Wikipedia talk:WikiProject China/Naming Conventions

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Naming conventions

I would like us once and for all to agree on a set of naming conventions to handle the whole China/PRC/ROC/Mainland China/Hong Kong and Macao/Taiwan mess. I don't really care what we agree on as long as we apply it consistently across Wikipedia.

What we mostly have now is that articles relating to Politics, Government, and Economy are referred to as X of the PRC/ROC with additional X of Hong Kong and Macao, and articles relating to Geography, History before 1949, and Culture are referred to as X of China/Taiwan. Exceptions are Demographics of Taiwan and Economy of Taiwan, and Demographics of mainland China. We also have History of the PRC/ROC which concentrate on the history of those political entities rather than the history of a geographic region or a group of people.

The categories are also confused but that can be fixed relatively easily.

I have no problem with imposing the current system on the exceptions. One objection raised in an old debate at Talk:Demographics of mainland China is that the PRC currently encompasses Hong Kong and Macau but those areas are best covered under articles of their own. This doesn't bother me because we have a simple disclaimer in Economy of the People's Republic of China. But if we really wanted to split up articles into X of Mainland China and X of Hong Kong and Macao I can deal, as long as we make it consistent.

Also, the old debate at Talk:Economy of Taiwan was in favor of keeping Taiwan as the more commonly used term. Again, if we really want to collapse all ROC/Taiwan articles to Taiwan (and all PRC/China/Mainland China articles to China) I can deal, although it would be more work. --Ideogram 17:16, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We also have Media in Taiwan and Media of Hong Kong, note the in/of. We also had Media of the People's Republic of China but that was really about Government control of the media in the People's Republic of China so I moved it. So now we need someone to write Media of the People's Republic of China. --Ideogram 19:30, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Then there's somebody's quirky pet project Medicine in China and Pharmaceuticals in China. If you are interested in this guy he also wrote Pharmaceuticals in India. --Ideogram 19:37, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As background, please read Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese)#Political NPOV. --Ideogram 02:43, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone remotely interested in looking up Chinese articles will quickly discover the political differences between all these: PRC/ROC/TW/HK/MO. This has been fairly stable for awhile, why are you bringing it up?
I've said many times that using "mainland China" as the title for anything is politically unacceptable. We do not treat a country by the name of some jurisdictional sub-division just because in the main it doesn't apply to some other subdivision. The existence of Hong Kong/Macao does not mean articles about the rest of the country should be titled mainland China. There are dozens of other countries with various level of sub-divisions and none of them get this kind of treatment. X is of the People's Republic of China, period. Most articles contain a simple disclaimer that HK/MO are written separately and that is enough.
As a tangent, the Demographics of mainland China article could be updated quickly to include an overview of HK/MO information, retitled to be about the PRC, and link to those more expansive sub-articles.
I've also expressed many times that nobody really disputes that "China" is the PRC, (even the old guard ROC recognizes that, they just say they no longer govern it and maintain they are the legitimate claim to be China). There are probably 100,000 references to China inside articles that don't comply with whatever the naming conventions NPOV section states is correct. It'll never get removed from that guideline, but that sentence will never be regarded as a useful guideline either. In any case, over the last few years of my involvement there has been steady progression to move anything titled with China to be specific to PRC or ROC, and IMHO, the more you keep them apart the better.
Taiwan is fine as a common name for the ROC, even the KMT say it. I wish people'd get over themselves on that one.
in/of, I don't care enough about prepositions in titles. There is a wiki-wide naming convention standard for it. SchmuckyTheCat 03:14, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Almost nothing you said is relevant to the discussion. I don't care which naming convention you want to use, as long as we pick one. My purpose here is to impose a consistent naming convention on all the China related articles. I've looked at almost one thousand articles and I am perfectly capable of fixing them all to follow a naming convention, if we can decide on one. That's why I'm bringing it up now, because I'm here now.
Now if you can pull your head out of your political position, just pick one of the three possibilities I listed and explain why you prefer it. --Ideogram 03:46, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually I don't know why we have to set some kind of artificial consistency or standard that only exists in WP. I would prefer we name them on a case-by-case basis, on whatever best reflects real life, instead of using a standard that is more prevalent only inside of WP. Not everything is going to work perfectly in that "PRC" should be used for everything, or "mainland China" be used for everything. Now having said that, I do want to ask for more of a notice and concensus before anybody start mass moving articles and mass emptying categories. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 04:01, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I would have to echo the sentiment regarding a flexible naming standard, especially on non-political, or articles with a broader scope. Like it or not to at least 90% of readers already associate the People's Republic of China with China as a whole, and couldn't distinguish (nor care) about the relation of the PRC, ROC, and Taiwan. Certainly when referencing official governmental organs, e.g. the ROC Executive Yuan, we should strive to use the official titles (abiet with some type of disambiguation). However for naming things like the economy article Ideogram just mentioned, or articles like culture, I believe the common term is just fine. Examples:
Of course this makes enforcement more difficult, and we will always face the possibility of "true believers" of one of any political camps trying to rename everything to fit their own interpretation of events, but will ultimately prove to be a better reflection of reality. -Loren 04:34, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree it has to be flexible and applied on a case-by-case basis, and as a matter of fact this has been the case for some time. Nevertheless I'm afraid for articles such as economy and culture, distinction between Taiwan and Republic of China has to be better maintained. For instance, Quemoy, Matsu, etc., are part of the economy of the ROC. They're however not culturally part of Taiwan and are generally excluded from the relevant Wikipedia article, such as culture, cuisine and languages. — Instantnood 11:43, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(response to user:SchmuckyTheCat's comment at 03:14, February 18) Why is mainland China unacceptable? The South China Morning Post uses it, the New York Times uses it, the TIME magazine uses it, the People's Daily uses it, and the BBC uses it. Using mainland China in titles serves the same purposes as disclaimers, and using it with disclaimers is the clearest and the most politically correct. Is there any other sovereign state on Earth which like the PRC defines such territories as Hong Kong and Macao to be part of itself? As far as I know, at least the United Kingdom doesn't, while the Netherlands is defined to be part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, together with Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles. Metropolitan France is perhaps analogous, yet all départements d'outre-mer, territoires d'outre-mer, etc., of France are integral parts of the French Republic, that few if not no article focuses only on the part of France in Europe, and as a result we rarely need to use the term in titles of Wikipedia articles and categories. — Instantnood 11:43, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent) Inconsistency leads to confusion. We should expect Wikipedia readers to click on links and read more than one article and if we can't explain why we pick PRC/ROC or China/Taiwan then they will never learn the difference.

