Talk:Wales/Archive country poll

"Wales is a country.."

The conclusion is of this discussion/debate was that Wales is commonly described as a "country", and can therefore be described as such on Wikipedia. The consensus in the final poll was to use the word country in the first line of the introduction, pipe-linked to an explanatory article (currently Countries of the United Kingdom).

The complete discussion/debate of this period in Wales Talk is collected together on this archive page for reference.

Countries of the United Kingdom provides 72 individual reliable sources that directly refer to Wales as a "country" without any qualifying explanation or words like constituent. It also provides 72 such references for England, Northern Ireland and Scotland. The shortcut to the reference tables is UKCOUNTRYREFS.

Note: The contributor Pureditor    was later found out to be a sock puppet of a persistent offender, and has been indefinitely blocked.

'Country' issue NOT resolved!
The issue of describing Wales (and England & Scotland) as a country has been resurrected! Please read and contribute to the discussion at Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-06-22 United Kingdom -- Maelor 12:41, 2 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Sadly, mediation has been closed, without result. While we were attempting to achieve concensus, I was happy to let the opening sentence of the Wales article stand describing Wales as a constituent country. However, now that mediation has ceased I feel it is no longer appropriate to maintain the status quo. Consequently, I intend to amend the phrase constituent country to the word country - a British English description appropriate to this article and in accordance with WP:MOS.
 * The article constituent country notes that: 1; "The word country does not necessarily connote political independence, so it may, according to context, be used to refer either to the UK or one of its constituents.", 2; " Although the term 'constituent countries' is sometimes used by official government bodies in the UK, such as the Office for National Statistics, it is rarely used otherwise. Far more frequently, they are simply referred to as countries; thus the 2001 British Census asked residents of the UK their "country of birth" with tick box options of: Wales; Scotland; Northern Ireland; England; Republic of Ireland and Elsewhere." and 3; "and the Office for National Statistics states authoritatively in its glossary that "In the context of the UK, each of the four main subdivisions (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) is referred to as a country".
 * There are many other reliable sources describing Wales as a country too. I don't want to start up an edit war on this page, or provoke endless discussion. I just wanted to advise you all of my intention and that there are WP:MOS, reliable sources and jusifiable NPOV reasons to back up my actions. :) Dai caregos (talk) 16:29, 4 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I would advise you not to change it to something new. It will start edit wars. If it needs to be changed, change it back to the intro that was stable for a very long period of time. Pureditor   16:51, 4 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your help, Pureditor   . I went with Snowded's version of 14/06/08, when Snowded reverted Fones4my sock puppetry. Good advice. Dai caregos (talk) 21:18, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Regarding this 'stable' version, are we talking about a period of absolutely unchanged wording, or are we talking about a slow edit war where the status quo was rapidly restored by certain editors whenever a change was made? I would caution anyone claiming that the impetus to have the wording changed was only due to a one man campaign by Fones4Me, and thus they are therefore apparently justified in making controversial reverts, because this was not the case. MickMacNee (talk) 22:51, 4 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I remember there was an intro that was there and stable before I starting editing on Wikipedia officially. The one that has been put in now does not look like it from what I can see and I agree it is a bit controversial. I will remove the piping done in the intro and if the the less controversial stable intro can be found and agreed on, it can be put back in. Pureditor   23:04, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The last major discussion finally came down to a choice between constituent country and country. We had two sock puppets driving removal of country and constituent country was finally agreed for the sake of peace. Without the sock puppets I think country would have been agreed but that is an opinion only.  --Snowded (talk) 23:09, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Between the end of March and the 14 June the wording remained stable at constituent country. josh (talk) 23:25, 4 July 2008 (UTC)


 * You say it remained stable. Stable does not mean right. I know,and many people know that Wales is a country. How on earth can anyone argue with that? I have gone through some of the discussions here, and it seems to me there is an anti welsh sentiment to some of the comments. Why is that? I have also noticed it is not just people from Britain who don't like calling Wales a country. It puzzles me why people who have no direct interest in this would push such a view. Any ideas? Celt 63 (talk) 01:31, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * None of the editors here has commented on the reasons why constituent country is inappropriate, as noted above, or given any reasons why they think it is appropriate. Furthermore, by removing the piping to the article constituent country it doesn't allow the casual visitor to discover that there are hardly any sources for constituent country and that the main source believes that country is used 'far more' frequently than constituent  country. To change the country description without making any reference on the talk page is, at best, impolite and it shows that there may be no NPOV for doing so. You will note that on both the Scotland and England articles they are now defined as country. Please provide the reasons why you think Wales should be defined differently, without which it is becoming increasingly difficult to assume good faith.  Dai caregos (talk) 07:10, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Just explain why you are resurrecting arguments that just closed as no consensus elsewhere? You haven't raised any new points that weren't raised extensively in the extremely long mediation, and the even longer previous discussions. So what exactly is so good faith about that? And I am completely confused particularly as you started off in this section by justifying your edit by saying that the mediation failed to achieve agreement across 4 articles, yet immediately above, your justification is now apparently because of what is now used at England and Scotland. MickMacNee (talk) 12:02, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

(indent) comments noted Mick. I think you are wrong and there is no requirement for any editor to justify opening a discussion just because you demand it. Dai I would recommend not responding unless a new issue of fact is raised. I don't think Mick is a troll, but I wouldn't feed him anyway. --Snowded (talk) 12:08, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * The situation will be made perfectly clear to third parties if Dai can't do such a simple thing as answer the apparent contradiction above, as I note you skirted around below. There is an extreme lack of not being able to remember the events of the past days, let alone weeks previously, amongst these tiresome repeated restarts of recently closed discussions. MickMacNee (talk) 12:20, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I remember it well Mick and have no intention of going back over old ground with you --Snowded (talk) 12:24, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * It's going to be a short discussion then if it's to be exclusive to only new participants not involved in the last few weeks. New redlinked user names apart. MickMacNee (talk) 12:34, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * and that from the country with the longest place name ... --Snowded (talk) 12:42, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Country
OK lets take a quick poll --Snowded (talk) 07:14, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

For consistency with England and Scotland (namely a country within the United Kingdom)


 * Snowden
 * Dai caregos
 * Ddstretch
 * GoodDay
 * Maelor (on the consistency argument)
 * Ghmyrtle

For continuation of constituent country


 * Pureditor
 * josh
 * Rrius (although I see the cost of continuing this discussion as outweighing the benefits of uniformity. If people want to know about the constitutional relationships among the UK and the constituent countries, they will almost certainly go the UK article, which mentions and links to "constituent country")

