Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 03:48, 13 April 2007

International relations Project‑class

This page is within the scope of WikiProject International relations, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of International relations 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.International relationsWikipedia:WikiProject International relationsTemplate:WikiProject International relationsInternational relations Project This page does not require a rating on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale.

Template:Multidel

WP:NPOV

Please be aware that this project will likely necessitate extreme vigilance to maintain WP:NPOV standards. I applaud you effort, but advise extreme care and caution in your endeavor. Best of luck, and happy editing! SkipperClipper 03:51, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

original council proposal discussion for Foreign relations

Description

This WikiProject will aim to focus on articles that not much people really focus on. This Project will have 3 different kinds of articles under its scope: foreign relations, diplomats, and international meetings. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• Foreign relations - United States-Australia relations/Australia-New Zealand relations/Foreign relations of Azerbaijan
• Diplomats - Batyr Berdiyev/Hersey Kyota/Sayyid Faisal Bin Ali Bin Faisal Al-Said
• International Meetings - Millennium Summit/2005 World Summit/Shamrock Summit/Summit of the Americas

Edits made to WP articles are heavily focused towards topics regarding the US, UK, and other major English-speaking countries here in the English WP. This project will focus on foreign relations between...let's say-Samoa and Palau. The project would attempt to create a centralized list of further branching list of all ambassadors from all countries. It would also attempt to create a detailed account of any international meetings, such as those listed above.

I realize that most of this project's work would overlap into other WikiProjects. But an American Wikiproject can't possible form a United States-Australian relations without the assistance of the Australian Wikiproject! Therefore, I think that the Foreign relations WikiProject could also be a place where country-related Wikiprojects could meet together and discuss.--Ed 15:18, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Interested Wikipedians (please add your name)

1. Ed 15:18, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
2. Chris 21:39, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Comments

I like the idea. I wonder how it would relate to the proposed "Diplomatic Missions by Country" proposal higher on this page, though. John Carter 15:36, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• I like the broader scope of this Project, and believe it has more appeal than the abovementioned Diplomatic Missions by Country. In the long run, broader is better and stands a better chance of survival, given the inactive narrower projects. Chris 21:39, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Cool

Now we can start those 40,000 articles on bilateral relations!--Pharos 00:21, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I received an inquiry on my talk page, and yes, I'm quite serious about that figure, actually. With about 200 countries, and each state actor having a significant relationship with every other one, we really should ideally have 40,000 (200 x 200) individual articles on bilateral relations. Anyone care to get started on Andorra-Tuvalu relations?--Pharos 04:40, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

It's not the figure I question, it's the tone and meaning of your statements. If you seek to mock, be clear. I am certain the creator of the project was using Samoa and Palau as illustrations, not literally. I would be very surprised, outside the G8, whether most smaller countries even have individual articles about relations with their own neighbors, unless there has been some conflict historically. If you have something constructive to say, be open. If you are just being ugly, that is unworthy of an admin. Chris 04:49, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

So far as I can ascertain, those two countries do not maintain formal relations with each other. Why should we have an article for this and similar circumstances if they are inherently unmaintainable? Your suggestion is grossly overstated.--cj | talk 04:55, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

What I meant by the statement I placed was to point out that we don't have the foreign policies of some small countries as detailed as we want them to be. I only meant to illustrate the lack of coverage among our political neighbors less covered by the media. However, this project is open to suggestions, and I would love to change the goals, scope, and guidelines if necessary.--Ed 05:01, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

It appears there's been some misunderstanding of my statement. I think this is a great project, and hope to contribute to it in future. I was just pointing out that there's a lot of work ahead (FWIW, I do actually think that bilateral relations between any two UN members would be inherently notable, though obviously Andorra and Tuvalu would be a low priority). By the way, I actually didn't notice you'd mentioned Samoa and Palau in the above section; I wasn't responding to that section in any way.--Pharos 05:11, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that up! :) I'm glad that you think this project's great. And yes, of course there's plenty of work to be done...that's pretty much why I thought this project would be needed.--Ed 05:29, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