Just look at Category:China, Category:Hong Kong, Category:Taiwan, Category:People's Republic of China, and Category:Republic of China. Browse a little. There is no consistency at all, because everybody names their own private articles without regard for any of the others. That's what I'm here for.

I don't care if you want to call it "Economy of Taiwan" instead of "Economy of the Republic of China" as long as you can then tell me when and where to use "Economy of China" and "Economy of the People's Republic of China" and maybe "Economy of mainland China" and "Economy of Hong Kong".

There are many cases like this: "Medicine in X", "Culture of X" (we have Culture of China, Culture of the People's Republic of China, Culture of Hong Kong, and Culture of Taiwan, but no Culture of the Republic of China or Culture of mainland China), "Media in/of X", china-stub adds to "Category:China stubs" while china-geo-stub adds to "Category:People's Republic of China geography stubs" and china-struct-stub adds to "Category:Mainland China building and structure stubs". I hope you see deciding on a case-by-case basis is just going to be chaos.

If we can settle on a reasonable naming standard, we can explain it in a paragraph or two and link to it from all the introductory articles. I don't think it's that hard, you just have to make a decision and I will implement it.

And remember that we have redirects. It is silly to insist that "X of Taiwan" is easier to find when we can just plop a redirect there.

Example proposal

I know I said that I don't care, but just to prove to you it's not difficult to determine a set of rules, I'll give you the ones I've been using.

(proposal moved to Proposal #2 below)

I hope you can see that by simply applying the fundamental properties of these terms, namely that PRC and ROC are modern countries while China and Taiwan are ancient geographic regions (and Hong Kong is an exception) you can logically determine what any article or category should be called.

Again, I'm not wedded to any specific detailed proposal; if you can come up with an equally logical alternative rationale I'll be happy to implement it. --Ideogram 06:00, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Further discussion

I can see the problem with the different categories. They seem to be randomly categorised, for example, between X of PRC and X of China, without rhyme or logic. But as far as article names go, I'd prefer a case-by-case basis. I don't think readers will be confused with the different naming. And yeah they read more than one article - that's what wikilinking and the search function are for. For one thing, it's going to get controversial if you name something for "China" on an article that either includes or excludes information about Taiwan, even when it's geography. I think as it stands, a lot of the X of China articles have become intentionally ambiguous over the years as to whether or not it includes Taiwan. I foresee a lot of editors revert-warring these kinds of naming if you're going to do it on a mass scale. I know your intention is good here, but the implementation just sounds impractical considering the nature of WP editing and WP editors. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 08:55, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If we achieve a consensus here we can write it down at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese)#Political NPOV and point to it the next time someone wants to change it. Then they will have to try to forge a new consensus. That's what Wikipedia is all about, standards are defined and enforced by consensus. Now, you may say that I can't achieve a consensus here in the first place, and you may be right, but you can still choose whether to help me towards that goal or not. --Ideogram 09:01, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral on the proposals so far, but I suggest if you do suggest new and consistent naming conventions, I suggest guidelines for Tibet be included as well, since that's also a controversial topic, which people of different political views regard as being or not being part of China, and is also inconsistently applied and as messy as other categories. Just look at Category:Tibet, and Category:Tibet Autonomous Region. --Yuje 09:10, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Man, that's just inviting revert-warring. Since when have naming conventions stopped revert-warring, especially if you plan on name changing first, and then pointing people to the naming conventions guideline if they revert? Not that many people actually participate in discussions over at the naming conventions articles anyway. Editors will feel totally ambushed by controversial changes they don't agree with. I can agree that we need to categorise articles better, but I can't agree with these types of controversial mass renaming. 1) Because I think it's futile and invites revert-warring, and 2) because I prefer a case-by-case basis on article naming instead of abiding by a standard that may only exist in WP. But again - I do know that your intention is good. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 09:15, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You are not listening to me. Why do you think I planted invitations everywhere to join the discussion? Do you really think an editor who revert wars while refusing to discuss will gain the support of the community?
You are basically arguing that it is impossible to maintain consensus. If that were true, Wikipedia wouldn't work. There are all kinds of policies here that are maintained by consensus, how do you think those policies were formed? You don't seem to understand that discussing beforehand is a way to deal with controversy. If we come to an agreement, the mass renaming won't be controversial. No individual editor can revert-war for long against a consensus.
I already explained that a case-by-case naming system confuses the reader. Do you think the Encyclopedia Britannica doesn't have a naming system? That's one huge advantage traditional encyclopedias have, they have a consistent editorial direction. You seem to think a naming system is contrary to the laws of nature, but the fact is we are here to organize information and a case-by-case system is no organization at all.
Basically you are repeating yourself. I invite you to take some time and think about what I am saying. --Ideogram 11:01, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent) You seem to think there are armies of revert-warriors hiding in the bushes waiting to pounce on any changes. What are you so afraid of? I have already made some major moves and I've found that most articles are just abandoned. --Ideogram 11:20, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I support Ideogram's plan stated above with Hong Kong, Macau, and Tibet named separately separately. I find very little reason to ever use "Mainland China" in an article title. It just doesn't describe anything that is helpful to the reader. The only exception might be something like "Geography of Mainland China".
It is not good enough to say "a lot of the X of China articles have become intentionally ambiguous over the years as to whether or not it includes Taiwan." Wikipedia does not practice self censorship. If you say "the People's Republic of China" for matters that occurred after 1949, everyone agrees that it does not include Taiwan, whether that is good or bad. "Medicine of China" should have a corresponding "Medicine of Taiwan" article, and so on.
I guess those are just a few thoughts on the matter.--Danaman5 17:26, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm afraid Mainland China is not a term to distinguish Tibet from the rest of China or the rest of the PRC. — Instantnood 11:43, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, unfortunately this isn't Encyclopedia Britannica. I don't even know why you think mass renaming of controversial article names is ever a good idea. But hey, go for it. I can't stop you. I'm just stating that I don't support it. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 17:46, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No encyclopædia can be too layman. In some ways it might be considered by some to be a little pedantic before they actually started reading. — Instantnood 11:43, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A simple rule of thumb when naming articles is simply scope. Is it something that has been around since before 1949? (e.g. Economy, Culture, Railways... etc) If so then "... of Taiwan" is fine. If not, then is it related to an official governmental body? (e.g. military, government offices... etc) If so, then "... of the Republic of China" with relevent disambigs. -Loren 03:55, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Proposals