Comments

England and Scotland both read country, both say within the UK but England has a pipelink to constituent country as in the proposal above. --Snowded (talk) 11:29, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Are you serious? The whole mediation just collappsed yesterday, with the conclusion that it is impossible to gain consensus, especially for a standard phrase for all 4 articles. So why, now, are you posting a poll (ignoring the mulitude of previous comments that consensus is not a vote) to edit this page based soley on needing to achieve consistency with the other articles? MickMacNee (talk) 11:55, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Please stop these aggressive posts (like your comments to DDstetch on the mediation page). The failure of the mediation meant that it is down to each page to determine and I am simply trying to get them close together.  I don't expect Scotland to change, but I think we can get England and Wales to use the same words and be pretty close to Scotland..  Consistency is a valid argument and I will say that had you being slightly less aggressive in the mediation, and we had escaped a sock puppet we might have made more progress.  --Snowded (talk) 12:01, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I am inviting MickMacNee here to stop his aggressive posts and withdraw from this discussion, as the manner of his contributions has the effect of only causing unnecessary friction.  DDStretch    (talk)  16:10, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Anybody is free to re-open, re-visit anything they like Mick. As long as they're not edit warring? things are okie dokie. GoodDay (talk) 16:45, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Even though I voted I am a bit bemused by this poll considering we just finished a failed mediation and the intro was stable for a long time before this. I don't think we should have a poll for change considering the time and effort all the interested editors have put into finding a consensus. It didn't work we need to take a break from this. Pureditor    18:11, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Incorrect GoodDay. There was an immediate mini edit war at the starting of the above section. The immediate re-opening of the exact same discussion with the excuse that it is in a new venue, after closure/paralysis in others, while bringing no new arguments, and using reasoning that was recently clearly demonstrated as no consensus (consistency with the 4 country articles is a fair justification for making edits to a single country article at any one time, regardless of current state, as opposed to launching and properly enforcing an official end point solution), is actually behaviour that is usually actively discouraged by many admins, as disruption. Somebody pointing out this basic fact is not disruption. I will point out we have the same poll options as presented on day 1. Fact is, no agreement was reached on anything at UK talk or mediation (due to the main issue not being addressed), so there is no point in pretending an immediate restart is not tendentious. MickMacNee (talk) 20:24, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * But each of the 4 articles are (as they've always been) free to decide which they want -country, constituent country etc-. True, there's was no consensus reached for consistancy across the 4 articles; but there was also no consensus reached to not have consistancy either. GoodDay (talk) 20:30, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * It is most certainly not the "exact same discussion" since it is not an attempt to get consistency across all four articles. Instead it is concerned with the wording of this article alone. So, the later points of your message which follow on from and rest upon this incorrect fact do not apply. I invite you, therefore, to retract your suggestion that in this instance it may be disruptive. However, I will note that the continued accusation that it is disruptive when the basis of making that claim is false could quite well be looked upon as being disruptive itself.   DDStretch    (talk)  20:42, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * 1. Consistency was not the aim of the mediation, a supportable solution for all four articles was (check the mediation policy)
 * 2. Individual solutions for different articles were proposed and considered in the mediation and the prior UK discussion, and not agreed upon
 * 3. A solution employing article consistency was indeed rejected in the mediation, but is now being used as a justifier for the new discussion being started here, and the ensuing edit war
 * 4. The exact same poll options and supporting arguments not invoking consistency are being repeated here from the mediation ones and other prior recent ones
 * 5. The practice of the taking of polls over this exact issue was repeatedly rejected in the mediation by multiple users
 * 6. There is no justification for restarting discussions based on talk page article jurisdiction claims, except on special pages such as arbcom cases
 * 7. Given 1 through 6, this is most definitely a tendentious immediate restart of a deadlocked issue, which would be stopped by most admins as intentional disruption, even if it is claimed to be in good faith, just as repeated deletion nominations are prevented in the same way
 * If people honestly don't see any truth in the above points, then this page's archive bot interval will need to be cranked up a notch.
 * MickMacNee (talk) 21:30, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I've no problem with this article making it own choice. Same thing with England, Northern Ireland & Scotland (individually). Anyways, if you're still in disagreement? merely get an uninvolved Administrator's opinon. GoodDay (talk) 21:34, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * (e/c reply to MickMacNee) Ok then. Can I ask you what you would want, practically, to be done in this article with respect to the lead? I don't want a vague reply like "return to xxx" or "enforce xxx", but that could be part of what you say. I also don't want some exhortation that we should recognise some principle or assumed problem that you complain it seems that only you can see. What I am looking for is the sentence that you think should be in the lead which is relevant to this discussion, and which may or may not have arisen out of some prior process to which you should be able to refer. Thank you.  DDStretch    (talk)  21:41, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * My proposed version was: "Wales is a part of the United Kingdom, as a "country within a country". (it was easily retrievable from the recent discussions, and it is interesting that you aren't aware of its form given your many assumptions about my motives here). My preferred version is wholly irrelevant though, because due to the prevalent attitude of all current participants, and the absence of any proper control or administration of discussions, made it impossible to even get anyone to give a non-POV reason as to why that was not a satisfactory version. I won't bore you with the numerous detailed reasons why that was an excellent compromise solution meeting all wikipedia policies, they are all in the discussion. Instead, we have the same old tired polar diplomacy, backed up by complete misconceptions about the purpose of mediation, sources, polls, the jurisdiction of articles, and the resurrection of dead issues to flog the dead horse again (in the name of being constructive). There has been no commitment anywhere to true progress for the sake of a solution, either on a standard or individual solution; nor any attempt at proper control and direction of this process. The recent edit war and 3-2 'quick' poll above is just the latest example. I don't care if you didn't want to hear that in my reply, but maybe that's been the issue from the start. MickMacNee (talk) 22:19, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you. I asked you, not because I was or was not aware of what you may have expressed in terms of a preference before, but because I wanted you to explicitly give it here. Thank you.  DDStretch    (talk)  22:24, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * So, were you or were you not aware of it? Given your comment in the request below that I derailed that mediation. MickMacNee (talk) 22:26, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I was certainly aware that you had made a suggestion like that archived in section 2 of Talk:United Kingdom/Subdivision name archive 1. But positions sometimes change, especially in mediation discussions, where in an attempt to get a solution that is acceptable to as many participants as possible, people should be open to make concessions as part of committing themselves to mediation, and be able to make reasoned arguments in favour or against specific options as placed as open to discussion in any mediation attempts or attempts to gain consensus. One good sign that mediation has been embraced is, for example, a sign that one's position has been modified by the discussions.  DDStretch    (talk)  22:36, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * And a good sign that mediation was not embraced is when people truly willing to accept and support real solutions (myself) don't see that any were offered that were any better than their original proposed solution (actually, just to be pedantic, my original did not pipe 'part'). If you have an example of a single POV type positional comment from me in any of the discussions, please provide it. Still, the above post was another nice sideways dig at me though. MickMacNee (talk) 22:54, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * You were free to propose some, and I recall I did invite you to, but I also recall you refused. I think the reason your "country within a country" component was not considered (though it would have been included in one of my suggestions that I recall you disagreed with), was the overwhelming presence of "country" and other terms in the reliable sources in comparison. Since wikipedia is supposed to be a reflection of what is present in the literature (bearing in mind undue weight and so on), using it and not using any of the others would have seemed to be giving it undue weight. At least my early suggestion was to name all of them in various ways which tried to avoid being clumsy in a number of ways. However, many people didn't like that (including yourself). It would, however, certainly have reflected all the terms present in the reliable sources in a compliant way concerning neutral points of view. But, since it was going nowhere, I effectively dropped it. It wasn't uppermost in my mind to take a sideways swipe at you, by the way, as I don't look upon this as a fight, but I was trying to provide one way of positively identifying people who had embraced mediation rather than anything else (just as I asked on a number of occasions for arguments positively in favour of terms, rather than arguments attacking the other terms in the mediation discussions.) Well, it seems that it isn't helpful anymore to engage in further discussion here now.  DDStretch    (talk)  23:16, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I certainly made concessions at that Mediation Cabal. I went from wanting [constituent county] to [constituent county|country] to sub-divisions of... to part of... to finallly --anything goes--. GoodDay (talk) 22:40, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I suppose that is one form of a final enforceable solution - anarchy. MickMacNee (talk) 22:54, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm a republican; not an anarchist. GoodDay (talk) 22:58, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I have invited an uninvolved administrator to look over all this and comment if appropriate. DDStretch   (talk)  22:03, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Good idea. I think one of the issues may be that Mick made his country within a country suggestion several times but was generally ignored as the discussion moved around country and constituent country.  Given that it was not picked up and was more or less the idea of a single editor it may well have been missed.  That said I am frankly amazed at the hostile reaction from Mick here.  We couldn't reach an agreement on an overall solution and this is defaults to each page.  Here a few of us attempt to bring Wales into line with England and a degree Scotland we get all this grief.  It borders on abuse and intimidation.  Couple that with the attacks on the mediation page and the sooner an independent admin looks at it the better.   --Snowded (talk) 06:20, 6 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Feel free to address the specific points made above any time you like. Otherwise, your motivation for restarting this issue here and now is quite clear, as exhaustively explained above. Did you read it? MickMacNee (talk) 22:30, 6 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I read it Mick, I understand it but your interpretation of my motives is flawed, not to mention your understanding of the working of WIkipedia. DDstretch got it right you got it wrong.  I am afraid that my experience of your edits over the last few weeks is mostly negativ, you never seem to assume good faith and you approach vandalism.  Try approaching a conversation on the assumption that it is a collection of peers who want to make progress, rather than people who are frustrating your "legitimate" view of the world.  You might then find that your and other people's experience is better as a result.  Your talk page indicates that such a change is unlikely, but I live in hope.   --Snowded (talk) 00:25, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Extremely informal nonbinding mediation and opinion
I was asked to make an opinion here as an uninvolved administrator/editor.
 * 1) I couldn't be more uninvolved, I've never edited this article (that I recall - maybe a vandy-revert ages ago), I've never been to this locale, or even Europe for that matter, and I have no strong feelings or predispositioins whatsoever about which way it ends up.
 * 2) I will be reading through this talkpage and looking at the history. Am I understanding correctly that the lead sentence is the only (or main) point of contention?
 * 3) Can someone link here, as a response to this post, any related discussions that haven't been linked here yet?
 * 4) More imperative than linking past discussion, and more important even than this very discussion itself, I would like some external, reliable references. (Wikipedia reflects what others say, we are explicitly not allowed to make up our own minds). Is there a prevailing terminology for addresses Wales? I realize that sources from Wales may differ from sources from anywhere else, so I'd like links to both. If the source is a print source that's fine, just quote it.
 * 5) I would much prefer that whatever is in the lead sentence at this timestamp, is what stays there. There's no reason to cause further ill-will by edit warring (I'm positive this hasn't happened, but I haven't looked yet).  I would prefer that the following editors not edit the article's lead paragraph for the next week:  DDStretch, MickMacNee, Snowded, GoodDay, Pureditor, Dai Caregos, Joshurtree, Maelor.  Again, this is only a preference, and a gesture of good faith that regardless of your position now or in the past, that you are willing to allow the article to have a rest. There is no emergency here, the world will not collapse and end if a week goes by with "the wrong lead on 1/2,487,621th of Wikipedia".  There's no reason to get blocked over this. (Again, not saying anyone is even approaching that level of dissonance, just a general warning).
 * 6) I will be online every day this week. I'm in the US, so my editing times may/may not overlap yours.  I will offer an opinion by 15 June.
 * 7) Again, this is very informal. Tell me to bugger off if you wish at any point. There's lots of Wikipedia that I can edit.  Keeper   |  76   |   Disclaimer  15:46, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm happy to go along with this (especially as I don't recall ever editing the lead or much else in this article). My understanding is that it is the lead sentence which is the main issue in this article. Here is a link to the (failed) mediation discussions: Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2008-06-22_United_Kingdom which preceeded this, and in there will be found a table that was being built up of reliable sources for various relevant terms that have been used to describe each of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. They aren't split up into whether they came from Wales or anywhere else, but are placed together in the appropriate cell of the table. The table can also now be found in Subdivisions of the United Kingdom. Thanks for taking the time to do this.  DDStretch    (talk)  17:50, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * There was also a prior discussion archived on Talk:United Kingdom/Subdivision name archive 1 but which seemed to some to have been marred by at least two sockpuppets one of which some say controlled the discussion and influenced it to such an extent that its conclusions couldn't be relied on too much (which is how the mediation attempt got going - link already given.) The sockpuppet matters are given in Suspected sock puppets/Fonez4mii (Fonez4mii changed name to fone4My, though some variation was made between name shown and actual i.d. used), and Requests for checkuser/Case/Jack Forbes, though I'm not sure these are wanted; I've included them for you for completeness. I think I've included most here, though I may have missed some, which no doubt others can add if they know of them.  DDStretch    (talk)  18:05, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks DDStretch for the links, I certainly have some reading to do! :-) Keeper  |  76   |   Disclaimer  20:56, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for getting involved. In the previous debate on the Wales page (now archived)  User:Bencherlite also an admin assembled a table of evidence for and against country which clearly established "country" as the valid term.   I can't immediately find the reference but I have posted a note to that user's site.  As far as I can see there is no substantial debate that Wales (or England/Scotland) are not countries and that is supported by citations (although there have been sockpuppet led attempts to change that).  Neither is there debate that they are a part of the United Kingdom.   The current debate is between country and constituent country or a possible country all to be followed in the same sentence by "a part of the United Kingdom| or similar.   My preference is for the last one (consistent with England) or the first (consistent with Scotland).  Oh and please note I have not indicated any intention of editing the sentence without agreement on the talk page and have a consistent record of abiding by that practice on this and other pages- ref point 5   --Snowded (talk) 20:45, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I appreciate your input Snowded, and thank you for the additional links. I'm going to start reading information in the next two days, I'll ask questions here if I have any along the way.  Still waiting to hear from at least two or three other involved editors, feel free to post here if you have other links/references that I need to see that haven't been linked.  Also, please note, I fully understand what the contention is at this point, there is no need to rehash the arguments (above and elsewhere) in my thread here.  Your mainspace editing record, on this article, from what I've seen to this point, is perfectly reasonable.  This very issue is the reason why every article has a Talk: page, and in this case, I believe it is being used very well. :-)   Cheers, <font color="#21421E" face="comic sans ms">Keeper   |  <font color="#CC7722" face="Papyrus">76   |  <font color="#ff0000"> Disclaimer  20:56, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * User:Bencherlite provided this diff to the prior authorities --Snowded (talk) 21:36, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

