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archiving

I've taken the liberty of archiving some of the threads here: The page was up to 195Kb of stuff, so the RM discussion would be running out of space. I've also put some breaks in the RM section, to make it easier to navigate. I trust that's OK with everyone. Xyl 54 (talk) 17:55, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Another way forward

I stand by my proposal that we look to a other resolution processes along the lines of the Ireland question, the Burma/Myanmar problem, and by that I mean through something like Mediation or Arbitration, or at least, more thorough discussion at WP:NC-CHN. It seems to me that the current situation as it stands (after the former status quo) is most certainly not adequate in any, and neither will the situation be entirely satisfactory after the latest proposals. I also echo the problems of common name and NPOV guidelines (especially as applied to this kind of situation) that they, too could use reform, although that would involve Project-wide changes. There should be a halt to current proposals until such time as established principles are in place, to allow for a situation in which a reasonable comprimise can eventually be reached. Ideally, if that were to happen, the China article would revert back to where it was, because in hindsight, due to the consensus controversy, it seems that the move at the time was not really a good idea. Of course no solution to this problem is perfect, this is just my idea here.--Tærkast (Discuss) 19:54, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Some support I see what you mean by that. I am for Arbitration if there is aboslutely no sort of a compromise, but as of now we have a general agreement as to what we're doing. Ireland and Myanmar do have their own problems on Wikipedia, although I personally think Ireland is not much of a problem, its accepted worldwide as a country (as far as I know). This does need to be resolved, I'm not sure if I would necessarily say Arbitration, but discussion is necessary, and while we had a general consensus, it appears that the lines are beginning to get blurred again. Jpech95 (talk) 01:38, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Full support especially considering one of the triumvirate was a frequent participant in that move discussion. After reverting to the pre-September status quo, the final solution should be sorted out at the community level and should not be decided based on the whim of three people.  The Tartanator  02:37, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Comment Shouldnt this be posted at Talk:China? There is certainly grounds for arbitration based on how that page move was decided, but it has nothing to do with this page. This page will continue to exist, even if its content changes.--Jiang (talk) 11:18, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Done, discussion now at Talk:China#A way forward (PRC/ROC).--Tærkast (Discuss) 13:14, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

  • Support During the poll, some user showed their absolute absense of knowledge about Taiwan. Some post “Support per WP:COMMONNAME” or something like that - clearly they did never think about whether Taiwan is the common name of the Republic of China, the free area of the Republic of China, or something other. If you asked them "common name of what?", they would reply "you idiot, of course the Republic of China!" But once asked "do you know the difference between the Republic of China and the free area of the Republic of China?", they would say "WTF are those weird terms!".
  • Similar case occured on China. Some people may post “Support per WP:COMMONNAME” without thinking. If you asked them "common name of what?", they would reply "you idiot, of course the People's Republic of China!" But once asked "do you know the difference between the People's Republic of China and mainland China?", they would say "Of course! Mainland China is the mainland of the People's Republic of China."
The previous narrative is a bit exaggerated, but it's sometimes the case. ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 16:11, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
To be fair, Mainland China is technically the mainland of the People's Republic of China (although Hainan's kind of in a grey area), seeing as all of the land the Republic of China controls is insular. I suppose its really because nobody has come up with a better translation than 大陆 in English yet. But your point is definitely valid, although I don't really think that any such short posts are really taken by anyone to mean that a consensus has been formed. Remember, it's not about the quantity, but the quality of the posts. Otherwise, Chinese nationals or Taiwanese independence supporters could spam the conversation in their favor.Crispus (talk) 21:27, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
The point if not what do mainland China geographically covers, but that where do PRC directly adminstrated. Have you notived the Macau Peninsula is not a part of mainland China? ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 14:30, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
Yes, that's how the term is generally used, I'll give you that much. However, it feels weird to the people on islands directly controlled by the PRC government that they are referred to as being on the mainland, at least from the conversations I've had with them. Crispus (talk) 02:57, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Support. A project-wide consensus needs to be reached, and long-term editors need to spend effort developing a more sophisticated understanding of the naming dispute. I gave my weak support to the PRC->China move at the time with the assumption that such a move would be done logically and rationally and as a collaborative project. I did not take into account, however, the widespread ignorance and lack of understanding about basic details of the naming dispute. It seems like 90% of the votes and subsequent edits were made by editors (on both sides) who put very little thinking into the consequences of their opinions; in other words, mob mentality took over. Given this, I have to say I regret supporting the first proposal and favor a return to the previous norm. JimSukwutput 17:35, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Neutral about mediation for this article, Oppose for China given the lack of justification for what mediation would achieve and that the current title there clearly follows our policies. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 09:29, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Keep them Separate

"Taiwan" is just a colloquialism for things related an island and variants of it are often to things on that island relevant to humans, at least in the English language. The Republic of China itself is owner or custodian of the island commonly called "Taiwan" by most English speakers. It was founded by so-called revolutionaries who managed to get the Ching Dowager Empress to sign the Ching Dynasty's sovereignty over its territories away to their new state possibly contingent upon a few protections for the royal family (that were possibly not kept). The Ching Dynasty drew its legal power from the Mandate of Heaven which was conceived by the first Zhou kings to legitimate their overthrow of the Shang near the closure of the Second Millennium BCE, and treaties. After a tumultuous early history, this entity lost control of its property in Mainland Asia in 1949 and was forced to take refuge on an island asset signed over to it via treaty with the Empire of Japan years earlier in 1945. The page about the Republic of China should be about this corporate person and a brief history leading up to it for convenience, and should cover events or assets relevant in its existence as one would cover the same of any person. The page about the island called Taiwan should be about the island and its inhabitants and other things relevant to it.

On related note, I thought Chinese history up until the founding of the Republic of China would be good to consider for background information so added it from the People's Republic of China page.

Look up country, nation, and state both here and in a dictionary if you please. You will notice that they are distinctly different things. It might also be good to understand what law is as well as legal persons.Nanib (talk) 08:06, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Moving forward

It appears above there was a consensus for the general idea of what Readin proposed. Basically, Readin proposed three article's covering specific topics:

  • Taiwan - Article on the modern country
  • Republic of China - Article on the government and military (and no doubt other state apparatus) of the Republic of China
  • Taiwan (island) - Article on the island of Taiwan

The above there was consensus for, and as Readin has noted this is a framework rather than an exact plan. Some disputes about how this should happen and some specific details about each article. I'm going to go through a few issues and give proposed solutions and comments, and hopefully we can separate the issues.

There was a couple of comments that the Republic of China (1912–1949) article should be moved to create a new Republic of China article. I think this overcomplicates the issue. The 1912-1949 article was set up to be about the entity while it was on the mainland. It has been pointed out that some content here, especially the infobox, would be very inappropriate on an article that reaches the present. This article doesn't have a great impact on the above proposal no matter what happens, so it's best to deal with that separately. Jiang has opened a discussion on that talkpage which should solve most of the issues with that article anyway, if anyone wishes to participate.

Questions have arose about the island article, what it would cover and how, especially as to whether it should just be geographic or include Culture etc. I personally don't understand why an article on an island can't include information about its inhabitants or history, in fact I would consider it lacking if it didn't have these. It was suggested at one point that we should make this article from scratch, but we already have an article on the island at the current Taiwan. This article opens "Taiwan ... is the largest island", and so it already has a topic that we'd want. The very detailed specifics about what history or what politics etc belongs I think should be left to specific discussion on that article. It's already an island article, so simply moving that to Taiwan (island) would be quick and efficient.

There have been multiple suggestions on what to make a modern country article based on, mostly on whether it should be the current Taiwan article or this article. Following the above logic that the current Taiwan article has been built around the idea that that page is about an island, it would not be a good base for a page about an entire country. In addition, this current article has been generally designed around the modern country. Almost all sections basically cover what happens in the modern country. The obvious exception here would be history, which obviously focuses on quite a bit more than just the modern country. However, this is one section in many, so overall a simple move of this article to Taiwan would again create an much more focused article with minimal hassle (and similarly it should be very easy to either move or copy the History section on Taiwan to this new article).

This of course leaves the Republic of China article. Considering the 1912-1949 article is probably set to be refocused and no single article exists with a similar topic than this is the article that should probably be created from scratch. However it won't be completely from scratch. The history section in the country article as noted above is a bit odd, however it would be perfect as history for an article on the government. It covers the end of imperial rule to the present. In addition (and this is a bonus, not necessary to current restructuring), assuming everything above takes place, and assuming the 1912-1949 article is fixed as Jiang proposes, we can specifically link certain periods of that history to newly focused articles. Early history to Beiyang government, history after that to the refocused 1912-1949 article, and post 1949 to the new Taiwan article.

TLDR Summary: Taiwan → Taiwan (island), Republic of China → Taiwan, a new Republic of China article created, and history shuffled around a bit.

Will there be some overlap? Of course there will, but that's the case of any article on wikipedia. They will overlap as each needs to be able to standalone. However, the main focus of each will be clear and identifiable, and there will be an easy overarching structure to follow. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 16:55, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't see how an article can talk about a country without talking about the government. That makes no sense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.174.144 (talk) 16:58, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
That does make no sense, however, nowhere did I say the country article wouldn't talk about the government. I specifically mentioned that basically everything in this article except history can be transferred with no problem to an article named Taiwan. This article includes a government section, therefore it would be on the new article. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 17:04, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
I see no such consensus. And even if there were such a consensus formulated around an incredible ignorance of basic historical facts, it would be insane to follow it. Republic of China is not Taiwan; one is a state, the other is a province. Until users here educate themselves about this basic dichotomy, there will be no agreement with regards to the naming dispute. JimSukwutput 17:28, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
Similarly, until some users accept the fact that the state is often called Taiwan then their posts asserting otherwise have no debatable value. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 17:40, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
Plenty of people call Africa a country; that does not make it correct. Arguments from common usage are not valid when they are internally inconsistent. I wonder what you have to say to the many editors from the Republic of China on Wikipedia who are suddenly told that Wikipedia would no longer use their country's real name because some foreigners found it strange. JimSukwutput 18:34, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
I highly doubt you will find any reliable sources which say that Africa is a country. On the other hand there are mountains of English language reliable sources which will refer to the Republic of China as "Taiwan". We are not making a statement about what the country's "real name" is when we call the Republic of China "Taiwan". We are just acknowledging what reliable sources call the country and following that convention. It's just like we aren't saying that Bill Clinton's "real name" isn't William Jefferson Clinton when we call the article about him Bill Clinton. All we are saying that he is commonly called "Bill Clinton" by reliable sources, and therefore we call him that too, because that is the name that most people will recognize.TheFreeloader (talk) 19:27, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
I'd tell the those from the ROC exactly what I tell those from Myanmar and Timor-Leste, that per policy official names do not override common names. If a user can prove the official name is more common, great. If not, c'est la vie. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 23:23, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
This has to be the most ridiculous interpretations of WP:COMMONNAME I've seen yet. Here is an actual quote from the policy: "ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined by reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources. Neutrality is also considered; our policy on neutral titles, and what neutrality in titles is, follows in the next section. When there are several names for a subject, all of them fairly common, and the most common has problems, it is perfectly reasonable to choose one of the others."
Being the most common name alone is not a sufficient criterion for being used as the article name; when we consider factors such as neutrality and ambiguity, the similarly common name "Republic of China" is clearly superior. In the case of Myanmar and Timor-Leste, there is no ambiguity over the names used - people disagree about whether to use Myanmar or Burma, but they clearly understand that they refer to the same thing. This is not the case for the term "Taiwan", which can refer to a large number of entities - the island, the PRC province, the ROC province, the state, the nation, or the territory. JimSukwutput 05:57, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
I don't know why calling the Republic of China "Taiwan" isn't neutral, you gotta expand on that. Do you have source to confirm that doing so isn't considered neutral? And on ambiguity, the name "Republic of China" does also have its problems in that regard, as it can both refer the whole of China in period from the fall of the Qing dynasty until the end of the civil war, the modern self-governing entity situated on the island of Taiwan and surrounding islands, and the government controlling both those entities. I'm not sure that of those options, the modern entity is anywhere what "Republic of China" most often refers to. And I don't think it works to try mingle those topics together, as seems to have been the strategy up until now.TheFreeloader (talk) 07:06, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
I can't believe you just asked me for a source establishing that there is a controversy around the Republic of China naming dispute. There are countless articles on Wikipedia about it, such as this and this (you can check the list of references). For those less inclined to go through the article, let me sum up what the problems are. First, using the name Taiwan to represent the state/territory that ROC controls implies that the state Republic of China is only limited to Taiwan island/province, and that PRC is the legitimate government of "mainland" China, which is clearly in dispute, especially from those in ROC who advocate for Chinese reunification. Second, it implies that Taiwan is a country (and hence independent from the country China), which many Chinese on both sides of the strait dispute. In short, by using the name Taiwan in place of ROC, we bring in all the messy disputes from politics, history and law, etc., with only one not-so-obvious benefit: the article would be easier to find for Western users. JimSukwutput 08:20, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
Calling the ROC "Taiwan" is almost certainly even more common than calling the PRC "China" - in the few sources which don't call the PRC "China" they seem to always call the ROC "Taiwan". -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 09:44, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
Alright, I will buy the premise that some people may not like that the ROC is called "Taiwan". This does however not prove the name the "Republic of China" is any less controversial a name for the modern self-governing entity. The PRC would probably claim that "the Republic of China" no longer exists and hasn't since the civil war. Taiwan independence advocates on the other hand might claim that "Republic of China" is just an archaic name for the country which only happens to still be around in some law documents as the official name. So I'm not sure we are staying out of the dispute with the current naming. What I think is the best way to stay out of the dispute, is to not take politics into consideration at all, but stay with the language usage of our sources. That way we are not taking any sides, as we are not making any direct decision on the matter, rather we are just following conventional usage. Also, we must assume, given that this is the English Wikipedia, that most of our readers are English-speakers, be it as a first or second language, therefore I think it's only natural that we base our article naming on expectations of English-speakers. And I don't think it should be a small priority that our article should be easy to find, and that the topic of them should be easy to recognize for our readers. But besides, I don't think that those are only advantages of the purposed naming scheme anyways. I think what is probably the main advantage of changing the current naming of the articles is that it allows us to separate what is clearly distinct and separate topics from each other. That is the topic of the modern self-governing entity commonly referred to as Taiwan and the government which governs presently governs it, and previously governed all of China. These are not the same thing, and we cannot treat both topics properly if they are to be covered in a single article.TheFreeloader (talk) 09:52, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
Surely the best next step is to produce a list of English language sources and see what they do, as we did with China. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 16:17, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
Surely, Freeloader, if you knew the PRC's attitude better, it would avoid any naming of the ROC as "Taiwan" at all costs. Also, keep in mind that there is a difference between claiming something "no longer exists" and stridently claiming something has no legitimacy, which is the case. :::::::::"given that this is the English Wikipedia" is wholly irrelevant, considering the other language versions of Wiki probably have similar policies, and the media of other Western languages surely calls PRC "China" and ROC "Taiwan", yet the majority of these Wikis follow the former status quo. GotR Talk 19:26, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
Well, we do have policies which say we should keep in mind that this is an English encyclopedia, especially when naming articles (WP:English). On the other hand we do not have any policies which say we should take into consideration what the other language version of Wikipedia do. The different language version of Wikipedia operate more or less independently, and we are under no obligation to follow their example. I'm not sure what you mean by the first remark about the PRC, but my point is that the only way not take sides in this issue, is to not take politics into consideration at all.TheFreeloader (talk) 20:12, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
Ignoring or avoiding the political content behind terms like "Taiwan" is not the way to go. There's an idiom in Chinese that describes this kind of willful blindness: Stealing a bell while covering your own ears. When any reader sees the term, they'll put it in a political context and either feel offended or gleeful. The only way to operate is to use a politically neutral term, not ignoring the politics behind terms. And Republic of China, being the official and historical name, is the closest to a politically neutral term that we have. Not to mention that it is also unambiguous - which I find to be even more important than political neutrality. Again, think of how many things the word "Taiwan" can refer to - the province, the territory, the island, the state or the country. The term Republic of China, when read in the modern day, can only refer to the state, which is the topic of this article, hence its unambiguity. JimSukwutput 21:19, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
Well then how would you refer to China in the period 1912-1949, and how would you refer to the government which ruled China in that period and afterwards continued to rule Taiwan and surrounding islands? And on neutrality, I just don't see how you can say these naming issues are such a one-way-street. Wouldn't PRC and Taiwan independence supporters get equally offended when they come and see our current naming scheme. And as it is now, we have even gone out of our way, and suspended the policies we normally use just so that we can present this, in their eyes, offensive naming scheme. To me that just doesn't seem fair.TheFreeloader (talk) 02:41, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
PRC supporters recognize that there is a Republic of China government (but regard it as illegitimate). Taiwan independence supporters also recognize this fact. They're not happy with it, but they wouldn't consider it biased - it is the country's official name, after all. JimSukwutput 01:50, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I like this idea the best, I have for a while. Since this is the consensus, when are we implementing this? Jpech95 (talk) 21:01, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I support creating Taiwan (island) from scratch rather than moving Taiwan over to that location because having content beyond the geography of the island will produce the same problem we have now - too much overlap between the Republic of China and Taiwan articles. Unlike Taiwan, few links would head to Taiwan (island). Content that can be handled within the confines of the Taiwan article have no purpose being reproduced at Taiwan.

I think the least disruptive method, especially with a lack of clear understanding of where consensus lies and hundreds if not thousands of links such as [[Republic of China|Taiwan]] relying on the current setup, is to edit the articles in stages, rather than move them at once and then edit them. The steps could be in chronological order (1) create Taiwan (island) article, (2) implement WikiProject Countries template at Taiwan, (3) rewrite multiple sections of Republic of China article. Asking for articles to be moved at the beginning will generate a whole lot of controversy.

The titles of articles should be based on the common name, but the text of articles should be based on accuracy and precision. This is an important distinction. The proposed changes should not be used to change the naming conventions and have general mentions of "Republic of China" changed to "Taiwan" where the former would be more accurate (i.e. in the political context). I think if we all recognized this up front as consensus, it could allay some of the concerns of those opposed to the proposed changes.--Jiang (talk) 23:57, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I see what you mean, that in practice it might be easier to do it the way you suggest, as that avoid as a potentially long and drawn-out requested move discussion. But is that really the right way to do these changes? Aren't we sorta sneaking these changes past the community then? I think we risk getting a lot of instability around these changes if people feel they were not made with the proper amount of consensus.TheFreeloader (talk) 02:41, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
I don't see it as "sneaking" these changes past the community as each change must be proposed and discussed before it is implemented, but it's a lot easier to gain consensus on small changes in increments than it is to gain consensus on one big swooping change, and then have to backtrack on that change. The proposal is not actually a move in the first place - it's a partial move. There are many people out there who are unhappy with the China move, as evidenced by the almost continual discussion about it on that page. I, for one, think that in the face of "no consensus", the job of an administrator is not to pick the side with the strongest arguments, but to step back the steer the community to an alternative compromise solution that could potentially have more consensus than what was originally proposed. --Jiang (talk) 11:49, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
Well if we a problem with duplication now then that's not really much of an issue for moving the different articles. That issue doesn't get affected at all, and if we create the island article from scratch then suddenly we have the problem of duplication between the ROC article and the Taiwan article, so really that's just shifting the problem elsewhere rather than solving it. Rewriting the articles in stages will in the end achieve exactly the same result, but take much longer to do, involve far more work from all parties, and mess up attribution everywhere. The proposed changes would not affect the naming conventions at all, that would have to be discussed separately. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:46, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
"suddenly we have the problem of duplication between the ROC article and the Taiwan article" - you aren't being serious if you think that isn't a problem already in almost every article on Taiwan/ROC that we have (for example I just discovered this completely redundant article). And the proposed changes are surely not going to make it any better. JimSukwutput 01:47, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
The proposal wasn't meant to address redundancy, and in fact wouldn't affect it at all. That issue would be completely unchanged. With that in mind, redundancy is not an issue on which to base a support or an oppose this request. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:46, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
note to others: User_talk:Jiang#ROC_talk_followup.
I think the main problem is that we don't quite have what would appear in the Republic of China article written up in concrete details yet. Start a draft?--Jiang (talk) 11:52, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

I think Chipmunkdavis'es proposal is sound from what I've seen above. Beyond495 (talk) 16:36, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree that Chipmunkdavis's proposal is a good one. I think it should be implemented immediately. John Smith's (talk) 11:30, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Closing request

Hi guys. I'm not too sure if there's an agreement on the result of the move requestrenaming discussion above, so I have made a request to two admins to look into this. As part of that request, I've asked them to consider whether a panel of three closing admins might be suitable as it was for the China article. Even if it's not entirely necessary, given the passion from people on both sides of the argument I think a formal close by an admin or admins might be a good idea. John Smith's (talk) 10:57, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

What move request? There is no formal move request being made above, though moves may be part of the solution to the discussions taking place. However, having some third parties come in and try to gauge where consensus could be headed, without taking direct action, might be useful.--Jiang (talk) 11:21, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, now clarified. John Smith's (talk) 12:06, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
As far as policy is concerned, administrators, even if there are three of them, can't do anything binding here. They can only offer third party persuasion. Perhaps we could employ the Mediation Cabal to help move things along?--Jiang (talk) 12:40, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
Actually, admins can take a decision as to the outcome of a discussion. If certain editors try to bypass or ignore that consensus they can be sanctioned per usual procedures. John Smith's (talk) 14:01, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
Oh, and arguably the thread at the top of this page is part of the ongoing move request, which was never closed. Which is another reason why admins can decide the outcome of the discussion. John Smith's (talk) 14:04, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
The thread at the top of this page is likewise not a move request and explicitly so. Admins are not to rule on content. They are only to gauge consensus when a specific action, such as moving or deleting a page, is required of them. Otherwise, any uninvolved editor can gauge consensus, but this has nothing to do with administrator status. Note: Wikipedia:Consensus: "administrators are primarily concerned with policy and editor behavior and will not decide content issues authoritatively." We have separate Wikipedia:Dispute resolution processes at work.
This is my understanding of current policy. If you can cite to a page that states otherwise, then please do.--Jiang (talk) 14:19, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
I said that arguably the thread is part of the ongoing move request, which was not closed. I think you're being a bit rigid if you're saying that it's 100% impossible that's the case.
This is not a content dispute, it is about article titles. The two are different. Administrators can take decisions as to the outcome of discussions and whether there is consensus or not. Whether they then make changes is a different matter. But if they close a discussion and then say "consensus is that x", editors can use that if there are further disagreements. The dispute resolution process allows for users to be sanctioned for ignoring consensus established through move requests and similar discussions. John Smith's (talk) 14:57, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
Furthermore, I've checked and it was an admin (RegentsPark) that moved the PRC article to "China". He also led on/initiated the closing decision. John Smith's (talk) 15:05, 11 December 2011 (UTC)


