Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Wiz9999 (talk | contribs) at 00:53, 18 February 2019 (→The Panel of Three Users: Agreed.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Media Link repository

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Note: only includes links published after February 12, 2019.
If the report is a reproduction from a news agency (Associated Press (USA), Reuters (UK), Agence France-Presse (France)), please add it along the date of publication. Thank you very much, Despotak (talk) 15:59, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Country name

Media reports that use the term "Macedonia": Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (published 12/02/19), Reuters (published 13/02/19), Agence France-Presse (published 13/02/19)

Media reports that use the term "North Macedonia": Associated Press (published 12/02/19 and reproduced by many international media like Voice of America, Fox News, Herald Sun), Deutsche Welle (published 12/02/19), The Guardian (published 12/02/19), The New York Times (by AP, published 13/02/19), The Irish Times (published 13/02/19), CNN (published 13/02/19), BBC (published 14/02/19), Associated Press (published 14/02/19)Kathimerini (published 14/02/19), France 24 (by AFP, published 14/02/19)

Media reports that use the term "Republic of North Macedonia":

Nationality of people

(Note: Most, if not all, of the reports use the term as a demonym, and not as nationality by it's legal meaning --Despotak (talk))

Media reports that use the term "Macedonian": The Guardian (published 12/02/19), The Independent (published 13/02/19), The National Herald (Greek-American news) (published 13/02/19), CNN (published 13/02/19), Reuters (published 13/02/19), Euronews (by Reuters, published 13/02/19), The Slovenia Times (published 13/02/19)
Media reports that use the term "North Macedonian": Gulf Times (published 15/02/19)

Media reports that use other terms: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (published 14/02/19): "13 N. Macedonians killed in bus crash"

Adjective used for State-associated entities

Media reports that use the term "Macedonian": The Guardian (published 12/02/19), Associated Press (inconsistent - see below) (published 12/02/19), Voice of America (by AP, published 12/02/19), Fox News (by AP, published 12/02/19), Washington Post (by AP, published 12/02/19), The Independent (published 13/02/19), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (published 12/02/19 and 13/02/19), Reuters (published 13/02/19), Euronews (inconsistent - see below) (by Reuters, published 13/02/19), Agence France-Presse (published 13/02/19) (published 14/02/19), Anadolu Agency (inconsistent - see below) (published 13/02/19), Defense News (published 13/02/19), The Slovenia Times (published 13/02/19), BBC (published 14/02/19), Xinhua (published 14/02/19) (published 15/02/19)(inconsistent - see below) , Associated Press (published 14/02/19), The National Interest (published 14/02/19), Daily Sabah (published 15/02/19)

Media reports that use the term "North Macedonian": Euronews (inconsistent - see above) (published 13/02/19), Gulf Times (published 13/02/19), The Irish Times(published 13/02/19), BloombergQuint(published 13/02/19), France 24 (by AFP, published 14/02/19), US News (by AP, published 14/02/19), Anadolu Agency (inconsistent - see above) (published 14/02/19), Xinhua (published 14/02/19) (published 15/02/19) (inconsistent - see above) , Associated Press (inconsistent - see above) (published 14/02/19), Washington Post (by AP - published 14/02/19), Manila Bulletin (by AF-P, published 14/02/19), Deutsche Welle ("North Macedonian flag" description, published 12/02/19), Bulgarian News Agency (published 13/02/19)

Media reports that use other terms: Herald Sun) (by AP, published 12/02/19): "Macedonia's government", Washington Post (by AP, published 13/02/19): "North Macedonia's defense minister", Associated Press (published 12/02/19 and reproduced by many international media): "North Macedonia’s deputy foreign minister" Sky News (published 13/02/19): North Macedonia's border, Fox News Macedonia's health minister (by AP, published 14/02/19), United Nations (alternative - see above) (published 14/02/19): "of North Macedonia", Kathimerini (published 14/02/19): "of North Macedonia" Fox News: : North Macedonia's (published 14/02/19) Washington Post (AP) : Macedonia's (published 15/02/19)