The British Post Office, Royal Mail, refer to the individual stamp issues for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as "Country Issues". I can't give you a direct URL to the specific page because it is sessioned but their website is Royal Mail then follow the link to Collecting & Philately and Definitive Stamps where you will see: "Country Definitives celebrate the unique heritage and history of each of the four countries of the United Kingdom." On 29 Sep 2008, Royal Mail will be releasing stamps to commemorate the "50th Anniversary of Country Definitives"! -- Maelor 14:31, 9 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I've taken away the second 'constituent' in the opening parag - why use it twice? I happened to write that line in April (with the current parag structure) - so, yes, it is a revert to myself in a way. It was stable for ages though - so I just can't understand why it was duplicated here, unless it was to prove a point. Nobody can say it reads well can they? I don't think it's in the spirit of Wikipedia. As far as I'm concerned "constituent country" and 'country' are not mutually exclusive - 'country' is mentioned many times elsewhere in the article too, so are we to change them all to 'constituent country'?


 * I don't overly care whether 'country' or 'constituent country' is used in the first line, as I've said before. I personally favour 'constituent' simply because it seems to me to better explain the state of affairs of the UK - which is what, to me, Wikipedia is about.


 * If it's so problematic why not just use country? --Matt Lewis (talk) 00:57, 11 July 2008 (UTC) (forgot to sign)
 * You've missed out on all the fun, Matt. Due to a failed Mediatian Cabal; the 4 articles are left to decide for themselves (constituent county, country, province etc). GoodDay (talk) 00:41, 11 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Mediation over constituent country? I don't think I'd have got involved, other than maybe to say the above. As I said last year in MOSBIO - you will never get consistency over these countries: Britain has worked by being flexible - it's had to be. If the conclusion was to forgo consistency over this it was a wise one - it will hopefully stop people article-hopping to try and avoid consensus elsewhere by playing the 'consistency' card they have worked to lay up. That is such a problematic element of Wikipedia it deserves its own guideline! It's not illegal - but I just don't personally like it. I'm not going to spend any time on this matter though - I just thought having the extra 'constituency' in the Wales Intro (but nowhere else in the article) was plain silly, and I want it to read well and look good. --Matt Lewis (talk) 00:54, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Update, I'm still reading all sorts of "interesting" commentary, and focusing on the sources outside of wikipedia. I'll render an opinion, (again, nonbinding - just an opinion) by 15 Jul...<font color="#21421E" face="comic sans ms">Keeper  |  <font color="#CC7722" face="Papyrus">76   |  <font color="#ff0000"> Disclaimer  02:05, 11 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi ...<font color="#21421E" face="comic sans ms">Keeper  |  <font color="#CC7722" face="Papyrus">76, I've now had the time to look at some of the sources I hadn't had time to research previously, when I noted sources for the table on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2008-06-22_United_Kingdom#Table_of_References. Sorry to have kept you waiting.


 * It must be said that most authors, when referring to Wales, write of 'Wales' or 'the Welsh nation', rather than 'the country'. Another problem is that a significant body of literary work is in the Welsh language, with frequent mentions of 'gwlad' (English: country). However, we aren't likely to define Wales here as either Cymru or gwlad, as on Wicipedia (the Welsh language version of wikipedia: cf: http://cy.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymru), in the foreseeable future, so that narrows number the sources down. That is, where you would expect the most nationalist sources to be from are in Welsh and so, can't be used as sources. Furthermore, all our institutions are national this or national that (National Library of Wales, National Museum of Wales, National Assembly for Wales, Welsh National Opera etc., etc.,). However, here are some reliable sources referring to Wales as a country, not yet noted either on this talk page or on the table:


 * 1: Encarta - Encyclopedia: 'Wales, country and principality, part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, united politically, legally, and administratively with England, and occupying a broad peninsula on the western side of the island of Great Britain.'
 * http://uk.encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761558653/Wales.html


 * 2: The Welsh Academi Encyclopaedia of Wales by John Davies (Author, Editor), Nigel Jenkins (Author, Editor), Menna Baines (Author, Editor), Peredur I Lynch (Author, Editor), University of Wales Press; 1 edition (31 Jan 2008) , ISBN-10: 070831953X ISBN-13: 978-0708319536


 * p xvii. First line of the introduction: 'The appearance of an encyclopeadeia that aspires to encapsulate the country's material, natural and cultural essence is a significant and sometimes controversial event in the life of any nation.'


 * Encyclopaedia Extracts
 * from the Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales:


 * 3: EISTEDDFOD:


 * 'A host of smaller eisteddfodau, both at a village and regional level, are also held annually throughout the country.'
 * http://www.academi.org/encyclopaedia/i/130667/


 * 4: Review of the Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales by Jan Morris in The Times:


 * In short, the book is not only an invaluable reference work, but also a great pleasure. Nobody interested in Wales could fail to enjoy a browse through its pages, and many Welsh people will be as interested in what they don't know as they are proud of how much they do. For Wales is a small country, still a tight-knit assembly of communities, where very many of us are familiar with each other, and with the country as a whole.
 * 5: The A470
 * The 270-km (167-mile) A470 between Cardiff and Llandudno is the main arterial road linking North and South Wales. With the advent of the National Assembly in 1999, it achieved an emblematic status, symbolising for some the unity or, more accurately, the aspirational unity of the country.


 * 6: Nationhood
 * The Welsh trace their origins as a nation to the centuries after the end of the Roman occupation, when they formed part of Brythonic Britain. The adoption of the name Cymry (from the Brythonic combrogos: "fellow-countryman"), probably in the late 6th century, indicates an early sense of group solidarity.
 * http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_reviews/article3459545.ece


 * 7: Review of the Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales by Simon Jenkins in The Guardian:
 * 'If ever a country were encapsulated in a volume, this is it.'
 * http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/referenceandlanguages/0,,2269063,00.html


 * 8: Visit Wales is the Welsh Assembly Government’s tourism team, within the Department for Heritage, who took over from the old Wales Tourist Board.
 * Visit Wales' Homepage: 'That's right, not Dutch. Not Latin. It's Welsh.
 * Welcome to Wales. And welcome to this site. Have fun exploring it, find out more about our country and when you are ready to visit for real there's lots of help for planning and booking your trip, too.'
 * http://www.visitwales.co.uk/


 * 9: Still on Visit Wales - About Wales. "Wales in 60 words: 'How do you sum up a country like Wales in one page? Well, we’ve got 750 miles of coastline. Beautiful countryside. Spectacular food and drink. 641 castles. Our own language - one of the oldest in the world, in fact. A page would never be enough so we've created this section all about Wales. Have fun exploring the themes above.'"
 * http://www.visitwales.co.uk/server.php?show=nav.6858


 * I honestly believe that the vast majority of people in Wales, the UK, and beyond, consider Wales to be a country. It should, therefore, be defined as such on WIkipedia. Dai caregos (talk) 14:35, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I understand Wales to qualify as a nation, as it has a national people, as a country, and as a constituient country within the state of the UK. These endless debates are so discouraging! lol. So my vote is nation and coutry. ♦Drachenfyre♦ · Talk 15:39, 11 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm just wondering why we are wasting bandwidth listing sources again after barely a week, for what is obviously a long term disputed issue requiring a compromise wording reflecting all positions, to satisfy the neutral point of view, but recognising that a central policy of Wikipedia is to describe and not proscribe. Therefore, Wales is quite correctly described as a country within a country, which is an acceptable compromise to the multiple sourced opinions that are available for all sides. Producing one sided lists, finished off with a personal opinions on what the "vast majority of the public" think is pointless, and only attracts the nutters with the opposite sourceable opinions, furthering the edit wars, weakening the consensus they want to achieve, and completely counter to the aim of working for a supportable stable wording. Frankly, this ongoing issue is a product of there not being enough experienced editors here with the foresight to get beyond the 'this is sourced' no 'this is sourced' playing at wiki bullshit, who merely take up the arguments abandoned by people who retired before them, or worse, the arguments of banned socks.