Please vote using approval voting, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/February 2007 for an example. All votes other than "Support" will not be counted. --Ideogram 04:47, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

#1

No mass renaming of articles.

Avoid mass renaming of articles with article names that are often subject to revert-warring, such as article names with the words "China", "People's Repbublic of China", "Taiwan", and "Republic of China", etc etc. Leave the naming of Chinese-related articles to be determined on a flexible case-by-case basis rather than named by an artificial standard that may only exist on WP and not necessarily in real life.

Discussion

  • I don't see a compelling enough reason to mass rename article names that are possibly controversial and prone to revert-warring. Plus, I think it's better to examine the naming of these articles on a flexible case-by-case basis. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 04:09, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hong, your proposal is editorializing which doesn't belong in the proposal description. The proposals are supposed to specify 'what' not how. You don't see me putting my arguments in favor of my favorite proposal in the proposal description below. Have the courtesy to do the same. --Ideogram 07:52, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
All right, I moved possibly objectionable commentary below to "Discussion". Can we do the same here? Not to mention you are repeating yourself again. --Ideogram 07:55, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You really don't get it, do you? What you have written above is discussion. It gives your opinion of all the other options, and is not necessary here. --Ideogram 07:56, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually your proposals contain explanations on why they are good proposals. That's what my proposal does. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 07:58, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If you find such text feel free to move it to the discussion section. --Ideogram 07:59, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Why would I do that? I think they belong in the proposal description. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 08:00, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Who's running this poll, you or me? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ideogram (talk • contribs) 08:01, 19 February 2007 (UTC).[reply]
If you can't specify what text you are talking about then you have no point. --Ideogram 08:01, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oh now you didn't ask me to specify before. Just read proposal #2. I think it's well-written, and it contains explanations of why it might be a good idea to rename the articles as specified in the proposal. For example:
An Economy must follow the laws set by the country it belongs...
Culture is usually considered to belong to a people and has deep historical roots...
Medicine and healthcare systems are determined by governments...
Etc, etc, so on and so forth. They serve to explain the proposal, and they belong in the description of the proposal. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 08:08, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
All right, fine. --Ideogram 08:11, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with HongQiGong. Each entry should be considered on a case-by-case basis. Michael G. Davis 20:42, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Before any kind of mass-renaming takes place, we'd need a lot more discussion, including more examples of what exactly would happen to individual article titles. I don't actually think consistency can be achieved (one man's consistency will be another's inconsistency). Kusma (討論) 14:45, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think proposal #3 is quite clear, and much better than the current situation. There may be individual problem cases, but I think they will be few, minor, and resolvable by consensus. --Ideogram 00:48, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would like to tackle the issue of potential edit-warring head on. From this thread on AN/I you will see that there is considerable edit-warring just to try to maintain the status quo. The assertion that trying to impose a standard will lead to more edit warring is not supported by any evidence, it is just a generalized fear. If your only reason to support the status quo is to avoid edit-warring, I submit your reasoning is invalid. --Ideogram 12:18, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Put another way: we can give it a try first and if there is a lot of edit-warring we can stop. If there is little edit-warring then there is no problem. Would any of you be in favor of that? --Ideogram 12:27, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've decided on my vote. While I think #3 is good in general principles, in practical applications it is likely to run into too many problems. As a result, I'm voting for the status quo. --Sumple (Talk) 08:11, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What kind of problems are you worried about? --Ideogram 08:17, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Mainly NPOV, but also inconsistent treatment/common usage problems. For example, "China" is used differently in different contexts. In my experiences, in common usage in English generally speaking "China" today would encompass Hong Kong and Macau. However, if you are talkinga bout the Chinese economy, the situation becomes more complicated, and very often it would not include Hong Kong and Macau. I don't think such problems could be solved with adopting a priori rules about when to use China and when not to (e.g. by replacing it with mainland China). As another example, does "culture of China" include Hong Kong culture or Taiwan culture? It's ambiguous and problematic. I would argue that in many contexts and in many sources it does. However, equating China with PRC would run against such a meaning.
When I said I think #3 is good in general principles, what I mean is that a China/Taiwan dichotomy based on the PRC/ROC administration dichotomy, with a flexible exception for Hong Kong, does reflect common usage generally. However, there are too many exceptions, intermediate cases, and contentious cases for it to work with any consistency. Some examples I have cited above. A few others that spring to mind might include "ethnicities of China" or "languages of China". What about "islands of Taiwan"? Is Kinmen an island of Taiwan? It is neither administratively nor geographically a part of Taiwan province/island.
Adopting #3, I think, will tend to lead to either much confusion or too many ad hoc exceptions. --Sumple (Talk) 08:25, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
We can go through the list of all the affected articles and decide by consensus what to do with the exceptions. I am already preparing such a list to answer Kusma; there really are not many affected articles.
Also, even if there are exceptions, it would be more regular than the current situation, in which every article and category name is treated as its own exception. --Ideogram 08:34, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In addition to what Sumple has mentioned, is the culture of Kinmen Taiwanese culture? Is the language spoken on Matsu a language of Taiwan? Is a Macau company a Chinese company? Strictly enforcing a China-Taiwan dichotomy is creating more biases and inaccuracies. Michael G. Davis 20:42, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support