This is not just about article titles; it is very much about what content goes where. The only reason a "renaming" or "move" has been mentioned above as a preferably solution is to preserve the page history at specific locations. The current proposal is about the fundamental reorganization of two existing articles into three, not a clean move, for which there is no consensus based on the most recent two move requests. The only reason admins need to "close" a discussion is to take (or not take) a certain action regarding it. If there is no clear action to take, then what's the point of "closing" a discussion? Please see Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution#Resolving_content_disputes. By definition, there is no consensus if there is a content dispute in place.
What you are asking to be done here all seems outside the scope of administrator duties. I would prefer that you used the term "uninvolved editor" instead of "administrator". There is a formal Wikipedia:Requests for comment process we could follow here, as was done for the China article prior to the move request, but those can be closed by any "uninvolved editor," and we would need to follow through with an actual Rfc for that to happen.
If you happen to be aware of any policy I am not, please cite to it, because it would certainly help a rusty 8-year old admin like me understand what is and is not allowed these days.--Jiang (talk) 15:35, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
Let me add, though, if the question is "Is there consensus for Readin's proposal?" (where there are comments from a wide number of users either in support or in opposition) rather than "Should the articles be moved according to Chipmunkdavis's proposal?" (which is merely discussion among some involved editors, myself included, on further steps to take), then perhaps there is a role for an uninvolved editor to play in deciding that. However, Readin made it clear that he did not propose to move any article in his proposal. That has only been proposed in later discussions based off his proposal.--Jiang (talk) 16:03, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it was a proper move discssion. I don't recall if a template was added and there's none there now but the point of a template like {{Requested move}} is to attract the attention of editors so a proper discussion can take place. That has happened anyway, because many editors watch this page and because of notifications placed on related and project pages. So the lack of a template does not render the discussion meaningless, and as it's certainly been going on for long enough that it could do with closing.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 15:26, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Where is the move discussion? Which section are you referring to? There is the #New Proposal for which a move was not part of the original proposal, and a template was added halfway through the proposal and then promptly removed and not re-added as a move was not part of the original proposal. Please read Readin's bolded text here. There is also #Moving forward which contemplates moving articles as a means to enact the content reorganization, but does not contain a typical "move discussion" with "support" and "oppose" comments, or solicitation of comments from a wide variety of users, and a template was never used for this section. We're already getting somewhere, but just need to hammer out some details. What's the hurry? --Jiang (talk) 15:42, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
"New proposal" got far the most number of comments and votes from individual users. It was also the first discussion, so it's clear to me that's the successor to the original move request. I don't see the problem with getting some admins involved to indicate if there was consensus or not. A new consensus can form if appropriate. John Smith's (talk) 16:51, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
As I stated above, I'd certainly welcome having an uninvolved editor come here to state whether there is consensus for "New Proposal" (aka Readin's proposal), but this proposal (in Readin's bolded words) explicitly states that no articles will be moved. This was of course an alternative proposal to the move request recently closed as having "no consensus to move," and made when the discussion already seemed headed that way.--Jiang (talk) 17:08, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
It has been shown that there are many people that want to modify the articles pertaining to the ROC/Taiwan, and there have been many proposals, some more popular than others, some more questionable than others, and I, as a supporter of modifying the articles, would like to see this go to Mediation because right now there are different ideas which some like, some don't, and some don't understand. If we can get everyone together and get this moving along a bit faster, we can get an agreement that in totality, everyone will like (for the most part) and we can solve this situation dealing with whether we should side more with WP:NPOV or WP:COMMONNAME without violating either one. However on the same page, the section titled "New Proposal" has gotten rather involved and moving so it is possible that if we can keep it moving and work certain things out we could be able to resolve the dispute without going to Mediation. I support either decision. Jpech95 21:52, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
While an admin could summarise any discussion here and close it, I don't see any actions they could take at the moment. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 13:09, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
I split out some geographical information from Taiwan into Taiwan (island), since that seems to be the least controversial of the proposals. At the moment, this article describes the Taiwan Area of the Republic of China, which includes Taipei, Quemoy, Matsu, etc. as opposed to just the island or the province. Shrigley (talk) 22:14, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, Shrigley, I'd prefer to have an uninvolved admin (or three) take a decision on the result of the discussions. I've reinstated the tags. If you think there's no controversy about the fact the move requests failed, perhaps you could ask someone on the Administrator's Board to take this forward. I'd appreciate it if they could address the proposal at the top of this page, if it achieved consensus and what the effect (if anything) of it is. John Smith's (talk) 22:39, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
But thanks for starting editing of the articles in question, that's very important. John Smith's (talk) 22:40, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
Shrigley, as much as I commend affirmative action, we now have two articles, Taiwan and Taiwan (island), which cover what is nominally exactly the same topic. The whole point of discussing this all together is that it can't be done in smaller parts (or if it can a good way hasn't been suggested), because weird situations like having two articles about one island exist. I suggest you delete the page you created as a duplicate. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 02:53, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
Actually he had made a good start. There is no doubt to be issues mentioned above (thanks for pointing that out), but at the same time having such a start is also a good thing. There is no need to delete the page as a duplicate for now, but to consider how to actually solve the problem regarding possible duplicate topic in these articles. Actually he did it halfway - we also need to move some contents from this article (Republic of China) to Taiwan (as well as working on the template on the latter page etc), not just splitting out some geographical information from Taiwan into Taiwan (island) as he had done so far. Try to continue the good effort, and it will work. --Agunworks (talk) 03:39, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
This is a blatant attempt to pre-empt the decision before a consensus is recognized. I strongly suggest deleting the split. JimSukwutput 07:34, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
Agreed. What Shrigley has done was a unilateral attempt in altering the context of the articles in question, and causes more confusion. There has not been any consensus yet on how to resolve this naming and/or contextual dispute. The Taiwan article has become extremely confusing. Since Shrigley has edited it to "Taiwan (Chinese: 台灣; pinyin: Táiwān, Listeni/ˌtaɪˈwɑːn/ ty-wahn), is an island country in East Asia.", how come there isn't a country infobox being added in, while the geographical infobox still remains? Most country articles also have their long form, in this case, "officially the Republic of China" are also included in the article. That is totally missing since Shrigley's edit. The content is almost similar the new Taiwan (island) article, and there are so many overlaps. Put it simply, I strongly urge editors and administrators alike to refrain from making any unilateral edits before a consensus is reached. Raiolu (talk) 09:20, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
There has not been any consensus yet on how to resolve this naming and/or contextual dispute.Hold on a minute, are you trying to claim that Readin's proposal did not achieve consensus? John Smith's (talk) 13:05, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
True, in any case Shrigley's edit is basically along the road of Readin's proposal which already achieved major consensus. Cannot agree with Raiolu's comment above that it was simply a unilateral attempt performed when there has not been any consensus yet on how to resolve this naming and/or contextual dispute. Shrigley had made a start, but anyway I had already mentioned above it still requires work to achieve the proposal, including the infobox on that page etc. --Agunworks (talk) 15:40, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
I am not "trying to claim" that there is no consensus. In fact I do not see any at all. The "support" votes are controversial themselves, while those who opposed had reasonable grounds for opposing, but instead had their comments attacked and denounced by the "support" camp. A consensus is supposed to seek and take in all legitimate and reasonable input, and use them to move forward. But what I see is a band of happy Pan-Green supporters. So, where is this consensus? Raiolu (talk) 18:46, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
Good grief, this is a political disagreement. No wonder there's trouble. John Smith's (talk) 19:57, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
John Smith's, you keep bringing up this "uninvolved admin" or "three admins" as if it were part of some standard binding dispute resolution process. Where in Wikipedia:Dispute resolution does it say to summon three uninvolved admins (or even one...)? There will only be long term stability if the multiple parties to a dispute accept the non-binding solution to a dispute. I, for one, will not respect the decision of "three admins" or even "five admins" as binding unless everyone both for and opposed to the changes agree that their decision would be binding. Mediation is a good way to go here, but for mediation to succeed, all involved editors must agree to it. Binding decisions are binding if the involved parties agree what they are binding, or if the decision is clearly supported by policy, or if the arbitration committee issues a decision within its defined role. The role of an admin in closing a move proposal actually has policy backing; the role in closing an evolving, open-ended discussion does not. Please respond to my post at 15:35, 11 December 2011 (UTC) above.--Jiang (talk) 03:57, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
I've already explained that a panel of admins took a decision as to the outcome of the PRC/China discussions and then took action accordingly. They have every ability to do this. If you think they're wrong, go to the admin board and ask if those three admins overstepped their authority. Until you get such clarification I have no reason to believe they acted wrongly. John Smith's (talk) 08:09, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
The three admins were closing a move discussion. Closing move decisions and acting on them is well within the community defined duties of being an administrator. Closing discussions in general is not. I am not making a claim here that they acted wrongly on that page; I am stating that there is nothing on this page that requires administrator attention. I am an administrator, and this is my understanding of what administrators can and cannot do. Please cite to specific policy if you think otherwise.--Jiang (talk) 09:00, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
I have already said that I see the thread at the top of this page being a continuation of the more formal move proposal. He was clarifying how the pages would change and dealing with objections that had been raised previously. John Smith's (talk) 13:01, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
By the way, if you want mediation, start a new thread, list all the involved users and ask them to write "agree" or "disagree" next to it. Stop talking about mediation, just do it. John Smith's (talk) 08:10, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I think the 3 Admins on what is now the "China" article have made it clear that conscensus doesn't matter on this topic. What matter is COMMONNAME and POVTITLE. In that regard, the changes that have been made on this article are appropriate and the only thing left to do is to change the name of this "Republic of" China article to "Taiwan". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.78.140 (talk) 16:38, 14 December 2011 (UTC)‎

Please remember to sign your posts by typing ~~~~ at the end. The admins didn't decide that consensus doesn't matter, they decided that, as is the case in all discussions, arguments founded on policy are stronger than arguments founded on speculation and hearsay. The consensus amongst strong arguments was that our COMMONNAME and POVTITLE guidance applies in these situations. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 22:13, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
None of what you've just typed changes the fact that it's time to just rename this article to "Taiwan" per COMMONNAME and POVTITLE. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.78.140 (talk) 18:41, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Three cheers for Bold, Revert, Discuss!

I'm glad to see Shrigley's bold edits to the articles. I'm a believer in the, so called, "Bold, revert, discuss cycle" (BRD); and it seems that editors here may have been a little stuck on "D". I've noticed several other editors above have said they disagreed with Shrigley's edits; the cycle tells us that if an editor truly disagrees with those edits, then they should modify or Revert them, and then Discuss it. Then somebody else will hopefully make some (different) Bold edits, which can then be accepted or rejected, and discussed.. etc.. repeat until exhaustion. It still seems possible to me that a little more BRD could sort out this mess without "mediation". Mlm42 (talk) 20:29, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I, and I think others, are stuck on the R because Shrigley created an article, an action which we nonadmins can't revert. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 12:30, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
I haven't looked at what edits were recently made, but the discussion cycle has gone on long enough for something to happen. If there is enough agreement that the Taiwan article should be about the country/state and not "just the island" then put the infobox on that article and let the normal editing process take over. At this point things are being discussed simply to have the discussion - while the objectors are obstructing and placing roadblocks. Just declare the scope of each article, which has been discussed and generally agreed, and move on. Trust the editing process, not endless discussion. SchmuckyTheCat (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:24, 14 December 2011 (UTC).
I'm somewhat inclined to agree here. Without prejudice to what the appropriate solution actually is, this issue seems to have become bogged down in unproductive and sometimes circular discussion. I don't think this is a candidate for mediation either, it's just something that needs to be pushed through. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 22:16, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
There is an unproductive and circular discussion because some users are not willing to educate themselves of the basic facts of this case before they spew their nonsense. And now they are trying to bypass this discussion altogether by implementing a proposal which has a bare consensus from users who mostly have no experience in this project and who have gathered here through wiki-canvassing, in an attempt to pass a proposal which has effectively been rejected countless times in three years. If you try to pass the same proposal 20 times, of course you will get one time where most of your opponents happen to be away. Instead of waiting for other users to comment, or to debate with the numerous opponents civilly, some users - with the support of others - have gone on, against Wikipedia policy, to implement a series of irreversible, unorganized and poorly thought-out changes (even some of the supporters of the proposal recognize that these edits are poorly made; yet, no one has the courage to revert his changes.)
As an example of the kind of cowardice and blatant ignorance of the supporters of this proposal, I assure you not single one of them will be able to answer this question: If you support moving the ROC article to Taiwan, what do you propose we do with the Fujian Province, Republic of China article? Please note that this is not a rhetorical question, and I want a serious answer. If you can give me a good suggestion instead of dodging around the edges, I might just support the proposal. But I will not support the current proposal which has been passed through mob mentality, as long as there is no systematic discussion on how we deal with the hundreds of ROC/Taiwan-related articles on Wikipedia. JimSukwutput 02:26, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
To humour you, it could easily be moved to Fujian Province, Taiwan. Please cut down on the personal attacks, they often lead to unfortunate consequences. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 02:47, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
I was about to say something similar you but there was an edit conflict on my part somewhere. Nevertheless, it is obvious there is a Chinese Fujian Province, as it is governed by the PRC, and a Taiwanese Fujian Province, governed by the ROC, we could just simply say Fujian Province, Taiwan, should we want to keep provincial articles. Jpech95 03:21, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
Maybe we understand you, but we disagree with you anyway. There are a number of things that we can do with that article. We could keep it at Fujian, ROC: no change needed. Or we could also name it Fujian, Taiwan: Taiwan in the sense of ROC, like how Quemoy University is said to be in Taiwan. As another option, since the ROC's provincial governments (Taiwan Province, Fujian Province) were dismantled all but in name since its democratic reforms, we could make it a disambiguation page for the more substantive counties. That article is actually more about Fujian, Taiwan than Fujian, ROC, because it contains no information about mainland Fujian from 1912-1949, which is far more notable than some insignificant rocks abutting the real Fujian that Taipei's military occupied for propaganda purposes. Anyway, this is more diversion and delay from the old opponents of the China move. User:虞海 has reverted my two edits,[1][2] under an ironic 'no consensus' rationale. If he continues not to 'discuss' as part of the BRD cycle, my incremental implementations of the consensus should be restored and continued. Shrigley (talk) 02:50, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
Denigrating fellow editors on the basis of your perceived superiority on a given subject is not welcome on Wikipedia. This is something that someone of your undoubtedly vast "experience in this project" should be well aware of already, Jim. It's disingenuous to imply that the same proposal is being pushed repeatedly when it's plainly obvious that the context and circumstances of the proposal have changed, not the least influence being the PRC->China move. It's little surprise that editors have become frustrated with the lack of progress in this discussion, given that it has fragmented across multiple suggestions, proposals and complaints without any real direction being focused on. That these other editors disagree with you doesn't make them cowardly or ignorant, nor are you inherently correct and other editors wrong by virtue of nothing more than you thinking you know better.
As Chipmunkdavis humoured you with above, the article could quite happily live at Fujian Province, Taiwan, or Fujian Province (Taiwan) with the country name 'Taiwan' being a disambiguation device in the title, or a paired rename to Fujian (Chinese province) / Fujian (Taiwanese province) for a more specific disambiguation. While not a perfect comparison, I can see loose parallels with, for instance, Christmas Island - it belongs to Australia (the country) but is not part of Australia (the continent). Similarly, Fujian is part of Taiwan (the country) but not part of Taiwan (the island). This is not an uncommon distinction. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 03:09, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
Stuff it, TechnoSymbiosis. Nowhere in my comment did I claim to have a "vast experience in this project" (though plenty of the other commentators, such as Yu Hai and Jiang, do). I demand that you produce this statement or apologize to me for making such baseless insulting accusations. As for the rest of your comment, it shows vividly your incredible lack of knowledge concerning this topic - calling something "Fujian Province, Taiwan" makes as little sense as calling the UK capital "London, Northern Ireland". You might wish to read a little bit about the history of the Fujian province; but given the attitude you have taken in this discussion - namely to insult and ignore other users until you've had your way - one shall not have much hope for that. I do not claim to be superior to you by virtue of knowing more about this topic; but I do believe it is only proper to know a thing or two about the topic before spewing nonsense. JimSukwutput 03:46, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
You criticised "users who mostly have no experience in this project", a fact you have little to no evidence of and which is accompanied by the implication that you have more experience than the editors you criticise. As someone with more experience than those you criticise as having, you should know better, so you have little excuse for your conduct. I would suggest, before you showcase hypocrisy any further than you already have, that you refrain from making "baseless insulting accusations" about other editors before you cry about being subjected to them yourself. The rest of your reply is meaningless, since your personal opinion (baseless, one might suggest) of what I do and don't know, or for that matter what any of our other valuable editors do or don't know, has no bearing on what actually happens on this project. I'll re-iterate more firmly since more than one person didn't get through to you the first time: cease making negative assumptions and personal attacks against other editors. If you can't accomplish that, you need to step away from this topic area. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 04:03, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
Nowhere did I make an insult against another user. If you consider pointing out someone's inexperience and lack of knowledge an insult, then you need to grow a thicker skin. (And I restate: I am not claiming to have any extensive experience in this topic area; I do not. But there are many users that do, and they're either being left out of the discussion or deliberately ignored.) If somebody in this thread is willingly to discuss with me on the details of the proposal, and how specifically to implement it (if it were to be implemented at all), I will be willing to participate. And if during this process someone points to anything that I am ignorant about, I would be glad to study historical sources and gain a better understanding. That is the approach every Wikipedia editor should take, and which the editors of this thread have repeatedly failed to do. Instead, you cry "personal attacks" and seek to deflect the discussion on the proposal and marginalize opponents. JimSukwutput 04:09, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
Jim, more than one editor has told you that you made personal attacks. How many editors do you suppose need to tell you before you'll accept it? Nobody needs a thicker skin, you simply need to acknowledge you're in the wrong and avoid making such comments in future. If this is how you react to people pointing out you're in the wrong, I have little faith that you'll be as accommodating of being told you're wrong on the actual subject matter as you claim. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 04:17, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
I can also claim that you have made personal attacks; that does not make it a legitimate response, because you haven't. Please point to me any specific statements you consider personal attacks. I will refrain from making them further if you consider them offensive; in return, I will suggest that crying personal attacks at every instance of negative criticism, and marginalizing other users by making statements such as "not welcome on Wikipedia" is a poor way of resolving a content dispute. If we're done, let me try to bring this discussion from us back to the actual topic: Does any user have a systematic suggestion for what we are going to do with the hundreds of ROC/Taiwan/Fujian related articles once this name change occurs? If not, why are we making incremental and poorly organized changes to several articles and planting the seed to further disputes in this topic area before we know what we're doing? JimSukwutput 04:23, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
Easily done:
  • You referred to other editors as "spew[ing] their nonsense".
  • You declared, without evidence, that editors in favour of a particular change "mostly have no experience in this project".
  • You made the baseless accusation that those same editors "have gathered here through wiki-canvassing". Note that false accusations are a recognised form of personal attack in our policies.
  • You referred to editors you disagree with as having "cowardice and blatant ignorance".
In all cases you have commented about the editors directly and not the content of their contributions. These are, by definition, personal attacks and they are not acceptable. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 04:35, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
I think it should stay at Fujian Province, Republic of China. Compare with Taiwan Province, People's Republic of China, which stays fine too. Not to mention that it is not really a complete move from Republic of China (ROC) article to Taiwan, as the ROC article will still remain, albeit with some shift of contents. --Agunworks (talk) 03:42, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
Exactly. Fujian Province, Republic of China isn't about this article, it's about a tangent. Which is the kind of tangent that isn't immediately relevant to whether or not the country infobox belongs on the Taiwan article with a rescope of the subject matter. In one of the above discussions there was agreement that there was consensus so move on that consensus and normal editing will deal with the tangents SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Guys this is really a serious and sensitive issue we can't change it to from Republic of China to Taiwan as it doesn't reflect the current issues on Taiwan or with China. Wikipedia can have a lawsuit from the People's Republic of China over this issue because it is that serious. It's best to maintain the status quo than openly do this. Republic of China supporters would disagree openly with you, and People's Republic of China will breath down on Wikipedia's neck for this. This issue is too politically and socially sensitive for a mere title change to satisfy the ignorant of this issue. So please do not go forward with this issue of changing the title.71.184.217.18 (talk) 23:09, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

What's in a name

Hi,

I only found out about this from browsing through Jim Sukwutputs talk page. I'm not stalking or trolling. FWIW I've spent several hours in the Taipei airport (Dynasty 007 from LAX) on more than 1 occasion. There is a free internet area there, sponsored by Asus (or Acer?), and a big TV playing an advert in a loop. The advert sings "Isla Formosa, Taiwan will set you free". It's burned into my mind. Anyway, the point to all this rambling is that if you move ROC to Taiwan, then the current Taiwan should become Formosa (already a redirect) instead of Taiwan (Island). --Stop China Now (talk) 02:04, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

New Proposal

This is a bit premature as the previous discussion hasn't officially closed, but I won't have time to write this up during the week. I havn't followed a formal process because this isn't really a merge or a move - it's more just a clarification and modest change to content. If someone knows of a formal process for this I would be happy to follow it or that someone can take the initiative.

