Talk:Declaration of independence/Archive 1

Old Taiwan discussion
This is a #1 refference!


 * That statement implies that Taiwan is an independent and sovereign state and is therefore not NPOV. They only say what they do because they equate the ROC with "Taiwan" and the ROC is an independent and sovereign state. As it is worded now, it is too misleading. --Jiang 03:43, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

My statement is that supporters of Taiwan independence believe X. X is POV. Saying Y believes X is not POV. My problem with what you said was that it isn't want supporters of Taiwan independence believe. I happen to think that most supporters of TI accept the idea of the Republic of China only out of political convenience, and that Chen Shui-Bian would junk the ROC in a second if he could get away with it.


 * I added the position of supporters of Chinese unification to add balance.

--Roadrunner

I read an interview on cnn.com a couple years ago in which Chen Shui-bian said something in the lines of "Taiwan is an independent and sovereign country whose official name is the Republic of China, which has been in continued existence since 1912." Indeed, if you go on gov't websites, you'll see comparison charts in which official name of China=PRC and official name of Taiwan=ROC. If they can use that term, why can't we? (Even if it is for "political conveinience".)


 * Keep in mind that I'm extremely anti-Taiwan independence, and in explain what supporters of TI believe, I don't necessarily believe it myself (and I don't). My purpose is to explain why supporters of Taiwan independence on Taiwan no longer think that a declaration of independence is necessary.  Most of them, including Chen, don't care about ROC, and ROC Independence is only means by which they can achieve Taiwan independence.


 * The notion that ROC is the official name of Taiwan is very new (i.e. you won't see it pre-Lee Tenghui), and moves the situation very much toward Taiwan independence.

This statement is a little murky: "Supporters of Chinese reunification on Taiwan also see no point in a declaration of independence in that they argue that the People's Republic of China has never administered Taiwan and that Taiwan is and should be part of a greater entity of China."

Again, this statement implies that Taiwan is a sovereign and independent state, which reunifications dont believe in.


 * You can reword that a bit. Keep mind though the reunificationists on Taiwan have the play the same sort of games that TI supporters have to play.  I've heard speeches by Soong Chuyu that sound very much like what Chen says.  Chen has to talk about ROC.  Soong has to talk about Taiwan sovereignty and ROC independence.

Don't they argue that Taiwan independence would be a needless name change, and would do nothing to improve the status quo?


 * The argument would be that a declaration of independence is not possible right now and would lead to an invasion which no one in Taiwan wants. But the overall strategy is to make ROC=Taiwan, and then gradually get rid of ROC.


 * One thing that you have been keep in mind in politics is who your adversaries are and what they want. Ultimately, most TI supporters want peace and we all share a single small planet, and so all of us have to compromise and be sort of nice and civil to each other.  At the same time, one has to be clear that what I want is very different from what TI supporters want, and while everyone is subscribed to a compromise and truce that defers a lot of the controversial topics, we don't see the world the same way, and we don't want the same things.

--Jiang 03:56, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Is there a general consensus that the new state would be titled Republic of Taiwan? --Jiang


 * Yes, but I changed the statement from ROT to Taiwan, because it's pretty clear that a formal declaration of ROC independence would also likely trigger some pretty strong action from the PRC. -- Roadrunner


 * IMO, it is somewhat wrong. since there are 3 sides with 3 POV but only 2 contesting in the article:
 * - PRC view that taiwan as PART OF CHINA, declaring independence will be view as a challenge to china; aka separatism. NO DECLARATION
 * - ROC view that since status quo is best, since they are basically already self-ruling anyway. NO DECLARATION/JUST SELF RULE
 * - 'ROT' view (pro-independence), believing Taiwan should be responsible to only itself, and abandon it's china claims. DECLARATION/NAME CHANGE
 * it should be noted that ROC and PRC are still in a state of civil wars, and ROC technically still have claims over china. since the pro-independence took power, it has been working to distance ROC from claims on china; the only thing it could change since name change is deadly. imo self rule doesn't necessarily grant ROC access the international organization and is treated 2nd class by all the major countries. only small states are willing to deal with taiwan as an equal. without the declaration of independence, no one can interact with ROC other than as a faction of a civil war/since itself isn't willing to officially consider itself as a separate state. Akinkhoo 16:50, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

MIxed up article
Who mixed up two different legal concepts??? A Unilateral Declaration of Independence (always capitalised) and often written as UDI, is an extra-legal declaration of independence that never becomes a reality because it is not accepted by the international community.

Examples:
 * Rhodesia in the mid 1960s
 * the Irish Republic in 1919

A Declaration of Independence is a legal declaration that may be extra-legal and accepted subsequently or which may be declared in full conformity with international law and accepted immediately (which is why it is different and so belongs on a different page!).

They are two different things with different legal meanings, different procedural modalities and different legal outcomes. What the heck are the two doing merged in this page? (And what the heck is independence doing lowercased? A Declaration of Independence is capitalised because it refers to a formal document whereas when written as an independence declaration it is lowercased, because one refers to a specific legal document by name, one refers generically to the process. More of this nutty lowercasing of things that are formally uppercased, like a when someone tried to lowercase Letter of Credence even though it is uppercased when referring to the formal name of a legal document, lowercased when written generically of as credentials. Yet more nutty semi-literary on wikipedia. When people edit pages about legal and constitutional topics it would help if they actually knew what they are doing!!!

