfC, which is what's already happening here. --Cybercobra(talk)12:18, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
The Macedonia case is relevant too since part of the dispute was over cultural-geographical region vs country. Taiwan here is a cultural-geographical region that excludes Quemoy (including Wuchiu) and Matsu. Neither island groups were part of the 1895 cession to Japan and therefore were never part of the Japanese colony. Matsu and Wuchiu got different languages from Taiwan. In my opinion we should stop this move request. We should first go through RFC or ArbCom, then back to move request according to RFC decision or ArbCom's ruling. 147.8.102.108 (talk) 12:54, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
There's a far greater difference between the two Irelands than the two Taiwans, and in the Ireland case the island covers a greater area (conceptdab-like material), as opposed to this, where it covers a smaller area. As seen below, there are even calls to merge the two Taiwan articles together. As for Macedonia, much of the dispute was classic Greek objections to one country taking the title of a much greater area, and contrasting with their province of Macedonia, which does not overlap with the country. Again the country is a smaller area than the other meanings, and there is no article for some abstract "cultural-geographical region", but merely articles for regions which have had that title throughout history, all disambiguated.
Either way, arbcom is a last resort, often to solve massive widespread edit wars. There's no need to go there, and it makes absolutely no sense to have an RFC first. CMD (talk) 13:19, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
Alternative proposal
I would like to advance a simpler variant of the above proposal:
I'm inclined to want to look at this idea further, Kanguole, but I think it would be best to deal with that after the main proposal above has been dealt with. The main thrust of the proposal is the ROC->Taiwan move and I think if we can get that performed first, it should be fairly easy to clean up any miscellanea afterwards. If the current proposal goes through I'm certainly interested in participating in a discussion on the '(island)' issue as I think your argument does merit further investigation. I just don't want to bog down the main proposal with what may end up being multiple 'alternate proposals', as other discussions I've participated in that do that end up with all of them failing just because the voting is so fractured. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 22:32, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
I agree with TechnoSymbiosos. As it stands, we have a country article here, and a theoretically-island article at Taiwan. This proposal shifts the country article to its commonname. The value of the island article (which is a rump article caused by splitting off country information, as far as I'm aware) is a separate discussion. It's one I'm happy to have (although perhaps after some respite!), but not one I would like to further complicate discussion here. CMD (talk) 00:52, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
No, we have half a country article at Republic of China, a government without a territory, and the other half at Taiwan. Your proposal above is to merge most of the former and all of the latter at "Taiwan", after a couple of moves. When you merge all of an article, you shouldn't leave a copy behind, as that creates a content fork. Kanguole01:26, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
An unfortunately rather good assessment. However, while not fully completed, this page has the essence of a country article (ie it claims to be one). The island article tries not to be. The plan isn't to merge all of it, as that would be too much detail for the country article (although Economy is already a duplicate anyway), so (again theoretically) it wouldn't be a content fork so much as a Main article-type thingy. Once the move is done however, it would be worth seeing if the content there can stand on its own, or whether it belongs in Taiwan, Geography of Taiwan, or other applicable. CMD (talk) 01:49, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
I think "alternative" is the wrong word for this proposal. This is elaborating on the side issue of what happens to the lemma Taiwan (island) after the move. Moving ROC to Taiwan, and Taiwan to Taiwan (island), is no more a content fork than the current ROC/Taiwan situation. Of course, when content is copied from Taiwan (island) to Taiwan, it should be removed or altered so that the Taiwan (island) article is not simply duplicate content. Kauffner (talk) 02:24, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
Then you have misunderstood: this proposal does not involve any move, and in particular does not involve putting anything at "Taiwan (island)". Kanguole02:30, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
Oic. You've now struck you're earlier "Support" for the move. Sorry I didn't keep up. I guess this proposal doesn't have much practical significance after all. Kauffner (talk) 03:53, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
I'd just like to remind everyone (especially Kanguole) that the purpose of having the draft articles was to fix inconsistancies in the final articles, and I know overlap was a problem, now seeing WP:CONTENTFORK I see that this could be a problem, but still it's not that much of a problem as people want to make it seem, especially once we can determine what will go under which article. If we can all refer to the main topics of each of the articles proposed, it should be no problem. Am I understanding this correctly (remember I am still kinda new at this...) JPECH9504:04, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
The drafts are very helpful, as they give us a concrete idea of the result of this complex proposal. We can see clearly that the proposal is to turn two articles into three; they also show clearly that one of the three, Taiwan (island), is wholly redundant. Kanguole09:35, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
I have not read all of the above but insofar as it proposes to "generalise" about a group of editors who share a common characteristic - IP editors in Hong Kong - I regard that as plain "discrimination": Treating people differently on the basis of a particular characterisitic they have no control over (in this case the fact that they are IP editors in Hong Kong). If there is prove that any one, an account holder or an IP editor is breaking the rules, the usual procedures should apply. In the absence of that, discriminating on some pretext is plain wrong. (p.s. for clarity I am not Hong Kong based, although if I was that should not matter). 86.42.178.193 (talk) 18:55, 21 February 2012 (UTC) This template must be substituted.