  1. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 06:22, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  2. AQu01rius (User • Talk) 18:55, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Kusma (討論) 14:43, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Jiang 02:31, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Blueshirts 07:33, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Sumple (Talk) 08:10, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

#2

PRC/ROC are political entities from modern history and China/Taiwan are geographic entities that have always existed. Certainly Government of X, Foreign relations of X, and Politics of X should use PRC/ROC. And Geography of X should be China/Taiwan.

An Economy must follow the laws set by the country it belongs to and should follow Government and Politics.

History can be of a political entity or a place or a people, so we should have History of all four possibilities. History of the economy of X could cover PRC/ROC in modern times and China before that. (History of the economy of Taiwan would be difficult to write.)

Culture is usually considered to belong to a people and has deep historical roots, and should follow Geography of X. However, it is possible to speak of the modern Culture of the People's Republic of China distinct from the deep-rooted Culture of China. No need for Culture of the Republic of China.

Medicine and healthcare systems are determined by governments, so follow Government of X, again excepting the fact that China existed before the PRC/ROC.

There is also the China/PRC/mainland China/Hong Kong issue. The only examples I can think of here are Economy of X and Demographics of X. Economy and Demographics are measured within a country; mainland China is not a country so Economy and Demographics of mainland China doesn't work. Economy of the People's Republic of China and even Demographics of mainland China have disclaimers that they don't apply to Hong Kong

Discussion

Taiwan wasn't part of "China" back before 1945. And many people still think it isn't.--Jerrypp772000 00:33, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Under the current conventions, ROC != China. And neither is the PRC for that matter. -Loren 04:41, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support

#3

Collapse ROC/Taiwan to Taiwan and PRC/China to China. Use ROC and PRC only where it is part of an official title and in historical contexts, e.g. Constitution of the Republic of China and History of the Republic of China.

Normally China would be understood to include Hong Kong and Macau, except as noted. However, there would also be separate articles such as Government of Hong Kong and Economy of Hong Kong.

Discussion

This is simple and corresponds to common usage, so it would be easy to understand and less controversial. It is more work, however. --Ideogram 07:53, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Easily understood by members of WP:China it may be, but this will quite inevitably bring on edit wars and lengthy debates spurred by misunderstandings from new users and others unaware of the Project's decision or logic. LordAmeth 12:03, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
We don't have those already? -Loren 04:05, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
ROFL. I wish I'd said that. --Ideogram 04:12, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hardly means we should invite it. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 04:13, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think you are failing to consider the possibility that the current system, having no standard, is more likely to invite revert-warring from new users who don't understand it, because there is nothing to understand. --Ideogram 04:19, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Irrespective of which one we go with I suspect we're going to have plenty of edit wars anyhow.</cynic> Anyhow, I need some time to think this over before I vote on it.-Loren 04:23, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No, it's easier to understand for new users, because it is simpler to state (just look at the description) and it corresponds to common usage. The only proposal guaranteed to avoid edit-warring is proposal #1, making no changes at all. --Ideogram 13:40, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I support this proposal, but it would be better if we mention in the articles that Taiwan is only a common name for the Republic of China.--Jerrypp772000 00:25, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Only recently; in many things, there is some continuity between the Republic of China when Taiwan was not a part of it and the Republic of China whose territory is almost only Taiwan. Those things (like the Constitution of the Republic of China) can't be simply called "of Taiwan", and it gets very hard to stay neutral on the independence issue if the article is named "Constitution of Taiwan". Kusma (討論) 14:40, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Collapse ROC/Taiwan to Taiwan and PRC/China to China. Use ROC and PRC only where it is part of an official title and in historical contexts, e.g. Constitution of the Republic of China and History of the Republic of China. Kusma, this proposal says that we still will use PRC or ROC where it is part of an official title in historical context.--Jerrypp772000 19:59, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Quite frankly, I can see this whole thing going either way. However, in light of the usage of "South Korea" instead of "Republic of Korea" on ROK related articles, I am leaning towards this proposal... unless someone wants to suggest to the WP:KOREA folks that they change their naming conventions... -Loren 04:13, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