So now all the UDI pages on wikipedia point to the wrong page, not to mention the wrong facts, and a definition that is wrong for a UDI and a DI!!! Fear ÉIREANN 01:43, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I do not think that the Declaration of Arbroath can be called a UDI or indeed a Declaration of Independence. Scotland had regained its independence by 1314, with the decisive victory at Bannockburn in that year. The Declaration of Arbroath, which was written some six years later, simply sought papal recognition of that independence - it did not "declare" it in the usual sense of a declaration of independence, of announcing a severance: it neither recognised that Scotland had ever de jure been anything other than independent of England, nor proclaimed a severance from England (which a UDI would have involved). That is not at all to doubt its significance as a document, particularly as an exceptionally early assertion of a legal right to depose a King (the Scottish, not the English, monarch). It could be described as "akin" or "similar" to a declaration of independence, not least as it affirms that independence and also sets out many of the claims and grievances of the nation; but it is not the same thing.139.149.1.203 11:24, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

71.200.2.198 (talk) 22:30, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

MIxed up article
Why is the Declaration of Independence of Paraguay stated in Wikipedia as 1811 but then it is not in this list? 88.101.188.33 (talk) 17:21, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

hi —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.200.18.34 (talk) 02:03, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

years missing
Somebody should add the years that states declared UDI. Kransky (talk) 10:16, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

First use of the phrase?
Though the "Oath of Abjuration" was clearly A declaration of independence, I notice that it does not use the phrase "declaration of independence". Is the United States version the first that actually called itself a "declaration of independence", or whatever the equivalent translation would be? -BaronGrackle (talk) 04:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Taiwan
This is not a page about Taiwan; it's a page about declarations of independence. I cut short the discussion of Taiwan a lot, and just linked to the Taiwan article which either does or should mention these issues in detail. I added Iraqi Kurdistan as another example of a region that is de facto independent but does not declare itself as such. I linked to autonomous regions since that's often what these places call themselves. Bhudson (talk) 18:08, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

New Zealand
NZ's parent is described as "United Kingdom" - this isn't correct; New Zealand came into existence in 1835 with the assistance of a British Resident but the idea was to proclaim NZ's sovereignty, rather than its independence - it wasn't a dominion or realm of the United Kingdom or any other nation at that point, but there were concerns that France would claim it. (Interestingly, 5 years later the newly independent NZ would become part of the British Empire with the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi).

Could I suggest that "United Kingdom" is replaced by "formation" or "union", with whatever word is chosen linking to the main article?

Cheers, This flag once was redpropagandadeeds 15:50, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I've removed the implication that independence was from the United Kingdom, leaving an " &mdash; ". I've also noted that the UK was the first state to recognise NZ's sovereignty and independence. This is an unusual case - a declaration of independence which didn't result in independence from another state: perhaps it's worth a note or comment? (Or would the existing link to Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand suffice?) TFOWRpropaganda 14:16, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Montenegro
Montenegro's had two declarations of independence: the republic's from rump Yugoslavia and the principality's from the Ottoman Empire. Does anyone have an exact date on the first (full and successful) assertion of the second? -LlywelynII (talk) 08:16, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Georgia (U.S. state)
Should we have entries for countries that aren't independent anymore? Admiral Norton (talk) 11:04, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Reviving a long-dead thread here, but I think it's reasonable to retain historical entities. Otherwise, over a long enough span of time, every item on the list would likely need to be removed. &mdash;Bill Price (nyb) 20:19, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

United States Declaration of Independence
Where is it?!? It's not even linked on this page. I would assume that a large amount of English-speaking users are looking for the U.S. Declaration. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 198.30.57.38 (talk) 01:20, 30 March 2007 (UTC).
 * By "it's not even linked on this page", you probably mean "not linked conveniently at the top". And that would reeeeeaaallly be stretching the worldwide view thing, sorry. Additionally, the articles Revolutionary war and Civil war, you should find, do not have such links at the top either, because again, that would be U.S.-specific usage. 66.195.211.27 00:07, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I feel this page, along with others, should be neutral, therefore, US gets its own U section. :p  Blind man   shady  04:09, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