(Note: non-consistency inside the same article from AP and other outlets) --Despotak (talk) 10:57, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Discussion

Not including the sources mentioned previously, which use North Macedonian as an adjective, skews the accuracy and neutrality of this list. Like Future Perfect said, there is no reason why people who started using North Macedonian before 12/2/19 can’t be used to show that it is entering use as an adjective. —Michail (blah) 09:59, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

I don't necessarily oppose, however, if the consensus is that we will use RS before 12/02/2019 be aware that we will also include all the sources that use 'Macedonian' as an adjective. --FlavrSavr (talk) 10:28, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

This is a rule that you made up. I don’t want to point out NPOV issues, but it seems to me that the entire issue is done so as to force the use of ‘Macedonian’ as the sole adjective. Your assertion that sources before 12/2 use Macedonian as an adjective for North Macedonia is pure WP:OR. You cannot prove that sources are using it because they haven’t switched to the new adjectives or because it is a conscious choice to use Macedonian as an adjective instead of “of North Macedoni”. I do not have the time to argue the obvious but if the point of this is to force a POV with dubious procedures then I am not participating in the discussion. You can register my strong complaints regarding your methodology. —Michail (blah) 11:37, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you feel that way. Actually, the argument was brought up Argean in the discussion below. It actually goes both ways: you also cannot prove that sources before 12/02 which used "North Macedonian" will consistently continue to use it, especially after familiarizing themselves with the details of the Prespa Agreement, and the Government of North Macedonia stating its official position. We can only list the media as they are using it right now. We can set the date earlier but it wouldn't be NPOV to ommit those who were using 'Macedonian' and only list those who were using 'North Macedonian'. --FlavrSavr (talk) 11:54, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

@Michail, I was the one that insisted on the starting day being the day of the official announcement. I explained my process of thought below, and I firmly believe that it is inline with WP:NAMECHANGES. If you want my personal preference, I would like, no scrap that, love the "North Macedonian" to be the term we use. If you follow the reports on the same media (even on the same article sometimes) you will see that the editors are not consistent. Euronews, for example, has used both forms. As other people have pointed, media that used the term "North Macedonian" before 12/02 and use it again after 12/02 will be added ASAP. I went through the entries you pointed out, and added alarms for new articles from those outlets in anticipation of using the term again. But until they actually do, I am opposed to including them. Finally, I plan for this list to be expanded throughout the RFC period. --Despotak (talk) 12:20, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Despotak While I understand that, this conversation is being forcefully shaped as a choice between Macedonian and North Macedonian, when it is merely to demonstrate that North Macedonian is a viable and used alternative to the lengthier adjective “of North Macedonia” in English”, and started because the same user(s) wanted to stop Misplaced Pages from using because it is not specified in the agreement. That was the conversation, not “lets use North Macedonian for everything because it is WP:COMMON. —Michail (blah) 13:11, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that I've been diligently adding both 'Macedonian' and 'North Macedonian' media reports in the media link repository. It's seems to me like an honest, mutually agreed, NPOV way of doing things. --FlavrSavr (talk) 12:29, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

OK, there a lot of things that I would want to say on this discussion, but I'll try to keep it short and restrict my comments ONLY on methodological issues. I have to admit that I don't have experience on drafting RfCs for wikipedia, and my views are mostly based on my personal experience on research methodology, so please excuse me if any of my comments seem irrelevant or ignorant of[REDACTED] policies. In research when you want to report accuracy you need to have a set of predetermined criteria that meet the standard of reproducibility. That means that the same results should be able to be obtained by anyone that follows the reported methodology. If this is not possible the study can be rejected as biased. If we don't set a specific set of criteria that should apply for all sources that are included in the media repository, I'm really sorry but I feel that we are failing the criterion of accuracy and we could be accused of bias, thus failing the criterion of neutrality as well. I've been reading carefully all the guidelines that seem to be relevant to this RfC. It seems to me clear that secondary resources are given extra weight after the change. We can argue if that date should be February the 8th (ratification of Prespa agreement by the Greek Parliament), or February the 12th (official implementation of the agreement). But we cannot continue if we don't agree that we need to treat all the sources in an equal and unprejudiced way. After all we can continue debating AFTER the RfC is open, we are not carving rules in stone with this draft anyway. --Argean (talk) 19:22, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

The choice of 12 February was done completely arbitrarily and without discussion. I also don't understand the point of some people trying to prove that "Macedonian" is still being used, which we already know, when the discussion was whether "North Macedonian" or "of North Macedonia" is more popular in English. --Michail (blah) 21:20, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

On top of that, I have some issues with some of the articles you have listed.