Most of the objection to the suggestion of renaming the Republic of China article to "Taiwan" came from the correct observation that there would be no good place to put a consolidated account of the Republic of China that includes its history in mainland China. Rather than moving or renaming either article, this proposal says that we make the "Taiwan" article about the modern place and politics while making the Republic of China article focussed on the government. We can still have a "Taiwan (island)" article that focusses purely on the geography of the big island.

Reasons:

1. Countries and provinces are generally tracked by most people by their location and people. This is why the Alaska article include's Alaska's history as a colony and territory, and the France article includes history prior to the founding of the Fifth French Republic. When people are looking or information about the people, culture, history, government, economy etc. of what we're discussing, they're going to look for "Taiwan" not for "Republic of China" (WP:COMMONNAME).

2. When the Republic of China moved their capital to Taipei, mostly they brought government and the military (which is an arm of the government). The fact that the ROC can still be considered the same entity before and after a near complete change of land and people underscores the extent to which the ROC is primarily a government - the government of Taiwan today and prior to the 1940s the government of mainland China. It makes sense for the Republic of China article to be focussed on the government and on government functions.

3. How do we start the "Taiwan" article? Do we say "Taiwan is an island" or do we say (to use the terminology from the current ROC article "Taiwan is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia." I think we need to recognize that there is a main island, and that is why we would have a "Taiwan (island)" article that would start "Taiwan is an island...". Meanwhile, the Taiwan article would start "Taiwan, formally the Republic of China (ROC) (see below), is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia." (actually I'm not wedded to the "unitary sovereign state" part).


The Taiwan article would be much like the France or Alaska articles - encompassing the all aspects of the current place and political entity. The Taiwan (island) article will be comparable to the Hawaiian Islands and Italian Peninsula articles focussing on the geographic entity. The Republic of China article would be comparable to the French Fifth Republic article focussing on the government. However the ROC article would be a bit broader as it would include both the government and military history of the ROC (as those were they primary things that remained consistent enough for us to trace a common history).


To Summarize:

The articles are already close to this arrangement so not much would change. Instead we would be formalizing and clarify much of what we've already been doing. The biggest changes would be adding the big Republic of China box that currently appears on the right of this article to the Taiwan article (so people looking for information on "Taiwan" would get the understanding that the state is the Republic of China and would have information on that state immediately available) and the creation of the purely geographical Taiwan (island) page. Readin (talk) 23:40, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Could you elaborate a bit more? 119.237.156.46 (talk) 04:34, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
I doubt you actually read the proposal. JimSukwutput 08:40, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
The proposal doesn't have duplicates except in the sense of an overview-detail article. For example, the current Taiwan article has a "History" section that gives an overview of Taiwan's history, but also provides a link to the more detailed History of Taiwan article. Similarly, the proposal's Taiwan article would briefly describe discuss the Republic of China government but the details of the government would be in the main Republic of China article.
The Republic of China (1912-1949) is a good article to link to from the Republic of China article, but I don't think it is sufficient by itself to handle the continuity of government institutions that survived the movement of the capital from mainland China to Taiwan. For example, if an article needs to say Chiang Kai-shek was the president of the Republic of China, it is not enough to link to an article that only talks about 1912-1949, and it is not enough to link to an article that says nothing about the ROC prior to 1945. I think that point was well made by a lot of editors in the previous discussion, but I'll add this: Several hundred thousand soldiers and a lot of government officials moved from mainland China to Taiwan. In Taiwan they continued to have the same leaders as before, the values (they used them to name the streets of Taiwanese cities) the same rules of government, etc.. Something remained of what had been in mainland China. Whether that something can be called "China" is POV, but there certainly was something. The ROC did have to change when it came to Taiwan, but changing is not the same as ceasing to exist. Readin (talk) 05:15, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
The Republic of China (1912-1949) article is misleading in suggesting that the KMT ruled a cohesive and centralized Chinese from 1912 to 1949 and should not exist. There should be a historical country template applied for an article titled "Nationalist Government" covering the years 1927 to 1948 just like there is one for the Beiyang Government. If Republic of China (1912-1949) were kept, it would need 2-3 different flags, 3 national anthems, and 6-7 capitals in the infobox. --Jiang (talk) 16:14, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
Agree with Jiang regarding Republic of China (1912-1949). 119.237.156.46 (talk) 04:37, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Support: It's a way forward out of this dispute. Although I would have preferred the old arrangement (with the China article being on the nation and/or civilization, and the PRC & ROC having their own respective articles). This is a viable resolution since the reversion of the PRC -> China article merge seems quite remote. At least it'll remove the "Republic of China (1912-1949)" article since it implies a "constitutional or lawful" break with the current ROC, which constitution for goodness sake was in force in 1947 on the mainland. Raiolu (talk) 07:45, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
Indeed. But what we should do is to roll back the PRC -> China move, instead of making more messes around. 119.237.156.46 (talk) 04:34, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
I am withdrawing my support for this proposal as I am unable to convince myself that it will resolve this dispute. By and large, I still support the old status quo of keeping the "China" article politically neutral, and the PRC and ROC having their own articles using their own official names. In my opinion, this confusion between these two titles is much due to ignorance. Readers have to read through to really learn and understand more about this issue to get rid of that prevailing ignorance and confusion. Anyway, how can one go wrong with official, legally accepted titles and names since the perceived "commonly accepted" names are in dispute? Raiolu (talk) 22:10, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
What we should do is to roll back the PRC -> China move, instead of making more messes around. 119.237.156.46 (talk) 04:34, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
That should instead be covered by an article titled History of the Republic of China (1912-1949). 119.237.156.46 (talk) 04:34, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
With no reason? (This isn't how Wikipedia operates.) 119.237.156.46 (talk) 04:34, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose. There is no "modern entity" of Taiwan different from the earlier ROC which e.g. founded the UN and so on. Just keep everything where it belongs. The ROC is a country existing since 1911, and therefore should everything which belongs to the ROC into the ROC article. From 1911 onwards. Taiwan is just a geographic location, its not a country. Everything was fine until this moving and splitting started... StoneProphet (talk) 03:33, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
No, because it is no longer commonly known as "China" and is very rarely referred to as such in a modern context.--Tærkast (Discuss) 16:31, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Well, 1.3 billion people certainly thinks of it as "China".
You're confusing the People's Republic of China with the Republic of China. The PRC governs the mainland with 1.3 billion people, not the ROC, which currently controls and is commonly known as "Taiwan"--Tærkast (Discuss) 17:17, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Actually, no there is no confusion between the PRC and ROC here. Rightly or wrongly, the people of the PRC consider the ROC an integral part of Chinese history. And despite Taiwan being ruled de facto by a different regime than the one in Beijing, the island is considered Chinese. The "rogue" regime just happens to call itself the "Republic of China." (The PRC considers the ROC to be defunct since 1949.) Ngchen (talk) 17:40, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
I understand that, but from what I see, the IP seems to be suggesting that the ROC is still that one "China".--Tærkast (Discuss) 17:46, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
They're both "China". Can we just end this whole unnecessariness and revert the "China" article to show both the PRC and the ROC? I don't know what happened behind the scenes when the 3 Admins made their decision, but it's obvious they did not have a clue what they were doing. [who?]
I agree that the former status quo was the best situation, which was relatively stable up until that move request. However, the triumvirate decided to move the article. Again, I'm not sure it should have been moved due to little consensus to do so, but it's happened, and now we have a "China" (PRC) and "Republic of China" article.--Tærkast (Discuss) 20:55, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
What we should do is to roll back the PRC -> China move, instead of making more messes around. 119.237.156.46 (talk) 04:34, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Yes they're both China as a geographical territory. Whether China is one or two (or three or more) countries is an irrelevant question. 119.237.156.46 (talk) 04:34, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose: any attempt that change the state of Taiwan is offensive to certain group of people. Please every deal with this problem cautiously. Change Taiwan to something like France or Alaska is nothing different to say Wikipedia support Taiwan independence officially; while changing Taiwan to Taiwan Province, People's Republic of China is nothing different to say Wikipedia support Chinese Communist Party. Any change in Wikipedia may severely influence the Taiwan identity in reality. Currently, only Free area of the Republic of China can be a candidate to describe Taiwan. Politically sensitive article which is often-clicked should be written in an apolitical way. ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 12:30, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Following common english is probably the most apolitical way to name something, and surely if one is trying to make a name with no implications a title with the word "free" would be a terrible choice. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 12:48, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Nope, the most apolitical way is the geographic way - everyone, whatever political group they belongs to, agree that Taiwan is an island. ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 05:04, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
We'd still have the Taiwan island article with this proposal. That would still be there. As for the state article title, we have policies and guidelines that deal with naming. Following these (meaning not trying to pick a politically correct way of wording something) would be the most apolitical way to determine article title. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 12:19, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
There is no apolitical way to write about Taiwan. Right now, Wikipedia treats the ROC as a legitimate state (offensive to PRC and most countries' POV), and Taiwan as a province of that state rather than its own country (offensive to Taiwan independence POV). This proposal wouldn't really change that, but would conform to the overwhelming English usage across the political spectrum. Anyway, I seriously doubt that any significant shift in cross-strait relations will come about as a result of this Wikipedia title. Quigley (talk) 19:43, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia treats the ROC as a state, without point out/specify whether it's "legimate" or not, so this is not offensive to PRC (even if it is, it's a simple fact that PRC have no way out this). Neither is it offensive to Taiwan independencist for it' a simple fact that they have no way out this. However, have a "Taiwan" article as an "entity", with a ROC flag on it, is Taiwan independencist POV and represent only the Four-Stage Theory of the Republic of China (say The Republic of China is Taiwan), which is severely controversial. ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 05:04, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
I think it is kinda ironic and paradoxical that you can keep finding groups we are supposedly pandering to by doing these changes, while at the same time be claiming that it's an indisputable fact that things have to be named the way they are now. Surely all the people you are claiming we would be pandering do not agree that things have to be named as they are now. In my opinion the best way of avoiding the appearance of Wikipedia taking sides in this controversial issue, is that we choose to name the articles in the manner which sticks out the least in the eyes of our readers, which I think means conforming to the practices of outside sources, whatever they might be. That way anyone who reads these article in good faith would just assume that we are following convention to make ourselves as clear as possible to our readers. And they would be right to assume so, given that recognizability and naturalness are among the principal criteria for titling of Wikipedia articles.TheFreeloader (talk) 03:01, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Weak support. This does accomplish the most important object of these discussion, which is to get the country moved to its common name. But I still prefer the former proposal, as this proposal does bring forth the problem of how to separate a country and its government. To me it's not really possible to cover a country in any complete way without also describing its current government. I do admit that this proposal does have the advantage of making it possible to clearly show the continuation of the RoC government which ruled all of China in the RoC government which is residing on Taiwan. But I am not sure this advantage outweighs the disadvantage of having to separate a country and its government.TheFreeloader (talk) 22:21, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
There's no reason the government can't be described on the country article. I think the current politics subject material could easily stay. The main change will be in history, which currently covers the history of the ROC from establishment in 1912. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 00:24, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
Well, that's not how I read the proposal. But if what you are describing is actually what is meant by the proposal, then I would have a far less problems with it. There would still be the problem of duplicated information, although I see that as a much less serious problem.TheFreeloader (talk) 01:29, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
What we should do is to roll back the PRC -> China move, instead of making more messes around. 119.237.156.46 (talk) 04:34, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Weak support: This proposal seems much more plausible in comparison to the previous proposal, as it minimises the damage done by directly associating Taiwan with the entirety of the ROC. I still am wary of venturing away from the status quo, as I view that the status quo worked well, but if moves have to be done, doing it as proposed here is a much better option than a simple Taiwan=ROC move/merge. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 00:21, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
What we should do is to roll back the PRC -> China move, instead of making more messes around. 119.237.156.46 (talk) 04:34, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Weak support. I am responsible for single-handedly transplanting the countries template from Taiwan to Republic of China in 2003, but am giving support to this proposal because political changes in Taiwan in the past few years have made it increasingly less controversial to use "Taiwan" as conventional short form for the Republic of China. "Weak" because I think the proposal above needs to be slightly more concrete. Would WikiProject Countries infoboxes reside at both Republic of China and Taiwan after the change? I can understand what will happen to the Taiwan article, in that the countries template would be applied to it, but I'm not so clear on how the Republic of China article would be reorganized. Keep in mind that we would also need to deal with linkage issues, with [[Republic of China]] ([[Taiwan]]), [[Republic of China]] (Taiwan), Taiwan ([[Republic of China]]), [[Taiwan]] ([[Republic of China]]), and [[Republic of China|Taiwan]] all appearing at various places. Comment: Compare the difference between Holy See and Vatican City.--Jiang (talk) 16:14, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
    There are too many links to Republic of China, abbreviated or not; with parentheses or without. The previous setup forced this awkward wording, because Taiwan was about the island and not the country. There would be more links to just Taiwan under this proposal. Republic of China should be a disambiguation page between Republic of China (1912–1949) and a new Republic of China (Taiwan) that deals with post-1949 politics. Currently, this combined article describes neither topic well. Quigley (talk) 17:20, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
    But using a disambiguation page for Republic of China (1912-1949) and a new Republic of China (Taiwan) would suggest that the entities are different and separate. That suggestion has POV issues, since they can be reasonably argued to be the same. Ngchen (talk) 18:48, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
    No it wouldn't, it just shows we have different articles on the topic. That's all a disambiguation page does. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 18:56, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
    Your concerns are ones that should be settled by the naming conventions. The current proposal will not change the naming conventions. There are many current instances of [[Republic of China|Taiwan]] which sought to use the common term "Taiwan" while linking to the countries template at Republic of China. Disambiguation pages are for mutually exclusive entities; this is not. When you have even a single article whose text would more accurately link to a disambiguation page, then you have to rethink the appropriateness of the disambiguation page. In foreign relations, there are multiple instances where both the pre-1949 and post-1949 ROC is implicated, and we would have to either pick and choose (which is inaccurate), link to the disambiguation page (which is poor form), or link to both articles in the same word (which is confusing). Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Broad-concept_articles states "Where the primary topic of a term is a general topic that can be divided into subtopics, such as chronologically or geographically, the unqualified title should contain an article about the general topic rather than a disambiguation page. A disambiguation page should not be created just because it is difficult to write an article on a topic that is broad, vague, abstract, or highly conceptual." A primary topic article should be on the Republic of China on its entirety, while explaining all the political complexities associated with that term, including the PRC's view that the ROC was succeeded by it in 1949.--Jiang (talk) 05:09, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
    An ROC article focused on the functions of the state shouldn't have a country infobox, as that infobox is built for a summary of an article on all aspects of a country (and a present summary). I believe the easiest way to implement the above proposal would be to shift the history section from the current Taiwan article to this article, move that article to Taiwan (island), move this article to Taiwan, and shift the history that is currently here now to a new Republic of China article then filling that out. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 18:45, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
As far as the proposal, I thought I had made it clear by saying "The biggest changes would be adding the big Republic of China box... " instead of saying "moving" the info box, but I can see by the confusion that I didn't make it clear. I believe the info box for the ROC should exist for both "Republic of China" article and for "Taiwan" article. The info box contains summary information that will be useful to people looking for either topics. One might find minor differences in what the info boxes should contain, but that can be worked out with further discussion. Readin (talk) 22:42, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

{{movereq|multiple=yes |current1=Republic of China|new1=Taiwan|current2=Taiwan|new2=Taiwan (island)|current3=Republic of China (1912–1949)|new3=Republic of China}}

– The rationale is listed below. I would just like stress that the articles are not intended to remain as they currently are, but are to be changed in the way it's specified below by Readin. TheFreeloader (talk) 01:50, 26 November 2011 (UTC) TheFreeloader (talk) 01:50, 26 November 2011 (UTC) Deletion by User:Jiang 07:58, 26 November 2011‎ (UTC) [3]

  • Comment: Jiang, what should we do with matters such as Taiwanese independence? Readers may ask isn't it an independent country since 1949? Why are the people still debating whether or not Taiwan should go independent? Why was Taiwan as an independent country controlling the China seat in the UN till 1971, and US diplomatic recognition as China till 1978? Why is it controlling some isolated islands and islets on the Chinese coast? Did it invade China at some point after its independence in 1949 to take control of those islands? Why did a former Chinese president elected in 1948 and resigned in January 1949 regain the presidency fourteen months later as the Taiwanese president? Why did it join the WTO with such a clumsey name, but not simply as Taiwan? What'd been wrong with this country? All these can easily tackled with separate articles for China (geographical region), Republic of China and People's Republic of China. 119.237.156.46 (talk) 04:34, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
A solution is to move Taiwan to Taiwan (island), and to move Taiwan (disambiguation) to Taiwan. 119.237.156.46 (talk) 04:34, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Or alternatively, making Taiwan a protected redirect to Taiwan (disambiguation). 119.237.156.46 (talk) 14:29, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
One of the problems I'm trying to deal with is that the "Taiwan" article is currently treated by some as a geographic article and there have been arguments that much of the information currently in the "Taiwan" article isn't appropriate to an article about geography. If you look at geographic articles like Hawaiian islands or Madagascar (island) you find information about lakes, rivers, rocks, plants, and weather, but nothing about the people, cities, cultures, etc. or the history of such that people are interested in when they look up Taiwan. That's why the current Taiwan article doesn't fit in well with those geographic article. An important point of this proposal is to clarify that the Taiwan article isn't a geographic article like those others. Readin (talk) 22:51, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Support - As established in the previous discussion, Taiwan as a country name has a strong consensus among quality edited sources in English. Reason is easily outnumbered and that discussion was closed with no consensus. There was, however, a clear difference in the policy basis between the arguments. This proposal is a compromise, but I'll support it. Not weakly. It's a real improvement in an area where numbers and feelings beat policies. I support Common names and NPOV at Wikipedia and support this proposal. gidonb (talk) 19:30, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Support per the principle of least surprise; this is what people will expect when looking up these titles. Thryduulf (talk) 20:14, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment. I don't fully understand the proposal. Which article is going to have {{Infobox country}} at the top? If it's Taiwan, then isn't this proposal essentially a move from ROC to Taiwan? Mlm42 (talk) 23:29, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
  • If I understand correctly this is the proposal. This time around we seem to be moving ROC to Taiwan, Taiwan to Taiwan (island), and the historic ROC article to ROC while extending it with some later stuff. gidonb (talk) 02:15, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
  • As usual, despite enduring complaints about neutrality and being sensitive to politics, the idea that the PRC flag might fly over the Taiwan article is beyond the pale of civil Wikipedian discourse. This despite the fact that in the real world (which Wikipedia's configuration of China articles is getting closer to these days!), an overwhelming majority of states recognize Taiwan as a part of the PRC. Quigley (talk) 05:02, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
  • This comment isn't factually accurate. The majority of states (i.e. the Western bloc) "acknowledge" (or similar weasel term) the PRC's position with regard to Taiwan, but deliberately avoid the term "recognize". The United States, for one, recognizes the PRC as "China" but deliberately avoids saying anything to suggest that Taiwan is part of "China". In any event, NPOV is about acknowledging the different viewpoints, not going by the most prevalent one. Going by common names, I think there is a much stronger case to have the ROC country template at Taiwan than there is to have the PRC country template at China. --Jiang (talk) 12:00, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Could you elaborate why the case is stronger for the former than the latter? 119.237.156.46 (talk) 14:29, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
  • More accurately, most "Western bloc" countries (along with non-"Western bloc" countries that enjoys doing busines with Taiwan) recognize that there is only "One China" without recognizing that the Communist Party of China that rules the People's Republic of China also rules Taiwan; they recognize that the Republic of China is the administrative government (rules) of Taiwan. Put it another way, the ROC is not a part of the PRC under the CPC, the ROC (Taiwan) is a part of "One China". The Three Kingdoms (Wei, Wu and Shu) were all "China". But Wei was not Wu and Wu was not Shu and Shu was not Wei, etc. Which is why I believe the "China" article should be reverted to show the PRC and the ROC.[who?]
Agree. And more importantly the China article should reflect the different viewpoints that some consider both the current territorial extent of the ROC and the PRC to be part of China, whereas some other consider Taiwan as separated from and therefore isn't part of China. 119.237.156.46 (talk) 14:29, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
I apologize, I thought I had made it clar when I italized "adding" in the description at the top. The proposal has the infobox appearing in both the "Republic of China" article and in the "Taiwan" article because it contains summary information important to both. Readin (talk) 22:56, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Weak oppose because 1) the general idea itself seems to be acceptable; 2) it is really weird for a country article to exclude politics, economy and other stuff; 3) i have no confidence in the result of this proposal. --DS - fax 14:13, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
    1) sounds like a reason to support, and 2) wouldn't happen, as the country article would include politics and economy. Given this, does 3) still hold? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:14, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Support This time I think I have to support the proposal, which is some sort of compromise between official name for the state since its founding and common name for the entity we usually know of in English language. --Chinyin (talk) 15:19, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Neutral point of view is one of the pillars of Wikipedia, and, according to Wikipedia, it is non-negotiable. It isn't something to be compromised. 119.237.156.46 (talk) 04:34, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Comment - I created a proposal overview table under my own signature, however it was immediately deleted from this page (yikes!). Readin, please confirm that these are the suggested changes or propose a different table to prevent excessive arguments after the proposal is excepted.
All renames would occur with some changes to the articles. gidonb (talk) 16:26, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
The last paragraph of Readin's proposal suggests that no renaming will occur. Instead, there will be some shifting of the content in these articles and the creation of a Taiwan (island) article. --Jiang (talk) 20:38, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
It's not entirely clear from the proposal. I would appreciate Readin's input now to prevent later misunderstandings. gidonb (talk) 21:24, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
It seems like Readin isn't active at the moment. I don't think Readin did set forth any suggestion as how to implement his proposal. But I think the move suggestions you made above seem like a reasonable way to most easily realize the proposal. As we don't know when Readin will be back, I think we should go ahead with converting this into a requested move discussion, while stressing that the content of the articles will have to be changed in the manner set forth by the initial proposal.TheFreeloader (talk) 22:31, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Thank you, Freeloader! I would appreciate if you can do the conversion! gidonb (talk) 01:25, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Some sort of move must occur somewhere, and rather than shifting large chunks of information around and totally screwing with the attribution the move set shown above would definitely be the easiest way to begin it, as after that much smaller text changes would need to happen. The more difficult part would be merging the history of this current article with the information currently on the 1912-1949 article (some of which, eg economy, shouldn't be on the new ROC article). Chipmunkdavis (talk) 01:30, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
I think it's disingenuous to be changing a proposal after others have already made comments in support or in opposition to it. Readin stated "The articles are already close to this arrangement so not much would change. Instead we would be formalizing and clarify much of what we've already been doing. The biggest changes would be adding the big Republic of China box that currently appears on the right of this article to the Taiwan article (so people looking for information on "Taiwan" would get the understanding that the state is the Republic of China and would have information on that state immediately available) and the creation of the purely geographical Taiwan (island) page." Note the phrases "not much would change" "what we've already been doing" and "adding the ... box". This clearly implies that there will be no move of the current articles.
As I understand it, the Taiwan (island) would be purely geographical, so would need to be created from scratch. The Republic of China article would more or less be merged into Taiwan. And nowhere does it mention that the Historical Countries template used at Republic of China (1912–1949) would be transplanted here - the example given is the French Fifth Republic article which is nothing like the Republic of China (1912–1949) article.
Please "oppose" the proposal and start a new one, rather than changing it after others have already commented on it. If the "moves" are done to merely shift the page history, while fundamentally changing the content of the articles, then I don't think they are required to be mentioned here. --Jiang (talk) 06:11, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
To avoid one set of comments made upon Readin's proposal which Readin states "isn't really a merge or a move" (direct quote above) and another set of comments based on the assumption that this is really a merge or a move, I've removed the additions made to the proposal above. If consensus seems to suggest that a move/merge is needed, that will needed to be proposed separately. If we are not on the same place due to the vagueness of the initial proposal, that is for this discussion to hammer out - not for the proposal to be rewritten mid-discussion. I do hope, however, that the incoming links brought about by the move template will lead to more thorough discussion. --Jiang (talk) 07:58, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
I'm not really sure why you think we are disagreeing on this, the move request I made is merely a question of procedure, not of final results. As I stressed in the move request, the articles are not to stay as they currently are, they are to be changed in exactly the way specified by the proposal. The reason I see the set of moves I requested as the easiest way to implement the proposal is that those are the article which seem closest to what the end result ought to be. The proposal says that Taiwan is to be an article about the modern entity. Republic of China is currently the article about the sovereign state, and therefore seems pretty close, although some of the pre-1949 stuff would have to be moved. Taiwan (island) is according to the proposal supposed to be about the geographical entity. Taiwan is currently, at least according to the lead, the article about the island. There is a lot of other stuff in the article too, but all in all it's not that dissimilar to an article like Ireland, which is also an article about a geographical entity. Finally there is Republic of China (1912-1949), this is definitely the one which would have to change the most, if my move request were to go through. The way I see it the new Republic of China article would have to start from something, and at least Republic of China (1912-1949) article has some of the early history. To be sure, a lot will have to be changed, for one thing the Historical Country template would definitely have to be removed, but I do intend that in the end the article should end up being as specified by the proposal, which means it will be about the military and government which used to govern mainland China and which today governs Taiwan and surrounding islands.TheFreeloader (talk) 16:27, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
The problem is that the proposal is not clear enough. Perhaps we should start a subsection here to discuss where specific sections of the current articles will end up. Both the "Republic of China" and "Taiwan" articles seem to contain sections that fit under the Countries Template, so it would be more like merging Republic of China into Taiwan, writing Taiwan (island) from scratch, and pruning the Republic of China article. To avoid too much overlap, I think a Taiwan (island) article should be purely on geography (like the example given), since all other aspects would be sufficiently covered by the Countries Template residing at Taiwan. I don't think moves are necessary to enact the requested changes - go back into the page history to 2003. It seems this proposal is seeking to undo what I did then, which resulted from moving content across articles, but not the articles themselves.--Jiang (talk) 12:21, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
Well, it's been a week since this was opened, I think that's long enough to shift discussion. I note your opposition to some things moves would bring, like the 1912-1949 infobox to a timespanning article, and agree. I'd be happy to open a new section specifically looking at the end that would be reached and how if you agree to look at that. I think shifting content at this point would be more of a mess than moving and then shifting. There will be far more edits post-2003 to account for than pre-2003, and it will be much easier attribution wise to keep as much on the same pages as possible. There's no difference to the readers between content shifts and page moves - they achieve the same thing if we're switching page roles - so the method used really only depends on editing considerations. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:15, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
Some of the lack of specificity was intentional. I think the task of determining the location of every piece of content is a bit too much. Rather I think we should first reach an understanding of the framework for which we can discuss the location of every piece of content.
For the most part, people have been placing information related to the government in the "Republic of China" article and placing other information in the "Taiwan" article. However, in the discussions there are statements about how the "Taiwan" article is a geographic article and shouldn't have other information. There are statements about how the "Republic of China" article is about far more than just the government. But common sense tells us that, for example, the overview of the history of aborigines in Taiwan should be in the "Taiwan" article rather than the "Republic of China" article. Common sense tells us that information about the armed forces of Taiwan would be more at home in a "Republic of China" article. When we have a framework in which those decisions are easy, it will be easier to work on some of the trickier questions.
If I were to get more specific, I would say: move the "Geography" section of the "Taiwan" article to the new "Taiwan (island)" article. In the "Taiwan" article, replace the Geography section with an overview and a link to the "Taiwan (island)". Add the country infobox to the "Taiwan" article. Keep the country infobox in the "Republic of China" article (it is relevant to both articles). The introductory paragraph for "Taiwan" would need modification. Other than that, the articles are for the most part already written for what is being proposed. It's just a matter for formalizing it. Readin (talk) 02:04, 28 November 2011 (UTC)