At times I was on the verge of comparisons with the Korean situation as well. However, we have to note that the political situation is quite different. The two Koreas do not explicitely refuse to recognise each other. They do not claim the entirety of each other's territory (or at least since the last decade or so in the South), and nor do they claim to be the sole "Korea" in the world. These are the primary issues over China which results in names becoming a senstive issues. In Korea, however, we see much less contentions over names, if at all.--Huaiwei 17:58, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
" They do not claim the entirety of each other's territory " - Please refer to Article 3 of the 1987 Constitution of South Korea. [1] [2] " The two Koreas do not explicitely refuse to recognise each other. " - They can't refuse to recognise each other ever since both of them join the UN on September 17, 1991. — Instantnood 20:15, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As I mentioned, it was particularly with regards to South Korea in the past decade or so. Please refer to its Sunshine policy with regards to this, unless you have not been updating yourself on Korean affairs for the past decade.--Huaiwei 14:17, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I still see the whole thing as a question of semantics. No one is going to argue that the ROK controls everything south of the DMZ while the DPRK controls everything north of it, irrespective of whether or not each side acknowledges the other sides's right to do so. The choice to refer to both sides using their common names is more a reflection of the linguistics of the English speaking world, then it is a judgement on who controls what. For nonpolitical articles, refering to a company "based in Taiwan" will be understood by most readers, while "based in the Republic of China" is an unconventional usage and is only going to raise eyebrows. Under these circumstances I'm adding my support to proposal #3 with the understanding that the official title still be used where appropriate. -Loren 20:28, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's never a matter of dispute since neither North Korea nor South Korea connotates any claim of territory or legitimacy, not to mention secession. That's not the case with with China / Taiwan.

Furthermore as a matter of fact the Republic of China governs not only Taiwan. A company based in Taiwan would automatically be based in the Republic of China (unless the time frame concerned is prior to 1945). But what about a company based on Quemoy? Is it based in Taiwan? Different people have different opinion. — Instantnood 20:38, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Instantnood your example of Quemoy is bunk. That's because you are false defining Taiwan to mean Taiwan Island when that's rarely how people use the word.
The names don't really reflect their histories accurately. Many Taiwanese companies were taken over by the KMT/ROC machine after 1945 and they renamed them China blah blah blah or something similar. They tried to change things to be more Chinese just by changing their names. One reason to call things in Taiwan Taiwan/Taiwanese is because it prevents it from being confused with pre-1945 entities.DownUnder555 20:50, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Also, it says to use Taiwan instead of the ROC, not Taiwan island or Taiwan province. Taiwan is the common name of the ROC, so it's a fact that ROC = Taiwan in a naming sense.--Jerrypp772000 18:56, 3 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That's like Great Britain or Holland. They are common names for the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. - Privacy 03:32, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Furthermore as a matter of fact the Republic of China governs not only Taiwan. A company based in Taiwan would automatically be based in the Republic of China (unless the time frame concerned is prior to 1945). But what about a company based on Quemoy? Is it based in Taiwan? Different people have different opinion."
We are only to use ROC in political context, so I think in this case we would still use Taiwan unless it specifically asks for the country. Then we would put ROC (Taiwan).--Jerrypp772000 19:19, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Where does this leave "mainland China" categories? But sign me up for anything that gets some sort of stability and consistency." In this proposal we would use "China" to describe all articles about the PRC but with the understanding that in some cases like Economy of China it doesn't really apply to Hong Kong and Macau. We already have the article Economy of Hong Kong. The term "mainland China" would not appear in article or category names.