When 300 million people use a term to refer exclusively to one concept, that constitutes notability suffient to warrant special notation. When Americans speak of "The Declaration of Indepedence", they mean their own, not any declaration. Using a non-American meaning of the term, with no mention of the US one, is blatant nonneutralitry. With the exception of the Scottish one, all the declarations follow the US one chronologically, and most follow, to some extent or another, the US one ideologically. Looking at other articles, "Fourth of July" not only mentions the US use, but is redirected to that use. And the "Independence Day" article mentions that it is also the name of a film. Tell me, in what world is the fact that there is a film named "Independence Day" of notability sufficient to be mentioned on the top of the page, but the fact the Americans use the term "The Declaration of Independence" exclusively to their own is not? Furthermore, even when the term is preceded by the word "the", it is redirected to this page. I'm going to add a mention of the US usage. If anyone reverts this edit without changing the "The Declaration of Independence" redirect, they will be instigating an edit war. "The Declaration of Independence" should not redirect to a page that make no mention of the US usage, and I'm not willing to compromise on that.Heqwm (talk) 04:18, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I would have to agree. Maybe 95 percent of the time in English "Declaration of Independence" denotes the American one. It logically follows that 95 percent of the people who type in "Declaration of Independence" on the English-language wikipedia are looking for the American one. The disambiguation note was accidentally removed by a well-meaning editor trying to revert vandalism, but it needs to be restored. --SchutteGod (talk) 16:38, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Why is there any disagreement about this? As it has been stated above, Americans and many others mean only one thing when they say "The Declaration of Independence." Pragmatically speaking, this ought to be enough reason for the link to exist. In addition, the fact that nearly all declarations of independence derive their descriptions as such (not to mention their ideologies) from an original phrase in "The Declaration of Indpendence" illustrates the correct relationship between the two concepts. I suggest that somehow "The" be worked into it, as a disambiguation, because it is a definite article--which is to say that it refers to one thing, rather than a host of things, which "Declaration of independence" appears to refer to, with its list-like format. Consensus is supposed to be reached before changing something within the article, but no one is disagreeing with the last three comments now, over the course of over two years now. So even though someone got rid of the disambiguation again, I'm going to assume that there is in fact consensus, and change it back--that is unless that person, or another, would to like to voice their opinion. Brianpetersn (talk) 00:24, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Arbitrary break in discussion
I've just reinstated the hatnote again. Per WP:TITLE, "declaration of independence" is recognizable, natural, concise, and a common name for the United States document across the English-speaking world. As other have noted, the United States document served as a model for many following similar documents, making it a prototype and giving it a special status in the language. With few exceptions, the unqualified phrase "declaration of independence" refers to the United States document. The fact that it lacks specificity means that it is warranted to have Declaration of independence serve as a glorified disambiguation page, but the United States document requires more prominent placement within that page than do the other documents. &mdash;Bill Price (nyb) 02:42, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Hatnote was removed here and I am reinstating it following prior talk page consensus. &mdash;Bill Price (nyb) 05:47, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Further support for keeping the USA-related hatnote
I was interested in trying to quantify how many mentions of "Declaration of Independence" in Google results pertain to the American document and how many pertain to other documents of the same name. I failed, however, because the American document is absolutely and utterly pervasive. I tried the following query:

"declaration of independence" -jefferson -"united states" -america -"july 4th" -"4th of july" -usa -1776 -congress -philadelphia -hancock -"revolutionary war" -"american revolution"

Still, an overwhelming number of results point to the American document. I take this as powerful evidence that the US document meets the criteria of WP:TITLE far better than does any other document, and so deleting it from the hatnote (as so many have tried to do) is misguided at best and obfuscatory at worst. The simple truth is that we aren't violating NPOV or "global viewpoint" issues if an overwhelming preponderance of English-language references to a "declaration of independence" refer to the American document by default, even stripped of context. The question of what "common usage" is is an empirical question, and I think that this Googling experiment provides sufficient evidence that the American document is the clear default "declaration of independence" in the English language. &mdash;Bill Price (nyb) 18:11, 15 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I've been told to bring to the talk page my edit to correct what I initially thought was a pretty straightforward case of an over-enthusiastic American editor, probably in junior high, putting a note at the top of the page to direct readers to the US declaration of independence, as if it somehow took priority over everyone else's. To my dismay I've found that this is being seriously defended. It is irrelevant that most mentions on the internet refer to the US one, or that American bloggers or whoever talking about "the declaration of independence" unqualified mean the USA's version. This is probably a reflection of many things, including the preponderance of American sources on the web (it's only to be expected that when someone from the USA talks about the declaration of independence that they mean their own country's, so this should not surprise us). Using the findings presented above to justify giving the USA's document priority on Wikipedia is an unjustified leap. It looks totally ridiculous to anyone outside the USA, and I would hope to anyone in the USA who has avoided the insularity and limited exposure to foreign perspectives on the world that is unfortunately the norm there. You probably think I'm trolling by now, but I'm really not. A link to the US document is in the table, same as every other country's. Readers who are incapable of finding "United States" in an alphabetical list are probably not going to get very much out of reading the article that link would lead them to. Extending American exceptionalism to this page by putting a special link at the top for any Americans who are terrified by the possiblity that their country is not the center of the universe is pointless, patronizing, amateurish and childishly nationalistic. I've reverted it again. Please don't put it back. Terminal emulator (talk) 20:55, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
 * First: In your edit summaries and this talk page message, you have been straining the boundaries of civility. Please control your emotions.
 * Based on your edit summary comment "Not consensus, just your opinion", you may have missed the earlier discussion on this topic. In that discussion, four editors (including me) expressed support for having a hatnote at the top of the article pointing to the US document.
 * The arguments I find most convincing are sourced from WP:TITLE and WP:D. Per WP:TITLE, the best article title for the US document would a priori be Declaration of Independence. Given the fact that "Declaration of Independence" is also a generic type of document, however, it is not quite justifiable to place the US document's article in the main Declaration of Independence spot. It is better to have a page which describes what a declaration of independence is and act as a disambiguatory portal. When it comes to this disambiguation, however, the US document is clearly the "primary topic". In the enormous majority of cases, visitors to this article are looking for the US document for both historical reasons (it is prototypical of the genre, being much older than most such documents) and demographic reasons (few English-speaking countries besides the United States have a "declaration of independence", so the large majority of queries for such a document will be made with the US document in mind).
 * I have taken the liberty of juxtaposing the article traffic for the US document and the article traffic for the first ten documents on the list. (Note that some of these articles aren't even specific to the document; Democratic Republic of Armenia, for example, is on the list because Armenian Declaration of Independence does not even exist.)