Ack.. it seems for this discussion it's better to focus on what the end result should look like (as the original proposal does), and not to confuse matters by suggesting page moves, since these page moves are not simple page moves. Whether pages actually get "moved" or not, the content will have to change a lot (assuming the proposal goes through). Mlm42 (talk) 17:27, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Support Only considering that just recently, China, which was a disambugation page, now became the offical page for the PRC, it makes sence that we should move the Republic of China to Taiwan, strictly because it is a far more used name for the country, as per WP:COMMONNAME, even the country calls itself Taiwan. About the article which talks about the island of Taiwan, that could be moved to its own article under the name Taiwan (island). Jpech95 (talk) 17:34, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
China was never a disambiguation page. It was only more topically expansive in including Taiwan in its definition.--Jiang (talk) 06:11, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
That page was effectively killed after the PRC article was moved to the China namespace. 119.237.156.46 (talk) 14:29, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Strongest oppose. There are many discussions in real world as well as articles on Wikipedia that touch on the issue of Taiwanese independence. Apart from that, the Taipei government was recognised as China all the way to 1971 by the UN, and by western countries like the US till 1978 (and it's still China as recognised by the Holy See). And furthermore the Taipei government still controls places that aren't and have never been considered part of Taiwan by any definition. By moving the country article from Republic of China to Taiwan, it's making everything messed up and will give the notion that Taiwan is an independent country since 1949, being independent from 'Republic of China (1912-1949)' (why not 1911, by the way?). It will be very difficult to explain why there's an ongoing issue of Taiwanese independence for decades only since the presidency of Lee Teng Hui. We as editors not only have the duty to neutral point of view, by also to facts. 119.237.156.46 (talk) 04:34, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Please justify why WP:Commonname should override WP:NPOV, given that only the latter is non-negotiable. 119.237.156.46 (talk) 14:19, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
No. We don't create a second mistake as a result of the first one. We undo the first mistake. 119.237.156.46 (talk) 14:32, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Quiet, blocked anon. Fluttershy !xmcuvg2MH 16:23, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
For some reason I couldn't stop grinning after reading that from a tripfriend. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 05:39, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
  1. Support per WP:COMMONNAME. HurricaneFan25 16:36, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Reluctant support. Due to the recent redirect of all "People's Republic of China" links to China, it unfortunately only makes sense to redirect all "Republic of China" links to Taiwan. For the consistency of the common usage of English words, this is the only logical conclusion. It totally violates neutral POV, but that is the reality of redirecting all PRC to "China". The alliance (talk)
  • Support. Seems clean and reasonable enough.  White Whirlwind  咨  07:21, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
Support moving this article to Taiwan, but I think Republic of China (1912-1949) should be left as is. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 08:48, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Strongest possible oppose. For all those who cited WP:COMMONNAME in your support, please tell me what exactly Taiwan is a common name for: Republic of China or the Free area of the Republic of China? JimSukwutput 17:41, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
    Since you asked, "Taiwan" is the common name for the modern country / state which is also known as the "Republic of China" (see also the opening sentence of the article Republic of China). Mlm42 (talk) 04:25, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
    What is the most common name for Free area of the Republic of China? Also "Taiwan", correct? Then how the hell do we distinguish between the two if we are going to use the "most common names"? JimSukwutput 04:43, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
    Right, and "Taiwan" also refers to the island. I think the point of this discussion is that some people (myself included) believe that the vast majority of readers who are searching for "Taiwan", are in fact searching for the article on the modern country, also known as the ROC. As editors, we should be considering the readers here; I don't think many readers searching for "Taiwan" would be satisfied if they were redirected to an article called Free area of the Republic of China. They are looking for an article about the modern country, similar to all the other country articles on Wikipedia. Mlm42 (talk) 21:51, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
    "Then how the hell do we distinguish between the two if we are going to use the "most common names"?" Assuming Taiwan is the most common name for the Free Area of the Republic of China (which it isn't because the Free Area of the Republic of China is a very specific legal phrase), we distinguish using Wikipedia:Disambiguation. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 21:56, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
    This is a roundabout argument. The only reason we have Free area of the Republic of China in the state it is (a technical and legal article with little background) is because Wikipedia editors made a conscious effort to put all the political/economical content about Taiwan island in the Republic of China article. If we followed Wikipedia standards, that content would have been in the Free area article. JimSukwutput 05:53, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
    So you want the Free area to be the country article? Also, what standards are you talking about? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 09:49, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Strongest possible oppose. The ROC is universally accepted and regarded as the ROC, not Taiwan. To maintain our objectivity, it should remain to be named so until further (if there's further) developements in this matter. This is also a politically sensitive move, a rename to Taiwan will upset many users and is sure to encourage many contributors to leave this site. This website is already too liberal / biased towards the west - I'd strongly advice any move which will polarize the community. Objectitivy is only achieved via contributions from all sides of the political sphere. Ur2dads (talk) 07:56, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Support. Because getting the Republic of China confused with the People's Republic of China is a very common thing to do. And I am sure that nobody would associate the PRC with the island of Taiwan, and nobody would call Taiwan China. As well as the fact that most Taiwanese want not to be associated with their Communist neighbours.
  • Support: The country is widely referred to as "Taiwan". Having separate articles for country and government is a bit awkward, but given the unique situation I think this is a pretty reasonable solution. TDL (talk) 00:06, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
  • The United Kingdom is widely referred to as England or Britian, the Netherlands as Holland, the Republic of Ireland as Ireland, and the United States as America. The Soviet Union was widely referred to as Russia. 218.250.159.42 (talk) 12:03, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

break

!!! It has been a weak and it looks like the support way overwhelms the opposition, however there seems to be some confusion as to what exactly is being supported. Two key points:

  • This is not a move. No article will be renamed, nor is it expected there will be a large movement of content. The biggest expected movement of content is that the "Geography" section of the "Taiwan" article will be moved to a newly created "Taiwan (island)" article.
  • The infobox will appear on both the "Republic of China" page and on the "Taiwan" page. The information is relevent to both topics.

The proposal clarifies the rules that most editors seem to have been following based on the current content of the existing articles. It doesn't make huge changes to the articles. For the most part, people have been placing information related to the government in the "Republic of China" article and placing other information in the "Taiwan" article. However, in the discussion histories for both pages there are statements about how the "Taiwan" article is a geographic article and shouldn't have other information. There are statements about how the "Republic of China" article is about far more than just the government. But common sense tells us that, for example, the overview of the history of aborigines in Taiwan should be in the "Taiwan" article rather than the "Republic of China" article. Common sense tells us that information about the armed forces of Taiwan would be more at home in a "Republic of China" article. When we have a framework in which those decisions are easy, it will be easier to work on some of the trickier questions.

While I would love to take the large number of supports and say we're done, I think that to be fair we need to leave the discussion open a little longer in case someone wants to change their mind. Readin (talk) 02:15, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

  • Comment.By Republic of China (1912–1949) → Republic of China, one would be implying ROC ceased to exist after 1949. Obviously, people living in Taiwan would oppose to this view while people on the mainland would see this as a fact.203.189.174.3 (talk) 05:04, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
    • There will be no move. The original proposal does not advocate a move. Note how the topmost comment was striked out - that was applied after the original proposal. There will only be a shifting of information, and some rewrites within the three pages. (Also, shouldn't the striked out content be removed completely? Or at least moved down, chronologically matching with the dates? I know it's already striked out, but it still might cause confusion for some people just by being there.) -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 07:24, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
  • I think we shouldn't have some standard sections of the Countries template in one article, while having other sections in another. It won't be intuitive for the general reader to know where to look for which sections. The Taiwan article should be a full-on country article, with government and military as sections. The difference is that it will have no focus on the pre-1945 ROC. At one point the Republic of China article tried to be both a historical country article and a existing country article with sections such as "economy" having two subsections for both the mainland period and the Taiwan period. I think this is something that we should avoid. Let's come up with some examples on which we can model the ROC article: France and Fifth French Republic, Vatican City and Holy See, Netherlands and Kingdom of the Netherlands.--Jiang (talk) 09:13, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
  • I agree with Jiang. Despite Readin's good intentions, we can't just shift one or two sections and an infobox. The resulting articles would be as Jiang says unintuitive. The current articles are set as such:
  • Republic of China: An article mostly about the modern state but with a history of the governmental system rather than the territory.
  • Taiwan: An article on the island, with a focus on geography and demographics.
  • Republic of China (1912-1949): A full on country article for the pre-capital shifted ROC.
  • We can't just shift a country infobox to Taiwan: that wouldn't make much of a difference to that article. I think we follow Jiang's suggestion of finding a similar model, of which I think the France-French Fifth Republic one would be most appropriate. This current article is like France. It covers the modern country. If we create a new ROC article on the governmental system, that would be like French Fifth Republic. The island article is already an island article. If we create a new ROC article and leave the 1912-1949 then we avoid the confusing double topic article Jiang noted. We'd have the 1912-1949 article to cover that period, a Taiwan article to cover the modern state, and an ROC article which explains the continuity between the two. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 10:32, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
  • I think a full Historical Countries template should be applied to Beiyang Government and Nationalist Government, so under the Republic of China article would be two historical countries templates and one existing countries template (at Taiwan) to cover the ROC's three major historical periods. The new Republic of China (1912-1949) article misleadingly and inaccurately oversimplifies the political situation in that the pre-1928 ROC government had no more political and legal continuity with the post-1929 ROC government than the pre-1928 ROC government had with the Qing dynasty. The only thing in common was that they shared the same name and were both widely recognized as predecessor/successor states. One was a decentralized military regime modelled on a liberal democratic Constitution while the other was a more centralized Leninist party state. If the Republic of China (1912-1949) article has to have multiple flags, capitals, anthems, etc. in its infobox, causing confusion as to which flag matches with which anthem, then the historical countries template is inappropriate for it; if the historical countries template is inappropriate for it then there is no rationale for the article to exist. I think that article was created in a large part because this article has become almost exclusively Taiwan-focused. If we take the Countries template away from this article, then it will no longer need to focus on modern Taiwan, so there will be less reason to de-couple pre-1949 ROC content from this page. On the other hand, I think an article focused on the KMT's party state on the mainland is urgently lacking. --Jiang (talk) 11:24, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Well there's already one on the Beiyang page, and there isn't a separate Nationalist government page. As the templates are infoboxes, they are meant for an article on that subject specifically, and thus three on one page would be bad MOS. A separate main section for all three periods would be useful. The 1912-1949 article isn't necessarily good for politics but it is much better for other aspects of a state such as its people and economy, in a period historians often group together as it covers the end of Monarchy to the declaration of the PRC. If you wanted, I suggest you try to change the 1912-1949 article to a 1928-1949 article. That would provide some good continuity and fix the lacking article problem, and fit current content fine. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 12:31, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
  • The country template infoboxes belong on three separate articles, not on the same Republic of China article. The Republic of China could have a limited infobox like the Fifth Republic article, but either the former Country infobox or the existing Country infobox would be inappropriate as data wouldn't be able to fit the whole period. There were major differences in economic policy between the Beiyang Government and the KMT Government, as there was with politics, so there is room to have the same titled section in these respective articles without incurring major overlap. I've proposed to limit the scope of the 1912-1949 article to 1928-1949 on the talk page of that article just as you were typing this! --Jiang (talk) 12:41, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Great minds! A general ROC article would be even more complicated than the Fifth Republic article to add an infobox to, due to shifting capitals, changing flags, changing currencies, etc. No point trying to force an infobox in where it doesn't belong. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 12:53, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
  • I think we are allowed to emphasize current data for existing entities, as long as we make it clear that the infobox is meant to portray the present and not the past. The current Countries infobox seeks to be a snapshot of the present, while the historical Countries infobox seeks to be a snapshot over a period of time. Use of the historical Countries infobox runs into trouble when we present a particular date range, say 1912-1949, while presenting data only relevant to another, such as 1928-1949. With the current Countries infobox, there is no such obligation to present historical data, since the implication is that all data refers to the present day. The benefit of the general ROC article is that it will not have to adhere to either the former Countries template or the existing Countries template; for example, there would be no economy section. Perhaps a very limited infobox with a minimal amount of data, like at the French Fifth Republic article, will do. The older flag, etc. would appear as an image in the relevant historical section of the article.--Jiang (talk) 08:54, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Readin's worry is just what I worried (that's why I vote oppose). This IS a severe issue:
––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 14:56, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
That's an almost identical proposal in the end. What happens to the non-governmental and military information? It would go to Taiwan, effectively making it this current article. The only real difference is merging Free area of the Republic of China, which I disagree with as it's useful to have an article on that term. As for the moving of 1912-1949 article, we already have a History article of the ROC, and that won't have any impact on your other three points whatsoever. Any POV sword cuts both ways: Having ROC on "entity Taiwan" isn't any more a promotion of the four-stage theory than having it on ROC is a denial of the four-stage theory. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 16:04, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
It is useful to have an article about Free area of the Republic of China, but it works well in this proposal: “Taiwan (臺灣地區), officially the Free area of the Republic of China (中華民國自由地區), is an area composing of Taiwan Island and its subsdiary islands, and a small part of Fujian. It is ...” Having information about ROC on "entity Taiwan" isn't a promotion of the four-stage theory, but having a ROC-flag on Taiwan's infobox (even if the ROC-flag also occurs on the article ROC) is four-stage-theory POV. ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 15:47, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
But the four-stage theory isn't a mainstream theory. It was a theory proposed by A-bian. Lamarckism is a theory of heredity and evolution proposed by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, however it is not mainstream either (and is widely seen to be incorrect). Being NPOV does not mean that we cannot deny the four-stage theory, as it is a fringe theory. The four-stage theory is a theory supported by one man and his closest of followers. The Pan-Green side is split between the more extreme, who reject the ROC being legitimate on Taiwan at all (see Legal status of Taiwan and the analysis of the treaties; some even claim that Taiwan should still be controlled by the United States), and some of the moderate Pan-Greens who may accept the four-stage theory but only to some degree, whilst the Pan-Blue side strongly denies validity the four-stage theory. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 02:27, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
(Inserted) Indeed! ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 15:42, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
The whole point is that we should ignore whether a title could be taken to support this theory or deny this theory, because in the end every title will make some POV statement in the eyes of some people. That's why we have COMMONNAME, to pick a title independently of all POVs. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 10:00, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
Comment:
  1. Taiwan is not the common name of the whole Republic of China, but the common name of the free area of the Republic of China.
  2. The serious issue here is not Taiwan's being considered an entity, but that have the ROC flag labeled on Taiwan, which is controversial, very controversial. ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 15:40, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 15:40, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
By having only the PRC only as "China" is saying either 1) Republic of China is not "China" or 2) Republic of China (Taiwan) is a part of the People's Republic of China. Both are equally as controversial as having the ROC flag labeled on a Taiwan article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.110.140 (talk) 18:31, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
No one said "Republic of China (Taiwan) is a part of the People's Republic of China", instead, we say the free area of the Republic of China is claimed by the People's Republic of China. Plus, no one said Republic of China is not China, instead, we say that ROC is not the commonly known China. ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 14:25, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
Let's recognize the logical difference between these two statements: 1) "The Republic of China is Taiwan" 2) "Taiwan the common name of the Republic of China". One equates one idea entirely with the other, in that they are interchangeable, while the other just states a manner of convention, the converse of which is not true. First, the proposal here is not to alter the naming conventions, which I would join in vehemently opposing. Second, I don't see how, given the difference between the two statements I have provided, this is an endorsement of the Four state theory. To emphasize that we are merely recognizing Taiwan as a common name, if there Countries template resided at Taiwan, the beginning should read "The Republic of China, commonly known as Taiwan..." instead of "Taiwan, officially the Republic of China..."--Jiang (talk) 13:32, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
But Taiwan is not the common name of the whole Republic of China, but the common name of the free area of the Republic of China. ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 15:40, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
Now people are questioning the basic details in the lead section of the article Republic of China, including the opening sentence itself? Mlm42 (talk) 21:20, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
Yu hai, the entity or whatever you want to call it that exists as an independent state in those islands east of mainland asia is called Taiwan in English. That is, the topic of this current page, is currently called Taiwan. What wikipedia calls the Government of the Republic of China English sources generally refer to as the Government of Taiwan. The Economy of Taiwan in English usage refers to what wikipedia calls the Economy of the Republic of China. The Free Area is a specific legal term, not something which passes into common usage. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 01:16, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
See #Whose common name is Taiwan?. ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 14:27, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
The "Free China" idea/label died with the Cold War. It (and that article) no longer fully represents what Taiwan is today.
It is ridiculous and incredibly ignorant to suggest that "Free China" died with the Cold War. Plenty of mainland Chinese continue to support the Republic of China (publicly and privately), and most overseas Chinese identify with the Republic of China. JimSukwutput 10:11, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
"Free China" was a term used to separate ROC from PRC ("Communist China") during the Cold War; of course we all know that the ROC wasn't free at all. As an idea on Taiwan (and around the world), "Free China" died after 1996 when ROC/China/Taiwan held it's first Presidential Elections. The ROC is no longer "Free China", it is a Democracy.
Having elections is not the only thing that matters to being "free". There are other things such as not systematically repressing political opponents, the intelligentsia and the business class. Now of course Kuomintang and CPC both did plenty of those things, so which government is "freer" is really debatable; but I'm not here to get into a dispute about which party is the lesser evil. The fact is, the idea of Free vs. Occupied China continues to persist among some people in Taiwan, Hong Kong and many overseas Chinese communities. It is completely incorrect to say that the label "died" with the Cold War. JimSukwutput 08:36, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
I suppose the case with countries is that we look at actual control rather than claimed control. The "whole" of the Republic of Korea includes North Korea, but we have the article at South Korea because that refers to the de facto territory of the state entity.--Jiang (talk) 00:02, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Alternate Option

