Case Opened on 03:23, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
Case Closed on 03:48, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
Case amended by motion on 17:55, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
Please do not edit this page directly unless you are either 1) an Arbitrator, 2) an Arbitration Clerk, or 3) adding yourself to this case. Statements on this page are original comments provided when the Committee was initially requested to Arbitrate this page (at Requests for arbitration), and serve as opening statements; as such, they should not be altered. Any evidence you wish to provide to the Arbitrators should go on the /Evidence subpage.
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This dispute has been a festering boil on the neck of the Wikipedia for four years now. A hornet's nest of passive-aggressivity, good faith, bad faith, veiled hatred, not-so-veiled hatred, honest attempts at compromise, wilful stonewalling, filibustering, backing and forthing, to-ing and fro-ing, and endless bickering. The frustration level of everyone involved is high, so high that a number of editors—good editors—have threatened to withdraw from editing these articles, and some have retired already. Over the past few weeks, the word "arbitration" has come up again and again. I have made so bold as to file this request for arbitration. I trust that it is in order.
Status quo:
A number of proposed re-arrangements have been made. One which was implemented a few days ago (though reversed today) was this:
Attempts at discussion and consensus lead inevitably to a lack of consensus. Whenever consensus rears its head, others come in saying there is no consensus. My own proposal for compromise was based on negotiation strategy: agree to what you can, even if it's not your preference. Compromise!
The above was 497 words; we are asked to write 500. For the love of Ireland, so that we can work to improve the articles instead of arguing about their names, I ask the Arbitration Committee to agree to hear this case and give us a solution. I have listed below a good selection of those who have been on both sides of the debate. Thank you for your consideration.
I fully endorse the comments by Evertype. There is no way that any agreement will be reached by the editors involved. Old disputes within Ireland are being fought out on these pages, often after they have been resolved in real life. Several of the editors involved are under editing restrictions on other articles connected with Ireland. If this is not subject to some objective arbitration then it will keep coming back again, and again and again. --Snowded TALK 21:02, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
Firstly, an apology in advance - I have just become a father again and so am somewhat busy off-wiki, so I apologise if my responses are slow and for my lack of knowledge of events over the last few days of this ongoing mess. Evertype's summary is a fair and balanced one and I join Snowded in fully endorsing it. I feel I should add a few words about the task force and my own involvement in this sorry tale.
I've been aware, but not involved in, this ongoing situation for quite some time. When User:Matt Lewis set up a task force for interested editors to discuss the usage of the term "Ireland", both within article texts and of course in article titles, I saw this as a very positive step - a central point of discussion, where previously it had taken place on a variety of pages across several namespaces, and a blank sheet of paper with which to start. I had no preferences regarding the article names, but simply decided to keep an eye on procedings - partly out of interest and partly as an admin duty.
The post by User:Ddstretch was one that made perfect sense, as it basically called all editors to follow existing guidelines unless there was a really good reason to ignore all rules. Although much discussion took place after his post, no such reason was forthcoming. The task force then conducted a series of polls, with the outcome in each case reaching broad agreement with DDstretch's original proposal - that Ireland should be a disambiguation page. This broad agreement encompassed editors who had previously and consistently been on oppoisite sides of arguments around the infamous Troubles case, the British Isles naming dispute, etc., so this was enormously encouraging - especially since the initiation of the task force, and notification of these latest discussions and polls, had been clearly signalled on the relevant article talk pages.
I then initiated polls on the article talk pages themselves, to rubber-stamp the agreement that had been accomplished. What happened next is there for all to see - I am utterly baffled that editors who proclaim to feel so strongly about these issues failed to get involved in the task force discussions and to shape the debate until the very last hurdle - the amount of time and effort their behaviour has wasted is immense, and there's still no apparent reason why WP:D should not be implemented in this case other than shear weight of votes (we're a meritocracy not a democracy so that's not a reason as far as I'm concerned). I therefore commend Evertype for making this request as this issue really does need a once-and-for-all ruling that's made to stick and puts and end to the enormous quantities of wasted effort that could be put to better use, and only a body like ArbCom have the authority to do that. waggers (talk) 21:52, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
Personally, I think the Task Force is the place to resolve this. I think that compromise is possible and that compromise involves any change in the name of the Republic of Ireland article being accompanied by an agreed policy that recognises that Republic of Ireland is a perfectly legitimate and sensible term to use in the text of the many articles where there is a risk of ambiguity. Regarding the Ireland article, I agree with Deacon of Pndapetzim that Ireland should be treated like Korea, China, etc., since the primary meaning of Ireland is for the island and historical social/political entity and not the current state which occupies only part of Ireland. I've no objection to radical changes to the text of that article.
