Talk:MV Missourian (1921)

Naming of article
Is the (1921) disambiguation needed per WP:CONCISE? There don't seem to be any other ships known as MV Missourian that I turned up in a quick search. Hog Farm Talk 05:15, 17 May 2021 (UTC)


 * there were certainly other ships named Missourian; a steamship of that name was torpedoed and sunk in WWI. Can we hold moving the article until it has passed GA? Mjroots (talk) 06:09, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, of course. I was just wondering if it was the correct one.  If there are others that don't have an article yet, would creating a set index be a good idea? Hog Farm Talk 15:38, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Dominion of Canada
When I changed the wikilink from Dominion of Canada, it was 1) to go to the appropriate article - Canada, not 'Name of Canada' where Dominion of Canada redirects to. 2)Other countries listed don't use their long title. E.g. United Kingdom, United States. Those are not the full long titles. 3)Canada is the common name and the topic of the wikilink, and what people expect. The actual name of Canada hasn't really changed over the years, it was just common practice to call it Dominion of Canada. There has been no legislation to officially change the name. It's always been called Canada, since 1867. Alaney2k (talk) 06:18, 20 September 2023 (UTC)


 * When I originally wrote the article, Dominion of Canada linked to Canada. I used "Dominion of Canada" because that was the legal name of the country at the time in question. I am a strong believer in not rewriting history. It is not a question of singling out Canada, it applies to all countries worldwide, and all places worldwide where names have changed through time. My suggestion is that we use Dominion of Canada so that Alaney2k's target and my use of the correct name for the country are both achieved. Mjroots (talk) 05:57, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm in favour of using the common name, disregarding discussion on whether Dominion of Canada is or was its name. Unless the article is specifically talking about the name itself we should use the common name not United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, not United Mexican States, not Republic of Korea or Republic of Italy. Just common names such as Canada, UK or United Kingdom, Mexico, South Korea and Italy. An article not about the name or country very specifically is the wrong place to use full names. Canterbury Tail talk 12:56, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree with Alaney2K's change. The article should just state "Canada".  (1) The name of the country has always been "Canada".  Section 3 of the Constitution Act, 1867 states that the new country will be a dominion "under the name of Canada".  That's the name.  "Dominion" described its status within the Empire, but that was not part of its name. (2) I agree with Canterbury Tail that we should use the common name, unless the article in question specifically raises this issue. (3) After a long discussion, a consensus was reached at the articles on Canada and Name of Canada that "Dominion" would not be used except where that was specifically part of the discussion in an article.  That consensus took a lot of time and energy to reach.  (4) We can't have this discussion in every article where Canada is referred to.  That's a waste of everyone's time and energy.  (5) If any editor disagrees with that position, based on "re-writing history" or any other reason, they should come to the page on "Name of Canada" and seek to change the consensus, rather than impose their personal preference in any article where "Canada" is referred to. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 14:22, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Just by way of a counterpoint, it's significant that the British Parliament used different terminology when it passed the Constitution of Australia Act three decades later. Section 3 of that Act states that the Australian colonies "shall be united in a Federal Commonwealth under the name of the Commonwealth of Australia".  In that case, "Commonwealth" is clearly part of the name of the new country, unlike "under the name of Canada" in the Constitution Act, 1867. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 14:37, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Weimar Republic or Germany
While we're at it, there is a similar issue with this statement in the article: "On the last leg, from Hamburg, Germany, to New York..." If you click on "Germany", it takes you to the article on "Weimar Republic", not the country of Germany. I think it should be a link to "Germany", for reasons similar to that discussed about "Canada":
 * (1) The common name for the country is "Germany", and for the reasons given by Canterbury Tail, above, that should govern here;
 * (2) If instead it is the common name used in the early 1920s, then "Germany" was the common name at that time, as stated in the Weimar Republic article: "In English, the republic was usually simply called "Germany", with "Weimar Republic" (a term introduced by Adolf Hitler in 1929) not commonly used until the 1930s."
 * (3) If the insistence is on using the "legal name", the Weimar Republic article itself states that the legal name was "German Reich", not "Weimar Republic": "The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich". Therefore if the "legal name" is to be used, the quoted passage should read:  "On the last leg, from Hamburg, German Reich, to New York...".
 * (4) "Weimar Republic" is a reference to the form of government in Germany at the time, but ultimately, the form of government is not the country. The article on Germany covers the history of that territory, from early hominids to present day.  It makes sense that any reference to Germany should be to the general article on the country, not to a specific form of government, unless the form of government is a relevant part of the article in question.  Here, it's not.

All of this demonstrates just how technical and unhelpful the insistance on the "legal name" is, compared to the simple use of the common name, in this case, "Germany". I think it makes sense to change the link from "Weimar Republic|Germany" to "Germany". Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 19:25, 21 September 2023 (UTC)


 * No, we need to use the correct country for the period in time, applying COMMONNAME where appropriate. Mjroots (talk) 05:31, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
 * In 1922, the legal name was "Deutsches Reich". The constitution of this (first) republic carried a compromise in its first article, it stated "Das Deutsche Reich ist eine Republik" (= The German Reich is a republic), so "Deutsches Reich" was the legal name. In 1919, liberal politicians, as well as Hugo Preuß, the author of the Weimarer Reichsverfassung (Weimar constitution), did not want to give up the name of the state, because it had a very long tradition (Germany's legal name (until 1806) was "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" since 1512, but informally it was called "Reich" for centuries). Conservative (eg. Zentrum) and right-wing parties supported the liberals, where some of them probably also saw (and liked) the name as a reference to the Deutsches Reich of 1871 (unification of Germany -> German "Empire"). Both social democratic parties supported the name "German Republic", in an attempt to display a new beginning and to display that Germany dumped all imperial ambitions. Originally, the term "Weimar Republic" was a derogatory name used by conservative revisionists, Hitler and the communists, and it was not used before 1929. The term was then used in speeches, political pamphlets and party newspapers, but also around 1931/1932 in some independent newspapers that were loyal to the republic. In general, the term was still rarely used until the late 1940s, when historians and journalists started to use the term subsequently (and increasingly) to distinguish between the German Empire (1871-1918) and the Weimar Republic (1918-1933), even though the "Deutsches Reich" existed from 1871-1949, technically/legally and name-wise. In turn, and starting in 1871, the term "Deutschland" slowly morphed from a descriptive term (describing the cultural nation/bonds in the German-speaking areas) into a (still informal) state name. That said, the correct country (name) for the period would be "Deutsches Reich", "Deutschland" wasn't used officially until 1949, when the "Bundesrepublk Deutschland" (Federal Republic of Germany) was founded. So, linking to the Weimar Republic article is a nice (and the correct) way of pointing the reader to the proper period article. While "German Reich" sounds silly to German ears (due to the silly mix of English and German), using the term is probably the only proper way of describing/translating the state name of the period, I guess, as the term "German Empire" clearly refers to the "Kaiserreich" (Emperor's Reich), and because the propaganda term "Third Reich" (used by nationalists and the Nazis to delegitimize the Weimar Republic) clearly marks the post-Weimar era. GeeGee (talk) 16:17, 21 November 2023 (UTC)