 * I will stress again that this is not an exhaustive comparison- it is time-consuming to collect and compile these statistics. However, even such a major country as Brazil saw only 0.9% as many visits to its document's article as the US document's article received.
 * It is good to be wary against systemic bias. However, we are not looking at a matter of article content or point of view; we are simply looking at an interface issue. Above all else, we must keep the user experience in mind, and what I have presented to you&mdash;both policy considerations and hard view data&mdash;support the conclusion that a hatnote specific to the US document should be retained. Contrary to your earlier assertion, this decision was made by consensus of multiple editors, and I do not believe that your rehashing of the "global viewpoint" argument overrides the very real practical issues which I and others have raised and debated in the past. &mdash;Bill Price (nyb) 02:28, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree. Declaration of independence has (in general) two meanings: first, the literal meaning of the words, secondly the American "document". Out of all the declarations, the US one is the only one (in day-to-day use) that corresponds with the title. If you type in "Declaration of Independence" in the German Wikipedia, you will be directed to the American declaration. But as Bill Price mentioned, this has been said multiple times before so maybe a mention in the header (faq) should be added to avoid future discussions. Joost 99 (talk) 09:17, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Soliciting external views
I have contacted the following WikiProjects, which claim the articles Declaration of independence, United States Declaration of Independence, or both. I have also contacted the following relevant WikiProject: Thank you. &mdash;Bill Price (nyb) 17:49, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * WikiProject United States
 * WikiProject United States History
 * WikiProject Politics
 * WikiProject Philadelphia
 * WikiProject United States Public Policy
 * WikiProject Countering systemic bias
 * Oppose hatnote to United States There are many Declarations of Independence and promoting the United States is biased. The reader can easily select it off the list. This article is read by people from all around the world and it shouldn't have a U.S.-centric biases right on the top.  Royal broil  03:43, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your opinion. I disagree that it "promot[es] the United States", though&mdash;I believe that it is simply an interface issue. A hatnote is designed to quickly route traffic to the correct article, especially in cases in which a large number of visitors to article "A" can be predicted to be looking specifically for article "B". In this case, a large number&mdash;probably a majority&mdash;of individuals visiting Declaration of independence on the English wikipedia are actually looking for United States Declaration of Independence, as suggested by the traffic data I quoted above. As an analogy, if an automated phone system starts its script with "para espanol, oprima numero uno", this does not serve to "promote Spanish"; it's a sort of "audio hatnote" designed as part of the interface to quickly divert callers to the information they seek. It's an interface tweak designed to better serve the readership, not (as another editor suggested) an ideological statement designed to perpetuate systemic biases. &mdash;Bill Price (nyb) 16:58, 25 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Neutral When the page is mentioned in the article body, a hatnote is harder to justify. But it's also hard to argue against statistics. And then there's the whole geopolitical correctness (pro and anti) can of worms... --Cyber cobra (talk) 05:18, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose per WP:Hatnote which lists "Linking to articles that are highly related to the topic" as an inappropriate use of the hatnote.--Carwil (talk) 15:16, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * But this isn't merely a See Also or sub-article; there's a genuine title overlap. --Cyber cobra (talk) 15:27, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * This is in fact a sub-concept (just like the one on WP:Hatnote). Mediating suggestions: discuss the seminal nature of the USDoI in the header and/or presort the table by date of declaration.
 * Technically, someone with a head for minutiae could argue out whether Declaration of Independence and Declaration of independence should direct differently.--Carwil (talk) 19:47, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree that it is a title overlap; per WP:TITLE, the obvious best title for an article on the US document would be Declaration of Independence, as the unqualified use of that term in English refers to the US document. Joost 99 pointed out above that on the German wikipedia, the English phrase "Declaration of Independence" is redirected directly to the US document's article.&mdash;Bill Price (nyb) 19:58, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose hatnote - "Declaration of independence" does not immediately suggest the American document at all to non-US English speakers. Anthem of joy (talk) 21:22, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Result
Although I disagree with the conclusion reached by the majority of involved editors and third parties, I recognize that I seem to be the only holdout to achieving consensus, so I will bow to the majority opinion and close this discussion as remove US-document-related hatnote. It is true that the US document is linked to in the body of the article, so despite the inconvenience users may experience in hunting it down, it's not a critical issue to omit the hatnote. I also recognize that there is a potential "global perspective" issue inherent in retaining the hatnote, even if we're primarily looking at an interface/navigation issue. &mdash;Bill Price (nyb) 22:16, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

