Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard/Dominican Republic

Dominican Republic
26 July 2013

Have you discussed this on a talk page?

Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.

Location of dispute Users involved Dispute overview

A user insists on adding the French name of the Dominican Republic (République Dominicaine) next to the Spanish one in the article's lede. The purported motivation for this is to acknowledge the period of French rule in the early history of the country. I argue that this is irrelevant, as today French is not an official or even common language in the DR, and in any case this is anachronistic as the country was never known as 'République Dominicaine' under French rule, and the French historical influence can be highlighted in more effective ways.

Have you tried to resolve this previously?

Extensive discussion on the talk page, but we're not any closer to reaching a solution.

How do you think we can help?

An outside opinion would help to create consensus on whether the inclusion of the French name is appropriate, and in finding a workable compromise.

Please limit to 2000 characters - longer statements may be deleted in their entirety or asked to be shortened. This is so a volunteer can review the dispute in a timely manner. Thanks. Greetings, to whom it may concern, and to all readers. As you see, I did not start this dispute page, but it was done by Enciclopediaenlinea. Because apparently it didn't seem resolved or resolvable on the article talk page. Fair enough.
 * Opening comments by Gabby Merger

Here's a problem though. When the user above says that my rationale is "because the French ruled", while leaving out the other part of what I said over and over again, that is dishonest, and could be considered lying by omission. I said clearly that it was not just because French ruled over DR, but because the French were also involved in DR's very formation!

I'll say it again...

It went beyond also just "ruling" over DR, but the fact that the French were also involved in the actual early DEVELOPMENT of DR in the first place. Was Spain involved in Netherlands' actual formation? No. So the editor's comparison to the Netherlands was weak.

main point:

French were directly involved in the early development and actual formation of the Dominican Republic...from early on...not simply just that French people ruled over DR at some point. It's deeper than that, and I pointed that out on Talk a number of times now. I hope it's clearer now. The actual point is that there's no valid reason to remove that (even in the lede), given the deep involvement of France with DR from the very beginning, as well as its rulership over it.

And this fact is mentioned in the very article body itself, clearly.

As to his other point, that during France's rule over DR, the French pronunciation was not present yet...I said that, frankly, though it may be true, the argument there is somewhat flawed. And it's a wrong assumption. Because while the country may not have been known as République Dominicaine WHILE FRANCE RULED over it...that's the name it definitely was known by in French not much later. And it's not the main point necessarily that it wasn't known in French while French ruled there. But as a general point about French connections with it. Again, it's the point about French involvement in DRs early development and formation.

Also, as to the point about the article is not specifically about the "history" of DR. And someone could go to the History of DR article...I stated on Talk that the problem with that argument is that most readers (casual and otherwise), if they wanted to look up stuff on DR (past and present, meaning current stuff as well as its history) would generally go to the main Dominican Republic article first...and check for historical things and points there. Not sure why this is such a big deal. I'm pro-Spain...but it's a forgotten fact (even by WP users and editors) that FRANCE ALSO reigned and participated in DR's very early formation also. Not only Spain...though Spain mainly.

The fact is that French did not simply just "rule" over DR, but were involved in its very FORMATION!!! That's not something to fluff off as of no account, or to go "so what" about. I already made "an actual argument for its inclusion", that the editor thinks is "not convincing" or keeps ignoring or not caring about for some reason. The French pronunciation is pertinent for historical interest, and to make the point that French (not just Spaniards) were involved (importantly involved) in DR's formation and development. Meaning that it's NOT totally out of left field like he's wrongly implying or saying. Regards. Gabby Merger (talk) 04:34, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Please limit to 2000 characters - longer statements may be deleted in their entirety or asked to be shortened. This is so a volunteer can review the dispute in a timely manner. Thanks.
 * Opening comments by Enciclopediaenlinea

Dominican Republic discussion
Please do not use this for discussing the dispute prior to a volunteer opening the thread for comments - continue discussing the issues on the article talk page if necessary. Welcome to the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard. I am a regular volunteer here. I would ordinarily wait for Enciclopediaenlinea to weigh in before opening discussion, but I believe that a clear-cut solution exists to this dispute which has been overlooked by the participants in the discussion.

Most things in Wikipedia are decided by consensus: If someone wants to introduce something into an article or remove something from an article (at least something that was put there by consensus or has been there long enough that it was there by implied consensus) and someone else opposes it, the Consensus policy says that the burden is on the party wanting to make that change to obtain consensus to do so. If they cannot, then the change cannot be made. But that process does not apply when there is a policy or guideline which says that content should or should not be in an article since the Consensus policy also says that policies and guidelines are the "established consensus" of the Wikipedia community.

In this case the rule is set out in the guideline Lede which says that the foreign language alternates following the name of the article in the first sentence are not pronunciations but "significant alternative names for the topic ... [which] ... may include alternative spellings, longer or shorter forms, historical names, and significant names in other languages".