As for whether arbitration will help, I simply don't know. If editors are willing to make what I think is the obvious compromise noted above, there should be no need. Mooretwin (talk) 23:27, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
Evertype sums up well but I'd like to add that a lot of the confusion and controversy also stems from the fact that the term "Republic of Ireland" is the legal and proper term for the state of Ireland within the UK. But only within the UK - it is British law. Everywhere else on the planet uses the correct name - Ireland. Plus all the major institutions from EU, NATO, World Bank, Olympic Committee, etc, uses the correct name - Ireland. Mooretwins comments above are flat wrong - this is not the "English Wikipedia", it is the "English-language Wikipedia". This Arbcom case is very necessary. Notwithstanding Rockpocket's comments above, it's also a fact that many admins are involved and are not neutral. The reversals in particular have been performed by an involved admin editor, Deacon of Pndapetzim who opposed changes in the past[1]. Arbcom must take this case, and settle this issue once and for all. Over 4 years of edit warring - every other route has been tried. I do not recommend a ruling like "The Troubles" since this dispute mainly centres around creating a binding resolution on terminology, not POV or content factuality. --HighKing (talk) 02:26, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
I became unwillingly involved in this via other disputes dealt with previously by Arbcom—in particular, the use of "British Isles" disputes. This dispute was drawn to my attention, and, reading it, I appreciated why many administrators had not opted to be involved. However, I considered it useful to try to suggest relying solely on a particular strict interpretation of wikipedia's policies about disambiguation to resolve the matter as a compromise, as this would allow editors to avoid the unhelpful nature of the exchanges when accusations about motives, political agenda, and so on, tended to, or completely swamped the discussion. Waggers then took my "Statement and (semi-)formal proposal by DDstretch" found here and made an initial formal proposal.
I have kept out of much of the discussion except (as far as I recall) to counter erroneous interpretations of solutions that have been previously adopted on wikipedia and faulty assumptions about wikilinking following the disambiguation solution I suggested.
My view is that any closure of the various polls was bound to be controversial, because the drama accompanying many entrenched positions seems to have become the major driving factor behind the matter, leaving the core wikipedia principles rather in the background (this is despite people calling upon them to justify one or other of their preferred solutions). I have stayed out of the discussions about the validity or otherwise of the page moves and their reversal, as the accusations of bias and being involved I thought might follow would only tend to further inflame this desperately poor situation. I agree with previous comments that any administrator who gets involved and who has not already been accused, quickly becomes seen as biased, partial, pursuing their own agenda (even when that agenda is said to be "hidden" and not known even by that administrator). In fact, the whole area is mired in behaviour that runs counter to WP:NPA in spirit if not in fact. The disruption brought about by this dispute cannot easily be contained, and it infects or potentially will infect other areas.
Some involvement by a greater authority here is urgently needed I suggest, if only to de-personalize the attacks that seem to be directed at anyone who tries to suggest resolutions of any kind. Arbcom may think the job is very difficult, perhaps even too difficult, and individual members may be loathe to agree to get involved, but I suggest that part of their job on Arbcom is to take on difficult disputes, such as this, and that trying to provide a more senior context of authority within which new approaches, or old approaches with more authority, can be explored would seem to be exactly what the bulk of wikpedia editors would expect them to be doing. DDStretch (talk) 11:26, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
I do not support the belief that an arbcom is neccessary.
The issue is controversial, but repeated polls have not resulted in a change and there is little an arbcom can accomplish apart from yet more forum shopping.