DoI redirect
This redirect presently links back to the USDoI. It appears that there is a contingent that sees the redirect, Declaration of Independence as "for utility purposes, so as not to break dozens of links to the US DoI" (edit summary by editor SchutteGod, who reverted my edit to redirect back to this general article). I opened a discussion on the redirect's talk page, however no one seems willing to discuss it there. So I brought it here, since there was a discussion (above) about the biased hatnote. This redirect is the same wording as this general article with the sole exception that the "i" in "independence" is capitalized. To redirect back to the USDoI is just as biased as having a hatnote at the top of this article, is it not? In summary, it is my belief that this redirect should link back to this article, "Declaration of independence", and be placed in the "other capitalization" category by using the redirect category template R from other capitalization. This eliminates the bias, the very same systemic bias that was emphasized in the above discussion. As for "utility", this list links to the USDoI, and I think it is wrong to assume that 300 million Americans are incapable to find that link (after perhaps learning a thing or two about general DoIs). – Paine Ellsworth  (  C LIMAX  )  08:36, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The capitals in the title show that it is a document name and not just the term (but I’ve mistaken that myself once too...). This is an English language encyclopedia. The logical consequence is that literal meanings of a group of words can overlap with the everyday names of documents (Bill of Rights), historic terms (Long Depression, Wild West), orhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Declaration_of_independence&action=edit&section=12ganizations (Red Cross, American Airlines), geography (North Sea, Washington Monument, Great Pyramids) etcetera, etcetera. That has nothing to do with a systemic bias, but is a simple language issue. If you automatically see that as a bias, you are just as much biased yourself, in my humble opinion. Joost 99 (talk) 11:35, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I did not mean to give the impression that my decision was "automatic". It was not.  I spend a lot of time on bias decisions and, in this case, I believe I'm right.  Yes, this is the "en" Wikipedia, and it is also a "global" encyclopedia.  The same reasons for adiosing the hatnote apply to where this redirect should be routed.  There looks to be 49 countries, areas or states on the list in this article that refer to their document as their "Declaration of Independence" (capital I), and this says to me that routing this redirect directly to the US document is systemic bias.  I could be wrong; I frequently am.  I'm fairly sure that I'm correct in this case.  The hatnote required third-party assistance to do the right thing.  What will it take to help you see that routing this redirect to the US document is just as much a bias as the hatnote was? –  Paine Ellsworth  (  C LIMAX  )  20:42, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think someone from Finland will type in “DoI” expecting to hit on their own document, even if they were very biased, simply because the common title of the document is in the Finnish language. There might be a few English speaking countries of which the declaration in everyday speak is also literally labeled the “DoI”, so I'm not taking any stand. But it does not apply to all 49 countries, I’m pretty sure of that ;-)
 * Furthermore, a bias is a preference (tendency ... to favor particular outcomes). A US citizen might hate the document and his country for all I know, but could still expect to find it under “DoI” because he simply types in the title of the document found in history books, newspapers, film, etc. Who are you to label this expectation a bias? Are we to decide that the everyday title of an existing document, used by a very substantial number of English speakers, should disappear in the general meaning of the words? You can help a group of people without being biased, but I might have to accept the fact that we rather give millions of people a practical problem, than take the risk of looking biased... Joost 99 (talk) 10:45, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You state the essence in that last sentence. You feel that ensuring that this redirect goes to a global, unbiased target will "give millions of people a practical problem".  The only problem or challenge I see is that those millions of people would find themselves in a general Doi article that links to their, and many other, declarations of independence.  If this is the problem of which you speak, then please explain why you think this is a problem.  Are those millions of people unable to realize that they've reached a page that holds a link to where they're going?  Are they so brutally focused that they will stride off in a huff because they didn't go directly to their favored document?  The problem you call a problem does not seem to be a problem to me.  It appears to me to be a possible opportunity for some of those millions to realize that they're not alone— that the United States isn't the only country that had to declare themselves independent from tyranny.  And for those people outside the United States, it would be the very same opportunity, instead of them going directly to the US document they were not expecting to see, and then having to click on the hatnote to get to the general article, and then finally to click on their own DoI.  We have no real way of knowing where any "hardship" really lies, so we really should go with the "global" idea, just, as you say, so as not to take the risk of appearing biased. –  Paine Ellsworth  (  C LIMAX  )  20:02, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You say We have no real way of knowing where any "hardship" really lies, but that's an empirical question, and we do have a way of measuring it. Just count the traffic that the country-specific articles received. I demonstrated above that an absolutely monumentally enormous majority of English-language visitors are looking for the American document. I still believe strongly that pretending that "Declaration of Independence" is best treated as a completely generic term is the wrong decision, per my arguments in the closed discussion above. &mdash;Bill Price (nyb) 20:16, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * How does this traffic counter work? Does it count the hits? or can it differentiate those individuals who keep coming back to the page?  If one person hits the page several times on different days, are you able to subtract all of their hits except the first one?  I submit to you that the raw number of hits is insufficient to account for all those who have bookmarked the redirect and who keep coming back.  If the redirect is rerouted, those readers would go to the general Doi one time, click on the USDoI link, and bookmark that link.  No hardships.  I agree that "pretending" that DoI is best treated as a generic term is the wrong decision.  There is no pretending involved.  The term is a generic term even with a capital I.  In a global encyclopedia, this term must be treated as global.  You appeared to have a problem accepting the decision on the hatnote.  Please allow that this may be an application of the same thing.  I have been an American citizen all my life, but if I lived in one of the other listed countries, and I typed "Declaration of Independence" into my search engine, I would not expect to have to go directly to the US document, and THEN have to click on the hatnote link to get to the generic list, and THEN click on my favored document.  I would expect to go directly to the generic list.  How about you? –  Paine Ellsworth  (  C LIMAX  )  21:56, 23 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Question - (Because I honestly don't know) Other than the United States, is there an English speaking country that calls its declaration of independence the Declaration of Independence? It appears that the United States is the only country that calls their document The Declaration of Independence.  The others (from what I can see) either have a native language in which their document is officially (and in common usage) named, or has a different official name (as according to the recognition of their respective governments).  The only one that I'm seeing is possibly Texas, but that one is strongly based on the US DoI, and doesn't seem like enough of a justification to remove the redirect (as the Republic of Texas is now part of the United States). - SudoGhost&trade; 02:01, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure exactly what constitutes an "officially named" DoI. I could be wrong, but my take is that for countries where the list provides a name under the column "Declaration", the country's demonym or other identifier is there moreso just to differentiate each DoI.  For example, I would doubt that the people of the Republic of Ireland all refer to their Declaration of Independence as their "Irish Declaration of Independence".  If I'm not mistaken, English is one of the official languages of India, and English is fairly widely spoken in the larger cities.  If you were an English-speaking native of India, would you, say, in casual speech, refer to your document as the "Indian Declaration of Independence"?  