Discussions about the article name basically led to the conclusion that the existing guide was rubbish and no longer represented consensus (if it ever had), hence it was removed recently. Given that it suggested that "Taiwan" was only to be used in respect of specific references to the main island itself and pretty much never for the broader geopolitical entity, it was clearly a nonsense formulation, and one that would become even more absurd if the proposed move/switch above goes ahead. I guess we need a new one. Broadly, that should be the opposite of the old one - Taiwan should be the preferred term for the state as a whole, even often when used in direct contradistinction to (mainland) China; with references to Taiwan island and Republic of China only when more geographic specificity is required or more technical, political issues come up in a formal context respectively. N-HHtalk/edits11:16, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Nonsense. The "existing guide" was attacked because it insisted on WP:NPOV which in turn meant Misplaced Pages not supporting PRC claims to ROC territory (and vice versa). There was no consensus for its removal. The attackers are now calling for "Taiwan" over here because it is more suggestive of provincial status subordinate to Beijing.--Brian Dell (talk) 09:29, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
How strange. One of the major objections to this move is that it supports "Taiwanese independence", which would be the opposite to suggesting it is subordinate to Beijing. This clearly demonstrates why we should ignore what political implications we think titles will have. CMD (talk) 13:11, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Indeed. And @Brian Dell, I know perfectly well why I, at least, objected to those guidelines - as do you, because I explained it above, and on previous occasions. It was simply that they flew in the face of usage elsewhere - it had nothing to do with trying to subvert npov or taking sides in the real-world political dispute. Please don't try to suggest that I'm either wrong or lying, at least about my own motives. Nor, as it happens, do I detect such naked politics behind the actions and statements of others who opposed them. In fact, it's quite clear where the politics is actually coming into this broader debate from. N-HHtalk/edits13:38, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
I stand by my contention that you mischaracterized NC-TW when you claimed that, under NC-TW, Taiwan was to be used "pretty much never..." Besides calling for the PRC to go under "C" and the ROC to go under "T" when "alphabetizing countries," the old NC-TW guideline said "Republic of China" should be used in "political contexts" involving descriptions of "the existing governments or regimes" particularly when "imprecise" terms would be problematic. This is a minority of contexts. "Taiwan bought such-and-such" or "So-and-so visited Taiwan" were not precluded by NC-TW. I grant that the possibility that the call for ROC usage was either too broad or was in practice being applied too broadly. But you declared the entirety of NC-TW "rubbish" when the primary focus of NC-TW is to warn POV pushers against advancing claims by either the ROC or the PRC to territory controlled by the other (note its placement in the "Political NPOV" section). If the point was not to attack this primary raison d'être of NC-TW a rewording or rephrasing could have been proposed instead of deletion.--Brian Dell (talk) 21:44, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
You're still making inappropriate assumptions about the motivations and intentions of people involved in the action. I think most participants would agree that the goal was to remove material that did not reflect consensus, and replace it with material that did. From what I can gather, you would have preferred the section remain in the guideline and be re-written inline, whereas other editors preferred the section be removed, a discussion held over how to fix it, then have it reinserted once it did reflect consensus. Your accusation that people wanted to open the door for POV pushers and to attack the section's purpose is completely unfounded given there's a discussion going right now on what would be a suitable replacement here, in which you can plainly see the people you accuse of wanting to effectively kill off the guideline are participating (and in some cases supporting the proposed new text). But you know this because you've participated in that discussion yourself, so why you continue to mis-characterise people's intentions is beyond me. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 22:13, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
(@Brian Dell - EC) And you never said above that I "mischaracterised" the guideline, so I don't see how you can now "stand by" that contention; indeed, this is the first time you've made that accusation. What I was responding to was your equally unevidenced claims about people's motives - that they attacked it because they disliked its insistence on NPOV and that their aim was to encourage usage that implied Taiwan's subordination to Beijing. I objected to that because it is an untruth. As to the new, mischaracterisation point, I don't know if we're looking at different things. This is the one I was referring to. The rival claims and equal status points are simply the first paragraph of the guidelines. But there's then ten times as much text following, about other matters. Your quote, from the introductory points there, does indeed pretty much deprecate using Taiwan in the general way the rest of the world uses it in 2012, ie for the state. The convention also does that explicitly in the next sentence - "the side-by-side usage of the terms "China" and "Taiwan" in a political context (phrases such as "China warns Taiwan") should generally be avoided". Then, in the columns, it is very clear that "ROC" is to be used for the state and that "Taiwan" should only be used to refer to geography and the main island itself. That's the thread that runs through the old guidelines, and, yes, I and others have a problem with it. I see neither mischaracterisation of the guidelines nor base motives on the part of those opposed to them here. And, btw, I agree that any new guidelines should almost certainly have an NPOV guarantee of some sort. N-HHtalk/edits22:26, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
