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Category:Flag template shorthands has an RFC

Category:Flag template shorthands has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you.

Greenland and Donald Trump

Can we get some more eyes on the inclusion of a section about Donald Trump in this article. Talk:Greenland#Donald Trump section. Moxy🍁 22:02, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

"Official" or "formal" when referring to full length country names

Currently most articles have something of the form Short Name, officially Full Name is a country in Region. For example China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia or Djibouti, officially the Republic of Djibouti, is a country in the Horn of Africa. This matches the way common/"short" names and "official" names are defined by (for example) the UK government, listed here.

The articles of both Austria and Sweden were changed by K1812 (talk · contribs) to use "formally" instead of "officially" (Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe and Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. This is based on how the UNGEGN defines the different names listed here (both "short" and "formal" names are "official" in this context).

Even using the UNGEGN list, there are some countries where "officially" would remain appropriate. For example Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America, the UNGEGN short name being Bolivia (Plurinational State of) as opposed to just Bolivia.

If the logic behind changing from "officially" to "formally" in the articles for Austria and Sweden is sound, then "formally" should become the norm for country lead sentences. Otherwise, the articles for Austria and Sweden should be reverted to using "officially".

MildlyLucid (talk) 11:10, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

At the moment, Sweden is used as an example for WP:COUNTRYLEAD and so formally appears there. This would need to be updated too if there is agreement to change this. Mellk (talk) 11:30, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Formal is likely better as short names are often also official, although generally I suspect the meaning is conveyed. CMD (talk) 11:51, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Australia

Just looking for some generic input at Talk:Australia#Reverting without explanation. Is a hard article to update. Moxy🍁 00:49, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and continents

A perennial topic at Talk:Armenia and Talk:Georgia (country) (though apparently not so much at Talk:Azerbaijan, though Azerbaijan gets mentions in discussions at the first two) is the matter of how the leads of the respective articles should identify their locations—Eastern Europe, West Asia, both, or leave it at "the Caucasus". It is always pointed out that different sources put the boundary between Europe and Asia in different places. There are those who describe them as "culturally European", with the consequence that "in Europe" is correct, while others want what we say in the lead to be a purely geographical designation. And there are those who will point to inconsistencies between the way this is handled for Armenia and the way this is handled for Georgia (and, to a lesser extent, Azerbaijan), which could confuse readers.

This applies to the short descriptions as well.

Is there any interest in establishing uniform guidance regarding their respective assignment by Wikipedia to one continent or the other or both, synthesizing the relevant sources together as necessary, for all three countries in the interest of clarity and consistency? Largoplazo (talk) 12:00, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia used to "assign" them to Asia along the UN geoscheme lines, but by used to I mean decades ago. Since then the more flexible current consensus developed. There is no guidance that can be developed to stop this issue, as it is an issue stemming from real life, and is mostly lead-fixation. We generally should replace "culturally European" (vague) with something more to do with self-identity, as that better reflects why the issue exists, and partially why it is less prevalent for the Azerbaijan article. CMD (talk) 13:01, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, we should get rid of "culturally European", a subjective buzzphrase with at least a whiff of cultural superiority behind it that has no place in Wikipedia voice. It's rather meaningless. I know (before anyone yells at me) that Armenian culture isn't Turkish culture, but is it closer to Norwegian or even Bulgarian culture than it is to Turkish culture? How close are Romanian and Norwegian culture to each other, that one can define a "European culture" that Armenian culture belongs to? Also, if it's culturally European, then isn't Australia too?

Anyway, I'm specifically talking about the lead. Regardless of the terminology chosen to convey it, the lead isn't the place for "And, in case you were thinking Armenians are like Asians, they would very much like you to know they'd prefer to be considered European." At least with regard to any mention of either Europe or Asia in the lead, let's stick to geography as we do with pretty much every country outside the Caucasus. Largoplazo (talk) 16:21, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

Addendum I meant to add that I wonder whether this is worth holding an RFC over so that future debate on the respective talk pages can be forestalled by pointing to its outcome. Largoplazo (talk) 16:34, 4 April 2025 (UTC)