Probably not any moreso than you or I would call the USDoI our "United States Declaration of Independence". –  Paine Ellsworth  (  C LIMAX  )  07:22, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * India doesn't seem to have a document or "official" declaration (they do have a non mentioned Declaration of the Independence of India). For Ireland the Irish War of Independence and thus gained independence, is - for me as an outsider at least - more known (and "important", if you can say that) than the declaration that initiated it (but an Irish user might be helpfull here, it remains a good "contender"...). I personally only know the US one to be so important as a stand alone document, that the "DoI" is known and used in everyday life and media. As for the capatilization, I thought that meant a title instead of generic term (see: Naming conventions (capitalization)), but I don't know if users see it that way. Joost 99 (talk) 10:21, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * People from India refer to their doi as the Purna Swaraj, even when speaking in English. Likewise, the Irish (typically) refer to theirs as the "Easter Proclamation".  So far as I know, the declaration of independence of the United States is the only one that is referred to as the Declaration of Independence in common usage amongst English speaking peoples. - SudoGhost&trade; 19:48, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps there is a way to include these names in this list? Such would be improvements. –  Paine Ellsworth  (  C LIMAX  )  05:14, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, the capital "I" does denote a title, but this alone does not make it non-generic. If the names in the list under the Declaration heading are inconsistent with reality, if other countries do not refer to their documents as "Declarations of Independence", then this list is sadly misleading.  As I mentioned before, there are nearly fifty listings where those names include the titled words "Declaration of Independence".  If any of the people in those states refer to their prized and precious document as their "Declaration of Independence", then even the capitalized phrase becomes a generic term.  If we err, then we should do so on the side of not wanting to appear biased, isn't that so? –  Paine Ellsworth  (  C LIMAX  )  05:24, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * There are listings that contain the words "Declaration of Independence" in the title. From what I can see, very few of those actually call the documents the Declaration of Independence. Those that do, the United States Declaration of Independence is (in my opinion) by far the primary topic, going by Google results and by comparing the page hits of the US DoI with this doi page.  The first sentence of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC seems to fit this situation perfectly.  The data from Google and the stats above suggest that the US DoI is much more likely to be the sought term, hence the reason why Declaration of Independence redirects to United States Declaration of Independence. - SudoGhost&trade; 07:16, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The listings that show the "minimal" name of "Declaration of Independence" are 49 as opposed to the total number of listings, which is 81. That's more than "very few".  You are entitled to your opinion, of course, but thus far there is nothing to recommend the USDoI as the "primary topic" of this list any more than any of the other documents with "Declaration of Independence" in their descriptions.  I also found it interesting that the stats for "DoI" are exactly the same as the stats for "Doi", and they are both very much less than the stats for "USDoI".  This could mean that those who keep coming back to the USDoI for reference already have the page bookmarked under its actual title and do not go through the DoI redirect.  Where Google is concerned, the number of hits is over 7 million for both "Declaration of Independence" and "Declaration of independence", yet only 140,000 hits for "United States Declaration of Independence".  What do you make of that?  It seems clear to me that "DoI" and "Doi" are similar enough for the redirect to be routed to this list. –  Paine Ellsworth  (  C LIMAX  )  08:01, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * PS. A Google search focused upon "books" and "scholarly" yield roughly similar hit ratios.
 * Note: I don't think Google always cares about capitalization in search queries, so your results don't quite indicate what you think. --Cyber cobra (talk) 09:22, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Note2: Neither do the Wikipedia article traffic statistics, they are always identical independent of any capitilization. See here :-). Joost 99 (talk) 15:55, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree. We could all learn something from Google. –  Paine Ellsworth  (  C LIMAX  )  12:08, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Odd, when I type in "United States Declaration of Independence" into Google, I get 12,200,000 not 140,000. "Declaration of Independence" only has 7,950,000.  When I type in Declaration of Independence -US -United States -American into Google, it becomes 469,000 hits, and even then, 6 out of the 10 results on the first page are still about the US DoI.  So far I'm not seeing anything that shows that the US DoI is not the primary topic. - <b style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#9932CD 0em 0em 0.4em,#800080 -0.2em -0.2em 0.4em,#000000 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;color:#e0e0e0">SudoGhost</b>&trade; 17:57, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * No oddity there. You are not enclosing "USDoI" within quotation marks.  Do that, and the results come way down.  You really need to look closer, to expand your perspective to a global scope.  Then you'll see that there is no reason to single out the USDoI as any kind of "primary topic" (other than for those who are citizens of the United States of America, and that's not "global").  There's a whole, great big world out there, and Wikipedia is supposed to encompass it— to include it entirely and comprehensively! –  Paine Ellsworth  (  C LIMAX  )  12:08, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I have looked closer. The USDoI is the primary topic.  The reason the results come "way down" is because most sites don't word it exactly the way you're trying to.  You've yet to provide any reason that the USDoI shouldn't be the primary topic other than "other DoIs exist".  Want to see how primary the USDoI is?  Go to Google, and with less than 5 operands, try everything you can to make it so that there isn't a mention of the United States Declaration of Independence on the first page.  I guarantee you, you can't do it.  If I do that to any other DoI, it doesn't show a single relevant result in at least 5 pages, and that's with only one operand, the name of the country. - <b style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#9932CD 0em 0em 0.4em,#800080 -0.2em -0.2em 0.4em,#000000 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;color:#e0e0e0">SudoGhost</b>&trade; 03:06, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
 * For corroboration, see my own Google experiments above. &mdash;Bill Price (nyb) 04:02, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Seems to me that if the Declaration of Independence of the United States is the primary topic, then the correct way to handle it would be to have an article on that subject titled "Declaration of Independence". Then either a disambiguation page or a list would be assembled to show all the secondary Declarations of Independence.  If you truly feel that the USDoI is the primary topic, then that page is incorrectly titled and should be moved to the DoI page, with the USDoI page redirected to the DoI page, and this list (Doi) would operate as a disambiguation list.  As it is now, with the United States' DoI as the title of the primary topic page, this is not consistent with Naming conventions, specifically WP:COMMONNAME.
 * Is there another option? Basically, what we seem to have is a redirect, the DoI page, that should redirect to both the USDoI page and the Doi page.  Since that doesn't really qualify to turn the DoI page from a redirect into a disambiguation page, then the only alternative that I can see would be to move the USDoI page to the DoI page.  I know that there must be several editors who consider themselves to be stewards of the USDoI page.  I wonder how such a move request would set with them? –  Paine Ellsworth  (  C LIMAX  )  22:08, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You keep referring to the global perspective, but yourself do not seem to have looked into any global DoI’s before you came with your assumption of bias and “minimal” of 49 DoI’s. One click on the Indian Declaration of Independence would have learnt you that they didn’t have a document or proclamation named that way. 49 becomes 48. I’ve randomly done some clicking: Brazil: no declaration: 47, Haiti, Bulgaria and Greece; originally called manifesto’s as far as I have found. 44. Korea, only movement, 43. Philippines: Acta de la proclamacion de Indepencia del pueblo Filipino, 42. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia: referendums which were adopted by the governments and lead to the declaration of the independence (no official documents named in articles, could be 40). There are some genuine DoI'S, but this list is "sadly misleading" on many accounts. As Bill Price noted below, it seems nowadays many people find the term “Declaration of Independence” very alluring and have adopted it. Some (Korea, Brazil) probably just by Wikipedia users who used the term to let their country fit into this nice Wikipedia list (that's what I call biased...).
 * SudoGhost question should be answered first imo, before we jump to any conclusions. And little overhaul of the article might be needed, which is a bonus side-effect of this assumed bias issue raised. I don't know how average users see the capitalization, so I leave that open for me for now. Joost 99 (talk) 15:00, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