If you are entitled to allege where the "politics is actually coming" from I'm equally entitled, no? I responded to your statement that I not "suggest" that you're "wrong" by explaining in more detail why your "rubbish"ing of NC-TW remained "wrong" in my view. You repeat your contention that under NC-TW it was "very clear" that "'Taiwan' should only be used to refer to geography..." but it was, in fact, far from clear that usage was so restricted. There was indeed a "thread" running through the "old guidelines", but the theme was more oriented towards protecting Republic of China-related articles from POV editing in a background where the PRC does not recognize its existence, than trying to indiscriminately stamp out the use of "Taiwan." This theme is now absent from proposed replacements I've seen.--Brian Dell (talk) 00:54, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
Er, but I only said that in response to your original accusation about politics. So, no, you're not "equally entitled". For want of a better phrase, you started it. As for the guideline content itself, you and I must be reading different things. Under the columns for ROC, ROC(T), Taiwan etc, ROC comes first. That column says to use ROC "When referring to the state in article space", among other occasions. It then offers occasions when it calls for ROC(T), again focusing on references to the state. Then, thirdly, it offers the time when you should use Taiwan - in only three cases, without mentioning "state" once. Namely for "a geographic location on the island", "an origin in the context of a geographical location" or "a subect specific to the island of Taiwan". Could that be more clear and more "wrong", when compared to real-world common use? N-HHtalk/edits01:10, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
If you feel you are entitled to the last word on the matter, fine, you can have it. To focus on the issue, I don't agree that the "only" you find in the text actually exists. What was restricted by an "only" was the use of "Taiwan province," not "Taiwan." If someone means to say "use X only if Y" instead of "use X if Y" he or she will use "only" or similarly restrictive language. This isn't to say that stuff like "referring to the state in article space after appropriate disambiguation has been given" couldn't be reworded or eliminated (obviously the meaning of this must be limited since otherwise other specific points like "When referring to the pre-1949 Republic..." would be rendered redundant, already covered by the broad point) but to say the most consequential restriction in NC-TW was "Text should not imply that Taiwan is a part of the People's Republic of China. Text should not imply that mainland China, Hong Kong, and/or Macau are part of the Republic of China." NC-TW appeared under a "Political NPOV" section, note a "Names..." section.--Brian Dell (talk) 02:18, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm just trying to clarify that politics has nothing to do with it for me. I'm not that fussed or insulted at the end of the day, but it's just wrong, and it seems rather pointless for you to keep insisting on it. I note as well that others have taken you to task on this accusation. Thanks for stopping. Given that the NC stands for "Naming Convention" I also don't quite get your insistence that the main focus of the convention was that one sentence on NPOV in susbtantive text, rather than names and terms. The title and the content - including the parts I highlighted - make quite clear what the main bulk of the convention was looking at. Also I don't see the absence of "only" as being quite as significant as you're trying to make it out to be in terms of drafting. The "use A if B, use X if Y"-type construction we have there doesn't need an "only", except for emphasis or to outright exclude the occasional deviation that most rules will sensibly allow for otherwise. It's implicit. As it is that WP should strive to maintain NPOV. Anyway, this is all rather moot, as we've since moved on. N-HHtalk/edits15:44, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
This discussion doesn't belong on this page, but I don't see how the rewritten guidelines should be any different from the rewritten "China" guidelines implemented shortly after the merge of People's Republic of China into China. That is, we will allow Taiwan to be used as a conventional short form (as opposed to the explicit prohibition under the old guidelines) in most contexts, while suggesting the use of Republic of China in contexts where doing so would be more accurate, as it done in scholarly reliable sources.--Jiang (talk) 11:29, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Most of the recent discussion on this page has remained relatively civil, which is great; but since so many people are currently taking part it seems like a good venue to disseminate a recent statement from ArmCom:
All users are reminded to engage in discussion in a way that will neither disrupt nor lower the quality of such discourse. Personal attacks, profanity, inappropriate use of humour, and other uncivil conduct that leads to a breakdown in discussion can prevent the formation of a valid consensus. Blocks or other restrictions may be used to address repeated or particularly severe disruption of this nature, in order to foster a collaborative environment within the community as a whole.
Useless post. None of the individuals who some may think have breached that guideline will think it applies to them. It's always the other guy. The only way to tackle this stuff is to identify specific behaviour that is unacceptable, with really good reasons why, and do something about it. I also know from experience that it's very hard to get agreement on what is disruptive. I think experienced editors continually posting from IP addresses for no rational reason over many months is disruptive. Some don't. Asking all editors to be nice, without tackling real problems, is pointless. That post, while well intentioned, will not actually help this discussion page. HiLo48 (talk) 01:31, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
There's also this: , this: and this: . Lots of personal attacks in there; why are you just bringing up benlingsquare?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.78.140 (talk • contribs)
Especially the last one, although I don't think its right to expcilitly target him, as there are others here, but I see your point, and he's been doing it for a while. JPECH9502:01, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
My intention was never to target Benlisquare as a person; just the behavior. He should know that I think him to be an excellent editor, but it's easy to get swept up in the climate of impunity around these pages. A good part of the problem has to do with the Instantnood IP sockpuppets that are driving everyone crazy as of late. Shrigley (talk) 02:32, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
Not a bad idea. Not sure how we get everyone to do it. IP editor 147.8.102.172 has just restored a whole lot of deleted posts which basically repeat the same points that we've all read many times before. It's probably best we ignore them, but how do we get everyone to do that? HiLo48 (talk) 11:04, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
I gave a quick concise reply to one point, for users who don't know the whole background. I suggest we just restrain from feeding them long conversations. Of course, if they're judged disruptive I wouldn't at all object to my comment being removed with it. CMD (talk) 12:20, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
I've collapsed the Hong Kong based filibustering. Its blatantly our banned user, no normal IP editor would make more than a single comment. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:17, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
HiLo - Re what you say here "I think experienced editors continually posting from IP addresses for no rational reason over many months is disruptive.". Experienced IP editors (inc. me) think you are being disruptive by constantly raising this non-point. It is an established Misplaced Pages principle that IP editors can participate. Notwithstanding that, IP editors (inc. me) have kindly explained our choice not to create accounts. You choose to ignore those reasons. 86.42.178.193 (talk) 18:47, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
More generally, IP editors should be treated the same way as account holders. No better, no worse. Your discussion should take account of this. 86.42.178.193 (talk) 18:50, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
I disagree, IP editor. HiLo makes a good point; in particular the policy Misplaced Pages:Sock puppetry is important, and it seems that IP editors on this page may be violating that policy, by intentionally deceiving others - giving the impression that there are many different IP accounts, when in reality it may only be one person. This would be a serious breach of policy; if experienced editors are intentionally deceiving us with rotating IP addresses, then they should be ashamed - or better yet, blocked. Mlm42 (talk) 18:57, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
If people are doing sock puppetry using IP or using accounts, they will get caught out by Wiki Systems. I am no sock puppet but you tar me with the same brush. That is unacceptable. 86.42.178.193 (talk) 19:05, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
You misunderstand. Please read the opening paragraph of Misplaced Pages:Sock puppetry. Even if you have never had a registered account, you could still be guilty of sock puppetry. One editor, one account. That's the general rule. Mlm42 (talk) 19:09, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
There is no evidence that User:Instantnood has ever edited with an IP outside of Hong Kong - and the behaviour doesn't tally either. Almost all the disruption on pages on Greater China comes from Hong Kong. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:55, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
Anyone complaining about anonymous IPs should drop their own anonymity. Tell us your real world name or give us other information that could go towards accountability.--Brian Dell (talk) 22:36, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
Look go and read through Talk:China, WT:Naming conventions (Chinese) and other similar pages - you'll see significant and continued disruption from Hong Kong based IP editors. If you let the abuse go then unfortunately you land up with a situation like Talk:Taiwan (disambiguation) - where really the move request has become a mess.