 * As an aside, and related to knowledge of wikipedia practices, I also want to know why people are under the wrong impression there is now a green light to restart this discussion on each article, purely because of a failed mediation that did in fact deal with the issue of having a separate wording for each article, and also why this tactic is being justified as wanting to achieve consistency with the other seemingly now independant articles. This is clearly a logical fallacy when all articles are by this logic supposedly free to choose their own direction at any time. MickMacNee (talk) 16:05, 11 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I should be surprised by the reaction of MickMacNee, but I'm not. Assuming good faith, (difficult in this context) he/she can't have read the request by ...<font color="#21421E" face="comic sans ms">Keeper  |  <font color="#CC7722" face="Papyrus">76, the mediator, so I quote them here: "Still waiting to hear from at least two or three other involved editors, feel free to post here if you have other links/references that I need to see that haven't been linked." By the way, quotation marks imply that the same words are used as the ones quoted. I do not appreciate being misquoted, either deliberately or through incompetence.


 * Once again I am disappointment by his/her comments. For an experienced editor, who even made a point of noting that I was 'redlinked', to be so personal and downright nasty, rather than trying to offer to help with what would be a new process to me, is a disgrace. It's no wonder that so few people are involved in this, and previous discussions. Not for the first time has the main issue in discussion been sidelined and some part of it been blown up out of all proportion.


 * I had put forward legitimate, sourced reasons as to why the wording was inappropriate, before changing it. Instead of explaining why he/she thought I may have been mistaken. an editor changed the wording back under the edit summary 'Removed piping as per talk', rather than putting the real nature of the edit in the summary. Some might think that rather sneaky.
 * In my second post in the thread "'Country' issue NOT resolved!" I made the point that 'None of the editors here had commented on the reasons why constituent country is inappropriate, as noted above, or given any reasons why they think it is appropriate.' MickMacNee has still not done so. I can only assume that this is because he/she isn't able to. I can't recall any posts by this editor that have been in any way either encouraging or constructive. Furthermore, I don't understand why he/she thinks it unimportant to have sourced material on Wikipedia. I'm sure he/she'll enlighten me ad nauseum.
 * However, taking of sourcing. Here's a couple more, enjoy:


 * George Borrow, Wild Wales, first published 1862,
 * 'INTRODUCTORY
 * WALES is a country interesting in many respects, and deserving of more attention than it has hitherto met with. Though not very extensive, it is one of the most picturesque countries in the world, a country in which Nature displays herself in her wildest, boldest, and occasionally loveliest forms. The inhabitants, who speak an ancient and peculiar language, do not call this region Wales, nor themselves Welsh. They call themselves Cymry or Cumry, and their country Cymru, or the land of the Cumry.'
 * http://emotional-literacy-education.com/classic-books-online-c/wwals10.htm


 * 2: George Borrow, Wild Wales, 1906 edition, reprinted 1958 The Aldine Press, Letchworth, Herts.:
 * p 565 chapter XCIX '"O yes, I have been to Russia," said I. "Well, what kind of country is it?" "Very different from this," said I, "which is a little country up in a corner, full of hills and mountains; that is an immense country, extending from the Baltic Sea to the confines of China, ..."
 * Dai caregos (talk) 17:07, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

My humble opinion
Regarding the lead sentence of Wales
 * 1) I have no problem stating as my first thought: My opinion is only one opinion.  It isn't more important or more valid than any other opinion here.  My opinion is based on being completely "unattached" to the subject.  I don't care how it ends up beyond that I "care" that Wikipedia reflects firstly and foremostly What Others Say versus What We Think.  We obviously don't all think the same.
 * 2) It is quite likely that I have gained the most benefit from this "request for opinion". I've learned much about a subject I've never known about other than tangentially.  The history of the area is indeed a rich and full one, and those that take pride in the heritiage of both Welsh culture and in the affiliation to the United Kingdom are not to be faulted for having the heart needed to continue editing this article.  Indeed, they are welcome, as they are just as likely, if not moreso, to be the first to stomp the vandals for "defacing" their home article.  My hat is tipped to those that defend and protect Wales and its related articles and clearly want what's only best for the place.
 * 3) It is quite evident that some editors, even with good intentions, have mostly "entrenched" themselves in either one particular phrasing/pipelink or ideology.  Those editors, I can only hope, will see the logic and motivation behind my suggested "first sentence" of Wales and see it as a good faith way to move towards editing other parts of this article as well as other areas of Wikipedia in dire need of good editors.
 * 4) It is also quite evident that the vast majority of editors want a solution, and it is very refreshing (I’ve said this before) that the "warring" has been relatively mild, mostly civil, and has been relatively contained to the talkpages of the article and not on the article itself. Wikipedia readers don't read the talkpages generally, they read the article.  The fact that editors can restrain from edit-warring is a testament to the quality of the editors involved in this particular disagreement.  Now to business...
 * 5) It is evident in reviewing sources (and thanks to many for providing both Wiki and RS links – much appreciated!), that those in the real world don't all think the same anymore than Wikipedian editors with interest in this article think the same. 'tis okay, we can work with that.   I have found that for every possible twisting, phrasing, rephrasing, overphrasing, underlinking, overlinking, piping, unpiping and rephrasing again of the lead sentence, there is likely a plethora of reliable independent sources to back up each version, making this "one sentence" exceedingly difficult to maintain, but not hopelessly so.
 * 6) It is evident upon reading voraciously this week, that England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland all view themselves differently. I suspect it is because they are different places. :-) I don’t see much chance for success in trying to get all 4 articles about 4 different locations (regardless of their "similar" affiliation to the United Kingdom) to read identically in their respective leads.  A valiant effort perhaps, but, as most would agree (and have agreed), a hopelessly neverending one.  I do believe I can offer a solution for Wales though, what the other 3 editing groups do with it (and this one for that matter) is not up to me.  There is explicitly no "need" to have all 4 articles match each other, the locations don't match each other, and&mdash;most importantly&mdash;our reliable sources don't match each other, why should we?
 * 7) Wales, in many sources, is called a country.
 * 8) Wales, in many sources, is called a country with the word "constituent" or "constituency" as a clarifying adjective in the same sentence. (the same effect really as "pipelinking" on-Wiki)
 * 9) Country (no pipe) and Constituent country (no pipe) do not have consensus to be in the lead for the Wales article at this time. If one or the other of these was inordinately used in reliable sources in preference to another, our consensus wouldn't matter as much as the sources do.
 * 10) Country (pipelinked) ironically, has even fewer "fans", as it seems to be frowned on (in general) as a weak compromise by editors that prefer Country (no pipe) or Constituent country (no pipe).
 * 11) "Country within a country" has no backing other than one editor (to my knowledge)
 * 12) The length of time that the lead has "stayed" with any one link/phrasing or another has no bearing on what the correct lead should say, IMO. Silence is often consensus, true, but it is equally often a sign of editors being completely exhausted regarding an issue and "giving up".  The fact that Constituent country stayed so long is not a relevant argument.

More thoughts
In my reading, I discovered an excellent article that most here are aware of (and probably worked on :-) called Subdivisions of the United Kingdom. It articulates the history behind the "labels" of the "units" of the UK, and includes an exceedingly brilliant table/chart of reliable sources comparing each (E/W/NI/S) unit and the usage of different names (beyond CC and C). I propose using a link to that article, which is far superior to the article called "constituent country" in prose, development, layout, and even NPOV. In my opinion, the lead requires a blue link of the word "country", and further, requires a pipelink to explain what "country" means in the context of this article. In other words, a pipelink to explain the context of how Wales relates to the UK in a nature that is beyond the typical "universal understanding" of what "country" means. Wikipedia must serve the world view, not the English view or American view. Wales is part of the United Kingdom. It is recognized in many sources as a country and while that is valid, it is however, not a country in the same way that Germany, or the United States, or Argentina, or South Korea, or Ethiopia, is. It simply isn't. That isn't disputed or disputable (at least, not validly). It is a country that is a subdivision of the United Kingdom, full stop. To draw a comparison, it's athletes perform at the Olympics as members of the United Kingdom's team (I believe they compete as "Great Britain?"); there is no "Welsh team" (although there may be a Welsh constituency within the UK team that is part of the UK team but considers themselves perhaps a full team within the team...sorry, I’ll stop :-).

Solution
The lead sentence, in my humble opinion, should read: "Wales is a country within the United Kingdom, located to the west of Great Britain, sharing a land border with England to its east and the Irish Sea and Atlantic Ocean to its west."