We can request that the "China" article be renamed "People's Republic of China" like many of our fellows on the non-English language Wikipedias have done. Then, this article doesn't need to change at all and we can merge the Republic of China (1912-1949) page into this one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.46.140 (talk) 20:03, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Considering the article was pretty recently renamed in the exact opposite direction, I give your proposal a snowball's chance in hell of happening. --Cybercobra (talk) 23:57, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
True that. At what point, then, will there be enough firepower to reverse the lamentable move from PRC to "China"?  The Tartanator  00:56, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
Well when you come up with some new arguments or some evidence to support the old arguments, instead of just rehashing the same old evidenceless arguments which were shot down repeatedly during the move discussion, there might be a bit better chance of move.TheFreeloader (talk) 01:14, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
I am thinking that perhaps WP:COMMONNAME itself needs to be discussed and changed. At some point, that policy has been used to introduce all manner of inaccuracies, not to mention doing things that cause unnecessary offense. For an example of such, check out the decision to name the Hirohito article that, rather than what the Japanese would refer to the man as, namely Emperor Showa or the Showa Emperor. If I have time, I'm planning on starting a dissenting essay with regard to WP:COMMONNAME. Ngchen (talk) 04:17, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
This is the English wikipedia, and he is referred to as Hirohito in English. I doubt you'll have any luck changing commonname. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 10:25, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
WP:COMMONNAME and practicality are a bit of a rocky road. Do we call it Beijing or Peking? English literature uses the latter more, however the former is the official term. Same goes for Sichuan and Szechwan (see Szechuan cuisine), Nanjing and Nanking (hell, we still call the Nanking Massacre the Nanking Massacre, and not the Nanjing Massacre, in uniform with articles such as Nanjing decade and Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal). Do we call the 14th Dalai Lama "Tenzin Gyatso" or "His holiness the 14th blah blah etc etc"? Tenzin is his real name, "His holiness the blahblah" is the form used by CNN in every single one of their reports on the person. What do we call Mao Zedong? Most English published literature still uses his Wade-Giles name of "Mao Tse-tung", and not the official Hanyu Pinyin. WP:COMMONNAME dictates that the common English usage name is used, as per Chiang Kai-shek and Sun Yat-sen, but realistically it can't be followed to the bone. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 10:51, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
I've had a completely different english language experience to you. Peking is very much outdated as a name for the city, I've not seen it on a single modern atlas, even as an alternative name (although I'm sure some atlas out there must). Same with Sichuan and Mao Zedong. Situations like Peking Duck or the Nanking Massacre often retain their old names. Not logical, but that that's how it is. I'm sure if Beijing wasn't common or Mao Zedong wasn't common there would be a strong movement to move those pages. The only issue with Commonname is when there's two or more widely used names. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:55, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

This proposal is trolling and this entire section should be collapsed. A proposal of this kind belongs at Talk:China. The editors there are probably fed up with this issue. But that's their prerogative and has nothing to do with this page. Kauffner (talk) 11:48, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

No, People's Republic of China and Republic of China is how many of the other non-English language wikis do it; it's not trolling for me to suggest that we do the same. If nothing else, if the "China" article is changed to "People's Republic of China" after the "Taiwan" article is moved to "Taiwan (Island)" and the rest of Readin's suggestion is implemented, we'd still have a mess. The fact of the matter is that the PRC and ROC articles go hand in hand, you can't change one without effecting the NPOV or the COMMONNAME issue of the other. This is something the 3 Admins were completely (willfully?) ignorant of. The 2 articles have to be discussed together.

Whose common name is Taiwan?

I think there's some confusion (#CommonNameOfROCIsTaiwan?) between Taiwan and the common name of the Republic of China.

  1. If Taiwan really is the common name of the Republic of China, the article Republic of China should be made into an redirect and Second Sino-Japanese War should be renamed to Taiwan-Japanese War. So clearly Taiwan isn't really the common name of the whole Republic of China, which should be dated back to 1911. I think everyone agree with this (otherwise nobody would claim to have a separate article Republic of China).
  2. The issue here is, some people want a ROC-fork and claim Taiwan to be the common name of that ROC-fork.
  3. However, this is not the truth, unless anyone show me such an ROC-fork or "entity" really exist. I agree that there is an entity commonly known as Taiwan, but not the entity they claimed.
    Recall that
    1. when we say "XXX was born in Taiwan", we mean "XXX was born in Free Area of the Republic of China"
    2. when we say "Taiwan says ...", we mean either "an executive body of current Republic of China (which may be either the president, Executive Yuan, ruling party, etc.) says ..." or "folk societies in Taiwan says"
    3. when we say "Governor of Taiwan", we mean "Governor of Taiwan Province"
    4. when we say "Taiwanese people", we mean that "people from Taiwan island and its subsdiary islands"
    5. ...
    Now if you want to find an entity commonly known as Taiwan, it must summarize all these italic body. But this is not enough - it must also exclude irrelated things (ROC-Japan war in 1930s~1940s, Republic of China–Holy See relations, etc.). As a result,
    1. native Taiwanese qualifier must be added
    2. flag of Republic of China should not be adopted, since it applies to whole ROC
    Now we have two way to advance:
    1. Taiwan=common name of Free Area of the Republic of China
    2. Taiwan=common name of a cultural body
    But by no means Taiwan is the common name of the whole Republic of China, unless you told me Sino-Japanese war is commonly known as a war between Taiwan and Japan.
  4. “Republic of China, sole adminstrated zone of which is commonly known as Taiwan, is a country lies in ...” is incorrect. Instead, we should say “Republic of China, sole adminstrated zone of which is commonly known as Taiwan, is a country lies in ...”

––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 14:17, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

The Republic of China as it existed between 1911 and 1949 was not Taiwan, it never administered the island of Taiwan until 1945. When the People's Republic of China was created in 1949, and the Republic fled to Taipei, that is when the Republic became Taiwan, as that is what the country is recongized as informally by the majority of the world's countries. Before you go off on a tangent trying to say how the word "Taiwan" has multiple meanings, we already understand that. Taiwan is an island, Taiwan is the informal name of a soverign state, Taiwan is the name of a province on that soverign state, Taiwan is the name of a province that is claimed by China (or to be more politically correct, the People's Republic of China) and has the same borders as the soverign state commonly called Taiwan. Those of us who are fighting to rearrange the articles partaining to Taiwan and the Republic of China, we already understand all this! We are not trying to be politically correct, we are trying to make Wikipedia easy to use, pursuant to WP:COMMONNAME, and you may disagree that it violates WP:NPOV. Does it, really? Saying that China (offically, PRC) is a soverign state and Taiwan (offically, ROC) is a soverign state, that's violating neutral point of view? While it is not the de jure recognition by the international community, it is understood de facto by majority of the world's countries, including China and Taiwan. The average person from America or England (the people who use the English Wikipedia) don't know there is a difference between the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China, many don't know that what they understand as Taiwan once held control over mainland China. If they look up Republic of China, really trying to find the People's Republic (which, by the way is now called China, 1 point for WP:COMMONNAME), and actually find an article for what they understand as Taiwan, that does them no good. I don't want to fight over our different views, I just want those who are against this proposal to understand that we are not doing anything that violates Wikipedia's standards (the two most notably fought by both sides are WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NPOV), we are in essence trying to make Wikipedia easier to use while still remaining neutral to the sensitivity of Cross-Strait relations. If you really want to say something against this, please don't start a huge fight on this talk page, use mine. Thank you for your time. Jpech95 (talk) 17:52, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Much too long of a post. Anyway, 1) the borders of Taiwan Province, PR China are not the same as those of the ROC; see Fujian Province, Republic of China. 2) Stating that "China and Taiwan are sovereign states" is a no-brainer equivalence to stating "Taiwan is not part of China". In addition, I find the claims that titles only reflect common usage and do not make statements to be completely ludicrous. It is clear that all have forgotten what the move of the China page means...when Template:Flagicon is used, scrolling over the PRC flag shows a textbox with "China" as the text, because that is the current title of the article about the PRC. This equates to an in-text equivalence of the PRC with China, which we all know is not not neutral. So this interpretation of WP:POVTITLE is misled and possibly wilfully deceitful. GotR Talk 04:18, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Yeah I realized that was a little too long after I typed it, but I got my message I guess lol. Correct, Taiwan Prov., PRC and the Republic of China are different. Taiwan Prov., PRC coincides with Taiwan Prov., ROC. While the titles do give the impression that we favor Taiwan instead of the claimed Taiwan Prov., PRC, that's not the objective. There are political entities making various statements every day about what is China, we just want to show the de facto government of land, and what it makes sence to name it based on the common name of the country. I'm starting to get sick and tired of this getting bounced back and forth. We need to reach a consensus, and at this point I don't care what it is. It's saddening. We can't let politics decide what we name our articles. Jpech95 03:27, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Careful not to slip up yet again. Taiwan Province, ROC does not include the land of the municipalities of Taipei, Kaohsiung, Taichung, Tainan, and New Taipei, whereas Taiwan Province, PRC does. So they don't cover the same area.
Based on your standard, since the viewpoint that "Taiwan is a part of China" is undoubtedly notable (but a falsehood if China is meant to be the PRC), then the current title of "China" does not reflect de facto control, a clear contradiction to what you said. And frankly, I am bewildered that no one has proposed that [[Taiwan]] be turned into a disambiguation page.
Reaching a consensus simply for the sake of having one is no good, especially if the process of reaching a consensus is rushed. GotR Talk 05:25, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
I did not know about the specifics about the various independent municipalities of the ROC. China does reflect de facto control on the land which is controled by the People's Republic of China (again, commonly called China): I do not view (personally) that "Taiwan is a part of China," so therefore the supposed contradiction I said is not contradicting. I suppose I am just showing that I have no idea what I'm talking about, which may be half true, but I understand well more than enough. I don't care about if there are different legal definitions of Taiwan Province, Taiwan and Taiwan Province, China, they both cover mainly the same areas. To be honest, as you mention it, I like the idea of a disambigational page actually, but if Taiwan became a disambiguation page, so should China, referring to the ROC, PRC, the mainland, and anything else relevent to modern China. Jpech95 23:28, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
You're missing the point. He wasn't talking about whether it is a contradiction under your point of view. He was saying that it would be a contradiction from many people's point of view, including that of almost every Chinese in mainland China and Taiwan, thus refuting your assertion that your proposal is apolitical and neutral. (And no, your posts above show that you clearly do not know enough about what you're talking about. Plenty of people have pointed out your numerous misunderstandings, such as your confusion between Taiwanese society and it state the Republic of China; yet you do not seem to wish to move on in this debate. Please do not get defensive.) JimSukwutput 01:36, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
I apologize, I am basically just trying to put what I can into the proposal, state my opinion, you know. I do see that the ongoing political status of Taiwan is a problem for the most part, and I think I'm trying to use my point of view instead of an entirely neutral point of view. I think we can all agree that I probably don't know enough to be saying all too much, but I would like to see us get into a final agreement as to what we're going to do, and I've been trying to put my two cents in, probably more than I should. We've had numerous proposals and yet we have not been able to get a compromise that will make everyone happy while remaining neutral, which is obviously something hard to do with a sensitive topic like this. Again, I apologize and I was getting defensive when it was unnessary (I'm somewhat new to Wikipedia and also am not the best at proving my point). Jpech95 02:23, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
No problem. I applaud you for respecting my criticism and having the courage to apologize. That is rare on Wikipedia these days. JimSukwutput 04:35, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
Debating the political implications of one name or another is a red herring that will only stall the discussion instead of advancing it. The bottom line is that all names are controversial for this subject. "Republic of China" offends many PRChinese and some ROChinese, because of the 'China' implications in its name and because of the ROC's prior history of mainland Chinese territorial claim. "Taiwan" offends some PRChinese and many ROChinese, because it implies either that Taiwan isn't a Chinese province, or that it's an independent nation with no rightful claim over the mainland. There is no name that will satisfy the political inclinations of all of the editors here, let alone all of the readers.
We have a section of our article titles policy that specifically covers situations like this, at WP:POVTITLE. Yes, the situation has some differences here to how it was used at China, but the fundamental principle is the same - Wikipedia uses terminology in common use, sometimes even when that terminology might be considered by some person or another to be biased. The spirit and intention of that section of our naming policy is to avoid pointless circular arguing where there are legitimate claims by significant sides of a dispute that the other side's view is biased.
Remember that our article titles are here to help people find the information they're looking for. Our article at United States is there instead of at its formal name because "United States" is far more commonly used by English-speaking people wanting to read up on that country. Similarly, Bill Clinton is not at his full name because "Bill Clinton" is far more commonly used by English-speaking people who want to know about the man. In both of those articles, it's very clearly explained in the lead what the full, formal name is, and this article would be no different.
We're here to build an encyclopaedia for our readers and most of our policies are designed around what is best for the reader, not what might be best for our editors, and not what might be best for Conflict Side A or Conflict Side B. Article titles are there to help readers find the information they want, nothing more. So once again, the political bias is a red herring and the sooner editors can put that aside, the better. The real question is whether the term "Republic of China" or the term "Taiwan" or some other variation ("Republic of China (Taiwan)" perhaps) would best serve our English-speaking readers who are looking for information on the country currently administrating the isle of Taiwan. That question is what is asked by WP:COMMONNAME, and that's the key thing that needs to be addressed here. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 02:28, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
Calling this thread a red herring is completely inappropriate. This is not merely about political bias or implications, but also precision (the exact meaning of terms) and primary topic; is the island (of which Kinmen, Matsu, etc. is not a part of) or the state the primary topic? Since they are different, there is no clear answer and this is why I prefer the disambiguation set-up. It is very unfortunate that you have overlooked this second point.
You recognised it yourself—The offence that "Taiwan" causes is greater than "ROC" creates precisely because of the larger, bolder, and more dangerous implication that Taiwan is both 1) a legitimate state, and 2) independent of China (whether "Greater China" or PRC).
Your examples of full name versus common name are not at all parallel because unlike with the US and Bill Clinton, the proper (ROC) and the common name (Taiwan) are not wholly equivalent terms. If an encyclopaedia fails to be precise in its titles (occasional slip-ups in text are inevitable) , then it is doing a disservice to its own reliability, which runs opposite to Wikipedia's inherent goal. GotR Talk 06:32, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
I didn't say the thread was a red herring, I said debating political sensitivities is a red herring. It's just not a valid argument given Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, and basing arguments for or against titles on political grounds assures that the debate will come up again and again and again, never resolved, consistently frustrating editors with long-term interest in these subjects. Yes, precision is important, but not more important than recognisability. That is enshrined in our policies, for better or for worse. I'm sorry that you disagree, but in the bulk of English usage, Taiwan and ROC are equivalent, and that is one of the key thresholds we use to determine what name to place an article at. Reliability is a non-factor in this particular issue, titles exist for search and access purposes. The article text is where the detail resides and where things like this are explained. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 21:46, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
Definitely a turn for the worse, then. It signals that the community is willing to sacrifice precision and accuracy (this is not merely about political sensitivities; I ask you cease from limiting the concerns to this) on a large scale. As I have said before, there is room for error within the article text, but absolutely none in titles. Titles that are sloppy, even wrong, should never be condoned. GotR Talk 22:48, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
In my experience, Wikipedia tends to value things the other way around - the article content should be as accurate as possible, but the title has some flexibility out of necessity: you can't explain all of the important nuances of a title in the title itself. On whether a title is wrong, that's subjective to begin with. China considers the name Senkaku Islands to be outright wrong. Japan considers the name Diaoyu Islands to be wrong. What do you name an article where there's always some group asserting that the information is wrong? Yet it has to be titled something, and it can't be titled everything. The text can explain the different names and the controversy in a way the title can't. 'Taiwan' isn't wrong as a title, and neither is 'Republic of China'. Taiwan, however, is far more recognisable to English-speaking audiences, which is the main purpose of the title. The controversy and different names are explained in the article itself. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 23:31, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
I think you make a very important point that editors need to recognize. The content of the article has to be precise and NPOV, but titles often cannot be, and it is more important that they lead reader's to the information they are seeking (including, at times, corrections of of the reader's mis-information). The reader who believes Taiwan is the formal name of a sovereign nation, or who knows very little about Taiwan but is looking for information after reading an article about "Taiwan" seeking to buy F-16s from the U.S., is not well served by the current "Taiwan" article. Readin (talk) 17:25, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
Now that I've seen Readin's comment, I agree with TechnoS. It's impossible to satisfy everyone with article names. Wikipedia has to take a position. John Smith's (talk) 18:07, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
I don't want to be misundertsood, what I meant by saying that the ROC before 1949 and after 1949 are rather different in terms of governmental control, as the ROC never controlled the island of Taiwan until 1945 and then lost control of mainland China in 1949. They are not two different countries, rather different phases of the same country. Jpech95 02:18, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
Why is that unacceptable? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.174.144 (talk • contribs) 01:22, 8 December 2011
The Holy See does not formally regonize the People's Republic of China so therefore it would make no sence for the Holy See to say they have formal relations with Taiwan when they regonize it as the legitimate government of mainland China. Jpech95 02:18, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
You may post it on Republic of China–Holy See relations to see why. ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 19:52, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

If we were to follow the apolitical and, frankly, obtuse tack that the editors of the China article continuously adhere to under COMMONNAME and POVTITLE, this article should be a straight renaming to "Taiwan". When people think of the country, that's what they think. People don't think or search for ROC/Republic of China/Free China/Free Area of China. In modern day thought and parlance, it is "Taiwan". Also, Taiwan tends to be pretty sensitive to stuff like this, however, I doubt the Taiwan government would mind if this article was named Taiwan. If they did mind, they would have already lodged a protest with the CIA to get the CIA World Factbook changed so it said Republic of China instead of Taiwan.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.110.140 (talk) 15:19, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I hope you've read the four "when we say ...". Anyway indeed they would mind this. ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 17:20, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
Well, as I've stated, the Taiwan government hasn't lodged a protest. Where's your proof that they would mind it beyond your opinion? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.174.144 (talk • contribs) 01:22, 8 December 2011
Why would the US listen to the ROC government's request to change the listing on The World Factbook when they no longer recognise the ROC? To do that would be tantamount to the US recognising two Chinas. So obviously The World Factbook listing won't be changed.--Tærkast (Discuss) 19:25, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
I didn't mean that they will lodged a protest with the CIA. I said they would mind this. And mass media will report this. ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 19:52, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
My message was more aimed towards the IP's post. And I agree the ROC government would mind.--Tærkast (Discuss) 19:54, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
The USA adheres to the 1 China policy set forth by the PRC. The PRC is against recognizing 2 Chinas, they are also against 1 China, 1 Taiwan, which is what the CIA WFB is representing. As such, since having the CIA WFB being China and ROC (Two Chinas) or China and Taiwan would violate the PRC's "One China" policy, I doubt the CIA would mind changing their Taiwan article to ROC should Taiwan wish it so.
Addtionally, Taiwan is very, very sensitive to how it is represented by the media and other governments, if they minded how they are represented by the CIA WFB (a publication they must be aware of), they would have let the CIA WFB know already. No protest has been forthcoming to change Taiwan to ROC on the CIA WFB. Unless there's a news article out there that I've missed. If Taiwan doesn't mind the CIA WFB using Taiwan instead of ROC, why would they mind Wikipedia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.174.144 (talk) 21:33, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
The ROC has no problem referring to itself as Taiwan in a national context, there are numerous articles in their own website such as this one where it's very clear, both in the article text and in the direct quotes from government officials, that their use of the word 'Taiwan' is referring to the country, not the province. There are absolutely people out there who object to the name Taiwan to refer to the country, but the ROC government is not one of them. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 22:06, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
As far as the CIA goes, their usage has to follow the Taiwan Relations Act. The U.S. consulate in Taipei is called the American Institute in Taiwan (美國在台協會). So New Party protesters can go there and chant, "Taipei is not part of Taiwan province!" and, "Learn geography and move to Zhongxing New Village if you like 'Taiwan' so much!" Kauffner (talk) 07:06, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
Nobody is disputing that the territory is called Taiwan. When I meet someone from Taipei, they say they're "from Taiwan". If you read the Taipei 101 article, it rightly says that the building is in Taiwan. But in all these instances they are using Taiwan as a region, and we have an article on that: Taiwan. When in official settings, the state is always called Republic of China. JimSukwutput 05:16, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
But in all these instances they are using Taiwan as a region. Really? They say "Hi, I'm from Taiwan - but when I use that word I'm talking about a region, not a country"? Sorry, what you said was completely subjective. I can equally argue that they're using it to refer to their country. John Smith's (talk) 10:36, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
It can be a reference to a geographical area (which basically comprises the island of Taiwan itself, the Pescadores, Green Island, Orchid Island, the Northern Islets, but not Kinmen, Wuchiou, the Matsus, the Pratas, etc.), or to the common name of the country, just as Britain, Holland, America for the UK, the Netherlands and the US respectively, or for context before 1990, Russia for the Soviet Union, and so on and so forth. 218.250.159.42 (talk) 04:53, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps the article should be at Chinese Taipei... :-) Wendin (talk) 01:48, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Beginnings on creating the articles

This is not a new proposal. I am just letting those know that the people who support the proposal can begin to design the articles should they wish to, without getting reverted. I created a subpage of my userpage so that we could begin to work out the details of this proposal and reach a general idea of what we want to do. Replies are not necessary here. 