• "visiting Macedonian speaker" is a reference to nationality, not a state-related reference. It should be removed.
• All of the references to "Macedonian" in this article have to do with historical usage (eg. in 2016 Zaev promised a new era of Macedonian politics). It should also be removed.
• The only references to Macedonian are regarding the Denar and the language. Dubious that this should be in your list.
• This article also says "oh behalf of the parliament and people of North Macedonia".
• This article uses its only reference of "Macedonian" for a picture of Dimitrov on February 6. Dubious historical usage.
• The FAP article also uses 'Macedonia' as the country name, so I'm not entirely sure they have 'switched' yet.
• Same goes for FOX.
• Articles with inconsistent content should not be left in either category, they should be in a 'uses more than one reference in the same article' category. --Michail (blah) 21:57, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Is this going to be addressed? --Michail (blah) 18:52, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Next steps?

I see we’re minutes from 1800 UTC. Is there still voting for anything? Anybody need help with anything right now? Any tie-breakers needed? For what it’s worth, it seems to me that things are in a reasonably good shape right now. —ThorstenNY (talk) 17:55, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

@ThorstenNY:, since you are here it would really help to define if your Note at Proposal 8, should be interpreted as Support/Conditional or Abstain! Thanks --Argean (talk) 17:59, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

I went on and updated the RCF with Wiz9999's proposal on the disambiguation section. I also moved the Media repository. There was also Azeryion that wanted to vote on Proposal 8 thinking that the deadline is until 18:00 UTC. --Despotak (talk) 18:05, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Since I wanted to scrap the section to begin with, I didn’t want to vote on its contents. So Abstain, then, I suppose. —ThorstenNY (talk) 18:08, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks ThorstenNY! That means that for proposal 8 we have no majority...

Thanks Despotak! I think that we should respect the deadline for voting, since no one rejected for it, when it was set. I had to remove a vote cast by APG1984 after the deadline, because I had already started closing sections and it seemed to me fair to keep the same terms for all sections. I'm pretty sure that the demonym issue will come up during the RfC process anyway.

I think we are ready and I guess we should go live then! --Argean (talk) 18:17, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

👍 —ThorstenNY (talk) 18:20, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

👍 --Despotak (talk) 18:21, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

I might sound ignorant, but should we move the page first? --Argean (talk) 18:24, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

I'm also ignorant about that. --Despotak (talk) 18:33, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

👍 - I agree, go live. If everyone is fine with it, I will remove the prohibition from voting statement now. - Wiz9999 (talk) 18:29, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

yay! --✿ SilentResident ✿ 18:30, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

👍 Let's start then! --Argean (talk) 18:33, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Shall we add a timestamp to the ending date? like 23:59 UTC? --Despotak (talk) 18:32, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

👍 Thanks for the addition of the Media Link repository at the end there Despotak, it's better this stuff is just in a separate section, and now it is available to any that need it. - Wiz9999 (talk) 18:34, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

From Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (Macedonia)/2019 RFC to Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (Macedonia)? If that’s what you mean, I really don’t know what the recommended process for this might be (and if there is one.) Obviously the finished policy should be on the top page after the process has completed. If we moved the RfC there now, more people would find it. What’s there now certainly seems obsolete. So I would be okay with archiving anything that’s there and putting the RfC on top. Or, wait, do you perhaps mean renaming to Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (North Macedonia)/2019 RFC (or Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (North Macedonia))? That seems reasonable, too. —ThorstenNY (talk) 18:33, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

I have added the RfC template and linked from WP:CENT --Danski454 (talk) 18:34, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

