Talk:Country codes of Serbia

Serbia is not actually a "new country"
According to the terms of the Referendum, all joint state institutions (such as embassies, UN membership, etc.) rightfully belong to Serbia, as it is the continuation of the former state. Therefore, calling it the world's newest country is both incorrect and possibly insulting, considering its long history. This article deals with the SCG (Serbia-Montenegro) flag being replaced at the UN Headquarters with the Serbian one (http://www.politika.co.yu/cyr/tekst.asp-t=29627&r=10.htm) and this article explains that Serbia now owns the former SCG embassies (http://www.politika.co.yu/cyr/tekst.asp-t=29620&r=10.htm). In that sense, one might consider Montenegro the world's newest country, as it left the Union and not Serbia (the referendum, in fact, was in Montenegro, and was not open to Montenegrins living in Serbia). -- Minty-Fresh

Context
To say that Serbia is "the world's newest country" is by all means incorrect if you look it through historical context, given that it was an independent country almost 1000 years ago. However, according to international legal standards, it is very much new - being a sole successor state to the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro makes it not the newest country (that being Montenegro), however second newest would not be far from the truth. Maybe East Timor and Palau came in between forming of FR Yugoslavia and dissolution of the union. The fact that referendum was not open to Montenegrins in Serbia cannot be more irrelevant at this point, as this is political argument, and not any kind of legal claim - especially not the kind that would be internationally recognized.

However, neither history nor international legal standards were the subject here. Serbia is in fact the world's newest country (together with Montenegro) if one looks it through the subject of this page - issuance of international country codes. The sole fact that Serbia cannot opt to choose codes that have been issued to former colonies, which gained their independence during the 70s, proves this beyond any doubt.

As this is definetely not the place for this kind of discussion, I will not insist upon having "the world's newest country" in the text. But, I sincerely believe that it should be pointed out to readers that Serbia has this problem because it is in situation as if it was the world's newest country. I'd like to see some suggestions in this context...

Meelosh 23:32, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Similar issues for Montenegro?
This is a very interesting page and really shows Wikipedia's flexibility -- discussing what to most people must seem like a very peripheral issue but nevertheless is very real and does affect a number of people, whether or not they know it. I noticed around the time Yugoslavia was renamed SCG that "S", "C", "G" and "M" all seem very crowded in terms of ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 codes (Alpha-3, obviously, is much less constrained.)

It would be interesting to see a similar page for Montenegro. The obvious "CG" (Cera Gora) is Congo, and "MN" is Mongolia. "MO" is Macau. "CE" is free and might be the least unpalatable, although having no knowledge of the Serbian language I don't know how that would be perceived.

"ME" is only Alpha-2 available for Montenegro
Actually, since Montenegro is called Crna Gora (and not Cera Gora) in Serbian, "CE" doesn't really mean anything in either Serbian or English. "CR" is, however, taken by Costa Rica, "CN" is China, "CA" belongs to Canada, and finally "CO" is Colombia.

It leaves only combinations of initial letter of English title, Montenegro, and another letter from that word as a possible solution - with "ME" being only available combination. Meelosh 22:44, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Could AE qualify as gov't form in ISO-3166-1 A2?
If United Arab Emirates' AE includes form of government, same could be said for United States of America and US; Emirates in this case is integral part of the country's name, and it would clearly be senseless without it (United Arab what? or United what? of America).

However, Serbia stands alone as well as the Republic of Serbia. I would say that there are then at least three examples of gov't form in ISO-3166-1 A2, and two of those three are consequence of country not being able to chose appropriate code (as is case with Serbia). Actually, the sole case where it was intention to include this was DPRK (or North Korea). Meelosh 09:19, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

This page should not be here
The constituent sections of this page should go to their respective standards page. I have added one "mergeto" notice, but there should be more. You know what to do. Cheers. – Kaihsu 22:11, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I speak in haste. I see that it can be very frustrating to be in a place without a country code (yet).  But I think much of the discussion here (both in the article and in the talk page) can better be directed at the maintenance agencies of the standards: it will be more productive than shouting here in the wilderness. – Kaihsu 22:50, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, this very page is the reason why is there any discussion at all in Serbia concerning ISO codes for this country. The screenshot of the frontpage made the TV headlines, and these proposals have been taken seriously by the government and other parties involved. So, shouting in the wilderness really works :) I suggest to keep this page until this issue is fully resolved. Best regards, Meelosh 08:47, 3 September 2006 (UTC).


 * However helpful it may have been, it may still not have been an appropriate page for Wikipedia. I've attached a general cleanup tag - setting aside the page's existence, it has terrible problems with non-encyclopedic tone, speculative phrasing, overlap with existing articles and verb tense problems.  It probably isn't worth trying to tidy up until people figure out if the article should exist, and if so, what should be in it. - David Oberst 07:20, 3 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I sincerely believe that Wikipedia should allow for some lenience in certain cases, especially when they provide for huge media coverage and the best interest of the community - and I'd like to thank other editors for respecting that during previous months. Now that the issue is fully resolved, I have no "personal preference" over this page's existence. However, it seemes that this is an unique article on the subject of ISO codes dispute, and provided that its improved, could present itself as a valuable source of information. I would love to hear what other people think. Best regards, Meelosh 12:05, 3 March 2007 (UTC).


 * I would argue strongly for the removal of this page. Ignoring the fact that the ISO 3166 code elements for Serbia have now been assigned, making the "debate" entirely moot, there are problems with the speculation involved in the article and the fact that Wikipedia was used to try to influence a decision.  There could never have been any so-called "talks" with the Solomon Islands about swapping code elements -- the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency has strong stability policies that are supposed to prevent this sort of thing.  Many people depend on the stability of ISO 3166 codes and really don't care if the code for Serbia were ZQ as long as it remains stable.  DerbertBeak 20:26, 23 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with DerbertBeak, as this subject is now concluded. However unreliable it may seem, the fact is that Wikipedia significantly contributed the final decision by ISO, by forcing the hand of Serbian Institute for Standards. I just think that should be noted for the record. There are no sources or proofs per se, but those days this Wiki page was shown on TV news and the subject was a national matter of discussion. Meelosh 16:47, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

RS is also an abbreviation for Raska/Rascia
Now that the two-letter code RS has been denied on the basis that it's not allowed to use government form as part of the two-letter code, I would strongly suggest that the Serbian government resends its request for the code RS, but this time explains that it's short for Raska/Rascia/Rassa/Raschka, the historical name of today's Serbia.

There is absolutely no reason why they wouldn't accept this explanation, as it is very relevant concerning the heritage and history of Serbia and completely in line with the guidelines for two-letter codes. I am in fact amazed that this wasn't stated instead of the given explanation that it stands for "Republic of Serbia"... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.248.142.165 (talk • contribs) Sept 2006 (UTC)

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