This is a content issue and therefore outside the limits of arbcom. Djegan (talk) 11:34, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
At heart this is a content dispute but as often happens tangential issues of user conduct have emerged. I think no one is served by commingling these issues with the content dispute, and I have no interest in the user conduct issues, so I will speak only to the content dispute. I have a longstanding interest in disambiguation pages. I was asked by Matt Lewis to comment on the current requested move of Ireland and other pages. The history there is messy, to say the least. I am dismayed by the extent to which this content dispute spills over into Wikipedia article infrastructure. An example is the contentious (and unnecessary) use of a map on Ireland (disambiguation). The heart of the content dispute seems to be whether the political entity known as both Ireland and the Republic of Ireland can occupy the Wikipedia article title Ireland, or whether that article title should be occupied by the island known as Ireland, or by a disambiguation page. I think this dispute has gone on so long in part because it has been cast in terms of win/lose, rather than resolution, with "consensus" being defined as majority rule or a ruling by a higher power. I think it is a mistake to handle this content dispute via arbitration rather than mediation. --Una Smith (talk) 17:01, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
In my view the statement of this case by Evertype and others is wrong. The Ireland naming dispute has been presented as a dispute between, on the one hand, those who want the island article to be at Ireland, and on the other, those who want the state article to be at Ireland. In this scenario disambiguation is seen as the key issue. An analysis of page move discussions over the last two years, per my evidence, will show that, while one side did indeed want the island article to be at Ireland, the other side - while many of them would prefer to see the state article at Ireland - would be content to leave Ireland as it is as long as the article name "Republic of Ireland" was changed. In this actual situation, disambiguation of article names would be comfortably dealt with by Ireland (disambiguation), and in fact it is. A far more serious issue, and the reason there has been stalemate for so long, is that of disambiguation of the state or the island within other articles. This cannot be resolved by any page move or combination of page moves, since text in an article on the lines of "St. Patrick's Day is a public holiday in Ireland (state)" is obviously to be avoided. The article would have to be linked to by means of a pipe, and the central question of whether the pipe should say "Ireland" or "Republic of Ireland" would remain unresolved. Repeated attempts to deal with the question by page moves have failed. Most recently, an RM was decisively defeated on the Ireland talk page, although, due to poor housekeeping on the part of the requestors, the pages were briefly, and controversially, moved. A proposal currently being debated on the Ireland disambiguation task force talk page has achieved, as one editor put it, "a surprising degree of consensus", by bypassing the 'article name disambiguation' issue and focussing instead on the issue of disambiguators within articles. I urge the arbitrators not to take the narrow view in this case. Scolaire (talk) 19:17, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Any suggestion that this is primarily an "ethnic" issue is well wide of the mark. The lobby for change is an unlikely coalition of "British POV", "Irish POV" and "Wikipedia policy POV" who want the same change but for radically different reasons; likewise the supporters of the status quo include an equal mix of "British", "Irish" and "NI unionist" POV who believe the current names are the best and most unambiguous. A tally of any of the RMs of the last few months (which incidentally all ended about 50:50) will show this to be so - see my evidence. Scolaire (talk) 17:45, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
I have included myself as a party to the case. Pace Daniel, I do not see any link between this matter and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Great Irish Famine#Mentorship, but if I'm wrong just let me know and I'll happily resign.
The closer indicated here that he was unwilling to remedy himself the very large number of broken links his moves had created. "You can't be asking me to fix the thousands of links ...". But I was. And anyone closing a CfD or IfD or AfD would be expected to tidy the links up, either on their own or by getting a bot to do it. Pointing all of the tens of thousands of links from a top-500-viewed page to a disambiguation page is a mistake. Mistakes happen. Refusing to do anything when told what's wrong and how to fix it is something else.
The arbitration committee doesn't do content disputes. An poorly executed move for which there was no consensus save one of the proposals of a self-appointed committee is not egregious, and neither is reversing it, so there's no admin conduct to consider either. RfC? Mediation? No sign of those. And what Flo's diffs show I have no idea. Rockpocket's are, on the whole, much more interesting. Angus McLellan (Talk) 23:53, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
I have recently taken the decision to scale back my involvement in the English language Wikipedia project substantially, so my comments here should be taken in that context. Namely, given that I may not be around to see any Arbcom result through, I am happy to see them ignored or given reduced consideration or whatever.