However, I agree with you that any consistent standard is better than what we have now, so if you want to treat China/mainland China differently, feel free to propose it for discussion. --Ideogram 03:57, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I just want to be specific about this, since it's a point of long-running contention in categories and stub categories. In the past, there's been renames of PRC cats to "mainland China", but also the creation of separate "mainland China" cats as children of their PRC counterparts. It's not clear to me from #3 whether it permits or disallows something corresponding to the latter. If we're going to have these, it would be prudent to say in what circumstances. Alai 04:39, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
My opinion is to forbid "mainland China" in all category names. However, if you have reasons to differ, I will listen. --Ideogram 06:56, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No, I've generally been inclined to get rid of them, precisely because they exist on such an unsystematic basis, and because it seems to be an informal name for something that's not an official subdivision. I just don't think it follows either way from the current "option 3". Do we need a separate consensus-gathering exercise on this? Alai 15:53, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No, I've clarified here what I mean in this proposal. If anyone disagrees, they can make another proposal and we can discuss that. --Ideogram 21:26, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Feels to me more like an add-on than a clarification. I'd like to see the question addressed specifically and separately, since for one thing, some people may have a different opinion on this than they do on the "mass renaming", and for another, because even if the #3 gets consensus (or at least, 'supermajority') support, then "mainland China" fans will doubtless ignore this on the basis that it wasn't explicitly part of the original proposition, and thus "controversial". Alai 18:26, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Having two articles for the same country is confusing and mis-leading. There is not a separate article called "America" that just decribes the geography of the US and a seperate article "United States of America" describing its government. In English and common use, the term "Taiwan" denotes the country in its entirety. In hundreds of conversation I have had with suppliers in China and Taiwan, I have never heard anyone refer to the "ROC" as such. Instead, BOTH my Chinese and Taiwanese contacts always refer to "Taiwan" . I recommend merging the articles under Taiwan and having a seperate section on the "ROC". --Lucid-dream 19:08, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As Privacy has suggested above, referring the Republic of China as Taiwan is as inaccurate as (if not more inaccurate than) calling the United Kingdom Great Britain or England, or the Netherlands Holland. The scenario is not like United States and America. — Instantnood 23:17, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Most people around the world understand "Taiwan", but not "Republic of China". Insisting on all articles on Taiwan being labelled "X in the ROC" seems to me just being done to placate people that support the Chinese view on Taiwan. -- John Smith's 19:33, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean by " the Chinese view on Taiwan "? — Instantnood 23:17, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I'm entirely convinced by the "collapsing" arguments, but I'm utterly unimpressed by the alternative, the likely consequence of which seems to be "let's have no scheme at all, decide on a per-article and per-category basis, and where there's no per-article consensus, edit war" and edit wars on every article and category separately" alternative. Where does this leave "mainland China" categories? But sign me up for anything that gets some sort of stability and consistency. Alai 03:18, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It was a long process few years back that folks had decided to stick with People's Republic of China and Republic of China, rather than China and Taiwan. The rationale was that whereas the common name principle was acknowledged and considered, NPOV has a higher ground. According to Jimmy Wales, NPOV is "non-negotiable".

Not everybody agrees Taiwan equals the entirety of the modern ROC (e.g. considerable number of pro-Taiwanese independence people never consider Quemoy and Matsu to be part of Taiwan, PRC government doesn't group Quemoy and Matsu to its claimed Taiwan Province, etc.). Equating People's Republic of China with China is creating even more trouble, as that's implying territories under the ROC (i.e. Taiwan (including the Pescadores, Orchid Island, Green Island, etc.), Quemoy, Matsu, Taiping (with Chung-Chou) and the Pratas) not to be part of China. Putting People's Republic of China in place of Mainland China would, likewise, be implying that Hong Kong and Macao are not part of the PRC.

Therefore, while I understand it's more convenient to follow common names, that's not what titles should follow, considering the importance of NPOV and accuracy to an encyclopædia. Redirects and disambiguation notices are already fulfilling convenience requirements to cater everybody's needs. — Instantnood 23:17, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV is about reference to sources not maintaining some kind of political neutrality between PRC/ROC and Taiwan independence. You can't find any sources that apply the ROC/Taiwan distinction like Wikipedia does. --Ideogram 00:00, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
NPOV is about being balanced to sources. Creating a China/Taiwan dichotomy is not balanced: many sources would treat Taiwan as a part of China, while others would treat it as separate. --Sumple (Talk) 01:25, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support

  1. --Ideogram 03:57, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  2. --Jerrypp772000 00:20, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  3. --Loren 20:28, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  4. --DownUnder555 20:59, 26 February 2007 (UTC) This is qualified support. First of all, the fact that this discussion is taking place on a China articles talk page is already biasing the whole thing. Second, the modern day ROC is really the same thing as Taiwan. You can say that the modern day Taiwan/ROC is not officially recognized as a country by most other countries in the world, but trying to split the two and make it seem like the ROC on Taiwan is identical as the ROC in China is ridiculous. Think about this. Taiwan is now a democracy. Could the government "move" again? Let's say there was a civil war in Taiwan and the ROC "moved" to the Pescadores. Do we now have the history of China as the history of the Pescadores? It makes no sense.DownUnder555 20:59, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  5. -- JFG 09:43, 4 March 2007 (UTC) For the sake of simplicity, apply this naming convention to reflect de facto reality and usage, and be accessible to all readers. For the sake of correctness and sensitivity to different points of view, add a prominent disclaimer to the top of each article, pointing to a single page which explains briefly the political situation, history and current interpretations. This page would in turn point to more detailed explanations of each naming / POV / political issue (we have no shortage of such pages, so people who want to know will have ready access to everything). This solution seems to me closest to the spirit of WP:ENC.[reply]
  6. --Danaman5 22:29, 10 March 2007 (UTC) I've been flipflopping in my mind on this issue for a while now. However, since this proposal codifies things that we already do anyway, it seems fair to write it down. However, my support is also contigent on the creation of a single page discussing these issues per JFG above.[reply]
  7. SchmuckyTheCat 02:28, 15 March 2007 (UTC) tentative support. I'm traveling and didn't read all the above discussion over the last month, but this looks right. SchmuckyTheCat 02:28, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  8. --Lucid-dream 19:08, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  9. -- John Smith's 19:33, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Alai 03:18, 17 March 2007 (UTC) Partial support. I'm not sure I'm entirely convinced by the "collapsing" arguments, but I'm utterly unimpressed by the alternative, the likely consequence of which seems to be "let's have no scheme at all, decide on a per-article and per-category basis, and where there's no per-article consensus, edit war" and edit wars on every article and category separately" alternative. Where does this leave "mainland China" categories? But sign me up for anything that gets some sort of stability and consistency.[reply]