That should be fine! Should we add a notice at WP:MOSMAC and Talk:North Macedonia? --Argean (talk) 18:39, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

@Argean: So is this process here supposed to superceede WP:MOSMAC? Should it? Might it be prudent to keep MOSMAC for “FYROM(1991-2019)”-related articles and mentions? And establish “MOSNMAC”? —ThorstenNY (talk) 18:55, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

@ThorstenNY: I'm sure it's an amendment to WP:MOSMAC, because we followed the process set by ARBMAC to review/update MOSMAC. And I just now realized that Danski454 already linked the notice on the top of the page there with this RfC! --Argean (talk) 19:01, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

@Argean:: Makes sense (amending MOSMAC.) But just to be extra-careful: Is there anything in the current MOSMAC that we might (explicitly) want to keep to still have guidance for dealing with 1991–2019-related content? The current MOSMAC is a lot more specific than our proposed Historical Names section. —ThorstenNY (talk) 20:02, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

@ThorstenNY: I have been reading WP:MOSMAC many times, while discussing on the draft, and I did raise the issue at some point that we might need to look more into the 1991-2019 period. The short answer is that I have no idea, and the detailed one that I'm feeling that this time we 're dealing with the name dispute in a different way, because previous WP:MOSMAC was mostly trying to address properly various disambiguation issues on terminology, while now we are moving rather to disambiguation of the content, which is far trickier. I'm still worried that we are missing something especially in regard to past references, but let's wait and see what will come up during the discussion. --Argean (talk) 00:26, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

@FlavrSavr:I have moved the media link repo to the RCF. Add new entries there, directly. --Despotak (talk) 18:44, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Great, thanks. --FlavrSavr (talk) 18:48, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Despotak You did so without addressing the concerns I had with some of the links claiming to use 'Macedonian' for state-sponsored entities. --Michail (blah) 18:53, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

I did not have the time to go over all of them a 3rd time to check for edits. I did check them out as they were posted, and went over all of them again yesterday afternoon. As I wrote in the RFC, "If you spot inconsistencies, please edit accordingly" --Despotak (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:59, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

So I should just remove the contested links without discussion? Why was this posted live when there were concerns? There was an entire discussion about proper methodology and the need to agree on the validity of sources. --Michail (blah) 19:02, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

@Michail: Can you link to (or briefly restate) your concerns about any (which?) links? In general, I would think that these link sections should be treated as living documents, with editors free to add relevant links? I’m not sure under what circumstances links should be removed without discussion (unless they’re very obviously irrelevant.) —ThorstenNY (talk) 19:12, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

@ThorstenNY: My concerns are listed in the discussion part of the media links section above. --Michail (blah) 19:19, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

On top of that, I have some issues with some of the articles you have listed.

• "visiting Macedonian speaker" is a reference to nationality, not a state-related reference. It should be removed.

"Talat Xhaferi, visiting Macedonian speaker present in the hall" --Despotak (talk) 19:25, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

• All of the references to "Macedonian" in this article have to do with historical usage (eg. in 2016 Zaev promised a new era of Macedonian politics). It should also be removed.

I give you that --Despotak (talk) 19:25, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

• The only references to Macedonian are regarding the Denar and the language. Dubious that this should be in your list.

The ISO defined the currency as Denar. So "Macedonian Denar" is used by the media. --Despotak (talk) 19:25, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

• This article also says "oh behalf of the parliament and people of North Macedonia".

By STA. Uses both forms. Should be in both sections --Despotak (talk) 19:25, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

• This article uses its only reference of "Macedonian" for a picture of Dimitrov on February 6. Dubious historical usage.

Opinion piece. I believe that opinion pieces should not be included --Despotak (talk) 19:25, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

• The FAP article also uses 'Macedonia' as the country name, so I'm not entirely sure they have 'switched' yet.

The question is not if the "changed" yet, but if they are going to change. --Despotak (talk) 19:25, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

• Same goes for FOX.
• Articles with inconsistent content should not be left in either category, they should be in a 'uses more than one reference in the same article' category.