You'll notice that no-one else is agreeing with you here - in the past others have raised concerns - that they aren't this time is because they recognise that unfortunately the Hong Kong based IP editors are being unambiguously disruptive.
Its not as if there isn't a continued problem and thus a good chance of the IP editors not being related.
In the past I have complained about poor labelling of sock-puppets, but in the cases I have complained about the edits were all reasonable, all or almost all in article space and there was a significant time delay (say 3-6 months) since the previous disruption. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 23:14, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
The issue was never with anonymity, it was with ownership, cohesion of discussion and with gaming the system. An IP can be used by anyone, reassigned at any time at the whim of its controlling ISP; an account can only be used by the person who registered it, short of their password being compromised. This creates ownership. The constant shifting and changing of IPs from ISPs with high dynamic range recycling makes it difficult for contributors to follow a discussion - is that contribution by 86.4.* from the same person as that contribution from 86.17.*? Or worse, is it the same person pretending to be different people, as strongly appears to be the case with a Hong Kong contributor here? Sure, a user could register multiple accounts to game the system in the same way, but accounts are a lot easier to investigate and confirm sockpuppetry than IPs are. Further, when semi-protection kick in, as they did recently due to the disruption caused by an IP editor in this topic area, IP editors are the ones that lose their ability to edit. It's a myth that IP editors are equal in all respects on Misplaced Pages - it's something we strive for, but it's not something we will ever fully achieve.
The bottom line is that we all try our best to assume good faith, but in the end, IP addresses cause issues of ownership and cohesion and serve as an enabler for breaking the rules in almost-undetectable ways. Combine that with a topic area of moderate controversy and proven extensive exploitation of IP editing by a banned user in the aforementioned topic area over a period of years and it shouldn't be surprising that the good faith of editors is slowly eroded. Anonymity has never been the issue - in fact, I've specifically pointed out to IP editors many times in the past that you are in fact more anonymous when editing from an account than you are from an IP address. An IP address can be used to geolocate you, it can be used to identify your ISP and in some cases can even be used to retrieve personal information. A uniquely chosen account name can be used for none of those things. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 00:34, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
A discussion above was hidden under the hat "More filibustering from Hong Kong based IP's" yet I think if hiding others' comments is appropriate a rationale could be found other than that the speaker is apparently from Hong Kong. See Poisoning the well. I'd rather hat off-topic discussions like this section and leave on-topic discussions regardless of who is involved. If there is a problem with IP editors it should be dealt with on a project-wide basis. If there's truly such a problem it should be easy to get several independent admins to agree by laying out the issue at the Admin Noticeboard such that their agreement to some sort of policy with respect to HK-based IPs could then be referenced. Absent this, hiding and removing comments or reverting based solely on IP's country location continues to strike me as vigilantism that can be abused.--Brian Dell (talk) 01:21, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
I've asked for advice from User:HelloAnnyong, the admin who blocked IP 218.250.159.25 for sockpuppetry. IP 147.8.102.172 has a 54% overlap of common edits with 218.250.159.25, expressing the same views . Both IP addresses geolocate to Hong Kong. I think it's safe to say per WP:DUCK at this point that the IP is yet another reincarnation of the same blocked editor, still trying to circumvent his ban and disrupt discussion. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 02:27, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
None of this addresses my point that poisoning the well is a logical fallacy. Aside from that, Eraserhead1 told this IP his or her contribution constituted "vandalism" (and not just to a Talk page but to "Misplaced Pages"). If it's vandalism it's well informed vandalism. Is it unreasonable for me to agree with admin Deryck Chan who said that "I worry some editors simply using "sockpuppet of Instantnood" as an excuse to scare away any editor who tries to resurrect any old article debate or edit dispute concerning anything related to the Greater China region"? I'm astounded by the extent to which several supporters of this move have been coordinating with each other, given that my years of experience on Misplaced Pages have taught me that trying to get like-minded editors to work together is like herding cats.--Brian Dell (talk) 04:54, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