User:Jpech95/taiwan

Thanks. Jpech95 00:21, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

  • Let's iron out the contents properly in the subpages Jpech95 has created before we make any kind of major edits to the articles in question. If a good majority of readers and editors are happy about it, then I'll withdraw my objection and support the move. However, may I suggest that you separate them into individual subpages to not make it too cluttered when people are contributing content? If possible, please also create a Nationalist Government of China (1928-1949) article to fill in the void since we only have two proper articles that cover the 1912-1928 period. Thanks. **Update** Sorry, did not realize that a new Nationalist Government article was created. Please ignore my earlier request on that.Raiolu (talk) 19:42, 16 December 2011 (UTC)



In all seriousness, it is good to know that people like my idea, because I feel that if we can't show what we're talking about (because the changes are somewhat drastic) we'll never be able to complete this. So yes, I am working on creating this, and I would happily creating subpages of this subpage when the articles become lengthy, if we want to make it the full article. First I'm going to need people to help out, of course. Thank you all. Jpech95 23:09, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


Update

I hope that the silence on this page doesn't mean that we've stopped the proposal because on my userpage we have made extensive progress on the pages in question. I am hoping that any users that want to help create or dicuss what they want seen (or not seen) done to these articles, please visit the page and help out! User:Jpech95/taiwan and User talk:Jpech95/taiwan. Jpech95 22:56, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks; I see your "Taiwan" article is about the sovereign state commonly known as "Taiwan", which I think is a good improvement. If more justification is needed for this change from the status quo, perhaps producing a list of reliable sources which use "Taiwan" as the country vs. the island, would help (an analogous list was produced in the China / PRC discussion). Mlm42 (talk) 21:14, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
  1. At first you explained the difference as "Republic of China as it existed between 1911 and 1949 was not Taiwan", and split one entity into two by setting an arbitrary year 1949.
    This is confusing - you can't say the Republic of China before 1949 is the Republic of China while the Republic of China after 1949 is Taiwan since the ROC controls a lot of territory of mainland China even after 1949, and since the ROC controls Taiwan since 1945.
  2. This time you claim that "Republic of China" is the name of the government of User:Jpech95/taiwan/Taiwan.
    This is even more confusing because we say that the Second Sino-Japanese War is a war between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan, not a war between the government of User:Jpech95/taiwan/Taiwan and the Empire of Japan.
Anyway, by no means can you split a single entity into two arbitrarily, which is original research. ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 14:35, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
The proposed article is here. You might try reading it before commenting on it, you know. No, there is no artificial division of anything in 1949. The article begins the story with the settlement of the island pre-historic times, runs through Dutch, Ming, Qing, Japanese, KMT, etc. and finally brings us up to the present, all formatted in the manner that I believe is conventional for a heavy-duty nation-state article. Kauffner (talk) 15:42, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
The issue is User:Jpech95/taiwan/Taiwan inherite the soverienty-state-properity of ROC - this is the main issue. You must describe the difference between User:Jpech95/taiwan/Taiwan and User:Jpech95/taiwan/Republic of China, the the two previous describe made by Jpech (the first being 1949-split-rule, the second being government-rule) failed. You mentioned the article is a "story with the settlement of the island pre-historic times, runs through Dutch, Ming, Qing, Japanese, KMT", so:
  1. If we follow Jpech95's controversial "is a sovereign state based on an island in East Asia"-claim, then the history of User:Jpech95/taiwan/Taiwan should be dated back to the mainland period of ROC and furthermore the Qin, Han, Tang, Yuan, Ming, Qing dynasty China, and Dutch should never be mentioned.
  2. If we follow the story with the settlement of the island pre-historic times, runs through Dutch, Ming, Qing, Japanese, KMT, then User:Jpech95/taiwan/Taiwan should not be described as a sovereign state, but a cultural entity.
So Jpech95's proposal is self-contradict (if you are writting a story, as you told me, you may ignore the contradiction, but since you're writting an encyclopediac article, the self-contradiction is fatal and makes the article very POV and controversial). The self-contradiction if due to his split of ROC-as-Taiwan and ROC-as-China - you can never take both into account if you let Taiwan inherat the soverign-state-status-of-ROC. Following my proposal, describe Taiwan as the free area of the Republic of China, then the contradiction is solved, because Free Area itself is a new concept after 1949. ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 16:10, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
It's standard format to do it that way and the same issue exists with the other nation-state articles. The opening for France is, "The French Republic...is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe...." That's been true only since 1958, yet the history section starts off with Lascaux. Kauffner (talk) 17:44, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

He was pointing out that Taiwan is not a nation-state, it's what people commonly refer the Republic of China as and "Taiwan, officially known as the Republic of China(Taiwan), is a sovereign state based on an island in East Asia" is politically incorrect. Thus his suggestion free area of the Republic of China is politically neutral and works. Also creating an article that specifically states 'Taiwan is a country' is politically, socially and historically incorrect. As there is a big difference in saying "The Republic of China, commonly known as Taiwan, is a country" and "Taiwan, officially known as the Republic of China, is country". We have to consider that people on Taiwan are big supporters of either the Kuomintang that supports Chinese reunification with Mainland China or the Democratic Progressive Party that supports Taiwanese independence. Stating Taiwan is a country means the creation of the Republic of Taiwan which does not reflect the current political situation on Taiwan thus it's not neutral or correct.Typhoonstorm95 (talk) 19:17, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Typhoon, if the KMT said tomorrow that a vote for President Ma is a vote for unification with China, he'd lose the election hands-down. The KMT is technically in favour of unification, but it is so heavily caveated that it is not a factor for a very large number of the people that vote KMT. Most Taiwanese vote according to domestic, not international (i.e. what to do about China), politics. For example, there was a Global Views survey from last year that indicated that support for unification is low even amongst KMT supporters. So if anything changing the article title would reflect the fact that Taiwanese do see themselves as being separate from China. John Smith's (talk) 20:11, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

If they all voted for Taiwanese independence, China would invade them. Do Republic of China supporters believe Taiwan is a country? No. Do they believe the Republic of China/Republic of China on Taiwan/Republic of China(Taiwan)/Free area of the Republic of China is a country? Yes. Many support the status quo which the KMT also supports. We don't have the right to decide in what naming the Republic of China base on common name alone as Wikipedia is supposed to be neutral on this issue. That means we support both the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China claims of being the legitimate government of China. If we decide to name the article 'Taiwan is a country' which the People's Republic of China shows great disliking to as shown in the Anti-Secession Law.; we are not being neutral as we don't recognize the claim by the Republic of China over Mainland China and it still doesn't reflect the current politics on Taiwan. If the DPP successfully renamed the Republic of China to the Republic of Taiwan then the issue is fine and then we can use 'Taiwan is a country'.Typhoonstorm95 (talk) 20:57, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Back in the 1960s, Taiwan was called "Nationalist China". The names "Republic of China" and "ROC" are just confusing to English speakers and have never been common usage. When the ROC lost international recognition, it could not be called "China" anymore. The usage became "Taiwan", for example in the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979. So the reasons for using the name "Taiwan" have nothing to do with internal Taiwanese politics. Nowadays "Taiwan" is just the name of the state, used by everyone from the CIA's World Factbook, (the authoritative source for country names, according to CMOS), to President Ma's Website, Xinhua, and Britannica. Do they all support Taiwanese independence? Kauffner (talk) 02:59, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
If it's already an independent sovereign state by the name Taiwan, why would any step towards Taiwanese independence lead to war? And if Taiwan is the name of this country, why are Kinmen and Matsu excluded from the definition of Taiwan and therefore not covered by the Taiwan Relations Act? Why did Taiwan pretend to be China way into 1971 in the United Nations, and until 1978 in its relations with the United States? 218.250.159.42 (talk) 15:26, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
Do not misinterpret: Xinhua didn't refer the state as Taiwan, nor do Brittanica. Xinhua refer Taiwan as an entity, while Britanica says “Taiwan, Chinese (Wade-Giles romanization) T’ai-wan or (Pinyin) Taiwan, Portuguese Formosa, island located about 100 miles ...” and entitled “Taiwan (self-governed island)”. ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 14:03, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
I cannot imagine why Xinhua would consider Taiwan to be a sovereign state. 218.250.159.42 (talk) 14:44, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

It does point to Taiwanese independence because of either creating a article saying 'Taiwan is a country' or moving Republic of China to Taiwan is incorrect and wrong. In all definitions Taiwan is a country but in name because Taiwan belongs to China; hence China belongs to both the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China as both have legitimate claim to the land. As Wikipedia has to be clearly neutral on the issue we have to recognize both claims. No matter how confusing the names are. If we do continue then pick a politically neutral name like Free Area of the Republic of China as it doesn't causes any major issues with either the Republic of China or the People's Republic of China.Typhoonstorm95 (talk) 04:48, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Upon thinking about the name, renaming the article Taiwan will be really historically inaccurate as this page is dedicate to the Republic of China as a nation from 1912-today. Renaming Republic of China to Taiwan means "Taiwan governed all of Mainland China in 1920", "Taiwan is the successor of the Qing Dynasty after the Xinhai Revolution", "Taiwan fought bitterly against Japan in the Second Sino-Japanese War" is so wrong and incorrect as Taiwan at the time was a colonial possession of Japan.Typhoonstorm95 (talk) 05:32, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

The Taiwan article is being rewritten as we speak to ensure that it doesn't cover Chinese history. That's sort of the point of what Jpech and Kauffner are doing.
I've also noticed that the China article includes a reference to the ROC and two articles on the ROC (1912-1949 and History of). That means there's also no need to discuss the pre-Taiwan history of the ROC. John Smith's (talk) 09:30, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
Of course there is. Under the POVTITLE and COMMONNAME rules, including ROC 1911-1949 into the Taiwan article is the NPOV thing to do. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.78.140 (talk) 17:05, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
If Jpech and Kauffer is removing Chinese history, why is there a Qing Dynasty rule section? Qing is Chinese. — Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])


Taiwan including the Pescadores has been de facto part of the Republic of China since 1945. What do you mean by pre-Taiwan? 218.250.159.42 (talk) 17:23, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

How would you feel if we divided American history up and started with the American Civil War? So people could better understand it. Even though it's American history and belongs together so you can have the full story and understand it.Typhoonstorm95 (talk) 14:07, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

First, if that's what Wikipedia decided then I'd have to accept it. Second, it wouldn't make any sense because the current article on China encompasses all Chinese history and there's no attempt here to break that article up. John Smith's (talk) 16:42, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Yet we don't use it that way and no one would understand it if it was setup that way. This isn't about the 'entire Chinese history'; this about the Republic of China's history as a country.71.184.217.18 (talk) 19:19, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I still think the right course of action should be for the ROC to be a straight renaming to Taiwan under POVTITLE and COMMONNAME. However, in addressing the Japan issue, I do not see why Qing and KMT are split; Qing is Chinese, KMT is Chinese. The article should have a Chinese Rule section with Qing and ROC under it and with a separate Japanese rule section. Or maybe the Japanese rule section should be split out into its own article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

Qing Dynasty lost Taiwan to Japan in the First Sino-Japanese. Since the end of First Sino-Japanese War til Japan lost the Second World War Taiwan was a colonial possession of Japan. The Qing Dynasty, a Manchu dynasty, was overthrown in the Xinhai Revolution creating the Republic of China. The Republic of China didn't gain control of Taiwan until 1945.Typhoonstorm95 (talk) 22:45, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
That's aboslutely correct, and we're not denying that fact. For those who don't know, yes, the island was not controled by the country until the year 1945, but then in 1949 that's all they countroled, so that is more than enough time to call the country, informally, Taiwan. Jpech95 23:28, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
"but then in 1949 that's all they countroled" - No. In 1949 the ROC still controlled many islands along the coast of the continent, such as Hainan, Chusan, Tachen, Wanshan. Kinmen, Wuchiou, Matsu, Pratas, Itu Aba, etc., are retained till now. None of these islands are 'Taiwanese' no matter before or after 1949. Apart from these coastal islands, there were also isolated pockets within the continent, such as those along the border with Burma. These apparently have never been Taiwanese. Beyond the territorial point of view, the ROC had the China seat in the UN Security Council until 1971, US recognition as China until 1978, and is still having diplomatic relations as China with more than 20 other states, including the Holy See. 218.250.159.42 (talk) 12:03, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Hello? 218.250.159.42 (talk) 13:32, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
My point was to have a Chinese Rule section and a Japanese Rule section. Qing and ROC are both Chinese. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.174.144 (talk) 15:11, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
I wasn't fighting the issue instead informing the IP. I don't mean to insult the IP, but reading the Taiwan(island) under the section Empire of Japan rule would have cleared the issue.Typhoonstorm95 (talk) 00:40, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
When did Taiwan become Taiwanese and no longer Chinese? 1945, 49, 88 or 96? And when did Kinmen, Matsu, Wuchiou and Pratas become Taiwanese and no longer Chinese? 218.250.159.42 (talk) 12:03, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Moving forward

I see that the new Taiwan article is nearly done. Indeed, is there much left to do with it? John Smith's (talk) 16:45, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Thankfully not too much, now we're working on what is going to be in which article. Your help is welcome. Jpech95 01:55, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
Under the POVTITLE and COMMONNAME conventions that were used to convert China to the PRC, the ROC 1919-1949 article should be merged into the new Taiwan article. This would, under POVTITLE and COMMONNAME not be a violation whatsoever of NPOV and would, in fact, foster greater continuity of English Wikipedia's rules. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.174.144 (talk) 15:14, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
Yep. Taiwan is a country established by Dr Sun Yat Sen in 1912. From 1928 onwards it had its capital in Nanking. It did not rule the island of Taiwan until 1945, when it, as a member of the Allies, won the Second World War with Japan. China broke away in 1949 as another country but they left the a few islands near its coast, namely Kinmen, Matsu, Wuciou and Pratas, behind to Taiwan. Despite losing the landmass of China, the Taiwanese government continued to pretend to be China, and went on to sign both the Treaty of Taipei with Japan and the Sino-American Mutual Defence Treaty as China. It also occupied the China seat in the UN Security Council from its founding in 1945 until 1971, when the General Assembly voted not to let it pretend anymore. Is that correct? 218.250.159.42 (talk) 15:50, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
This was all discussed before when the China article was made to be just the PRC... oh wait. This WASN'T discussed... was it? Regardless, under POVTITLE and COMMONNAME, moving ROC 1911-1949 is the most NPOV thing to do.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.78.140 (talk) 17:01, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
  • I see that the tactic of completely ignoring opposing voices, which is growing by the minute, continues to be employed shamelessly by some supporters of this proposal. When Jpech95 made available his user page for experimenting with a new article I regained a little bit of good faith for you people. You have completely squandered that. Let me state unequivocally that I would oppose without question any edits made in line with this proposal until you address the numerous concerns raised above by Yu Hai, Typhoonstorm95, and several IPs. Either you do that, or we take this through an official dispute resolution process. JimSukwutput 20:57, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
    • Also, the official policy stating that we use ROC as the name of the state is on WP:NC-TW, and it is clearly stated that disputes about naming conventions should be discussed on the policy talk page. Since this move clearly involves a changing of the naming convention, I do not understand why we are restricting this discussion to here. JimSukwutput 21:03, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
Better start that dispute resolution process now. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
I don't see this opposition that is "growing by the minute". In any event, it's clear that there will always be opposition on this issue. Either you're in favour of referring to Taiwan as "Taiwan" or the "Republic of China". In order to please everyone the articles on all those titles would have to be blank. But as I've said many times, it was clear that Readin's proposal gained consensus. I don't see why some people find that so hard to accept. John Smith's (talk) 11:34, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
Consensus is not a popular vote. It involves efforts from both sides to actively debate on differences and trying to resolve them. One side so far has failed to address criticisms and avoided debates; instead, you scream "consensus" as if a 3 day poll of one proposal out of dozens somehow gives you the right to withdraw from all discussions and implement whatever edits you have in mind. That is simply not how Wikipedia works; if you cannot understand this, you do not have the maturity to work in this project. JimSukwutput 13:17, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
Consensus is also NOT unanimity, and you know that. Sometimes the minority has to accept that their views, whilst considered, have been ultimately discarded. I find it amazing that you believe you have a veto on this for some reason. John Smith's (talk) 14:36, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm not vetoing anything. I and other users have been raising more and more objections, specific about the implementation of the move, which you have repeatedly failed to address. You claim that these "views" are discarded; yet you have avoided almost all discussions by other users on how exactly to implement your "consensus"-driven move, and claimed to have some imaginary consensus about a change which you have no idea how to implement. I would be a little more forgiving if you even have a solid proposal for how to move the articles' content specifically, but right now everything is worded so vaguely that there is nothing I could possibly even support. What else can I do but say Please stop and tell us what the hell you're trying to do? Do you expect me to say "Since a vaguely worded proposal by another user has some support votes, I'm going to let User:John Smith (or some other user) implement whatever changes he has in mind?" How much history are you going to put in the ROC article and how much in the Taiwan article? Do we mention Japanese colonization in the island article or in the Taiwan article? Are we going to create separate articles for different eras of the ROC? How many users have even heard of Jpech95's sandbox articles and how many writers with expertise in this project have you invited to participate in them? JimSukwutput 03:15, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Please consider how misguided your actions are before you proceed. This sentence in particular is anachronistic to the point of absurdity: Taiwan is a country established by Dr Sun Yat Sen in 1912. As I pointed out, the question of whether Taiwan is or should be separate from China is so sensitive that I can't see any reason Wikipedia should be involved in it. Wendin (talk) 01:47, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

  • Another testimony to the amusing and absurd lack of perspective from a few particular editors in this discussion, despite their vocal insistence that they know everything there is to know about the topic and does not need the assistance of experienced members of the project. JimSukwutput 10:46, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
That was meant to illustrate how ridiculous it would be like if this article is moved to Taiwan. 218.250.159.42 (talk) 14:03, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Alternate Proposal

I propose we rename the current China article back to the People’s Republic of China, and create a new China or China (civilization) article which will be separate from the People’s Republic of China and Republic of China. This page will serve as a disambiguation page for the two countries. This is based on how several different languages (French, Polish, German, Russian, Simplified Chinese Characters, etc.) of Wikipedia did to combat the confusion of the Two China States. If you what an example of my proposal look here (French) http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chine and here for Chinese version (Simplified Characters) http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B. Remember to scroll down until you see the separation of the two countries. To separate the differences of the Two China States the page will be in a similar format as the French and Chinese pages. This is a basic rough draft version of what the page will look like.


"As a result of the Chinese Civil War, two China States were created.

[People's Republic of China-governs Mainland China, and includes Hong Kong and Macao (brief summary of the country).]

[Republic of China- governs Taiwan, Matsu, Penghu, Kinmen and other islands (brief summary of the country).]”


