Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2009-06-23/United Nations

Where is the dispute?

 * United Nations talk page

Who is involved?
A short list of the users involved, for example;


 * User:Laurent1979
 * User:BritishWatcher
 * User:Anaxial
 * User:Joowwww
 * User:Readin

What is the dispute?
Here is a summary of the discussion on the talk page:
 * The current map of the United Nations includes Taiwan on the ground that it is also on this map of the UN. However, this map does not represent the point of view of the UN (as can be seen in the bottom right corner of the map), so some users argue that it should not be used as the only source to build the map.
 * Some users argue that Taiwan is part of China according to the UN but no source has been provided for that statement.
 * The map does not represent the point of view of a number of countries, including the US and Japan among others, which consider the status of Taiwan to be "undetermined".
 * There is also the simple fact that the 23 millions Taiwanese people are not represented in the UN so having the island on the map is very misleading.
 * Technically, the UN has no authority to decide what the border of a country is so we should not give undue weight to its resources (especially non-official ones). We should instead document, as accurately as we can, the status of the various countries on the map based on other reliable sources. The BBC, for instance, states in its UN profile that Taiwan remains non-member. In general, if the status of a country is unclear, it should be mentioned on the map.

See replies on the the talk page

What would you like to change about this?

 * Taiwan should be either removed from the map, or put in a different color to show that it's status is controversial.

How do you think we can help?

 * Please have a look at the issue, and give us your opinion.

Mediator notes
Hi. Never tried this mediation lark before. Maybe it would help if everyone could agree about what a "Map of the United Nations" means? Can I suggest that one possibility would be to look for examples of maps of other international organisations (OPEC, the British Empire and so on) and see how they treat non-members, or disputed areas? Adell 1150 (talk) 18:20, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Administrative notes
If anyone has this page watchlisted, could you please respond within 3 days? Thanks. Xavexgoem (talk) 17:26, 25 October 2009 (UTC)