 * At all other points in the article where "Wales" is referred to as "country", "a country", "the country", etc., the word "country" should not be bluelinked to anything, per our stylistic guidelines (see the MOS guide).  I also don't believe it necessary at all to link to “Constituent country” anywhere in this article, except maybe as a "See Also" at the end.  Cheers, thanks for reading this far!  Beer's all around, my treat!  <font color="#21421E" face="comic sans ms">Keeper  | <font color="#CC7722" face="Papyrus">76  | <font color="#ff0000"> what's in a name?  16:40, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Response
I can accept that (and appreciate the effort) although I think that the ""to the west of Great Britain" is confusing as Wales is a part of Great Britain and it could be confusing as worded. I know its a lot to ask but rather than other editors coming up with options (which will trigger old discussions) would it be possible for yo to just rethink that bit?   As I said I am prepared to accept as is, but really want this to be over.   Oh and you are wrong on sporting teams by the way.  In the Olympics yes but that is an exception, In the Commonwealth Games and more importantly (in terms of support) Rugby and Football Wales competes as a separate nation in international tournaments. If you check in Golf you will find Welsh players referenced on the international circuit as Welsh not British and so on.  In Cricket the team is called "England and Wales".  --Snowded (talk) 17:18, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The sports thing was just an analogy, perhaps a bad one, to show how "Wales" is treated in one international venue, the Olympics. I see your point about great britain, and I agree ith is confusing as worded (an oversight on my part, I was mostly focused on the word "country" and how it was/is used/linked.  A new sentence:
 * "Wales is a country within the United Kingdom, having a land border with England to its east, and the Irish Sea and Atlantic Ocean to its west." <font color="#21421E" face="comic sans ms">Keeper | <font color="#CC7722" face="Papyrus">76  | <font color="#ff0000"> what's in a name?  17:27, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Editors response to mediation proposal

 * Accept, and thanks for the effort and fast response --Snowded (talk) 17:31, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Accept. My thanks for a good job, well done, and for the time and effort that must have gone into it.  DDStretch    (talk)  18:12, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Accept. Many thanks to you, <font color="#21421E" face="comic sans ms">Keeper | <font color="#CC7722" face="Papyrus">76, for the great deal of time and trouble you have so obviously taken in reaching your decision. I hope that you may have the chance to come here yourself one day, to visit the country we love.   Dai caregos (talk) 19:57, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Accept.I have participated in previous discussions elsewhere on the country/constituent country issue and think your suggestion is both smart and 'spot on'. It deserves to be accepted! Cheers Fishiehelper2 (talk) 21:03, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Accept (and proposing slight change). I hadn't noticed the line had become ungrammatical at some point - Keeper has spotted it, obviously. I'm not sure about 'having' as a fix though, and I was never all that happy with saying the seas are to the 'west', and I think it was me who included them and phrased it too. How about
 * "Wales (Cymru; pronounced ) is a country within the United Kingdom, which borders on England to the east, and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to the west, along a southwesterly to northern coast."?
 * I like the word coast, it's a mellow word. I wasn't originally sure it you could 'border' with the coast, but you can. "Land border" came in at some point, but I think it was a fix for something - it's not needed, anyway. I've previewed it on the mainpage and I think it looks good! --Matt Lewis (talk) 23:54, 15 July 2008 (UTC)


 * At the moment the intro claims that Wales is land-bordered with the Irish Sea - but I'll resist the temptation to change that now (tempting though it is). --Matt Lewis (talk) 02:56, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Accept (also proposing slight change) As with Matt Lewis I'd gladly accept with a slight change. I like to see a slight tweeking to the linking as described below in the discussion section. Pur<font color="#ff4500">edi<font color="#ff7coa">tor   00:02, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: I've amended my above Accept to make it clearer that I will accept Keeper's proposal without my 'slight change'. (I will try it later though!). --Matt Lewis (talk) 00:22, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Accept Whatever get the traffic moving. GoodDay (talk) 00:09, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Oppose (e/c pureeditor and goodday) The solution uses an misleading link whose common usage (country = state) fails to satisfy the neutral point of view with respect to the uninitiated reader, who when unfamiliar with the subject of subdivisions of the United Kingdom may have no reason to discover the non-standard linkage of country, and thus could reasonably take from reading the intro the POV idea that Wales is a state and/or the UK is a confederation rather than a sovereign state. This scenario is feasible enough to me to give me no confidence that a robust defence in future edit wars over the lead is possible or justifiable by neutral editors, given an accusation of bias. It's also quite simply not very educational or informative as an encyclopoedia article intro if you have to intuit the difference between country and country to gain the full picture. MickMacNee (talk) 00:10, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Discussions relating to mediation proposal
Your solution contradicts both the manual of style (don't obscure the meaning of links by linking to other articles), and your point 1 about OR and RS. If there is to be a piped link to Subdivisions of the United Kingdom, (which was part of my solution piped from "part" and in my opinion does need to be included), then it has to reflect the most relevant reliable sources as to what the UK governments says on that issue, i.e. Wales is a country of the United Kingdom, as a "country within a country". While yours is a single opinion, on that basis I reject your rejection of my solution as only being supported by me, because that goes to the heart of the issue - it merely illustrates that people proposing compromises from a spirit of compromise do not garner any support from the entrenched country/constituent country pushers, who continually are happy to revert to source counting (and who de facto give support those who tendentiously suggest not providing sources means you don't have a case, see above, when sources have been provided and reviewed ad nauseum, with no 'winner'). It should categorically not be applauded that nationalist editors are willing to sit on the article, using repeat tactics of talk page attrition, to maintain a POV solution by default as 'having no consensus' (because people give up trying to form one). I also think it's probably about time the constituent country article was put out of its misery, as it is an unbalanced article covering the UK mostly, as a coatrack in this issue. Sure, articles can all have their own solutions, but considering the existence of the UK, then ignoring any source from the UK is of course inherently POV. Frankly, with regard the sourcing game, it will of course just be easier for third party publishers to chuck in country whenever they refer to Wales, as there is no other simple word for it in the UK context (the simplest quite clearly being country within a country), which is why we have encyclopoedias to state the issue factualy, and not morph into reflecting their lazy journalistic errors. Ironically, considering the world view case (which isn't particularly relevant given the naming guidelines), the ISO would be the ultimate third party reliable source, but of course, this will always be rejected as it doesn't say country, full stop (as far as I can tell), unlike as you say, Ethiopia etc. MickMacNee (talk) 17:56, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Feel better? Got that all out of your system now?  Perhaps you can summarize that for me without the combativeness?  Also, show me one link/diff whatever that has anyone, other than you, agreeing to "country within a country".  Just one. I haven't found one yet, but what I do see is an editor (you) that is so completely entrenched in his own opinion that his typing/opinions are being dismissed.  Budge a bit, eh?  Cool the rhetoric, stop "lecturing" your fellow editors with your "truth", and perhaps you can get somewhere.  You have a source that says "country within a country".  So what. There are gads of sources that say just country as well, and for you to decide that its because the "journalists are lazy" is just plain farcical.  I agree with you about Constituent country, it should be deleted (or more preferably, merged) to "Subdivisions...UK".  <font color="#21421E" face="comic sans ms">Keeper  | <font color="#CC7722" face="Papyrus">76  | <font color="#ff0000"> what's in a name?  18:10, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge of Constituent Country into "Sub-divisions" has been agreed by consensus --Snowded (talk) 18:13, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't know why you think refering to an official government source which specifically addresses the correct constitional existence of 'Wales' with regard to the UK, and by extension, the World (there is no Welsh foreign office incase you were unaware) can be dismissed as "so what" and other salient points can be dismissed as "farcical", and you then feel justified in accusing me of being combative. Frankly, if you think that, then be my guest and give me any realistic alternative that sources would use as a simple copyedit word to refer to Wales, if not (innaccurately) "country"? You cannot pipelink paper or official online resources to a handy and comprehensive explanation, so they quite obviously don't bother. Even government departments don't do so either, in the same way that this article would use country all the way through, after the usage is made clear (they defer to their official sources rather than repeat the same clarification in every document, a usefull parallel is the NI/ROI issue). You won't be able to name a suitable alternative single word for these ghits, but this quite obviously cannot be the basis to defend the use of a Googlewhack of obscure usages in texts not about the status of Wales to trump any other solution as fact. To then use it to define Wales is what is actually a clear case of WP:SYNTHESES, not anything I have or haven't said (feel free to highlight anything I have said above that was incorrect, or not supported by convention, guideline or policy). If you don't wan't to read the response, I guess that is what will have to pass as a solution on Wikipedia. I do wonder how the credibility of the article will stand though, compared to the very sources it purports to reflect. Frankly, after all the talk, this solution has again only come down to simplistic source counting, again. An average wiki reader is never going to click a blue link of "country" on this page alone from an intuitive knowledge that it won't link to the country article. If you see factual and interpretive statements like this as combative rhetoric, rather than an opportunity to explain your reasoning from the perspective of a reader rather than what satisfies heavily involved editors, then so what? If anyone gets around to approving the Citizendum article on Wales I wonder if the people there will so freely ignore facts in that debate because they are being expressed 'combatively' rather than being nonsense, but expressed as convivial nonsense. You have to question the motives of anyone not willing to debate facts if the default end result is that their preferred POV is reflected, rather than a true and truthful compromise, which is not formed from OR or SYNTH, and is supported by true and not trivial RS. MickMacNee (talk) 19:21, 15 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Interjection: Honestly no offense is meant, but I'm trying to catch up and all the text making my head spin! Can you try insert a few more paragraphs? (these days it doesn't matter so much where they are). --Matt Lewis (talk) 22:48, 15 July 2008 (UTC)