This will instantly clarify the difference between the Two China States, avoid causing issues with ROC supporters and respecting Taiwan's political status. It will also serve to mention the entire history of China. Therefore, there will be a section of modern history but it will only describe the important events that happen in China (e.g., the Xinhai Revolution, Chinese Civil War, the Great Leap Forward, etc.). We should not mention the important events in great detail as there are already articles dedicated to those events. The current PRC page will either reduce or remove the background history (e.g. Chinese dynasties) and will mention the general history of the PRC in greater detail than the China or China (civilization) article, and the ROC page stays as it is. We will be basing the China or China (civilization) article on the French and Chinese version of the article as a guideline.Typhoonstorm95 (talk) 14:25, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the move that was done will probably be permanent. The proposals you make are akin to the old China article, where neither the PRC nor the ROC occupied the title of "China". That article was suprisingly stable for quite a while up until that move proposal/merger of PRC into "China". I do not believe that the move actually solved much, as evidenced by the fact that there are still problems with it. This article is changing, too, however. As discussed in the headers above, from what I understand, it is likely that this article will be renamed "Taiwan", the "Republic of China" article will simply discuss the government, and the current "Taiwan" article will become "Taiwan (island)". I believe the old status quo is best, however, if consensus is to change them, then we cannot stand in the way of the majority.--Tærkast (Discuss) 14:21, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Let us see if my proposal gains enough support. If it doesn't then we don't go forward with it.Typhoonstorm95 (talk) 14:41, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
It won't gain much traction. You'll hit the Great Walls of POVTITLE and COMMONNAME; for a nominally "open and free" library, the Admins at the "China" article are being stubbornly autocratic and they actually made their decision counter to the consensus. If the China article is going to be changed to your proposal, it will have to be decided by those with authority over the 3 Admins who made the change in the first place. That's really the only way that I can see it being changed at this point and after all this discussion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])
So much for Wikipedia, The "Free" Encyclopedia. Raiolu (talk) 17:07, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
It's a sad day for any serious editor in this project when three admins with no expertise whatsoever in a subject area can ignore an overwhelming consensus at will. As for this proposal, I strongly support it. It will be an improvement even over the previous version of the article, and a hell lot better than the nonsense we have now. JimSukwutput 13:11, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
So those admins have absolute powers that the common man like us have no choice but to conform and obey? Dictatorship of the internet? In anyway, what's done is done. Maybe you peeps might wanna help out in the draft articles currently in construction in Jpech95's userpage. Oppose or not, it's still a chance to construct a "new" article that might be able to satisfy a majority of us. As the saying goes, you won't know until you try. Raiolu (talk) 16:22, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
It's not just about absolute power. There needs to be someone making decisions, so I'm fine if we ask a few users to make these decisions, and I agree there are people who will be disappointed and there's nothing we can do about it. But I'm agitated about how utterly clueless those three admins were; all three were North Americans with no experience whatsoever in the China project. I mean no offense absolutely to those three admins, who as far as I know are extremely competent people; but the matter of the fact is that they had a poor understanding of what's going on and made an obviously uninformed decision with their power, against years of consensus. For example, here's what one of the three admins said in his final judgment: "the China article should contain a reference to the fact that the ROC also claims to be the legitimate China (assuming that they do that)". Of course ROC still claims to be the legitimate China! They've been doing that for exactly a century, and that's exactly why a lot of people believe the move should not take place! If one has to make "assumptions" about central counter-arguments such as this, how do you expect them to see through the 60 years of political and propaganda warfare well enough to make a sensible judgment? What they've done is to avoid the complications (and it is an extremely complicated issue) and choose to fall back on an easy Wikipedia policy "POVTITLE" and "COMMONNAME" and claim that it applies without qualification. That's a lazy route, and an extremely poor course of action; it seems to be the same lazy route being taken by many users here. JimSukwutput 03:33, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Jim, there was ample time in the move discussion for you to enlighten any "clueless North Americans" about intra-Chinese politics. You and the opposers made a good effort, but it just wasn't convincing enough. I have the feeling that, rather than you and the others having some esoteric Chinese knowledge that would turn the tide of consensus, that you are stuck in some 1950s time warp where the Kuomintang dictatorship actually pretended to be the government of all China. If the reformed government in Taiwan really still does this, then the opposers would have more reliable sources to bear than just the 1946 ROC constitution. Supporters of the China move have a huge battery of English-language sources that they point to to fortify their position. Where are your sources? Shrigley (talk) 05:38, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
It's not just Jim and others of us who are stuck in a 1950's timewarp. I encourage you to look at the other language Wikipedias, from what I've seen with the exception of Cyrillic Wikipedia (comprising former Communist States), few if any other Wikis have made the PRC as the "China" article. The only ones I've been able to find are, as I mentioned, English and Cyrillic. I'd say, if anything, those people who think the PRC should be the "China" article are the ones in the minority in the world. — Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])
@Shrigley. It's not just people who support the Kuomintang who recognize that the current state governing Taiwan is the ROC. It's entirely possible to recognize that the two states separated from the straits are both Chinese states (and hence it would be ridiculous to call one of them China) without supporting one over another. As an example, almost all Taiwanese refer to Mandarin as "national language", yet many of them couldn't care less about Kuomintang's 1950s-era claims. JimSukwutput 02:44, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
I think everyone here recognizes that the ROC is the state governing Taiwan. That's not the point. The more general country concept is "Taiwan" to a general readership audience - and most sourcing as well. The introductory article on the country should be called Taiwan. The text in the Taiwan article is about the island, not the country. The text in the ROC article is a mish-mash about the country and the state. General readers don't split semantics about countries and states. This situation does a disservice to a lay readership. That's who Wikipedia is written for and why the current article titling fails. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
Pandering to an woefully (possibly wilfully) ignorant populace will still fail in the end. Smacking an untruth to article titles and then proceeding to present a clear contradiction within the article text is not preferable to sticking to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth the whole time. And no, as has been said repeatedly, Wikipedia is not a newspaper. GotR Talk 04:34, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
It's not an untruth. That's the way our sourcing describes the situation. Wikipedia reflects, not directs. If the populace is woefully ignorant then the way to educate them is to lead, not obfuscate behind partisan hypercorrect names they don't know to look for. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
I think you underestimate the intellectual curiosity of the "lay readership". It is far easier for someone who believes in a "China-Taiwan" distinction to spend some time and figure out why we use PRC-ROC than for someone who believes in a PRC-ROC distinction to come to terms with why we consider China to be PRC. That's why we refer to it as "dumbing down" the content - not because we make it easier for the "lay readership" but because we are introducing ambiguities. JimSukwutput 06:16, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
"than for someone who believes in a PRC-ROC distinction to come to terms with why we consider China to be PRC" Wikipedia doesn't pander to people who find it difficult to come to terms with such things. Life is hard and sometimes our views aren't accepted by others. If people can't live with that, they should consider setting up their own version of Wikipedia that reflects their views of the world to the exclusion of the opinion of others. That or seek therapy so that a professional can explain things to them. John Smith's (talk) 19:51, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Would you apply the same argument to anyone else who finds a neutrality issue on Wikipedia? Do you even recognize that we have WP:NPOV? Your trolling is pathetic. JimSukwutput 21:49, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Nice try, but that's not what I said. You suggested that Wikipedia needs to make allowance for people who have not "come to terms with why we consider China to be PRC". People can raise whatever objections they like, but they also have to come to terms with the views of others, even if they're not happy with them. John Smith's (talk) 22:31, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
The entire point of Taiwanese independence is to create Taiwan as a country. Nobody would understand why are they trying to gain independence when they are already a country and says "Taiwan, officially known as Republic of China, is a sovereign state". Well anyone who knows basic English grammer knows that statement between the commas is additional information that can be remove and the sentence would still make sense. Thus it's saying "Taiwan is a sovereign state". Let me be clear "Taiwan is a country" doesn't exist which is the entire point of Taiwanese independence to make Taiwan a country so it can be recognized by the UN. The "Republic of China is a country" does exist and has existed since 1912.71.184.217.18 (talk) 23:26, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Good point. Even Taiwanese independence supporters would be unsatisfied by this naming convention. If Taiwan is already regarded as a country, that preempts their entire political movement and makes their support pointless. JimSukwutput 00:28, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
Not true. See this quote by Chen Shui-bian: "Taiwan does not have to declare independence because it is already independent". Shrigley (talk) 00:35, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
Then why doesn't the UN accept Republic of China into the UN as Taiwan since it's "independent"? Oh yeah the official name still says it's China and former president Chen Shui-bian tried to have the Republic of China under Taiwan. Which was unsuccessful as show in this article,UN rejects Taiwan's membership bid . Former president Chen Shui-bian is no longer in power in the Republic of China. The opposition, KMT, currently has strong hold in government again. As we know the KMT supports gradual reunification with Mainland China. So most moves by the DPP have been erase by the KMT.Typhoonstorm95 (talk) 01:35, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
The United Nations rejected the membership bid of Taiwan due to the One China policy exercised by China, which has a large influence over the UN body due to its position on the UN Security Council. Because diplomatic ties with Taiwan are limited by the policy (in that recognition of one side means no recognition to the other), most nations maintain official ties with the larger state, and thus voted against the Taiwan bid to enter the UN. Even if a vote within the UN granted membership, China still has veto power as a member of the Security Council. In short, it's not that Taiwan wasn't accepted, it's that Taiwan CANNOT be accepted due to policies enforced by China in the international community. Kirby173 (talk) 01:15, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
We all know that the government in Taipei isn't nominally recognised. Yet we all know that most countries have got around nominal unrecognition and maintained de facto ties with Taipei. They got de facto embassies there, they sell arms to the armed force there, and they accept the passports issued by the Taipei government. 'Taiwan' is understood to be a euphemism to Republic of China, a name which they can't say because of their nominal acknowledgement or recognition of PRC's claims. They got their own difficulties because of their ties with Beijing. But why should we stick with euphemisms and disregard our official policy of neutral point of view? 218.250.159.42 (talk) 13:32, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
That's basically points one and two of Chen Shui Bian's 'Four Noes and One Without' pledge. He had had a lot of rhetorics and deliberate ambiguities. 218.250.159.42 (talk) 04:43, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
What do you mean by Cyrillic Wikipedia? There are quite a few languages written in the Cyrillic alphabet. 218.250.159.42 (talk) 12:03, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Hello? 218.250.159.42 (talk) 13:32, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
Who are having authority over the three closing admins? 218.250.159.42 (talk) 12:03, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

This isn't the place to rename the China article. You need to go to the talk page there. For myself, I don't think it's a good idea. I support Jpech's work and look forward to seeing it implimented. John Smith's (talk) 14:38, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Of course not. This article has to change and adapt now that the PRC occupies the "China" article. Now, as I understand it, after said changes have been implemented, the two states will be at "China" (PRC) and "Taiwan" (ROC). It does seem like a logical move after the recent changes. Do I think it was better in the former status quo? Yes. But that will not return, and I also see no other way forward now, but to make said changes, regardless of whether or not I agree. Consensus drives us to change this article, as it has (controversially perhaps) driven the "China" article to change. So we must move forward.--Tærkast (Discuss) 14:59, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
This is EXACTLY the place to discuss the renaming/reverting of the China article. The ROC and the PRC used to be China in the article. The ROC was completely ignored when the 3 Admins made their decision. The fact that the ROC still exists and it is China but is no longer named China is the whole issue here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.174.144 (talk) 15:13, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
No, it is not the place to discuss it. You cannot rename the China article without gaining consensus on that page's talk page. Even if there was agreement here to rename the China article to "People's Republic of China", it wouldn't allow the China article to be so renamed.
Furthermore, I've seen that there's already been discussion on the China talk page on how the move was "wrong". There was no consensus to move the article back. John Smith's (talk) 17:04, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
Sour grapes, and wrong talk page. Despite having China in the name, the ROC simply is not ever referred to as China except in fringe cases. "Taiwan"? Yes. "Chinese Taipei"? Yes. Long form "Republic of China"? Yes. But "China"? Almost never. Griping about this is griping about reality, and continuing to assert that the claim to the name is equal and demanding equal treatment based on unequal claims will pin the complainers to a fringe view. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
The claim is equal under the 1992 Consensus. And 1.3 billion Chinese people call it Taipei, China. 1.3 billion people don't call the PRC "China", they call it Mainland or Middle Kingdom. Is Wikipedia now in the business of determinig unilaterally what a country should or should not be called?
Nope, it's in the business of following what it is called. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 23:22, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
Then the "China" article should be called 'The People's Republic of China'. All official documents will support my claim and a whole host of unoffical documents and information sources. In order to be truly NPOV on this issue, either the "China" article needs to be renamed 'People's Republic of China', it's official name, or this article needs to be a straight rename to "Taiwan", it's COMMONNAME.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.46.140 (talk) 02:09, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
You've obviously not seen our source list, showing the country's common name. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 02:21, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Then we're in agreement. This article should be a straight rename to "Taiwan". Any of the sources for "China" would show The Republic of China as "Taiwan". The "ROC 1911-1949" article should be merged into here as well.
What about the island known as Taiwan? The non-UN-member sovereign state hereinafter known as Taiwan covers Kinmen and Matsu as well. If someone comes in to look for geographical information about the island known as Taiwan, should the Taiwan article be renamed Taiwan(island) following the move from ROC to Taiwan? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.244.152.119 (talk) 15:01, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Changes to "Taiwan (island)" are currently being prepared. John Smith's (talk) 19:27, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

As a matter of principle and consistency, we should at the same time merge United Kingdom and Great Britain and rename it as Britain or England, break off some of the materials and content from there and move them into United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and radically change how that article is organised. We may rename it into United Kingdom (1801-1922/1927) too. 218.250.159.42 (talk) 14:02, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

You can do whatever you like. But you would have to start a move/merger proposal on those pages. Good luck. John Smith's (talk) 19:53, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
For those who don't support the merger of the Republic of China and the Taiwan articles, they don't have any burden to do the same thing with the UK articles. 218.250.159.42 (talk) 04:43, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
The IP is exactly correct. If advocates here believe that WP:COMMONNAME's recommendation of using common names applies to every situation unequivocally, it is only natural that they should start up similar proposals at Great Britain (->England), or United States (->America), or Republic of Macedonia (->Macedonia). If they truly are simply editing objectively according to Wikipedia policies (never mind that they have been consistently ignoring WP:NC-TW), why haven't they started up similar proposals across the site? Or could it possibly be that there are some ulterior motives at work here, that supporters of this renaming might have some political goal in mind? Could it be that two of the most vocal supporters of this move are notorious PRC nationalists on Wikipedia and another two are Taiwanese independence supporters, hence forming an unholy alliance against the ROC name? JimSukwutput 22:50, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
Oh definitely, but that doesn't matter, because in the end it was the strength of the argument not the motives that was evaluated. In regards to your three examples, I challenge anyone to provide a comprehensive list of reliable mainstream sources that's half as good as the one we have for China for a move of Great Britain to England of United States to America. If you can, then there's a case, but you can't. As for Macedonia, that's disambiguation, as the Greek province of Macedonia is also commonly called Macedonia. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 23:28, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

He knows that, but do us Americans and English speaking people really care about a little naming dispute between the countries Greece and Macedonia? Nope. Do most English speakers know the dispute? Nope. I honestly, I don't see the difference in doing that since you are changing the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China pages to common names.71.184.217.18 (talk) 23:44, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with the dispute. We have a country commonly called Macedonia. We have a province commonly called Macedonia. We have an ancient kingdom (which is not directly connected to either) commonly called Macedonia (and the kingdom may be the most well known one out of the three). Hence, all are called Macedonia, but with some form of disambiguation. Not at all similar to this situation. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 23:58, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
Why does that matter? You ignored the One-China Policy; the 1992 Consensus; Anti-Secession Law; the Republic of China's history; the Resolution 2758.71.184.217.18 (talk) 00:12, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
Well, you made an argument with Macedonia, so I showed you the difference. Wikipedia is not written to follow any specific laws (although it is under Florida jurisdiction), and those laws are tangential to commonname. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 00:25, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
I was pointing out to you, doing this move goes against the Two China States. Showing no respect or sensitivity to this matter is what those three admins did and many of you who support this move and the move for the PRC's page. Again why should we care about little things like that for Macedonia, Great Britian and etc. since you are putting common names on the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China pages on this issue.71.184.217.18 (talk) 00:36, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
The three admins followed wikipedia guidelines and policies. Wikipedia is not written to be politically correct. All the places you mentioned are titled by common names. Now China is too. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 21:32, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
" All the places you mentioned are titled by common names. " - You sure that the article for the Republic of Macedonia resides at Macedonia, the article for the Republic of Ireland resides at Ireland, and the one for the United Kingdom locates at Britain? 218.250.159.42 (talk) 13:32, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Please stop

This has no relevance to the United Kingdom or Macedonia. The only comparison that makes sense is with the Republic of Ireland and the name Ireland, and although it's a good comparison since the solution there may be comparable, it's also flawed. The official name is not Taiwan. In fact the question of whether there is or should be a separate Taiwanese identity is so crucial to the internal politics of the ROC that I don't understand why we would force the issue just because Taiwan takes less effort to say/type and is therefore more commonly used in English. Please stop. Wendin (talk) 01:32, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Because saying Taiwan is a sovereign state goes against the PRC's argument that Taiwan belongs to China which is One-China Policy. If we can't adhere to this might as well delete all the articles I mentioned above.71.184.217.18 (talk) 01:51, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
It has nothing to do with pressure from the PRC. The Pan-Blue/Pan-Green rivalry and the question of whether Taiwan should be Taiwan per se is hotly debated within the ROC itself. I'm new to Wikipedia's policies and such but am dumbfounded that anyone remotely familiar with the issue would support the proposed move other than to push an agenda as you seem to want to do. Wendin (talk) 05:28, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
Under COMMONNAME, whether it's hotly debated in the ROC or in the PRC is irrelevant. Politics is irrelevant. I expect that those who agreed with the change from PRC to China to also endorse changing the ROC article directly to Taiwan. COMMONNAME either matters or it doesn'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.78.140 (talk) 16:02, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
Under COMMMONNAME for this issue violates the neutrality of Wikipedia by deciding who is the legitimate China and creating a nation that doesn't exist.71.184.217.18 (talk) 20:26, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

It is appauling that "Ireland" is at the "Republic of Ireland" page.....The name of the State is not the "Republic of Ireland"!....A cabal of Brit editors however insist on this. 86.42.24.212 (talk) 20:14, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Acknowledging Important Factors while Attempting to Simplify Matters (Part I)

I feel that the current discussion in regards to the Republic of China article hasn't resulted in any clear answers or statements from any parties in particular. The points have been shot all over the map, and at this rate no clear conclusion shall be reached. Below I present some background information and insight to this issue at hand while offering a somewhat simpler solution that may compensate for different parties in the above discussions.

What began as a discussion to rename this article (Republic of China) to a COMMONNAME of "Taiwan" raised many issues caused by the situation of articles in relation to the subject at hand. The current "Two China" situation is far more complex to address to the general public, which is why nowadays the Republic of China is referred to as "Taiwan", while the People's Republic of China is known as "China". Based on the international consensus, the PRC is the representing state to China as we've known in the past, and as such, the article formerly entitled by the government name "People's Republic of China" was renamed to simply "China". This caused issues with the "Republic of China" article, as the former 'neutral' stance of the Wikipedia articles had been shifted off balance, resulting in the calls for the ROC article to be renamed to "Taiwan". The main argument here is that because the People's Republic of China is now "China", the Republic of China must be "Taiwan", in order to maintain consistency. Another supporting factor is that the English-speaking international media identifies the Republic of China as "Taiwan" in most circumstances.

This on its own also creates its own set of problems based on the state of the Wikipedia article for the Republic of China. See, the People's Republic of China was fine when renamed to "China", because it occupies the vast majority of what a former unified Chinese state had encompassed, and is now considered to be the true Chinese state. The PRC follows the timeline in government succession, from Imperial China - Republic of China - People's Republic of China. We cannot treat the Republic of China in the same way, despite it clearly governing a separate set of territory to that of the PRC. The Republic of China is a former Chinese government that migrated to its current position after defeat in a war, and evolved into a completely new state under a drastically different identity. Today, it represents Taiwan and its nearby islands; back in the day, it represented all of China. The current Republic of China article does not reflect this representation sufficiently. The Republic of China article does not acknowledge Taiwan and its surrounding islands' deeper cultural heritage from prior to Republic of China rule, and as such has no accurate portrayal of its modern territory. It discusses its government history, from being the Chinese government to the government of Taiwan. This situation is truly unique to the Republic of China, and can draw very minimal similarities to other states around the world.

All of the above has then resulted in proposals to create and/or rename current articles to compensate for such massive and complex issues. Work has been seen going underway for a drastic shift at User:Jpech95/taiwan. A new article named "Taiwan" is created, discussing the history of the local region while encompassing matters of the governing state. From there, the current Taiwan article is moved to "Taiwan (island)". A separate article, regarding the ROC's government history will be under a new article entitled the "Republic of China". This is a very drastic move that will take an incredible amount of effort to fine-tune and execute properly. Problem here is that not all agree with such a major change.

Now, to a proposal that seeks to simplify the situation slightly while compensating for the need to have more action than a simple rename:

  • Republic of China is renamed to Taiwan. In addition, the 'History' section is completely removed and transplanted with that of the current Taiwan article. The "Republic of China rule" subsection in the current Taiwan article will probably need to provide more detail in regards to the Nationalist rule under martial law and the eventually the democracy today. This allows the Republic of China article to fully function under the name "Taiwan", while matching the consistency with the People's Republic of China article under the name "China".
  • The current history section in the Republic of China article, which discusses government history tracing back to its time as the Chinese state 1912-1949, can be extensively discussed under the article Government of the Republic of China. A link to that is already within the current Republic of China article. We should also keep in mind we have an article present discussing the Republic of China from 1912-1949 in existence as well, effectively eliminating the need to discuss that former government after the renaming. It will be acknowledged throughout the article that the state is officially the Republic of China, and as such, the government article can stay in its current form without issue of naming.
  • The current Taiwan is simply moved to "Taiwan (island)".

This proposal mainly seeks to allow for the renaming of this current Republic of China to "Taiwan" to occur with minimal obstructions and effort. Since we have now reached a consensus that we shall no longer take the neutral route in having the "Two China" stance (seen in the renaming of the People's Republic of China to "China"), this also allows the Republic of China article to then firmly represent and reflect its current identity as Taiwan, and not that of a Chinese government (albeit it is technically the 'official stance').

