Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-11-18 Macedonian language

Mediation Case: Macedonian language
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Request Information

 * Request made by: Francis Tyers · 16:49, 18 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Where is the issue taking place?
 * At Macedonian language


 * Who's involved?
 * Myself and User:NikoSilver, User:Future Perfect at Sunrise are providing argumentation. There are a number of other users who are simply blindly reverting.


 * What's going on?
 * Disagreement as to if a particular format for disambiguation is a "name" and if it is a "name", is it sufficiently widely used to include in the introduction. The particular name that Niko wishes to include is widely understood to be offensive. Please do not council myself or Niko on civility or personal attacks. We are good friends and this comes with the territory. Whoever even bothers to take up this mediation probably doesn't care one way or another about this. But some further information may be found in Macedonian language naming dispute.


 * Essentially, there is no "alternative name" for the language that can be included in the introduction. There are a number of ad hoc phrases which have been used for disambiguation in certain situations, but none of these constitutes an alternative name.


 * A note on the Ethnologue source: The page on the Macedonian language is flawed. It conflates the Slavic language of northern Greece with the Macedonian language, reports a census which never took place and is generally poorly produced. This is not to say that Ethnologue is not a reliable source in general, but for the Macedonian language it is severely lacking.


 * ''What would you like to change about that?
 * My point of view is that while there is a "name" which includes "Slavonic", the use is miniscule compared to the use of the widely recognised name of the language. The alternative name should not be included in the introduction as it violates WP:NPOV and is furthermore offensive (although Wikipedia is not censored, we do not have "previously known as Negroes" on the African-American page -- so we do have some degree of politeness).


 * Would you prefer we work discreetly? If so, how can we reach you?
 * Don't care.

Compromise offers
This section is for listing and discussing compromise offers.


 * I have made the following offers of a compromise. Each compromise offer is exclusive.


 * 1) As the issue is primarily with disambiguation, I have offered to change the dab note to read This article is about the Slavic Macedonian language...
 * 2) As Niko feels the naming dispute is quite important to him, I have offered to mention it in the introduction in the form of "there is a naming dispute around the language".
 * 3) As the name "Macedonian (Slavonic)" was previously used in one state of Australia, I have offered to have the following included in the introduction: "The language was also known as Macedonian (Slavonic) for a year in the state of Victoria in Australia before the High Court ruled that the government of the state of Victoria acted in an illegal and discriminatory fashion by changing the name."