 * You cannot pipelink paper or official online resources to a handy and comprehensive explanation, so they quite obviously don't bother. Very true.  Which is why I prefer Wikipedia.  We can.  We're not paper.  I did not do a "source counting" as you allege.  I fully acknowledged that the sources, even the reliable ones, vary greatly.  Saying "someone won't click on country" is invalid as well.  Of course they will.  And they will get lead to somewhere that explains what "country" means in the context of "how it is used in the article about Wales".  That's what pipelinks are designed for, to avoid cumbersome language in-text, but lead readers to relevant, related pages.  You also said feel free to highlight anything I have said above that was incorrect, or not supported by convention, guideline or policy, happy to.  This is a policy that I am highlighting for you (ironically, with a pipelink).  You are combative (a trip through your talk archive is enough evidence for me), you are not acting civil, and you are tiring. And, your overgeneralization of journalists as "lazy" in order to dismiss sources is farcical.  YMMV.  <font color="#21421E" face="comic sans ms">Keeper  | <font color="#CC7722" face="Papyrus">76  | <font color="#ff0000"> what's in a name?  19:46, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes it is tiring if you only want to continualy not answer the points, and act cute as you do with the reference to civil as being an 'answer'. I feel quite justified in saying that nobody who is not party to this dispute is ever going to read your first line and assume that country links to a completely different article than "country". If as you point out, people don't read talk pages, they certainly don't hover over every self explanatory blue link or view the source when reading an article. Can you even put yourself in the position of a casual reader? Do you even understand what this guideline means?. I don't see how anyone can even argue against that basic and obvious fact in this case. You are expecting a user to have a premonition that it links somewhere else and not simply to country, because it is on the Wales page, and then to subsequently investigate, rather than making it clearer that it points to a specific explanatory sub-article. The logic being invoked in that belief is quite backwards given the whole nature of the dispute. Your usage of links is precisely not the intended usage of explanatory piping, when there is no usual target of that name, as you seem to know as you demonstrated it with the CIVIL piping. And your picking up of the word lazy and ignoring everything else, to continue to justify your "farcical" comment, gives me no cause to think you are serious about defending this solution so it has weight across all opinions. I've asked you twice for the alternative correct single word they would use in their contexts, as opposed to settling for the semi-accurate single word "country", which would lend weight to its mirrored use here as worthy of encyclopoedic fact but you have declined. It's becoming clear you aren't interested in, let alone willing to address, any of the points made in response, so I think we're done, and the outcome is clear. We now have 2 welsh editors and an involved admin in support here, so I guess we're Golden and can carry on reverting users with directions to seek consensus on the talk page. It is sad that some obviously not new but pretending to be users have arrived and started edit waring again, but weak partisan solutions like this only make that more likely not less, and the 'take it to the talk page' reverts aren't carrying much wiki-moral weight currently to my mind. MickMacNee (talk) 20:48, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I'll give it one more response, and tell you how I think a "casual reader" will respond, seeing as you see fit to know exactly what anyone else might think, I suppose I can to, and I'll even be "cute" about it, because Wikipedia is such serious business:
 * Reader A hits "random page", lands on Wales: "Let's see (reads to self) Wales is a [Subdivisions of the United Kingdom|country] within the....Wait a minute! Wales isn't a country! It's a <insert whatever POV you'd like here>!!!".  Country is "blue", I'll see where this goes.  Ah, I see.  It's a different meaning of the word "country" than I was expecting.  Glad that linki-trail brought me to a clarifying article."
 * Reader B hits "random page", lands on Wales: "Let's see (reads to self) Wales is a [Constituent country] within the...wait a minute! Wales is a country, proud and free! I best change this..."
 * Reader C hits "random page", lands on Wales: "Let's see (reads to self) Wales is a [country] within the...wait a minute! No it isn't! Wales ain't no country, it's a part of another country! I best change this..."
 * And Mickmacnee, you did dismiss all other sources (except those that support your unsupported viewpoint) as "written by lazy journalists". You did, not I.  We are all volunteers here, your diatribes are falling on deaf ears.  I'm not going to bicker about things that you find to be of utmost importance, zOMG!!!.  It ain't what you say, it's how you say it.  You need to step back. <font color="#21421E" face="comic sans ms">Keeper  | <font color="#CC7722" face="Papyrus">76  | <font color="#ff0000"> what's in a name?  21:22, 15 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Scenario A makes an assumption that the reader is aware of the issue that Wales is not a true country, and that there is no danger from editors of this article of POV pushing to the uninformed that it is. So, as I said already, this assumption is backwards logic given the nature of the dispute, i.e. people dispute the wording on the grounds of POV. WP:NPOV states teach the controversy, someone who didn't know Wales wasn't a true country, isn't going to click that link. Basic fact, if you think otherwise, maybe you didn't arrive here with a truly open mind or one that can analyse all likely scenarios (someone not knowing Wales isn't a country and finding your wording doesn't appear to be included on your A,B,C list of possibilities). Scenario B and C are preventable through arriving at a strongly supported solution defended by all parties. What we appear to have hear is a solution by attrition, with comments expressing agreement because the issue will then go away, rather than any supporting comments expressing that at last it has been solved strongly and accurately, coming from people other than the supporters of 'Wales is a country', however the country bit is then clarified. Take a look, edit wars and contrary comments already. And as I said and you ignored a third time, re. the rebuttal of the lazy journalist point, if your reasoning is so solid, this contention has got an obvious avenue of rebuttal beyond your current avoidance or throwaway remark. But because your reasoning is weak, your rebuttal is non-existent. I am not concerned if my proposal gets no support, if that lack of support comes from any position other than being able to reject it on a factual/policy/guidline/convention basis, in favour of a more accurate and defendable solution. However, I think your responses and the supporting comments more than adequately show that isn't the case. Nothing is irreversable, as long as this debate stays on record, others may see in the fullness of time what you right now aren't. Anyway, your blase attitude about sarcasm, serious biznez etc etc merely reinforces my view that your efforts here won't ultimately be defended to the hilt by anyone who actually disagrees with a major part of your reasoning, which is the whole point of reaching a compromise solution. I'm realy sorry you don't seem to agree, but this aim for this article is (or was) in wikipedia terms, quite a big issue, volunteers or not, and deserves a stronger defence than so far given in 3 attempts. MickMacNee (talk) 22:20, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * You do realize that your entire post here is virtually unreadable? Again, it isn't what you say, it's how you say it.  I will say that your posts are improving in their level of presumptuousness, but still, you managed to squeak in a "blase attitude", a "votes by attrition" (assuming everyone else doesn't care or has "given up"?).  I've said all along that my opinion is one of many, is no more important or "binding" than anyone else's.  What you clearly have not learned on Wikipedia, in many venues outside of this one sentence in one article, is that (gasp!), sometimes you can be wrong.(gasp!).  You know what though? Life's too short to bicker with you.  You are self-important, self-aggrandizing, and, if I may be so blunt, nauseating.  Have you even noticed that I've never added my suggestion to the actual article?  I haven't, and won't, unless a consensus is developed, because life's too short, we are working collaboratively to find an acceptable solution.  You, on the other hand, are ranting on about how "no one sees this my way, so I'm gonna keep typing until everyone else either agrees with me or goes away".  You are a roadblock.  An obstacle. You are indeed tiring, as evidenced by your talkpage, your talk archive, and your blocklog.  You simply are "never wrong", are you?  Nauseating.  As far as I can tell by the evidence before me, it is simply impossible to get you MickMacNee to see any possible solutiion other than the one that you "thunk up" yourself.  I'm done with this.  Consensus will decide what the article looks like in the end.   <font color="#21421E" face="comic sans ms">Keeper  | <font color="#CC7722" face="Papyrus">76  | <font color="#ff0000"> what's in a name?  22:34, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, for clarity, I've never removed a comment from my talk page, no matter how wrong, obtuse, loaded or deceptive it was. I find that an honest and usefull approach to collaberation. Also, you never know who's going to try to turn a debate into a personal dispute based on what they think of you. Had you had the sense to follow up any of the comments (in fact all to be statistically fair), you would see that I am right more often than not in content issues. The civility issue tends to come out in this case when people want a get out card from content disputes. iirc I've only been actually banned from interactions with the man who cannot be named, by his wikimates. If you never join a discussion even though you think you are right, because you think you will be in the minority, then more fool you. I have more pride. Consensus is a much mis-used concept when it comes to quality of argument. If you think a support of four votes entitles dissenters to be ignored/run out of town/wikilawyered to death rather than have their points addressed, on an issued this big, well I'm speechless. If you think your disclaimers about this being a one man view means others won't immediately claim momentum off of it, then you need to watch some discussions and edit summaries ongoing right now. And for the record, I tried my proposal once as a compromise solution to an ongoing edit war, and I got reverted within minutes with the "no consensus, take it to the talk page" misinterpretaion of the WP:BRD principle (i.e. their version of D was not discuss, but divert). It's intriguing on these articles how a situation of no consensus can exist for so long if you believe the edit summaries, until a revert restores a particular POV wording. Several weeks, source round-ups repetitions and kilobytes of discussion later, here we are, with edit warring still ongoing (the reverter of my one change has disappeared from this process though). So, no, I won't be doffing my wikicap to you anytime soon with regards the accusation of not genuinely trying to look for a solution. If you don't want to address my posts, just say so, don't claim some sort of comprehension difficulties, or post a lengthy personal attack piece, as an alternative. MickMacNee (talk) 23:31, 15 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Surely the best way to solve this is to show in the text itself that classification is controversial? If we choose one term over another, surely that means we have put in a bias?
 * Or to avoid the controversies, we could just say that they are "subdivisions of the United Kingdom". MinYinChao (talk) 19:13, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry but subdivision is very vague... A municipality, county, duchy is a subdivision too. In any case, there is clearly disagreement so please solve on talk before making edits to the status. Arnoutf (talk) 19:35, 15 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Then use a wording which shows the duality of the terming on the matter. MinYinChao (talk) 19:40, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Constituent country is up untill now the most acceptable, and legally correct, term (sorry for my revert, should have reverted one furhter to capture that - Snowded did so; thanks). Arnoutf (talk) 19:43, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Just a point - 'legally correct'? The term 'constituent country' has no legal meaning. The phrase started as an adjective followed by a noun, but is now being interpreted as though the whole phrase were the noun. Anyway, I'm not going to spend time on this as it appears that the proposal above is likely to be acceptable all round, so let's all accept it and move on! Cheers Fishiehelper2 (talk) 21:09, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm fine with the proposal. It seems quite fair. There is one small thing I'd like to recommend. Since we are pipe linking the intro can we put more words into the link. That way more people wouldn't be inclined to skim it over and might actually click on it. Something like:


 * "Wales is a country within the United Kingdom, having a land border with England to its east, and the Irish Sea and Atlantic Ocean to its west."

Anyone have any objections/opinions to it? Pur<font color="#ff4500">edi<font color="#ff7coa">tor   23:53, 15 July 2008 (UTC)


 * You would need to unlink the 'the' for clear difference. I toyed using an unconventional linked asterix with: Wales is a country* within the United Kingdom, but I think it has accessibility issues. MickMacNee (talk) 00:15, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict) I could live with that - it wouldn't pose a problem to understanding, though I expect your motives will be questioned as it looks a bit like an anti-country compromise! It also looks like one long link (is that recommended?), though again it probably wouldn't pose a problem with understanding - as the subdivision page links to the UK one. I've posed my version above also (which leaves the country bit alone), though I'll wait until the other is in before trying it, if it doesn't catch on now. --Matt Lewis (talk) 00:18, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree that removing the 'the' from the link adds clarity. So the proposed line now looks like this:


 * "Wales is a country within the United Kingdom, having a land border with England to its east, and the Irish Sea and Atlantic Ocean to its west."


 * Might I just add that I'm not anti country but would just like clarity. :) Pur<font color="#ff4500">edi<font color="#ff7coa">tor    00:26, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd be happy with it. But then I was happy with constituent country - and this is similar to me, but maybe not to others. It's interesting - I'll give it that. It certainly prompts people to link to it, and doesn't hide the piped element. It will be interesting to see what people say - though the current proposal has got a lot of support. It can still change though. I'm just not sure that many here are particularly interested in readers actually following the link - its more about the word 'country' standing on its own.--Matt Lewis (talk) 01:03, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

(indent) I think the more we deviate from the recommendation of the mediator the more danger we have of an edit war and/or continued discussion. I also have half an eye to getting a similar solution on the other country pages if we can, and using the mediator's text makes that more likely. I would be happy with :"Wales is a country within the United Kingdom and would have thought if anything that emphasised the "within" and encouraged people to link. Having two words pipe linked is confusing.  If there is general agreement on minor changes then we need a final mediator recommendation to secure it.   --Snowded (talk) 08:25, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * He isn't a mediator. Please don't imply undue weight to his opinions by calling him a mediator, which is an official wikipedia role via the volunteer cabal or the official committee. Your use of the term is particularly inadvisable since this issue has recently been mediated by the cabal. His comments are merely as an uninvolved participant, any modifications do not require his explicit approval. MickMacNee (talk) 13:19, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * As for linking just 'within', I don't agree that linking just that word would carry any more meaning than a phrase. I would also suggest "Wales is a country of the United Kingdom. MickMacNee (talk) 13:19, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree completely here with MickMacNee, Snowded. I am explicitly not a mediator.  I am an editor that was asked to give an opinion, which I did.  The title of my thread is "extremely informal nonbinding etc etc".  I should not have used the word "mediation" in that title, it is merely an opinion.  That said, I also think linking both "country" and "within" (or "of") is a brilliant idea.  It expands the link to be a plausible pipe to a clarifying article.  I wished I'd thought of it.  I would fully support country within or a country of, with a preference towards "within" as being a more descriptive preposition.  Nice solution, in my opinion.. <font color="#21421E" face="comic sans ms">Keeper  | <font color="#CC7722" face="Papyrus">76  | <font color="#ff0000"> what's in a name?  14:10, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

New proposal: "country" (-citation [2]-) and "within" as two different links
Wales (Cymru; pronounced ) is a country within the United Kingdom, which borders on England to the east, and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to the west.

I noticed that the citation backing-up the word 'country' occurs inbetween the two words naturally - which got me thinking. I've used the country article for the first link. I am tired of rogue people pretending that the 'country' article can only be used by the 'ISO countries'. It is not just for them. This is clear to whoever reads it. Let's get to the core of this - the main articles themselves need to deal with the descriptions, not us. We can clearly use 'country' via the COMMON NAME policy: we have thousands of links to back that up (not to mention common sense). No-one can deny that Wales is commonly referred to as a 'country'!

So lets use the country article then... and pipe-link the accepted word 'within' to Subdivisions of the United Kingdom. Yes? --Matt Lewis (talk) 15:00, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Support: adding my own support. --Matt Lewis (talk) 15:12, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree that country explicitly warrants a top line reference (and this is advised against in the lead section guidelines), or that the common name/common sense argument is so relevant here given the common usage of country elsewhere. Remember, this is not an exercise in satisfying what is common sense to the involved parties who are already aware of the issue, but how to present what we see as common sense to a normal uninitiated reader. However, expanding your idea, I could go for
 * Wales is a country which is part of the United Kingdom
 * Why don't you make this a proposal, if you don't support mine? We have to get to a conslusion here - however energetic the process is. I would back it. The stalling has gone on long enough. --Matt Lewis (talk) 17:43, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I've taken the liberty below. --Matt Lewis (talk) 17:58, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

However, we are now getting mighty close to my original version way back when which, if you consider constituent country is now apparently out of the picture (as being covered by subdivisions), could be combined with your suggestion to leave This version for me is crystal clear, uses country in the lead, uses the official government wording, links to the subdivisions article with a piped link, and does not create the impression that the UK is a confederation of independant states. MickMacNee (talk) 16:21, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Wales is a part of the United Kingdom, as a "country within a country"
 * Wales is a country of the United Kingdom, as a country within a country. It is located...
 * My problem with the last one MMN is that it uses the word "country" three times, and is therefore grammatically cumbersome. The "country within a country", while used in the ref you've provided, is grammatically cumbersome by itself, and adding it in addition to country (unpiped) just plain old looks awkward.  I still like the idea of Subdivisions of the United Kingdom linking to "|within" at the front. <font color="#21421E" face="comic sans ms">Keeper   <font color="#CC7722" face="Papyrus">76  17:11, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * You mean 'country within' lnked to Subdivisions of the United Kingdom? In my experience it will be changed for looking awkward in no time at all. We need something that looks natural - so it will stick. Anything that looks awkward just won't: I think we all know that deep down. --Matt Lewis (talk) 17:43, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Comment: If the phrase "constituent country" is not reflected, it shows a bias, which I am sure Wikipedia is not supposed to have. MinYinChao (talk) 17:24, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Please stop throwing the bias word around without justification. No one in this thread has used a word or words not supported by citations and your behaviour here (and on England) is disruptive and fails to assume good faith.   --Snowded (talk) 18:43, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

New proposal: country which is part of the United Kingdom
Wales (Cymru; pronounced ) is a country which is part of the United Kingdom, bordering with England on its east, and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west.