All edits done in good faith are welcome. Both myself (a national Greek) and FlavrSavr (a national Macedonian) are humans and we are not above mistakes. --Despotak (talk) 19:29, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Talat Xhaferi's reference is that of nationality, not state-sponsored organs. That article has no place in that list. Also, obviously articles that have not switched to using the country name North Macedonia should not be used to demonstrate that they prefer to refer to the people of North Macedonia as Macedonians instead of North Macedonians. --Michail (blah) 19:34, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

I wouldn’t worry about any of these links. This discussion is going to be open for a while. The newer the links, the more informative they are as how to usage is shaking out. As time goes on, any links posted very soon after the renaming (or whatever deadline we have imposed) will become less and less relevant to informing editors’ opinions. I say, just leave them all in there and keep adding new (relevant) ones. —ThorstenNY (talk) 19:49, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

So much for that mutually-agreed framework of proper methodology then. --Michail (blah) 19:52, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Hmm, just went through the list and I have some serious objections:

1. ] North Macedonian officials and North Macedonian Prime Minister are state-associated ranks
2. North Macedonian minister is a state-associated rank
3. North Macedonian Defense Minister is a state-associated rank
4. North Macedonian official is a state-associated rank

2 sources are dated before 12/02 which is not consistent with our methodology

I'm wondering is there any reason for the inconsistencies? --Argean (talk) 02:17, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

PS. I applied the necessary changes to conform with the methodology. --Argean (talk) 02:21, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

PS2. And just realized that all above were double posts that were included, hopefully by mistake, in both sections for people and state-related --Argean (talk) 02:45, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Restructuring the media links section to avoid clutter and repetition

I would like to propose that the media links section is reordered so that all articles by the same source are shown in this fashion: Example News ( (by AP), , (by AFP), inconsistent – see below). This will group all the articles in clusters of source, and eliminate the "published on" tag which takes up space and is not immediately relevant. --Michail (blah) 21:06, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

I have no problem with this idea, you have my *Support. - Wiz9999 (talk) 00:05, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Support. I'm also adding and International organizations subsection, as the UN published their official guidelines. --FlavrSavr (talk) 10:06, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Support. Unfortunately I do not have the time today to do this, so someone else will have to take the initiative. That was also my reasoning behind asking for the news agencies. I do not know if we should only include the primary source (AP, Reuters, AFP, Xinhua, etc.) for those reports, or continue listing each reproduction separately. In any case, I believe that news agencies should be at the start of each list, due to the wide reach and influence they have. As for the dates, my reasoning was to see if there is a change in reporting as the days pass. Lastly, about the UN directive, sure, add it up. But be careful that it only defines the state-entities adjective. for all other adjectival uses, it only makes the term "Macedonian" allowable but not compulsory. --Despotak (talk) 10:40, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

P.S. The currency designation is now "North Macedonia denar". Does that point to a possible change in the ISO? --Despotak (talk) 10:40, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

@Despotak, Philly boy92, FlavrSavr, and Wiz9999: The media repository needs to be reorganized asap, because people have lost completely the plot. They keep posting numerous reproductions of the same article and a user was almost banned yesterday for edit warring, failing to understand the instructions. Vast majority of the sources come from Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters, plus some local press agencies, and almost 70-80% of the listed articles are just reproductions of the initial reports. I spent some time clustering them together, but still I realize it's impossible to check if every source that is being added every day because it has just appeared on google search, is just a reproduction of the ones already posted. My opinion is we should include from now on only the initial secondary sources and request the editors to search for the initial report by AP, AFP, or other agency, when they locate a source on the web. Or we can separate them in two different categories if we are still fine with including reproductions. Let me know what your thoughts are. By the way we have dropped the dates right? --Argean (talk) 11:37, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Totally agree. I think we should: a) put major news agencies first and just state 'as reproduced by' (only external links, not internal links to every local news outlet) and b) not sure about this, but we might as well omit the publication date. --FlavrSavr (talk) 12:46, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Support, that makes sense. In my turn I would like to suggest