While the above arguments are compelling, the farther above arguments against the hatnote are equally compelling as they also apply to the Declaration of Independence redirect. That redirect should ideally be routed to both the USDoI page and this Doi list, but that is not an option. Since nobody here has supported my suggestions:
 * either reroute the DoI redirect to this Doi list, or
 * rename/move the USDoI page to the DoI page,

and I see no need for a bigger todo by calling back in the third parties, then my conclusion must be to maintain the present status quo. Best of everything to you all! – Paine Ellsworth  (  C LIMAX  )  02:17, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Linguistic and philological evidence for primacy of the American document
The first apparent use of the phrase "Declaration of Independence" refers solely to the US document. The Oxford English Dictionary (online version, rev. March 2011), under the heading "Declaration," defines the phrase "Declaration of Independence" as "the public act by which the American Continental Congress, on July 4th, 1776, declared the North American colonies to be free and independent of Great Britain; the document in which this is embodied." It does not even make reference to generic uses of the phrase, despite dedicating prose to the generic uses of phrases like "Declaration of war". In addition, Google's ngram viewer shows a total lack of the phrase prior to the latter half of the 18th century. There's an odd bubble around 1765, but those works must be misdated in Google's system, because they clearly refer to the American document of 1776. It is clear that the American document is not only prototypical of modern declarations of independence, but is also the reason the phrase was invented in the first place. There was no reason to call it the "United States Declaration of Independence" or the "American Declaration of Independence" or any other such qualified name; the document became known simply as the "Declaration of Independence", period, throughout the entire English language, because it was the only such document in existence. The phrase "Declaration of Independence" began its life as a proper noun and only later became washed down and generic. In other words, contrary to some editors' assumptions, we are not looking at a case in which the generic term came to be associated with one document through systemic bias. Rather, we are looking at a case in which the proper term for a specific document became adopted and genericized by later peoples inspired by that document. &mdash;Bill Price (nyb) 17:50, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Well said. So what is stopping the renaming process?  Clearly, from what you have shown, United States Declaration of Independence should be renamed and moved to Declaration of Independence in accord with Naming conventions, specifically WP:COMMONNAME, isn't that so? –  Paine Ellsworth  (  C LIMAX  )  15:10, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

The usage and scope of is under discussion, see Talk:United States Declaration of Independence -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 06:08, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Lower Canada
The so-called "Declaration of Independence of Lower Canada" was of no legal or practical effect. Its inclusion here is misleading.Royalcourtier (talk) 02:45, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

South Africa
South Africa free from the Westminister in 1996? South Africa gained full independence as a republic in 1961 and left the commonwealth, but was that independence and constitution never recognized by the UK? —This unsigned comment was added by 81.233.220.208 (talk • contribs) 12:36, August 17, 2005.