High priority articles

I thought I'd pick out some of the major missing articles, from different regions of the world. These ones should be relatively easy to research; perhaps we could collaborate: Sino-Vietnamese relations, Indo-Sri Lankan relations, Argentina-Brazil relations, Russia-Belarus relations, South-Africa-Zimbabwe relations.--Pharos 05:31, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Good idea! One question: How do we distinguish between Argentina-Brazil relations and Brazil-Argentina relations? Doesn't the order of the countries' names imply a superiority between them? And I also think that we can get the help from other WikiProjects too.--Ed 05:34, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I think that under normal circumstances, the first name represents the perspective of that country. For instance, American-Italian relations represents the way America views its relationships with Italy; whereas Italian-American relations, represents the Italian perspective. Altough here, you need one single article to cover both of those things. Well, good luck! Heh...--Thus Spake Anittas 18:51, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I've given the naming thing a little thought too. The standard method would be just work alphabetically, and this makes sense to me. Such an approach, though, would be complicated by special forms like "Sino", "Indo", or "Anglo". We might want to consider a standard format that would avoid the adjectival forms (United Kingdom-United States relations instead of Anglo-American relations). It would be more awkward, but it would also be more consistent. This wouldn't be too different from the type of standard format we use for monarchs and nobility.--Pharos 06:07, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Where the adjectival forms exist, I feel we should use them. No need to shy away from common usage for the sake of a arbitrary standard.--cj | talk 06:23, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, we should have some sort of standard, because otherwise these articles will be titled quite randomly, as a cursory survey of the categories would show. As I see it, there are three types of name-forms we could be using, noun (e.g. India), adjective (e.g. Indian) and special prefix (e.g. Indo), where special prefixes only exist for certain countries. The first question is, what is to be the basic form used (i.e. Argentina-Brazil relations or Argentine-Brazilian relations? And then, if we assume countries with special prefixes always form the first part of the name, what do we do with double-prefixable countries — do we just go alphabetic (and alphabetic by country or by prefix?) or use the form that's more established? And what about prefixes that exist, but are a little rarely used, like "Russo"? It might be possible to work out these issues, but I hope you at least see the attraction of a simple standardized system.--Pharos 07:02, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Most of these types of articles that involve major countries have already been created. I think it would be best if we invite the other WikiProjects with countries to participate in this discussion as well.--Ed 16:04, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I saw that you were asking about this on the Peruvian Wikiproject. I'd personally say that with regards to domestic Latin American relations there does not exist yet an article on Peruvian-Chilean relations. This is important because since the War of the Pacific the two countries have been considered "enemies" by "nationalists" from both sides. It also goes into cultural aspects such as the Pisco debate over who has the right to claim it as the national drink. Luckily there already exists a decent article with regards to Argentinian-Chilean relations, which is another important bilateral relationship in South America which came to mind when reading this.--Jersey Devil 19:12, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

You bring up a good point on that, too. Should we be creating articles on relations between all countries, whether they're hostile or peaceful?--Ed 19:16, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Just dropping in from Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Switzerland. Thanks for the notification!

I think standardisation in that matter is a good idea. As to naming, how about we use commonplace forms for the title, but use the alphabetical ranking of the ISO country codes for priority? E.g., "Sino-British" because CHN comes before GBR in the ISO list.

