Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 14:12, 28 April 2009

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Greece article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Misplaced Pages? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed Article policies Neutral point of view No original research Verifiability

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17Auto-archiving period: 10 days

This page is not a forum for general discussion about Greece. Any such comments may be removed or refactored. Please limit discussion to improvement of this article. You may wish to ask factual questions about Greece at the Reference desk.

This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page.

This article has not yet been rated on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. Greece Top‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Greece, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Greece on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.GreeceWikipedia:WikiProject GreeceTemplate:WikiProject GreeceGreek Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale. Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. Countries This article is within the scope of WikiProject Countries, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of countries on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CountriesWikipedia:WikiProject CountriesTemplate:WikiProject Countriescountry WikiProject Countries to-do list: edit history watch purge Here are some tasks awaiting attention: Article requests : Check out the article alerts; see if anything catches your fancy. Cleanup : clean-up listing for Countries Stubs : de-stub articles in Category:Stubs by region. Other : add {{WPCountries}} to talk pages of related articles, and assess.

Template:WP1.0

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Greece article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Misplaced Pages? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed Article policies Neutral point of view No original research Verifiability

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17Auto-archiving period: 10 days

Archives

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17

This page has archives. Sections older than 10 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III.

Straw poll on the application of the name "Republic of Macedonia" on the article Greece

The Map and The Map Only, Please

Reviving Taivo's proposal

Given all this endless bickering and debate and the labyrinth of semantic arguments we have been through, I for one, have had enough. Therefore I go on record supporting Taivo's proposal for a mention of "former" in the intro and leaving Rep. Mace. on the map. Taivo also proposed, correct me if I am wrong, that further mention of RoM in the article can be avoided. So here we are:

Support Taivo's proposal. * Support will be withdrawn if flag/nationality-based analysis is undertaken at the end of this activity Dr.K. logos 17:22, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

• Support Reasons clearly stressed out already.--Δρακόλακκος (talk) 17:46, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose per my above comments. Appeasement is never an answer, and flies in the face of Wiki's NPOV policies. The sensitivities of a certain group do not outweigh policy. •Jim62sch• 17:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Using WWII terminology applied to Hitler is no way to frame an argument. Also calling Taivo's proposal appeasement is a hardline stance. But thank you for your contribution regardless. Rest assured I will not analyse your vote at the end of this discussion based on flags or any other grounds. Dr.K. logos 18:14, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Appeasement refers to way more than Hitler, so don't even try that argument. Dicdef: "1. an appeasing or being appeased". Flags, what are you on about? As for how you analyse the vote, I don't give a fig. "Thanks for your input, just the same. •Jim62sch• 18:27, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Flags as in Husond's flags attached to the names of users to show their nationality. As far as appeasement I still think it is a loaded word but I respect your opinion. As far as analysing the vote comment that I made, it was sarcasm. I was referring to nationality based analysis of the poll results undertaken by Husond et al. Maybe I should have flagged my original comment as sarcasm. Dr.K. logos 19:02, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh, OK, sorry -- I get it now. I don't display any flags as I prefer to think of myself as a citizen of the earth/world/whatever. (Yes, I do pay taxes, so I don't do it for that reason  ;) Anyway, I do wish that people could get over nationalism, or allegience to the country of their ancestry. We all have to live on this planet, and it would be nice if we could all get along. (OK, now I sound like a Miss America contestant or Rodney King, LOL). •Jim62sch• 19:16, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree. Thanks :) Dr.K. logos 19:27, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose there's no need for any "former" in the lead, we should use the name that's used in the article itself: Republic of Macedonia. man with one red shoe 18:08, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose. Appeasement is not the answer, and flies in the face of NPOV principle. If the abuse of WP policies and administrative power is to prevail for some time, so be it. Apcbg (talk) 18:16, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Could you please stop using the "appeasement" word? Thanks. Comment withdrawn as unwarranted. Sorry Dr.K. logos 18:53, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

"Appeasement" is a very nice word when used in the proper situation, let's not ban words now... man with one red shoe 19:05, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree "when used in the proper situation". But do you think when trying to reach a compromise this word helps? I am not trying to ban words. Just trying to frame a dialogue conducive to compromise. Dr.K. logos 19:37, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, it really seems that there won't be much room for a constructive contribution here for some time to come, so I'd rather withdraw from this topic for now. Good luck to everybody. Apcbg (talk) 19:20, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you Apcbg. Hopefully one way or the other we'll get to the bottom of this. Hopefully sooner than later. Dr.K. logos 19:37, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

• Comment - a direct link to the proposal in question would be really useful here, guys. :) John Carter (talk) 18:20, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

This is the proposal:

::Just so it is clear, the article as it now stands I think is an acceptable version. There are two locations in the article where the name "Macedonia" is relevant (other than the references to the Greek provinces).