This was suggested by MickMacNee above. I will back it alongside mine. As it has 'which' in it, I've re-written the rest of the sentence. --Matt Lewis (talk) 17:54, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Support: backed, alongside my own. --Matt Lewis (talk) 17:54, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

(indent) Matt this is all getting confusing in lay out. It seems that my suggestion of pipe linking "within" is acceptable to several, although we also have the suggestion of using "a part of". If it brings Mick on board with a solution the I can live with "a part of" although I think "within" is neater. However we have a layout where your proposal is hidden in the text above. so I have formatted below. If one or other does not attract support then there is a clear consensus for the "mediation" proposal. --Snowded (talk) 18:58, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * What is confusing, other than maybe the amount of bullet points that have been used and perhaps my own proposal's heading could have been simpler (thought it could be changed)? We better go with your new one now (though as a combined thing, it doesn't leave much room for someone to open another!). But maybe that's not so bad. --Matt Lewis (talk) 19:35, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I think the process is getting confused because of unrestricted new proposals being added, sometimes in between old ones and comments on the old ones. The whole thing is becoming a mess that, if perpetuated with more additions, could result in greater problems. Can I suggest that we number each of the proposals with hard numbers (i.e., don't just use the "#" syumbol as interleaving new proposals will foul that up), and that opinions should mention the numbers that they are expressing an opinion about? Or are we too far gone to do that now?  DDStretch    (talk)  19:44, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * It wasn't a mess - and if we are careful it won't' be. It was never going to be completely simple - and we are not incapable of following a few proposals. What's wrong with a few proposals going? It's kind-of the point isn't it? What I don't want is any uncertainty - or any untrodden ground. It seems to be going fine, anyway. --Matt Lewis (talk) 20:02, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I've been finding this difficult to follow. Comments seems to have been inserted out of sequence. Dai caregos (talk) 20:31, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * It isn't the comments that are primarily being added out of sequence, but the additional options added in between already proposed options and comments on those already proposed options (and this was done on two occasions by MinYinChao). One of the inserted sets has been corrected, but the other hasn't. So long as we label the options as we are now doing, we can cope with the problem. (Sorry, Matt, I wasn't intending this as any kind of criticism of you at all. It was the mixing in of other options by another editor that seemed to be the issue as far as I am concerned.)  DDStretch    (talk)  21:19, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I got you. I agree, but now it's all compiled it's working out well. Sorry if I was touchy - I'm trying to do a few thing as usual, not least easing back into WP after a fairly long break. Snowded did some good stuff to advance things futher, but that wasn't perfect either - I hope I've helped sort it out. These things are never that easy - but when you think of what we are doing, where we all are in the world, and the medium we have to do it in, it's not altogether surprising! We need to keep moving forward, but also keep on track.--Matt Lewis (talk) 22:44, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Support as second choice. Issues with the word 'within' were previously raised with my version before, so using 'part of' seems logical in the first sentence. I still think the official explanatory phrase 'country within a country' needs to exist at least in the first or second paragraph, to make it clear in this article that the UK is not a confederation of sovereign states. This is an important lead section summary term, as a good deal of the article deals with constitutional arrangements since devolution. MickMacNee (talk) 19:24, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

NEW POLL - WHICH OF THE TWO ABOVE?
We now have two proposals with a small difference between "within" and "a part of" They are

1) Wales (Cymru; pronounced ) is a country which is part of the United Kingdom, bordering with England on its east, and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west.

2) Wales (Cymru; pronounced ) is a country within the United Kingdom, which borders on England to the east, and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to the west.

Please indicate your position in one line if possible. --Snowded (talk) 18:58, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Note the order has been reversed from the original proposals! --Matt Lewis (talk) 20:08, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Support either option, prefer WITHIN (2) --Snowded (talk) 18:58, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Support either option Fishiehelper2 (talk) 19:18, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * REJECT since both exhibit a bias of "country" even though that is not the only view that is held. MinYinChao (talk) 19:22, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * SUPPORT either (1 or 2, equally), though since the link is to what is now Subdivisions of the United Kingdom, I'm not sure why we aren't prepared to link either "country which is part of the United Kingdom" or "country within the United Kingdom" (i.e., the entire phrases) to Subdivisions of the United Kingdom, as that would equally well do the job.  DDStretch    (talk)  19:36, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I think many just want country on its own, like Scotland and England currently do. --Matt Lewis (talk) 19:57, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Support (1) first option as my second choice for the reasons in the identical support above. For the second option, the lead section guidelines state that references should not be present in lead sections, and in my opinion look particularly ugly and distracting in the top line. And the presence of a single 'country' source is only going to attract the production of contradictory sources. Within should be referred to in the latter official explanation of the phrase 'countries within a country'. 'Part of' is a better form of words than 'within' in a stand alone context, as it neither implies subordination or independance. MickMacNee (talk) 19:41, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Support (1) - it's actually more exact. So either one, but I'll go for 'part of' as a preference: it's more clear than 'within', which has ambiguities.--Matt Lewis (talk) 19:57, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Support (1). Although grammatically it should say '...is a country, which is part of the United Kingdom, ...' However, I'd support either to achieve consensus. Dai caregos (talk) 20:26, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Or "a country that is part of.." even! Let's try and get it in though - we can fiddle with things like that later! --Matt Lewis (talk) 20:36, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Try to stay calm, byt, we're nearly there. Dai caregos (talk) 20:45, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Now would that be in spite to some of my help, or actually thanks to some of it? I'm helping to clear up a mess (and any mess on the page) - not creating one. And I'd like to know who you are anyway? You seem to have first appeared in April over the national anthem issue, and reappeared for this one in June. Given the history around here it really doesn't look great - and you have no user page. It you don't know already - you ought to know that it doesn't look good. We all edit in diferent ways - many for expedient reasons, so you shouldn't tell me (or anyone else) how to go about things - not with so few edits to your name for sure. Yes - we are nearly there. But if you don't like my quick typing, well, you'll have to accept it. I certainly won't be patronised by a red-named user with your particular editing record! --Matt Lewis (talk) 22:06, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Was there really any need for that? Just because I'm new to this it doesn't give you carte blanche to be rude to me. And if you have any suspicions as to my integrity I suggest you keep them to yourself, unless and until you have any evidence. I apologise to you if you think I was being patronising. The reason I mentioned the comma was that I didn't want to agree to something that would subsequently need to be changed. Dai caregos (talk) 09:38, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Support either: whatever gets the traffic going. GoodDay (talk) 22:42, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Support #1, not #2 (I agree with MickMackNee that the lead should not have any "refs" linked). I still prefer "within" over "part of", but that's a grammatical differnce, not a substantive difference. <font color="#21421E" face="comic sans ms">Keeper   <font color="#CC7722" face="Papyrus">76  02:07, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * COMMENT Both of these suggest that all sources claim Wales is a country, even though this is clearly not true. MinYinChao (talk) 09:00, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Agreement?
Looks like we have agreement on option 1 with one dissenting voice from a recent editor. On that basis I think we can make the change. Any objections? Keeper - do you want the honour having done the key piece of work to get us here? --Snowded (talk) 11:24, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * This is 8 to 1 (counting the 'either's as a vote for no.1). I'm happy for Keeper to put it in. --Matt Lewis (talk) 14:47, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * ✅. Excellent work, editors!  If someone could perhaps create an archive that could "hold" everything here in one thread, starting with my first post, and ending with these polls, that would be terrific (similar to what's on the UK page, I'm thinking).  Cheers to all, <font color="#21421E" face="comic sans ms">Keeper   <font color="#CC7722" face="Papyrus">76  15:05, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

POLL on alternative proposals
The following additional definitions were inserted (unsigned) by another editor. I have placed them here as neither is a development from the original "mediation" but they are of course valid proposals. Editors who support them can indicate below (I have made my position clear) --Snowded (talk) 19:15, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Wales (Cymru; pronounced ) is a subdivision of the United Kingdom, bordering with England on its east, and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west.

Wales (Cymru; pronounced ) is a constituent country of the United Kingdom, bordering with England on its east, and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west.

Wales (Cymru; pronounced ) is a subdivision of the United Kingdom that is differentially termed as a constituent country, country, or nation, bordering with England on its east, and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west.


 * SUPPORT either MinYinChao (talk) 19:20, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * REJECT opening old debates when we are so near a solution --Snowded (talk) 19:15, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Reject. Old solutions rejected very recently. I also have doubts about the newness of this new editor. MickMacNee (talk) 19:27, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * REJECT. I share the concerns of MickMacNee and Snowded with respect to this editor and these proposals. Furthermore, I note that on two occasions now, new additions have been inserted in between old proposals and comments on them that disrupt our understanding of which proposals the comments are meant to refer to. I think "MinYinChao" should be made clearly aware at this point that if this is repeated, it could be viewed as disruptive.  DDStretch    (talk)  19:31, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * REJECT all of these. The core and central articles need to deal with the details - we only need to show the factor is there. --Matt Lewis (talk) 19:41, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * REJECT. Just for the record. Dai caregos (talk) 20:13, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * REJECT all of these. England and Scotland are now just described as countries. I will accept nothing less for Wales! Where has MinYinChao been for the rest of the debate? -- Maelor 10:27, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Principality of Wales
Isn't Wales a Principality since the English took it over? Hence why there's a Prince of Wales and why it was never included on the Union Flag, in the same vain as Cornwall? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.66.153.150 (talk) 17:32, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Wales always had Princes not kings if you check your history. It is nothing whatsoever to do with the honorary title given to the eldest son of the British Monarch.  A principality is one type of country.  If you look into the archives you will see extensive discussion on this.  --Snowded (talk) 21:08, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Wales isn't a principality, in the way Monaco is; Wales doesn't have a sovereign prince. The title Prince of Wales is just that, a title - it's not a constitutional monarch, as Wales isn't independant. GoodDay (talk) 23:52, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * And in any case, the term Principality of Wales in no way corresponds to the current Welsh borders. It's an estate, just like the Duchy of Cornwall. TharkunColl (talk) 23:59, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok, lets clear thing up.
Wales is an independant country landlocked with Englan and although it was rules by England for a couple of centuries, it is now not and is an independant country.

Wales is British. Not english —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vitual aelita (talk • contribs) 14:42, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Wales is certainly not independant. GoodDay (talk) 15:11, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Note to all: Please don't feed the trolls (like the unsigned "let's clear things up" poster), or this will simply never end. --Matt Lewis (talk) 16:50, 13 July 2008 (UTC)>

I've stuck out all the above exchanges and suggest that it was not useful to attempt to initiate this particular discussion. DDStretch   (talk)  17:16, 13 July 2008 (UTC)