That said, given that I was asked for a statement, I'm going to make one. A few in fact:
Anyway, as stated, that is a (very condensed) summary of the points I've been making for the last few years. I've probably forgotten something. But, given that I am about to cull my watchlist back to only a handful of articles (and pursue my semi-retirement) I'm not really sure it matters anyway :) Guliolopez (talk) 14:48, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
Ireland is the WP:COMMONNAME, the common name, the legal name, the internationally recognised name - of the sovereign country called Ireland. The insistence on using a description, "Republic of Ireland", as the title is politically motivated and has nothing to do with the norms and standards of the Wiki project - despite what Gulio says this POV is manifest from any examination of the statements and rationale of most of the supporters of the current situation. The article misnomer manages to survive because a combination of Irish Nationalists (who maintain the whole Island should be a single polity) and British Unionists (who feel that the name is a 'claim' on all of the island) have a (slim) majority amongst the ranks of Wiki editors who are interested in the issue. In effect, it allows editors with a political axe to grind to foist a "description" on the article about the country commonly known as Ireland, on the basis of pure political POV.
Having said that I still thought that (as per Gulio above) we were reaching a possible compromise outside Arbcom. Since it appears that Arbcom will accept this case I feel obliged to participate here and certainly don't agree with the "blocking" editors that Arbcom has no place in this. It is obviously much more than a mere "content dispute". Key Wiki policies and practices are being ignored based on a mere headcount of editors.
Ireland is obviously also the name of the island; so while it is clear that the primary use of 'Ireland' globally is to refer to the state/country it is also widely used to refer to the geographical island - thus I support a disambiguation page by way of compromise; though my preference would be that the primary page would be the country.
Regarding "fixing links" - that argument is a "self-fulfilling prophecy"; the same group of editors have blocked progress for five years and now claim the accumulated debris from that blockage justifies permanent blockage. Such considerations should have no place in this debate as they copper fasten POV. Sarah777 (talk) 21:52, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
After much thought on this, Ireland the state, which covers 85% of [[Ireland (island)]], should be treated like any other state on Wikipedia, and get its proper title. The present situation is being used by some editors to cause disruption on Wikipedia. They insist that the name of the state is 'Republic of Ireland', and use every turn of phrase to bolster their claim, even when it's pointed out to them that they are clearly wrong. Any editor who tries to balance the over-use of ROI on Wikipedia is very quickly reverted, and even sometimes called a pov-pusher. What good editor wants to be called a pov-pusher? None, I may add. And Ireland is WP:COMMONNAME for the state, as per constitution, UN, EU, CIA facebook, and per 'millions' more citeable sources.
'Island' moved to [[Ireland (island)]]
[[Republic of Ireland]] becomes [[Ireland]]
Ireland can be treated as one nation until 1922 when [[Northern Ireland]] rejects the consensus on the island. After 1922, Northern Ireland only then comes into existence.
My solution is the only workable solution, and anything in between will only lead to further problems in the near future, I fear.
I cannot stress how important this issue is for ArbCom and Wikipedia. Get it wrong and suffer years of disruption. Get it right and Wikipedia will soar in the estimation of many. PurpleA (talk) 16:46, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
I originally brought this to the evidence page but I think that page is supposed to be where you give evidence on people doing wrong things. Sorry if I was confused. I have stayed out of this debate, but I wish to make a suggestion. China currently leads to a very good page that is essentially an expanded disambiguation page. We do not link to the WP:COMMONNAME for the country, that honour goes to the Peoples Republic of China. So I suggest :
Also the Republic of Ireland page was created with the name currently used and the first major edit was the same, So wouldn't that be covered by WP:MOS#National varieties of English? -- Phoenix (talk) 06:33, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
I have been invited to say my piece on this difficult matter and am happy to do so in the spirit of improving the encyclopaedia. A veritable Wikipedia sub-community has developed over the years attempting to address the vexatious issue of the name for this article. Out of that impasse, numerous other overspills have arisen making resolution of the initial naming question more, rather than less, difficult. I would like to say that I welcome the interest shown above in attempting to achieve closure on a matter that has consumed too much effort on the part of so many capable editors who have participated to date. Language is political, whether we care to acknowledge that fact or not, and names are particularly so. The present article name is unacceptable to many editors who have been unable/frustrated in changing the status quo. I have changed my preferred name for this article from 'Ireland' to 'Ireland (state)', in deference to the legitimate concerns of other editors. I have also enthusiastically supported many initiatives (compromises), to bring reasonable closure. I recognise the reluctance, on technicalities, for the involvement of Arbitration, but irrespective of outcome will accept any decision that redirects effort back to the content of this and associated articles. RashersTierney (talk) 23:03, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
All numbering based on /Proposed decision, where vote counts and comments are also available.