While the former state of the China articles were more politically accurate and neutral, it by no means represents what a typical world citizen knows and understands. The renaming of People's Republic of China to simply China gives us no realistic option but to name Republic of China to Taiwan for consistency. I think only a select few disagree with the proposal to rename the ROC to Taiwan at this point, and that we must move forward with these discussions and make a decision in respect to the situation at hand. Kirby173 (talk) 06:46, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Not only that but there are overlapping timeline articles like 2011 in Taiwan and 2011 in the Republic of China that are based on the outcome of these moves. In theory after 1949 in the Republic of China, everything should have started at 1950 in Taiwan. Benjwong (talk) 04:10, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
IMHO the current Republic of China should be merged with User:Jpech95/taiwan/Taiwan article to become the Taiwan article. After that, the Nationalist rule section should be linked to Republic of China (1912–1949) directly. Taiwan after World War II would be a subset of that article. Looking at the current events. You can roll the red carpet for the KMT/ROC to take back the mainland and they are still uninterested. This move makes sense. Benjwong (talk) 04:17, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
That would go against the proposal in that it creates more complications to resolve the issue at hand. The intended purpose for myself drafting this proposal is to minimize the changes needed in order to accomplish what is needed to maintain both quality and consistency. We must keep in mind that the articles are free to be edited and reformatted in the future as well; this proposal's goal is to efficiently manage everyone's time and to make such a renaming proposal from "Republic of China" to "Taiwan" is possible, seeing as it is the only logical route to take at this point in time. More so, fitting in the Nationalist Rule section under Republic of China (1912–1949) is entirely inaccurate in its own way, as the Kuomintang exercised martial law under an authoritarian government over Taiwan for three decades since its retreat in 1949. Kirby173 (talk) 06:20, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
Ok. Then Nationalist ruling on the mainland will be left to contents within Republic of China (1912-1949). And Nationalist ruling of Taiwan island will be left to Taiwan after World War II. I see what you are doing now. Yes that would be consistent. Another words there is no more Republic of China article, just a link. That would match the fact that there is no more People's Republic of China article, just a link. Sounds good. Benjwong (talk) 06:32, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
This solution still skirts the COMMONNAME issue by having a Republic of China (1912-1949) article. A true COMMMONNAME solution would be to have everything in 1 article called Taiwan. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.174.144 (talk) 21:21, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
Your interpretation of this common name guideline appears to skirt historical facts. Wendin (talk) 23:21, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
As a matter current history, how can a "China" article on Wikipedia exclude the Republic of China especially since the ROC hasn't faded into history yet? To have the "China" = PRC supporters tell it, COMMONNAME supercedes politics and history. I'll say it again: COMMONNAME either matters or it doesn't, you can't have it both ways. 159.53.78.140 (talk) 23:32, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
The majority of the participants here agree on this: the COMMONNAME of the Republic of China is "Taiwan". However, simply applying that would cause disruptions and inaccuracies that span across numerous articles in concern to the state. It isn't the case with the COMMONNAME issue of the People's Republic of China. I've noted it above. The PRC came in succession to the Chinese government timeline following the ROC retreat. It governs (figuratively) 99% of the geographical region known as China, and as such, is recognized as the Chinese state. Chinese history therefore integrates perfectly into the People's Republic of China article when it was renamed to "China". This is not the case here when we change Republic of China to Taiwan. The ROC article as it stands does not reflect the COMMONNAME "Taiwan"; it is still worded as if it was a government with the identity of "China" as well, which explains why these proposed changes must occur in order to accurately preserve the consistency found on Wikipedia, since the COMMONNAME 'China' has been taken. Everyone here realizes it can't be " both ways", and no one is seeking to do that. The thing is, there must be a divide thanks to the unique history of the Republic of China being the Chinese government pre-1949, and the government of Taiwan post-1949. The Republic of China evolved since 1949 so radically in terms of identity and government form, that, the only similarities it draws is that it is part of the same timeline. Directly changing to "Taiwan" will result in inaccuracies to all pre-1949 information. Not changing to "Taiwan" creates inaccuracies in parallel to the People's Republic of China being renamed to China. Your statement is true: it can't have it both ways. It's either "People's Republic of China" and "Republic of China", or "China" and "Taiwan". However, to reflect the Taiwan COMMONNAME, the above changes listed in the proposal must occur. To not go through this, revert China back to "People's Republic of China", and reinstate the original China article that encompasses the geographical region and its history. Kirby173 (talk) 00:48, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
I am afraid we cannot define succession or ownership of China purely by geography. The PRC, e.g., was not economically important until the late 1970s in terms of global influences, at least not as important as the ROC. In foreign relations, without membership in the UN and most international organistions the PRC was also less influential than the ROC until the early 1970s. If we are to define succession or ownership of the concept of 'China' merely by geography, it is going to be as problematic as proclaiming the modern Russian Federation as the sole continuation of the history of the Soviet Union and of the Russian Empire. 218.250.159.42 (talk) 14:56, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
This is the exact reason why the original state of the China articles were more accurate. If using your statement, how can one justify the People's Republic of China being renamed to "China"? Because that is its current identity. History has been re-written many times, and will continue to do so as society progresses. The People's Republic of China may not have had importance until the 1970s, but we are in the 2010s, under a completely different situation and timeline. We are not defining Chinese succession by geography, we are defining it by the current government situation, in which the People's Republic of China exercised authority over the Mainland, while the Republic of China failed to extinguish after Civil War and remained in possession of Taiwan. That is the blatant and inarguable truth. While, under "official" terms there can only be one Chinese state, that is not what modern society plays out as in a "unofficial" point of view. The world sees the PRC as China, the ROC as Taiwan. Citizens of each country believe in that stance firmly. I do agree that the situation does not reflect much of the events since 1949, but remember that this proposal only happened because the People's Republic of China article was named "China". The former "Two China" system with a unified article discussion the geographical region was perfectly fine, and yet the balance was shaken up due to the change of the PRC article. Your justification would apply back in the day, most definitely (and I do agree with it), however I believe you've failed to see the point in this renaming proposal: It is only happening because PRC became China. We must match the consistency with the ROC article to avoid even more confusion to the general user. That is why there is the proposal to have ROC become Taiwan. It's by no means reflecting official terms between the states, foreign relations, or historical events with complete accuracy, but it is the only logical step with the given situation. Kirby173 (talk) 04:41, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
But then we cannot rewrite history and say that 'Taiwan and the United States signed the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty in 1954', 'Taiwan and Japan signed the Treaty of Taipei in 1951', 'Taiwan is a permanent member of the UN Security Council between 1945 and 1971', 'Taiwan's official diplomatic ties with South Korea, South Africa and Saudi Arabia were severed in the 1990s', or 'Taiwan and the United States broke their official diplomatic ties in 1978'. There's basically no cut off point between 1945 and 2012 that the ROC was no longer ROC and had become Taiwan. And, FYI, regarding the move of the PRC article from 'People's Republic of China' to 'China' four months ago, the discussion at Talk:China to dispute the move is still ongoing. 218.250.159.42 (talk) 17:19, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
So we don't. We explain that in article text. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 18:13, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
How? You guys are already going to create an article for the post-1949 ROC under the title Taiwan, and to break off all those information about the pre-1949 ROC to other articles, aren't you. 218.250.159.42 (talk) 18:55, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
We are not creating an article entitled Taiwan. We are moving THIS very article to Taiwan for the above and below mentioned statements. We are not breaking off all the information to pre-1949 Republic of China. Our intentions have been laid out very clearly in this proposal. We rename the article to Taiwan, we transplant the history section from the current Taiwan so that the article reflects on its current territorial composition, and nothing else gets changed. The Republic of China remains intact as is, we're not altering anything, we're not renaming anything else. Anything such as "The Republic of China was a permanent member of the UN Security Council etc." will remain so. The ROC won't go away here. All the information will remain in access, and if those are interested in the history of the state, not the island of Taiwan, they can find it under History of the Republic of China, which is linked, and still will be linked, under the rename. We're not rewriting history. Kirby173 (talk) 04:43, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
(outdent)
With the title changed, we immediately create the confusions around when did the reference to this country change from 'ROC' to 'Taiwan'? At the time its seat in the UN was lost? Or at the time it broke off it ties with the US? Why don't we keep all content in place, move the island article to Taiwan (island), and turn the Taiwan namespace into a redirect or a disambiguation page? 218.250.159.42 (talk) 18:53, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
Agree. Common names cannot supercede the principle of maintaining neutrality with, e.g., history and politics. 218.250.159.42 (talk) 14:56, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. However, how can you justify that with the China article then? Kirby173 (talk) 04:41, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
May I know what should be done under this proposal with the period between the retrocession in 1945 and the fall of mainland in 1949? As far as I know no one has actually addressed this point. 218.250.159.42 (talk) 14:56, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
As stated before, all history aspects in regards to the Republic of China's government will extensively discussed under History of the Republic of China, or under other appropriate articles. This includes the Civil War period between 1945 and 1949. Other articles such as History of China also cover this time period extensively already, so no changes are needed. Remember that the proposal will not reject the existence of the Republic of China. All articles reflecting government bodies and history will still fall under the Republic of China name. It is just the main article will be changed to reflect the state's current identity as Taiwan under this proposal; this is the same move under the People's Republic of China article change. Kirby173 (talk) 04:41, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
What about the 228 Incident, for instance? Does it belong to Taiwan or Republic of China (1912-1949)? 218.250.159.42 (talk) 17:19, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
If I am reading this right. Then this is what the move would be. Please confirm.
  • User:Jpech95/taiwan ---contents---> Taiwan
  • Republic of China ---redirect---> Taiwan
  • Old ROC contents from Republic of China ---move to---> Republic of China (1912-1949)
  • Taiwan (island) ---is still---> Taiwan (island)
Benjwong (talk) 02:52, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
The moves made by my proposal are as such:
  • Republic of China ---rename and move---> Taiwan
  • Taiwan#History ---cut and paste---> Republic of China#History (current article) / Taiwan#History (new article)
  • Republic of China#History ---contents moved to---> Government of the Republic of China#History, History of the Republic of China, (Republic of China (1912-1949))
  • Taiwan ---moved to---> Taiwan (island)
Main differences from the more drastic approach in a previous proposal:
  • There will no longer be an article entitled "Republic of China". This follows the footsteps of the China article renaming that eliminated the article title "People's Republic of China".
  • The notion to rename many aspects of "Republic of China" to "Taiwan" is eliminated. Government departments and titles remain under their original names, and will not need a redirect. ("President of the Republic of China" remains the same, instead of turning to "President of Taiwan") This also reflects what happened with China's article, where government information remained under the "People's Republic of China" titles.
Additional editing will obviously need to happen to readjust everything within the current Republic of China article. Various content from Jpech95's page can be transplanted if desired (I would move the Geography section into the current ROC article). I would also like to note I have a weak support in keeping the Republic of China (1912-1949) article, for separation of the two major eras of the country, and to allow for a place to provide details on the past events of the state. However, there are other viable options, such as migrating all the information into History of the Republic of China and Government of the Republic of China. Kirby173 (talk) 04:38, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
The problem is that the cut off point wasn't clearly 1949. Although the government of the PRC was officially established in October 1949, and the ROC was officially relocated in December 1949, the war continued way into the mid 1950s, with smaller scale battles until the 1960s and 1970s. After the conclusion of these battles the ROC is still possessing many non-Taiwanese landmasses at the present moment. The ROC had the UN seat and the membership in the Security Council until 1971 as China. It was recognised by the United States as China until 1978, South Korea, South Africa and Saudi Arabia until the 1990s; and it is still recognised by Panama, the Holy See, etc., as China at this moment. Furthermore, it is still using the original constitution, applying the old laws, and having the original institutions and state organs. De jure it is still carrying on the Republic of China. It is OR for us to regard 1949 (or 1945, too) as the point at which it became Taiwanese and no longer Chinese. 218.250.159.42 (talk) 14:21, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
I understand that the cut-off of the "China" identity wasn't specifically 1949, but you have to realize that most of the control over the Mainland was effectively gone after the retreat. Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang maintained its stances throughout the martial law period in hopes that they would once again be able to return and take back the Mainland, a feat that was never able to be accomplished. The fact that the Cold War was still raging on meant that immediately recognition of the People's Republic of China over the Republic of China as the true Chinese state was impossible, seeing as the United States did not wish to make friendly ties with any Communist state in general. This evolved quickly after the United States switched recognition, as you've pointed out yourself. The truth here, however, is that while the "China" identity was maintained by the Republic of China government, it is widely regarded that the split from the Mainland in 1949. The Republic of China was no longer "China" since its retreat to Taipei despite its claims. It went to "Nationalist China" or "Free China", and eventually "Taiwan". Also, the Republic of China is only recognized by states as "China" due to the One China Policy of the People's Republic of China, which has only crippled foreign relations with the state despite it now carrying a completely different identity. What also comes to attention is the fact of current politics within the state in regards to amending old laws and the constitution. The Constitution of the Republic of China is amended when 75% of the Legislative Yuan approves, an accomplishment that occurs perhaps once in a blue moon due to the deep divide between the only two major parties in the state (KMT and DPP); the two sides can't and will not agree on many things in politics, resulting in very little progress being made overall throughout government (such as when DPP held office under President Chen, but the KMT held control of the Legislative Yuan). However, the Republic of China has abolished many components of its government since 1949. The National Assembly became defunct in 2005, the provincial governments of the state have been streamlined and/or eliminated into divisions of the Executive Yuan, and overall government bodies have been scaled down to accommodate for the smaller state and identity (Legislative Yuan down-scaled to 113 from 225). The state is still carrying on as the Republic of China. However, it is not the same "Republic of China" in terms of government control, style, and depth. It definitely didn't become "Taiwanese" after 1949. However, the Republic of China article also must reflect on its current identity, which happens to be Taiwan. If this proposal is agreed upon, discussion on the history of the state can be found in detail under History of the Republic of China, serving as the contrast to History of Taiwan which will discuss the history of the territory the ROC now possesses to match up with every other country's article on Wikipedia. It is a complicated issue because of the Republic of China's unique situation, I realize that, but changes must be made to keep this article consistent with everything else. We obviously could take the long route and create more split ends for the Republic of China / Taiwan, but that would end up complicating the matters even further. That is why I made this kind of proposal: Get the Republic of China article to become "Taiwan" to match consistency with other articles, avoiding as much hassle as possible while still being able to retain information accurately. Kirby173 (talk) 04:22, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
The official name of the country is still Republic of China, the country is still presenting itself as China or Republic of China, and it is still having effective control over some non-Taiwanese landmasses. We will unavoidably be siding with some non-neutral points of view and creating confusions with topics such as Taiwanese independence, the Four Stage Theory, and so on and so forth. The only way out is to stick with the current official name until that name changed, or, at least, its territorial extent is reduced to Taiwan. 218.250.159.42 (talk) 17:19, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
You're missing the point of this proposal. We are not in any way advocating Taiwan independence, or claiming the lack of existence of the "Republic of China"'s claims on the Chinese mainland. We are simply pointing out that the common name for the state, as referred to by various, high-level publications and media forms, is Taiwan. The fact that the People's Republic of China article was renamed to the common name of "China" presented a situation where there was no choice but to rename the Republic of China over to Taiwan. The maintain consistency under the article names. It's against all logic to have "China" and "Republic of China". It must be one option or the other. The current Republic of China article is not getting changed or modified to promote Taiwanese independence. It will maintain the same structure, the same text, as its current state. However, because we must maintain consistency with the China article, we are invoking to rename this article to Taiwan, and to have its history section match its current territorial outline. The Republic of China is not disappearing from Wikipedia. The Government of the Republic of China and History of the Republic of China articles, which will discuss the state's government and history in extensive detail, are not going anywhere. There are, and will still be, multiple links and references to said articles, and others in relation to the Republic of China. As a matter of fact, we don't even have plans to alternate the opening sentence of the article. The Republic of China is the official state here, it's just that its common name is Taiwan, which we must reflect given the situation at hand. Kirby173 (talk) 04:37, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
(outdent)
That's the name advocated by Taiwanese independence supporters. By using such a name as the title for the ROC article we'll make it a lot more difficult to explain the fact that the pro-independence parties aren't considering the non-Taiwanese part of the ROC to be part of their proposed state. It's going to be difficult too to explain the basis of their argument for independence - that Japanese relinquished Taiwan (and the Pescadores) yet specified no recepient - an argument that doesn't apply at all to the non-Taiwanese part of the ROC. After all Taiwan is merely a pars pro toto, just that it's somehow more common than Holland is to the Netherlands, Britain and England is to the UK, or America is to the US. It's neither accurate nor neutral.
If the reason behind your move was because of the relocation of the PRC article to the China namespace four months, the proper way forward is to go and discuss at Talk:China to undo the relocation (either by appealing the relocation or by proposing a counter request). 218.250.159.42 (talk) 18:53, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

An alternative proposal would be redirecting Taiwan to this article, and moving the existing article on the island of Taiwan to Taiwan (island). The following hatnote should be added to this article - "Taiwan redirects here. For the largest island in the modern Republic of China, see Taiwan (island). For other meaning, see Taiwan (disambiguation).". No content would have to be modified, except for scrapping the Republic of China (1912-1949) fork. 218.250.159.42 (talk) 13:32, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Except that it doesn't do anything to deal with the common name policy. It just sweeps the matter under the carpet because it's "easier" for certain users. John Smith's (talk) 19:29, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
It accomodates the common contemporary usage without immediately equating the two terms, and therefore gets around neutrality violations. 218.250.159.42 (talk) 10:19, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
The renaming of "People's Republic of China" to "China" has already violated the equality and neutrality of the articles, so unless there is a change over on the other end there, this proposal is simply balancing the equation once again.Kirby173 (talk) 04:37, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
See above. We don't rely on a fait accompli somewhere else to accept something unsatisfactory here. 218.250.159.42 (talk) 18:53, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
  • As a counterexample to certain claims here about how the ROC name is archaic and no longer used, this is President Ma Ying-jeou's campaign slogan for the presidential election to be held next week: Our Taiwan, our home; our Republic of China, our country.
  • As you can see, the current President of the country considers the country name to be ROC, and Taiwan to be the "homeland" but not the name of the country. What's more, the slogan specifically pointed out the important differences between the two names, which shows you how controversial a change from ROC to Taiwan would be among many people in the country. Given this, it is incredible that some of the supporters do not see a problem with choosing the name Taiwan over ROC. I understand that the supporters' argument is mainly based on COMMONNAME; but I'm also trying to make you understand why there's a POV issue here. JimSukwutput 08:10, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
There is lots of controversy on Wikipedia. For example, referring to the Armenian genocide upsets a massive number of Turks. But not referring to it as such would upset Armenians. Sometimes Wikipedia has to effectively take a side when it comes to article titles. Otherwise we would frequently have incongruous essay-type titles that tried to summarise the position of the article in a single sentence. The fact is that the views of Ma and people like him are a minority even in Taiwan. John Smith's (talk) 10:51, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
If you have PRC supporters complaining about PRC getting snubbed having to "share" China with the ROC. Eventually they too will complain about a Republic of China article still existing and a People's Republic of China being just a link. So to avoid double standards, it is good to move Taiwan up. And ROC contents down to Republic of China (1912-1949). Remember the Wiki community was very open to both ROC and PRC being a part of China. Is the PRC supporters that want complete domination. Benjwong (talk) 11:10, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
"The fact is that the views of Ma and people like him are a minority even in Taiwan" - so I wonder how this bloke, who belongs in the minority, got elected. Were his electors the minority in Taiwan as well? -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 11:40, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
I think John Smith was referring to the comment of "Our Taiwan, our home; our Republic of China, our country." Very few people see it as all four of those things. Maybe they see two. Benjwong (talk) 11:53, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
Come on, are you kidding me? If very few people believed in those things, he wouldn't have made it his campaign slogan. Campaign slogans are designed to appeal to the masses. JimSukwutput 14:07, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
There will be contention and POV either way. The point of COMMONNAME is that articles can be names without regard to whether it will show this or that POV, but on reasons not based on the opinions of editors. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 16:58, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
But in my understanding, it's not intended to be used as a blunt instrument in blatantly problematic cases such as Ireland or Taiwan. Surely it's also not meant to be used for proactive POV pushing or the creation of false dichotomies. Wendin (talk) 20:57, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
It is used for Ireland. Also, it's hard to see how it can be used for POV pushing, as a commonname is a commonname. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 02:52, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
Is Commonname one of the pillars of Wikipedia? (And to the extent that it is a more important pillar than NPOV?) 218.250.159.42 (talk) 15:03, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
It is not a pillar of wikipedia, but an important part of NPOV. Note in WP:NPOV "If a name is widely used in reliable sources (particularly those written in English), and is therefore likely to be well recognized by readers, it may be used even though some may regard it as biased." Chipmunkdavis (talk) 16:26, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
We are already highlighting 'Taiwan' as the common name of the contemporary ROC in the lead paragraph of this article and extensively in other articles. There's no problem for readers to identify and comprehend that the ROC is the Taiwan that they know of. 218.250.159.42 (talk) 18:53, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
And that can easily apply vice versa, not much of an argument. The article would still call Taiwan the ROC, so there's no problem for readers to comprehend that the long name of Taiwan is the Republic of China. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 16:44, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
The problem is that Taiwan and the Republc of China aren't ≡ or ≅. 'Taiwan' is only a common name of the contemporary ROC, and that there's no clear or objective cut-off day from which onwards the ROC became Taiwanese and no longer Chinese. Further, Taiwan does not cover the entirety of the contemporary ROC. In other words, 'Taiwan' is only common name for part of the history of the ROC, and 'Taiwan' refers only to part of the geographical extent of the modern ROC. If the subject matter of this article is the ROC, it should be titled 'Republic of China' though it's perfectly okay and necessary to prominently highlight its common name 'Taiwan'. But if this article is merely about Taiwan and is titled as such, the non-Taiwan materials in this article would have to be removed. 218.250.159.42 (talk) 07:51, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
That's not how the English language works. The modern state, which is the topic of this article, is known as Taiwan. This Taiwan covers the entire ROC, the island and others. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 19:35, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
I'd agree that Wikipedia isn't only about the modern state. The current setup is that this particular article is about the ROC from its founding in 1912, its predecessors, and the background to its founding. This state didn't become Taiwan at least until 1972, and in a more concrete sense, 1996. But even after 1996 its geographical extent isn't just Taiwan. 42.3.2.237 (talk) 06:50, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Actually I think that slogan is to appeal to people who are just less hard-lined about independence activities. In Taiwan you have two choices: "Go independent" (green) or "talk less about independence" (blue). Benjwong (talk) 21:30, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
The Taiwan political spectrum is more detailed than that, and it goes something like - Deep Green: Independence; Shallow Green: PRC skeptic; Shallow Blue: Maintain the status quo; Deep Blue: Pro-reunification; Extreme Blue (and yes, these people do exist, they participate in online communities everywhere, and are very loud and vocal in their nationalism. If you've ever been to discussion boards like Komica, Krautchan /int/ or 4chan /int/, you'd know what I mean.): LOLSENDMILITARYTORETAKEMAINLANDIN10YEARS.THESOUTHSHALLRISEAGAIN. Not all Pan-Blue supporters are pro-reunification, however much of them are supportive of the ROC state. Though it would be true to a point to say that the slogan appeals to Pan-Blue sympathizers, it may be quite a generalization, as not all Pan-Blues can be put in the one pot, just like not all Pan-Greens can be generalized as one "characteristic voter" either. Some less-extreme Pan-Greens do recognize the legitimacy of the ROC. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 00:12, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
We are generalizing, because that is how most spectrums are presented. HK politics is the about the same with mild and aggressive pro-beijing and pro-democracy camp parties. It is not always clean cut. Benjwong (talk) 02:51, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

There is nothing "blatantly problematic [about a case] such as Ireland...". There is Luxembourg and Belgium's Luxembourg; Mongolia and China's Mongolia; Virginia and West Virginia; various Congos; various Guineas; The "Ireland" case is simple, simple - the reason it causes problems on WP is that there are a lot of Brit editors here (not many Belgian Luxembourgers etc). 86.42.24.212 (talk) 20:19, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

What about Georgia? 42.3.2.237 (talk) 06:50, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
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