Becoming a republic has nothing to do with independence. South Africa was independent well before 1961.Royalcourtier (talk) 02:46, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

Requested move
Requested move is taking place at Talk:United States Declaration of Independence, which will affect this page.--Prisencolin (talk) 03:02, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
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Korea (North and South)
I've reverted this unsupported addition. I'm not familiar with this article and its table. Perhaps I have misapprehended the intended meaning of the table column headed Association. It seems to me that some clarification of the intended meaning of that table column would be useful. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 02:21, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
 * It appears to assert that South Korea declared independence from the United States on AUgust 15, 1948. Re that date in Korean history, see the National Liberation Day of Korea article.
 * It appears to assert that North Korea declared independence from the Soviet Union on September 9, 1948 Re that date in North Korean history, see the September 9 article.

Merger proposal
Unilateral declaration of independence should be merged into this article. There is an explanation of a perceived difference in Talk:Declaration_of_independence but it doesn’t make sense to me. If the “U” in UDoI is significant, then it should be explained in a single article. Currently, neither article gives the reader a clue that either represents a different concept or why. —Michael Z. 2020-04-16 19:50 z 
 * Oppose There are some significant differences between these two concepts, one creates a universally recognised sovereign state, another one creates a disputed political entity generally unrecognised by the international community. 2001:8003:9008:1301:746B:13BB:F411:3C91 (talk) 08:33, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose Per IP user. Xindeho (talk) 06:35, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

United States Declaration of Independence
Can we stop pretending that anyone typing "Declaration of Independence" into the search bar is looking for anything other than the document that gave birth to this world's greatest nation? I suggest that "Declaration of Independence" redirect to United States Declaration of Independence and that this page be downgraded to a dab. Barring that, does the most relevant result have to be buried in some gargantuan list? A lot of websites put the United States first in dropdowns because they know most people need that one. It's cute to pretend to be fair, listing everything in alphabetical order and all, but let's be pragmatic. Mathguyjohn (talk) 00:05, 5 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I believe that you are partially right, but we should not just redirect this article directly to the United States Declaration of Independence. But instead we should put something next to the disambiguation section along the lines of "This article is about the general document. For the the United States document, see United States Declaration of Independence. I hope this was helpful! SingingZach (talk) 13:52, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

First State recognising Indonesia's Independence
where is the source of the first state recognising Indonesian independence? it was not australia, but mesir (egypt) source in Indonesian: http://forum.tarbiyahdaily.com/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=150 When I went to school in Indonesia, we're always taught that "Mesir"/Egypt was the first state to recognise Indonesia's Independence w_tanoto (talk) 13:25, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Sources that I have that suggest Australia was the first state to recognise Indonesia include a statement by the former Foreign Minister Kransky (talk) 13:57, 3 June 2008 (UTC).
 * I see. thanks for the link. but Australia was not the first state to recognise Indonesia. I have changed it to Egypt based on several links over the internet (mostly in Indonesian), and Indonesian history school textbooks. w_tanoto (talk) 15:34, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

First countries to recognize Indonesia were de facto de jure The Netherlands and the United States. Egypt was supporter at the United Nations for Indonesian independence but recognized Indonesia after official independence in 1950. The Vatican officially recognized Indonesia in 1950. The source which was shown does not show recognition. The Netherlands recognized Indonesia de facto on 15 november 1946 (Linggadjati Agreement) and egypt on 17 november 1946. The Netherlands recognized De Jure 27 December 1949 Indonesian Independence togetjher with the Un and US and Egypt recognized Indonesian independence on 25 februari 1950. --Orange2000 (talk) 12:47, 5 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Egypt recognized Independence of Indonesia on 18 November 1946 and diplomatic relationship begin a year later ( Egyptian source Indonesian source). So it was earlier than Netherlands or UN recognition. Ckfasdf (talk) 10:50, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Redirects to disambig page?
Is there a reason why we shouldn't redirect Declaration of Independence and The Declaration of Independence (both with capped "I"s) to Declaration of independence (disambiguation)? I ask because I just cleaned up like 250 incoming links to Declaration of Independence, almost all of which were intended for the United States Declaration of Independence. (Not all though - Some were intended for Ireland, Uruguay, Tibet, and a few others.) I see that this has been discussed at various points over the past 10+ years, and if we are going to still keep the DoI page as not redirecting to the US DoI page, then it seems like it would best serve our readership to have it point to the disambig page, so as to help with proper linking. Let's discuss as needed. Thanks KConWiki (talk) 04:23, 15 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Hello fellow Wikipedians - I posted the above comment in August 2022, about seven months ago, and have not seen any responses, either here or elsewhere. I would like to proceed with moving the capitalized Declaration of Independence and The Declaration of Independence to be redirects to Declaration of independence (disambiguation), to help avoid other articles linking to the capitalized D of I when they were intended to point to a specific country's page. I am planning on doing that at some point after March 22, 2023 (one week from now) unless someone expresses a rationale to the contrary here. Thanks to all. KConWiki (talk) 01:12, 16 March 2023 (UTC)