#4

Replace "mainland China" with "China" in all category and article names. In cases where Hong Kong is treated separately (e.g. Economy of China) a comment will be placed in the article noting this. --Ideogram 03:40, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Support

  1. --Ideogram 03:40, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  2. SchmuckyTheCat 00:15, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Furtherer discussion

Ok, there are slightly more people supporting #3 now, but Wikipedia is not a democracy and we still need to establish consensus. So please discuss. I think I answered the concern about edit-warring, what other concerns are there? Kusma, if you like I can come up with a list of the affected articles and we can go through them in detail. --Ideogram 04:25, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Economy of mainland China has appeared on WP:CfD. Could the consensus, if reached, be expressed there? Pavel Vozenilek 12:04, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like it will be some time before we reach consensus, but if that discussion is still there, I will post our decision. --Ideogram 03:41, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I'd like to see a list of affected articles. I think there are many articles where we should say "Republic of China" instead of "Taiwan", especially when there is historical continuity. Like "Foreign relations of the Republic of China" or "Military of the Republic of China". These articles can't be renamed to "of Taiwan"; while an "of Taiwan" article could conceivably be spun off, the cut-off date will be completely arbitrary (1949, when the PRC was founded? 1971, when the UN gave up the idea that the ROC controlled "China"? When CKS died? After the end of martial law in Taiwan?) In other areas, "of Taiwan" has more historical continuity, like Rail transport in Taiwan. One problem is that "Taiwan" is often ambiguous, referring to either the geographical entity, or the province of the ROC, (or the hypothetical province of the PRC), or to the country usually called Taiwan. Geography of the Republic of China currently redirects to Geography of Taiwan, although the latter does not explicitly include Kinmen etc. Anyway, the situation here on Wikipedia may be messy, but this mirrors the real world situation of Taiwan. Most Taiwan-related articles seem to have made a pretty good choice between "Taiwan" and "ROC" depending on the context. I don't really see any articles that need renaming. Kusma (talk) 10:09, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

PRC
ROC
both

There it is. I might have missed some, but I think all the important ones are there. Feel free to note the cases where we should not replace PRC/ROC with China/Taiwan.

To answer your questions, it seems clear to me that "Taiwan" should refer to ROC after 1949, since that is when they retreated to Taiwan. Generally our articles are written to describe the present-day, and there is no ambiguity by referring to Taiwan. Articles about the history of the ROC before 1949 would be clearly labeled with the dates such as Transportation in the Republic of China (1911-1949) or with "History of ...". Thus we would have Foreign relations of Taiwan describing the present situation, and History of foreign relations of the ROC to cover the past with continuity before 1949. Similarly Military of the Republic of China is mostly about, and should be solely about, the current form of the Military, and the list of past engagements should be moved to one or more other articles.