I can't comment on other editors. I wouldn't have called it vandalism myself so you'll probably have to ask Eraserhead1 what his reasons were. I don't see any conscious effort to poison the well on IP editors either, and I'll point out that it's only usually regarded as a logical fallacy when it takes the form of an ad hominem, though in this case, the following from our ad hominem article is relevant, from academic Doug Walton: "ad hominem reasoning is not always fallacious, and that in some instances, questions of personal conduct, character, motives, etc., are legitimate and relevant to the issue". I believe that given the strong proof and ongoing new evidence of an IP editor from Hong Kong attempting to disrupt the natural course of discussion here to serve his own politically-motivated goals, it's not unreasonable to raise awareness of the possibility of this continuing in the form of a new IP editor from Hong Kong who may coincidentally appear. The remainder of my commentary on IP editors is limited to personal comfort, identifying why I have more difficulty interacting with IP editors than I do regular editors and presented, I would hope, in the same way I might ask an editor not to write in allcaps, or to use proper sentences instead of constant run-on ones like this one, not out of any effort to discredit them but simply as a matter of courtesy in easing communication. As for coordinating efforts, I don't think I've ever dealt with any of the regulars here before so if there's a coordinated effort going on, I'm not part of it. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 05:33, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
My reason (maybe its not an acceptable one) is that then you can block the guy through AIV, which is much faster than for sock puppetry, and frankly it was blindingly obvious that it was yet more disruption from Hong Kong based IPs. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 08:40, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
I apologise if someone has given a good reason why a wise, experienced, sensible editor would choose to not register. I must have missed it. I'm open minded to seeing the reason. But please note that "Misplaced Pages rules allow it" is not a reason. I'll also point out that several good reasons have been given FOR registering. These include - numbers (rather than names) are harder for other editors to keep track of, IP addresses can change, destroying continuity of argument, and using just an IP address makes you an easy target for allegations of sockpuppetry. So, all these negatives and no positives. Why not register? HiLo48 (talk) 23:59, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
A sensible reason why people don't register, and edit as IPs? A good one is culture. Not all cultures put significant light on online identities, and simply prefer being a nobody, or a number. See Japanese Misplaced Pages#Characteristics - a significant number of contributions made to the Japanese Misplaced Pages, mostly constructive, were made by anonymous users. Whilst IPs are seen as either vandals or socks on the English Misplaced Pages, someone from another part of the world may not share that same sentiment. In Hong Kong there are many BBSes that allow anonymous posting. In Japan, Facebook and Twitter are not as popular compared to the west because they require creating accounts and sharing real-life identifiable information; many still prefer to use 2channel, for instance, which is centred along anonymous posting. Sure, an IP is also identifiable, but it means that one does not have to create an account, an act seem by some as an "attention-seeking" thing to do. See also Misplaced Pages:IPs are human too. -- 李博杰 | —Talkcontribsemail02:33, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
I don't think it's fair to say we regard IPs as vandals on Misplaced Pages. I think it's more fair to say that in topic areas that have been heavily vandalised by IP editors, IP editors are treated with caution and aren't afforded the same good faith as they would get elsewhere on the project. I don't think this is a wholly unreasonable position for editors to have. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 03:37, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for that explanation benlisquare. It's certainly one I wasn't aware of, so I've learnt something. I guess my response would be that this is English Misplaced Pages, and we native English speaking editors have worked very hard to explain what the conventions are here, and why, only to be confronted by continuing antagonism from the IP editors. I travel a bit, and try hard to follow the philosophy of "When in Rome...." If I was trying to convince editors on another Language Misplaced Pages of my point of view (unlikely because of my lack of linguistic skills), I reckon I'd work hard to follow the local customs. HiLo48 (talk) 04:53, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
... TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 12:21, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