As to Ed's question, well, that would be on the order of 200*200=40.000 articles, and probably more accounting for historical countries, regions, empires etc. As long as there's not much to say about a relationship, it may be better covered in the "Foreign relationships of ..." articles. Sandstein 19:34, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

The name order should be alphabetical or whatever sounds more "right" like putting Sino before American... - Fedayee 19:55, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Just popping in to say that I agree with Fedayee on the naming. (My apologies to Zimbabwe, who would never be in first position due to this policy.) Further, I think that discussing both perspectives (i.e., A to B, & B to A) in one place would lead to a better & more helpful article, unless the matter becomes too complex or long. -- llywrch 22:04, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

If there are any Polish-related relations articles, I (and many others at WP:PWNB) would likely help. Personally a Polish-Lithuanian relations list is on my 'to translate from pl wiki' list, and Polish-Ukrainian relations is on 'to do' list...-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  04:09, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

The article about the Cellulose plant conflict between Argentina and Uruguay should definitely be under the scope of this project. James Hetfield (talk · contribs) Possible impersonation!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.64.4.72 (talk • contribs)

Project guidelines - comments

In WP:FOR#Article_talk_page, editors are urged to add banners of projects that they think are relevant. I would propose that this project lets those other projects decide what's in scope for them and what isn't.
Also in the same section, for diplomats, editors are urged to place this project's banner first, the WPBiography, then the others that were there. There have been many incidents where project members have taken issue with their banner being put "below" others when their's was there first. I would think it best if the banners be placed in chronological order.
All in all, this has the promise of being a great project! --Kimon 02:10, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Suggested guideline

Could WP:FOR clarify the standard naming order for the relations titles?

For example, should Indian-South Korean relations be Indo-South Korean relations or India-South Korea relations, etc... Also some nationalists might switch the order of the countries in the titles (i.e. Japan-Korea relations --> Korea-Japan relations). I think that WP:FOR will play a very important role in making standard procedures that would minimize inter-ethnic/national disputes. (Wikimachine 22:05, 9 April 2007 (UTC))

OK, I've gone over the feedback in the above section, and I think I've come up with a workable guideline using "colloquial" terms. We should use adjectival forms (Argentine-Brazilian relations rather than Argentina-Brazil relations), with the countries being ordered by the adjective with fewest syllables first (for common usage reasons), and tie-breakers being broken by the alphabetic order of their name in English noun form (American is filed under "U"), just because that's easiest to remember. In keeping with common English usage, we should also recognize a limited number of special prefixes, specifically "Anglo-", "Sino-", "Indo-", "Franco-" and "Russo-", which will always take the first place. If we are discussing two countries which use prefixes, the first item would be the one nearest the beginning in my previous sentence, as I've ordered that list (which took some research to perfect) with common usage in mind. I do not think that other, less common prefixes, like "Luso-", should be used. The thinking behind this proposal has primarily been to generate "common names" using a fairly simple and standardized rule, and I think it works at that.--Pharos 23:06, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

The most important thing to remember is that we want to avoid instruction creep. IMO, it would be best if we continue to use the simple, English, noun forms in alphabetical order with ISO 3166-1 alpha-3, per Sandstein--Ed 23:31, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I suggested the noun forms at first, but almost everyone, including Sandstein, has preferred the adjectival forms. I recommend putting the syllabically shorter adjective first just because that's the tendency in speech, and that will be common usage much more often than not: for example, google "German-Italian relations" and "Italian-German relations". In cases where the adjectives are of the same length, I wouldn't have a problem with using the ISO order to decide.--Pharos 23:46, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

That sounds good. Shall we use the following special adjectives?

• Sino or Chinese?
• Indo or Indian?
• Russo or Russian?
• Anglo or British?
• Franco or French?
• American or just United States? Note that the use of the term "America" is different in the USA than in other parts of the Western Hemisphere. South Americans might be offended by the use of the term "American"...

Any suggestions?--Ed 03:48, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Similar project

Thanks for the notice that you posted on WP Former Countries. Are you familiar with WikiProject Power in international relations? It is not a very big project, but their scope runs very closely with yours, but they set themselves a much smaller starting scope (see this thread). Perhaps you should pool your resources.

The evolution of foreign relations over time fascinates me, so if you go ahead and work on relations between states that no longer exist, perhaps we can work out something together between your project and WP Former Countries.

This project sounds very interesting. Good luck! - 52 Pickup 07:50, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

• Project-Class International relations pages
• NA-importance International relations pages
• WikiProject International relations articles