1) The purpose of Wikipedia is to create a high-quality, free-content encyclopedia in an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual respect among contributors. Use of the site for other purposes, such as advocacy or propaganda, furtherance of outside conflicts, publishing or promoting original research, and political or ideological struggle, is prohibited.
2) Wikipedia users are expected to behave reasonably, calmly, and courteously in their interactions with other users; to approach even difficult situations in a dignified fashion and with a constructive and collaborative outlook; and to avoid acting in a manner that brings the project into disrepute. Unseemly conduct, such as personal attacks, incivility, assumptions of bad faith, harassment, disruptive point-making, and gaming the system, is prohibited.
3) Wikipedia works by building consensus through the use of polite discussion—involving the wider community, if necessary—and dispute resolution, rather than through disruptive editing. Editors are each responsible for noticing when a debate is escalating into an edit war, and for helping the debate move to better approaches by discussing their differences rationally. Edit-warring, whether by reversion or otherwise, is prohibited; this is so even when the disputed content is clearly problematic, with certain narrow exceptions.
4) Wikipedia:Naming conventions, a longstanding policy, provides that:
Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.
This is justified by the following principle: The names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors, and for a general audience over specialists.
Wikipedia determines the recognizability of a name by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject.
5) The occurrence of protracted, apparently insoluble disputes—whether they involve conduct, content, or policy—is contrary to the purposes of the project and damaging to its health. The chief purpose of the Arbitration Committee is to protect the project from the disruption caused by such disputes, and it has the authority to issue binding resolutions in keeping with that purpose.
The Committee has traditionally concentrated its attention on conduct disputes, and has avoided issuing binding rulings that would directly resolve matters of content or policy, leaving those questions to the community at large. However, in cases where the community has proven unable to resolve those questions using the methods normally available to it, and where the lack of resolution results in unacceptable disruption to the project, the Committee may impose an exceptional method for reaching a decision.
1) The dispute concerns the appropriate titles for the article or articles concerning the country of Ireland and the island of Ireland; the ambiguity that exists because the designation "Ireland" is used in English to refer to both of these; and disagreements concerning recent page moves relating to these articles, including whether consensus was properly obtained for the moves, and the extent to which the current article titles conform with the requirement of maintaining a neutral point of view. The dispute has been ongoing since at least February 2007 with no apparent resolution.
Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.
1) The community is asked to open a new discussion for the purpose of obtaining agreement on a mechanism for assessing the consensus or majority view on the appropriate names for Ireland and related articles. The purpose of this discussion shall be to develop reasonably agreed-upon procedures for resolving this issue, without further disputes or rancor as to the fairness of the procedures used. Editors are asked to approach this discussion with an open mind and without emphasis on prior discussions that failed to reach agreement.
2) If the discussion convened under the terms of Remedy #1 does not result in a reasonable degree of agreement on a procedure within 14 days, then the Arbitration Committee shall designate a panel of three uninvolved administrators to develop and supervise an appropriate procedure.
3) Until the procedures discussed in Remedy #1 (and, if necessary, Remedy #2) are implemented, Ireland and related articles shall remain at their current locations. This does not constitute an endorsement of the current names.
4) Once the procedures discussed in Remedy #1 (and, if necessary, Remedy #2) are implemented, no further page moves discussions related to these articles shall be initiated for a period of 2 years.
Per motions at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification:
1) The Arbitration Committee notes that the conditions put forward by remedies during the Ireland article names arbitration case were fulfilled to the Committee's satisfaction and that, as a consequence, remedy 4 ("[...] no further page moves discussions related to these articles shall be initiated for a period of 2 years.") is in force until September 18, 2011.
2) While the related matter of how to refer to Ireland/Republic of Ireland in other places (such as articles) is not directly covered by the aforementioned remedies, the Committee takes notes of the existence of a de facto consensus on the matter owing to the stability of the Ireland manual of style and enjoins the community to avoid needlessly rehashing the disputes.
The two Ireland page name move discussion restrictions enacted in June 2009 are rescinded.
Log any block, restriction, ban or extension under any remedy in this decision here. Minimum information includes name of administrator, date and time, what was done and the basis for doing it.