• The lead paragraph. I have never objected to the wording "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" in this case. I have added a footnote (that should remain) that references Macedonian naming dispute. The wikilink should not be to Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia because that is a non-existent article. The blue of the wikilink emphasizes the constitutional self-identifier of Macedonia while the black of "former Yugoslav" satisfies the needs of the Greek POV. I stated this point several days ago (it seems that long ago although it might have been yesterday morning).
• The map. The map should stay as it currently is: "Rep. Mace." as that is the self-identifier. "Macedonia" would be ambiguous on the map, so the self-identifier is appropriate. As "FYROM" has not been identified as an acronym elsewhere in the article (and should not be), its use on the map would be doubly inappropriate--a) as an unknown acronym, and b) as an externally-imposed non-self-identification.

The article stayed stable with that configuration for several days through the hottest portion of this discussion. We will argue ad nauseum over this issue with neither the FYROM POV nor the non-FYROM POV ever budging. In the end, the situation will be resolved in Athens (Taivo (talk) 12:22, 2 April 2009 (UTC))

Dr.K. logos 18:52, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Comment -- ah, so he didn't call fo the linking to include FY (I hadn't thought it did). I'll think on it a bit, although the concept still bothers me intellectually. •Jim62sch• 19:22, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. Thank you. Dr.K. logos 19:23, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

• Strongly Unwillingly oppose. Sorry Τάσο. You know how much I respect you, but I personally accept no half-meters. My opinion is that there should be fYROM throughout the article. We don't agree on that? Then, ok, the only solution is ARBCOM. Full stop!--Yannismarou (talk) 00:14, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

No problem at all Yannis. I completely understand and respect your opinion. I simply have had enough of this back and forth and it seemed to me to be a reasonable proposal so I thought I would give it a try. But in no way this means that I would, in any way, be bothered if anyone, let alone my friends, disagreed with my proposal. That would be undemocratic and anyway respect and friendship transcend such academic questions. In addition I know that the arbcom can cover much more ground on other contentious issues like ethnic issues etc. So it may well be inevitable and it could even be the better way. Take care for now and and it was a pleasure seeing you, as always. Tasos (Dr.K. logos 02:24, 11 April 2009 (UTC))

• Comment - as the above editor has indicated, there does not seem to be any interest from certain parties of even accepting the country's own name for itself. And, for what it's worth, I used to work in patents and copyrights for the North American pet food division of a major international firm. Had I presented the arguments presented here against the use of the ROM name in court, I would have been thrown out with summary judgement. There clearly seems to be no interest from at least one side in any sort of compromise. John Carter (talk) 00:23, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

• "Had I presented the arguments presented here against the use of the ROM name in court, I would have been thrown out with summary judgement." No you wouldn't. If you would, your should fire your lawyer.--Yannismarou (talk) 00:25, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
• "There clearly seems to be no interest from at least one side in any sort of compromise." If the use of RoM throughout the article is the way you perceive compromise, then this is no compromise.--Yannismarou (talk) 00:26, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
• "As the above editor has indicated, there does not seem to be any interest from certain parties of even accepting the country's own name for itself". 1) The "above editor" has a username you could use. 2) This is not what I said.--Yannismarou (talk) 00:38, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

• Then you have no interest, seemingly, in compromising your position with wikipedia's policy, which explicitly says the name of the article should be used wherever possible in other articles to prevent confusion. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 00:33, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

• The way you interpret policy. Is it your interpretation authoritative? You're welcomed.--Yannismarou (talk) 00:38, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Why am I reminded of Medusa? Or maybe Scylla and Charybdis is apt. BTW, Yanni, as you will find out if Arbcomm decides to accept and then issue a ruling, John happens to be spot-on with policy. •Jim62sch• 19:34, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

• Comment I'm tired of drama and this seems like a way to end it. However I really want this to go to ArbCom and I certainly want ArbCom to take care of the abomination that happened a while ago and its main perpetrator, because this will give a clear message on what Misplaced Pages stands for. If Taivo/Dr.K.'s proposal is accepted I will not oppose but my real wish is ArbCom. --Avg (talk) 01:33, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you Avg for your comments. I echo your feelings completely. That's why I proposed it. Even if it comes to nothing at least I wouldn't say I didn't try to end this sooner rather than later. I also understand fully your reasons for wanting to go to arbcom. I'll be there if it comes to that. There are some issues I am really interested in that I would like to present. Hopefully this proposal can end the edit warring at least until arbcom decides. Who knows. Anyway take care for now and it was a pleasure talking to you again. Tasos (Dr.K. logos 02:24, 11 April 2009 (UTC))