1. To make a subsection that will include all the articles that don't cluster in any of the categories that we have, i.e. objects, other inanimate entities, and abstract concepts. Examples: North Macedonian stock exchange , Macedonian film .
2. To include articles from sources in languages other than English, but still neutral, i.e. not Greek, nor Macedonian. I'm sure we can find some good reliable sources in French, German, or Spanish for example. --Argean (talk)

@Argean: I've already added other adjectival usage section, feel free to add them there. I'm against adding non-English media reports because this is after all the English language Misplaced Pages. However, adding non-English international organizations or state entities might be a good idea. --FlavrSavr(talk) 11:43, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

That is why the "Other proposals" section exists, for a space for more votes to be opened up on related matters, if need be. - Wiz9999 (talk) 11:31, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

@Wiz9999: Fair enough, you are correct reminding me that this is English wikipedia. And thanks for adding the new section for adjectives! --Argean (talk) 12:30, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Oops the above comment was meant to address to @FlavrSavr:, so thanks for the subsection..! --Argean (talk) 14:43, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps being a bit off-topic here, but isn't border, state-related, @Argean:? In the same way authorities is state, not people related? --FlavrSavr (talk) 11:00, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

@FlavrSavr: My opinion is that it is, since it's definitely controlled by the state. I was expecting people to challenge it though, thus I placed it there. Feel free to move it. --Argean (talk) 11:19, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Request for style guides

Since people are looking anyway, can I direct them toward formal style guides please?

As I've said on several name change discussions recently, for me a style guide is a far stronger source than a simple instance of usage. The instance of usage is the choice of a single journalist or editor who may or may not understand the naming issues and who may or may not be following a house style that may or may not exist.

A style guide documents the policy of the organisation and inidcates that the organisation has made a conscious choice as to what name and what adjective to use. Chances are, most publications haven't updated their guides yet, but if they do it'll be useful to reference them. Kahastok talk 12:03, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

you have my Support to do this. - Wiz9999 (talk) 12:59, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

The UN published their term guides today, which I think is the reliable source carrying the biggest weight. As far as journals and news agencies go: Do you know of any style guide publicly available? Usually those are internal? AFAIK, the only publicly available style guide is that of New Europe, which is (a) biased because of the owner and the editorial team being almost entirely Greek and (b) inconsistent because its journalists still not being sure what will „catch on“. --FlavrSavr (talk) 13:59, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

There are a few British ones I know of online - the Guardian, BBC News and Telegraph, and I'm certain that there are others. Chances are an Amazon search will find more that are available as books. Unfortunately, the ones I've checked - including those three - have not been updated yet. Kahastok talk 14:49, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Awesome. Can't wait for them, actually. --FlavrSavr (talk) 18:16, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

United Nations Remark on Adjectives

North Macedonia UN Term NOTE: The adjectival reference to the State, its official organs, and other public entities as well as private entities and actors that are related to the State, are established by law, and enjoy financial support from State for activities abroad shall be in line with its official name or its short name, that is "of the Republic of North Macedonia" or "of North Macedonia". Other adjectival references, including "North Macedonian" and "Macedonian" may not be used in all of the above cases.

Other adjectival usages, including those referring to private entities and actors, that are not related to the State and public entities, are not established by law and do not enjoy financial support from the State for activities abroad may be "Macedonian". The adjectival usage for activities may also be "Macedonian". This is without prejudice to the process established by the Final Agreement regarding commercial names, trademarks and brand names and to the compound names of cities that exist at the date of the signature of the Final Agreement. --Macedonicus (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:26, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Snow close of housekeeping section

Levivich just WP:SNOW closed the housekeeping section. I have undone the close, as I don't think it meets ArbCom's requirements of The discussion must remain open for at least one month after it is opened, and the consensus must be assessed by a panel of three uninvolved contributors. If we get clarification that a similar close is valid, then feel free to undo my edit. Danski454 (talk) 21:51, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

I've restored it. When ArbComm asked for a month long RfC and a panel there was a long running naming dispute. Everyone in real life has reached a compromise and it is not contentious for Misplaced Pages to follow it. WP:IAR applies and other principles. Legacypac (talk) 21:56, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

The motion putting in this procedure came in June 2018, after the Prespa Agreement, so after the RL compromise was reached.