In light of that, then the French name should not be included unless it can be shown to be significant as a name for this country. (The fact that there may be other articles which do not adhere to this rule is irrelevant: there are many places in Wikipedia where things have been done incorrectly and simply have not been corrected or challenged or, when challenged, the proper standard was not understood or applied. See WP:OTHERSTUFF and WP:OSE for a fuller explanation.) That being the case, then the inclusion of the French pronunciation is inappropriate unless it can be shown to have been used in a significant way as the name of the country. That cannot be simply presumed from the fact that the nation was once under French control. Since it has been challenged, it must conform to the rule and that conformation (like all other material in Wikipedia) must be demonstrated by an inline citation to a reliable source as defined by Wikipedia. Unless I misread the parties' positions, I believe that only Gabby Merger advocates the insertion of the French version so:  Can you provide a reliable source of that nature?

Regards, TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 16:29, 26 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Hello, TransporterMan. Thank you for taking time to go into this matter.  I read over what you wrote.   Your point, if I understood it correctly, is that there may not be "significance as a name" in this situation.   My point was that since France was heavily involved in the very formation and existence of DR...not just that French people ruled it for some period of time...and since DR was soon after (maybe not right at the time of French rule, but soon after) known in French by that pronunciation, and since there's a factual sourced and solid point of fact that French both ruled and helped form DR in the first place, then why not?    It seems it's something that could go either way.  Not something to dogmatically say "it definitely no way no how should be there".   The fact that France both ruled and helped create DR to begin with would seem like things that make the inclusion of the French pronunciation at least a little relevant, noteworthy, or significant.  Plus, this pronunciation has been on the article for a while now.   Only people who are ultra-pro-Spain or Spanish seem to be opposed to it. (That's not a supposition, but some editors in question have actually indicated that.)  I'm pro-Spain myself, but it should be made clear right off the bat (the lede) arguably that the "French" had a big part in it too.  Regards. Gabby Merger (talk) 19:26, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * "France was heavily involved in the very formation": my opinion on this supposed fact is that it is both untrue (from the article the French ruled from 1795, long after the 'very formation', to 1808) and in any case it's irrelevant, as 'République Dominicaine' is an anachronistic name, so it should not be included in the article.--eh bien mon prince (talk) 19:47, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 *  I understand your argument, but I'm afraid that it is all pretty irrelevant and nonresponsive to the matters I raised, above. Let me repeat my conclusion: "the inclusion of the French pronunciation is inappropriate unless it can be shown to have been used in a significant way as the name of the country. That cannot be simply presumed from the fact that the nation was once under French control. Since it has been challenged, it must conform to the rule and that conformation (like all other material in Wikipedia) must be demonstrated by an inline citation to a reliable source as defined by Wikipedia." (Let me also note that the motivations of your opponents are also irrelevant and inappropriate for discussion: here at Wikipedia we judge edits, not editors.) Do you have a reliable source which shows that the French version was once used as a significant name for the nation?
 *  The fact that it is anachronistic is not a reason to exclude it if if can be shown through a reliable source to once have been a significant name for the nation.
 * I probably won't online much for the next couple of days. I'll come back afterwards to see if a reliable source for the name has been proposed. If not, then I'll probably close this request as resolved against inclusion of the French name. If so, then we'll take a look at what's been proposed. Regards, TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 20:10, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Your last post was confusing, it is anachronistic precisely because it was never used as a name (never mind a significant name) for the country, it's just the modern name in French, just like 'Dominikanische Republik' is the modern German name for example. In any case, have a good wiki-break.--eh bien mon prince (talk) 20:19, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Just to address the point you made above about the years of French rule being "long after" DR's formation. The formation and development is not just referring to the very very start and infancy and fledglingness of DR.  It took TIME for DR to fully develop.  You're gonna say that in the 1700's DR was 100% formed and settled as a nation, in complete form?  I guess though it's a matter of interpretation.   But it's not like French ruled over DR from 1899 to 1922 or something.  (For example).  That would be different.  But it was much earlier than that.   (Also, it's not like DR has been around for 2000 years or something...or even 1000.)  But French involvement was somewhat early on.  During arguably DR's overall formation.  Otherwise why would the article have the "French rule" thing SO EARLY in the article?   Gabby Merger (talk) 18:00, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
 * A similar case to be considered is Australia, where the continent was originally found by the Dutch and therefore got the name "New Holland". This name had very significant usage from the 1600s, up until the mid 1800s (even in government correspondence), after which Australia, which had been an alternative name, became the preferred. New Holland is not mentioned in the lede at any point. And only mentioned in following sections, where applicable. A similar approach may be of use here -- Nbound (talk) 23:27, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Closing note to other DRN volunteers: This case has been closed, but one of the participants has reverted the closing, being dissatisfied with the result. See closing and closing reasons in this diff. I am not going to revert that reversion, but would recommend that you not deal with this case further. Regards, TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 02:42, 31 July 2013 (UTC)