• Support I think it is a very logical proposal. --Athenean (talk) 06:34, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. There's no objective need to have "f.Y." in the lead, where the focus of discussion is the simple geographical facts of what countries are neighboring on each other. For the same reason that we don't need to talk about the "former Yugoslav Slovenia" when talking about the geographical situation of Austria. Pushing in this bit would have no other function than symbolically bowing down before the Greek POV concerns, and the whole reason we are having this discussion is that we shouldn't do so. We are already mentioning "f.Y." in the passage further down where the political dispute are mentioned. That's where it belongs, as pertinent historical background info explaining the timing of the dispute. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:31, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose. I believe that FYROM should be used throughout the entire article. Kyriakos (talk) 13:23, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
• Suppoprt. Taivo's knowledge on this subject may not even be near complete but it is interesting to say the least. Reaper7 (talk) 14:02, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Comment Why are people assuming a lack of knowledge? And, even if it were true, what would be the relevance? •Jim62sch• 22:09, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. Fut. Perf. puts it well. The proposal is well-meaning but it doesn't resolve the underlying problem here, i.e. the incessant POV-pushing by certain editors. We're not likely to fix that problem without someone - ArbCom presumably - banning the worst offenders. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:32, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose per Fut.Perf. Mentions of Macedonia in our articles should be treated no differently from mentions of any other country. - Ev (talk) 18:40, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Autoarchiving

I've enabled autoarchiving since this talk page seems to be constantly growing. :P Cheers =) --slakr 21:25, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Greece protected?

How nice for Greece to find protection. When the borders open again remember to mention that Corfu offers unique opera performances. Trompeta (talk) 17:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Republic of M.

and then protection of the article no editing allowed. Since the matter went to arbitration such change is delinquent behaviour. (The map is also Rep. Maced.) --Ioannes Tzimiskes (talk) 13:33, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Obviously Ioannes. The whole matter is delinquent. The name in the article was "FYROM" or "former Yugoslavic republic of Makedonia" and then some...editors... came and changed the name according to their own political beliefs and the pro-Fyromian beliefs. The Greeks did not start this issue in wikipedia they just protested and still protest with the change that some others started. --79.166.48.76 (talk) 13:42, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Take it to the RfAr, and do provide diffs. •Jim62sch• 20:07, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

languages spoken in greece

There is no such thing as macedonian spoken in greece. There is a slavic idiom called Dopia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tassaro (talk • contribs) 00:04, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

You are correct Tassaro but you are wasting your words in here... --79.166.48.76 (talk) 13:44, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

So Greece has the only linguistic border in all of Europe? Odd. (Reality is that as of 1986, 180K people in Greece spoke the language. Don't much care what it's called in Greece -- after all, the name ελληνικά is not much used outside of Greece. Not that this has much relation to the article per se, but it does to any RfC's and RfAr's this disaster of a discussion page spawns, ktl. •Jim62sch• 20:05, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Could you please provide verifiable sources supporting your statement regarding those 180k people? SQRT5P1D2 (talk) 23:21, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

The Ethnologue -- look it up. No European country is purely homogenous in terms of language (or anything else) and border regions are always polyglottic. That's just reality. BTW: Greek is spoken in RoM. •Jim62sch• 19:01, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Here is the actually page in Ethnologue showing the 180k speakers of Macedonian (called "Slavic" inside Greece). (Taivo (talk) 19:40, 25 April 2009 (UTC))

According to 'A Concise History of Greece' by Richard Clogg says there is a small number of people that speak Slavic idioms in the North of Greece, though their numbers are undetermined but small. Kyriakos (talk) 23:37, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Ethnologue didn't carry a linguistic census in Greece last time i checked so no matter how respected the source is for linguists it's just a guess (and a wild one). The language exists and yes it is spoken by some people especially in Florina prefecture but it isn't spoken so broadly, not even close. At least that's what i can say as a native of Thessaloniki and Greek Macedonia. --Ioannes Tzimiskes (talk) 00:31, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• This is one of the official Greek government responses concerning this Pseudo-makedonian minority in Greece:

Athens: No Macedonian Minority in Greece: In a reply letter sent on Friday to FYR Macedonian Premier Nikola Gruevski, Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis claimed there is no Macedonian minority in Greece. “There is no 'Macedonian' minority in Greece. There never has been. In this respect, any allegations regarding the existence of such a minority are totally unfounded, politically motivated and disrespectful of the historic realities of the region,” wrote Karamanlis. On Monday Gruevski wrote to Athens asking for the recognition of the Macedonian minority in Greece and the return of property to Macedonian refugees who were forced to flee northern Greece during the 1946-1949 Greek Civil War. “As for any properties issue, any individual can take legal recourse before the Courts, including the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg,” said Karamanlis. Karamanlis rebuffed Gruevski’s letter as an attempt to deviate from the objectives of the ongoing UN sponsored “name” talks between the two countries by raising a number of “non-existent and unsubstantiated issues”, he said. Relations between the two countries hit a new low in April when Athens blocked Skopje’s NATO accession saying the country should change its name first. Greece argues that Macedonia’s name might imply territorial claims towards its own northern province with the same name. There are no hard historical records about their numbers. Some historians say that as many as 100,000 ethnic Macedonians in northern Greece fled the country during the war between the right-wing monarchist government and the Democratic Army of Greece, a branch of the Communist party. Athens does not recognise those who fled as Macedonians and refuses to issue citizenship to them or to their descendants. Referring to a small political party called Rainbow in Greece claiming to represent the Macedonian minority in Greece, Athens says that “a fistful” of people in Greece supporting Skopje’s story cannot be called a minority.--79.166.2.237 (talk) 12:07, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Personal experience and political grandstanding are not reliable sources. Academic references, like Ethnologue, are reliable sources. Until you can produce a reliable linguistic source that has conducted more recent linguistic surveys in northern Greece, then Ethnologue is the most recent, most reliable source. (Taivo (talk) 12:21, 28 April 2009 (UTC))

Agree with Taivo in principle, though with the proviso that the Ethnologue listings for Greece, particularly that for Macedonian in Greece, does contain some real howlers . Howlers that are so obvious we really shouldn't go by a "we'll repeat whatever the source says, even if we know it's wrong" automatism. Ethnologue puts the number of Macedonian speakers at "180,180 in Greece (1986 census)" - but as we can easily demonstrate from other reliable sources, there never was a census in 1986, and no census for the last half century has ever counted minority language speakers. But of course the existence of the Macedonian language in Greece is beyond doubt, it can easily be sourced to other, more specialised research literature. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:30, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the "howler" is at the link to Macedonian that you provided. There's also a difference between what we, as academics, would consider a reliable source (based on personal knowledge, experience, research, professional intuition, etc.) and what Misplaced Pages considers a reliable source. So while I would agree with your skepticism on a professional level (every time I correct an error in Ethnologue two more seem to crop up), on the Misplaced Pages level it is a different matter and Ethnologue is, by definition, a Misplaced Pages reliable source unless superceded by another reliable source. (Taivo (talk) 12:38, 28 April 2009 (UTC))

The howler is, as I said, that it is citing a census that never existed. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:42, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Taivo, concerning the link you have as record that in Greece there are 180,180 <<macedonian>> speakers. Your source appears to be a census of 1986, can you elaborate please to give me some more information’s (method, statistical analyses, figures e.t.c) as about the compilation of the specific statistic number? In my opinion this number is not reflect the real situation. And I give you two sources to look at. The first one is the report that prepared by the British Helsinki Human Rights Group, "Macedonian Minorities: The Slav Macedonians of Northern Greece and the Treatment of Minorities in the Republic of Macedonia", (Oxford 1994), p.7 and the one of the U.S.Department of State, "Greece Human Rights Practices, 1993" (January 31st 1994) estimate the number of Slav-speakers in Greece at about 40,000-50,000 people. --79.166.2.237 (talk) 13:48, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

The Helsinki reference isn't clear about whether or not it is a linguistic survey--ethnicity alone is not a marker of linguistic usage. The other looks better since it seems to actually estimate speakers and not just ethnic identification. If you have an exact reference to it then use it to edit the number in the article (and include the reference) since it looks like a more recent survey. I'm not wedded to Ethnologue or its number, but it just required a reliable source with a new number to supplant the only other reliable source available. (Taivo (talk) 14:12, 28 April 2009 (UTC))

Outdated GDP data source

IMF has published new GDP figures two days ago. Please edit that. LINK - ] ---Gggh (talk) 11:16, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

• All unassessed articles
• B-Class Greek articles
• Top-importance Greek articles
• WikiProject Greece general articles
• All WikiProject Greece pages
• WikiProject templates with unknown parameters
• B-Class country articles
• WikiProject Countries articles