And the whole point of including this section was to get a change through that met the Arbcom requirement - because while the intergovernmental dispute is resolved, there are lots of people who didn't agree with the choice. That's why, in this case, process is important.

And there is no need to close this section early. All the provisions are already being used in practice, whether we want them to be or not. That's why WP:MOSMAC has a header asking editors to apply discretion in this case.

As such, if you insist on retaining the snow close after barely 30 hours (let alone 30 days), I suggest that you go to Arbcom and ask them to ratify your decision. Kahastok talk 22:10, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

I don’t insist on retaining the snow close but I would value editors input as to whether or not it’s a good idea to file a request for amendment/clarification that modified or lifts altogether the 30-day/3-closer restriction. I note that the underlying RM had overwhelming consensus and this RfC doesn’t appear to be contentious. I don’t mind writing the filing but only if others think that doing so would be helpful. Leviv ich 23:15, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

A day after this has opened is too quick. The RfC hasn't even had enough time to auto-list in the various RfC categories. --Michail (blah) 23:23, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

I think we need either an unclose or an Arbcom endorsement. At the moment this is closed, due to User:Legacypac's revert. If it remains closed and there is no Arbcom motion allowing the close, we cannot then claim to have the level of consensus we need to make the required changes to WP:MOSMAC.

WP:IAR is all very well, but I feel it distinctly unwise to rely on it to resolve one of the most contentious disputes in Misplaced Pages history. Kahastok talk 23:36, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Levivich the housekeeping section should be reopened. Concur with Kahastok above. --Michail (blah) 00:38, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

This is true. I also agree with Kahastok. ―Matthew J. Long -Talk- 03:03, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

I’m ok with whatever the consensus is but it’s not my place to unclose anymore. Leviv ich 04:49, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Levivich, I unclosed it. I will not close this discussion nor take any further action in this matter without consensus. I recommend we either place a notice up to not close any section of the RfC or file for a arbcom clarification.―Matthew J. Long -Talk- 05:19, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Bold or Italics for explaining our votes?

We use Bold for the votes themselves, but I thought Italics is more approriate for explaining our votes? The issue isn't important, but I have seen cases where editors, in past RfCs, used bold on keywords that contradicted their votes, causing confusion when votes were being counted after the RfC ended. Shouldnt we just use italics if we wanted to emphasize any keywords when explaining our votes? I shall clarify that, thus far, no inapropriate uses of bold for explaining the votes were detected, so all good. However I am bringing this to everyone's attention, just in case. --✿ SilentResident ✿ 16:02, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Support. For making this the standard for this RfC. (If it comes up.) ―Matthew J. Long -Talk- 20:25, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

The Panel of Three Users

So, according to the procedure we are following, a Panel of Three Uninvolved Contributors is needed to eventually close this thing. How are we going to decide who those people are going to be when we get to that point?

It obviously can't be anyone who voted in the RfC, but what about people who helped draft in the Talk page?

Are we going to elect these three individuals, or should that remain unclear until the closing process has begun? I am quite unsure about that. The Arbitration Committee selected the first admin last time, but they left no clear guidance for us this time on who it should be (except that it didn't have to be all admins). ―Matthew J. Long -Talk- 21:11, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

I think we should wait until the RfC has closed, and it should be people who are completely uninvolved in my opinion. --Michail (blah) 21:15, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

My thought was that we should recruit them at WP:AN maybe a week before we finish, so that they're able to close when they're ready. WP:AN not because we require admins (we don't), but because it's a central place where people are likely to notice the request. Kahastok talk 21:41, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Michail, if that is the case, would you say I might as well participate? I have not actually done so. ―Matthew J. Long -Talk- 21:55, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Panel-forming is typically done the way Kahastok describes, by asking for volunteers at WP:AN; see for a recent example the thread at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive306#Experienced (and flame resistant!) closer needed for contentious RfC. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:01, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Agreed, recruit closer from WP:AN (at least for the lead overseer). - Wiz9999 (talk) 00:52, 18 February 2019 (UTC)