It is important to note that our naming convention doesn't have to be perfect to be better than what we have now, which is no naming convention at all. --Ideogram 10:56, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think we do currently have naming conventions regarding the use of ROC vs. Taiwan. I don't know whether they are actually written down somewhere, but there more or less seems to be agreement how to handle the issue. In your list above, the ROC entries are in my opinion clearly at the only possible choice of name, except for Tourism in the Republic of China, a bad stub where the name is the least of its problems. To split Military of the Republic of China into pre- and post-civil war articles is rather unnatural, and to rename Flag of the Republic of China to Flag of Taiwan looks silly to me. Now Taiwan Province, People's Republic of China again is the only NPOV choice I see, and mirrors Fujian Province, Republic of China.
Note that your consistency for "the present day situation" implies that we make strange choices or become inconsistent in our treatment of the history of the ROC. I don't think complete consistency is possible, and when in doubt, neutrality is an official policy, consistency is a nice optional extra. Kusma (talk) 11:13, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No, we really don't have any naming conventions. If you think we do, feel free to explain them. There is no agreement, and every time some new editors come along it is impossible to explain to them why some articles are PRC/ROC and some are China/Taiwan. Then they edit war for a while. If you read Military of the Republic of China you will see that it is entirely about the present-day, except for a list of engagements which doesn't belong in the article at all. You give no reason for not calling it Flag of Taiwan; surely you don't expect a naming convention to depend on what "looks silly" to you.
I simply don't see what is strange or inconsistent about what I stated. Articles about the present day, which is most of them, should refer to Taiwan. Articles with history going back before 1949 should refer to ROC. What could be simpler? And again, just because complete consistency is not possible, doesn't mean we can't be more consistent. Again, I assert there is no consistency now, and I challenge you to prove me wrong. NPOV, as I explained to Instantnood, is about referring to sources to support assertions made in articles, not about choosing politically neutral names for articles. --Ideogram 11:22, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think we are too far apart in our positions. I just think that there are some articles which are about both present day and past things, and I prefer the historical continuity POV to the "current consistency" POV. I think Flag of the Republic of China is in the same catagory (name wise) as the Constitution of the Republic of China. Flag of the Republic of China actually discusses the historical origins of this flag, which are completely unrelated to Taiwan. A possible way out would be a new article Flag of Taiwan that says "The Republic of China (often called "Taiwan") currently uses the Flag of the Republic of China since the ROC military fled to Taiwan after the Chinese Civil War. In the context of the Taiwanese independence movement, other flags were proposed." That is still a bit awkward, but simply renaming the article is not going to provide a good result here. Kusma (talk) 11:34, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't mind calling it Flag of the Republic of China; as I said, I never claimed that there would be no exceptions. But it would help me a lot if you could go through the articles I listed and mark the ones you feel should not be renamed to China/Taiwan, so we can see what we are talking about. (Don't forget, after we finish the article names we also have the category names.) --Ideogram 11:42, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I can live with renaming most of them to "of Taiwan", although I am not really convinced what is best. I would like those articles concerned with the constitution, the government (say, President of the Republic of China) and other official institutions (like the military) to stay at "of the Republic of China". Culture, economy, sports, tourism, anything not so much government-connected should be at "of Taiwan". I hope that makes a more or less clear separation. Kusma (talk) 14:48, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds a lot like proposal #2. I don't quite see the reason for Miltary of ROC instead of Military of Taiwan. Also, you haven't offered an opinion on all the PRC articles (not to mention "(China)" and "mainland China"). --Ideogram 20:11, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have an opinion on the PRC articles. To your new additions: List of finance ministers of the Republic of China can't be renamed to "of Taiwan"; I don't see a strong case for splitting. List of islands of the Republic of China can't be renamed to "of Taiwan", since "Taiwan" has a geographical meaning as an archipelago that does not include the whole territory currently controlled by the ROC. Administrative divisions of the Republic of China has the same problem: "Taiwan" is a bit imprecise in that context. Perhaps a better name would be to always use "Republic of China (Taiwan)", but I am sure that has other disadvantages. Kusma (talk) 10:23, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
So does that mean it's ok to have Education in Taiwan, Foreign relations of Taiwan, Human rights in Taiwan, List of banks in Taiwan, List of national parks in Taiwan, Military of Taiwan, Politics of Taiwan, and Tourism in Taiwan? --Ideogram 11:03, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, probably, yes, maybe (Kinmen stands out a bit), maybe, probably, yes. All should be at least redirects. Kusma (talk) 11:27, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
All these involve stands-out places such as Quemoy and Matsu. We can't portray like Taiwan, as an offshore country in the Western Pacific, is occupying some geographically non-Taiwan islands along the Asian continent coast and deep in the middle of the South China Sea. Passer-by (talk) 17:34, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Two pieces of fact to note: i) "Taiwan" means what the Republic of China took from Japan following the end of the Second World War, and ii) Hong Kong and Macau are part of the People's Republic of China since 1997 and 1999, but they are not part of "Mainland China" (while Chongming, Hainan, the Paracels and so on do).

The simple rule is that - a) articles with scope beyond [i] should not be titled "Taiwan", and b) articles not covering Hong Kong and Macau should not be titled "People's Republic of China". - Privacy 22:06, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How would you name articles which covers all of the People's Republic of China, on just about any topic?--Huaiwei 22:39, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a President of Mainland China? Is there a Constitution of Mainland China? Why should Hong Kong and Macau be covered in an article on Education in Mainland China? - Privacy 22:49, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

More opinions needed note that the point of Wikipedia is to reach consensus via discussion and voting in the straw poll above is not going to be used for any decision, it is only used to get a general sense of what people think. Please go through the list of affected articles above and note which items you feel should not be renamed to use China/Taiwan, and most importantly why. --Ideogram 11:03, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The fundamental question we have to ask is whether common usage remains accurate. In some cases yes; in other cases, it's misleading. My opinion is that if it has anything to do with the government, use official names; if it doesn't then dont. It should be "parks in Taiwan" and "National parks of the Republic of China" (in vs. of is a somewhat rough indicator)...."Military of the Republic of China" "Tourism in Taiwan"...--Jiang 09:45, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It is never a matter of debate whether "Taiwan" in common usage means Republic of China, to the extent that Lee Teng Hui was known commonly as the Taiwanese president. When it comes to neutral point of view, however, neutrality overrides common usage. Referring the whole Republic of China as "Taiwan" is not neutral. - Privacy 19:27, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I don't really get what's not neutral about it? And also, there is actually a article in the Chinese version of "Military of Taiwan (zh:台灣軍事)," perhaps we can translate that, and merge the current article:Military of the ROC into that one.--Jerrypp772000 21:05, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And what about this: Template:Airports in Taiwan?--Jerrypp772000 20:53, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed list

For some of these articles I think it should be obvious that the naming is somewhat superfluous and unnecessary, and attempts to confine itself to a political standard rather than attribute it to practical and popular usage. Admittedly too, as the geopolitical status in the region evolves, some of these articles will have to be renamed. As a result it is more practical to name these on a case-by-case basis, but provide a list on a page called "Current ROC/PRC naming conventions" or something along those lines. I have added notes as to the case-by-case basis attempting to scrounge the best of NPOV possible. Feel free to disagree.

PRC

ROC

I hope we can see some consistencies being drawn out here. As people have suggested before, anything that is "official" must have the PRC/ROC attachment, while anything that is civil in nature should simply use "China" and "Taiwan" without trying to conform to a largely unrelated political standard. Colipon+(T) 23:57, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My proposed list only covers articles that would be renamed from PRC/ROC to China/Taiwan under my proposal. Since you are making a different proposal, you need to also address articles that would be renamed from China/Taiwan to PRC/ROC, for instance possibly Economy of Taiwan and Demographics of Taiwan. --Ideogram 20:56, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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