Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2011-01-25/List of sovereign states/Archive 1

Using the UN as a list of sovereign states
While the UN doesn't claim to have a definitive list of *all* sovereign states, its list of member states is nonetheless *a* list of sovereign member states, a list that is basically agreed to by just about every other sovereign state in the world. Using it as the source of sovereign member states, and listing all non-UN member states under the category of "other" cannot be SYNTH as one would neither be combining nor conflating more than one source. The UN list is easily, swiftly, and freely verifiable; it is a recently published reliable source and thus cannot be OR. So as to not exclude other sources, one might also wish to link to the List of states with limited recognition article which spells out which sovereign states are not recognized by any other states, which are only recognized by UN non-members, which are not recognized by at least one other UN member state, and which are not UN member states but are nonetheless recognized by at least one other UN member state. Furthermore, using this list would seem to be disagreeable enough to all parties involved in the dispute that they would each dislike the solution, which seems to indicate that it is the perfect compromise in which each side feels that it has "gained" and "lost" roughly as much as the other side. Banaticus (talk) 16:32, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * A problem with that is Palestine which the UN does not list as a state for political reasons, yet is recognized as a state by a majority of UN members.XavierGreen (talk) 22:53, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes -- earlier I pointed that, for various reasons (Palestine, Taiwan, etc.), nobody would be perfectly happy with that list. But I think it makes an excellent starting point, better (as far as OR goes) than saying, "Well, Country X and Y say Z is valid, so it's ok, but even though F and G and H like W it's not ok. ;) Banaticus (talk) 01:30, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * While Palestine, Kosovo, Taiwan, et al. are problematical as sovereign states for one reason or another since their sovereignty is disputed, Vatican City is also not a member of the U.N., but its sovereignty is not disputed by anyone. --Taivo (talk) 02:30, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree that the existence of the Vatican City disproves U.N. membership can be considered a marker of sovereign status. Further, if this criterion were used, the namespace should just be blanked, with redirects to Member states of the United Nations and List of states with limited recognition. — LlywelynII 20:15, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Using votes towards U.N. membership as a list of sovereign states
One mechanism which may be useful in determining what states have been widely recognized is UN admittance votes, since the UN treats all states as equals in the general assembly the votes to admit a state into the general assembly can be used as proof that a state is widely recognized. XavierGreen (talk) 05:44, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * But if they are members, their level of recognition or the size of their vote is immaterial. The question we have before us here is how to account for the non-members.  No member state is going to be treated differently no matter what it's admission vote was.  They will be lumped as an indivisible group.  --Taivo (talk) 05:48, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Xavier's proposal, on my read, wasn't about using level of recognition or size of votes or UN membership. It was using any vote whatever as an indication that at least one recognized state believes the entity in question to be a state as well. That would be an interesting list in its own right, but not necessarily dispositive of sovereignty. Also, I'm not sure how one would establish the potential support of a prospective sovereign state which, knowing itself to lack the votes for admittance, has no real reason to occasion a vote in the first place. — LlywelynII 20:15, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The fact that it is a member of the UN is sufficient to show that is enjoys a majority view of its sovereignty. Dividing up UN members by the level of the vote in the UN is artificial for a couple of reasons.  First, in order to be members they must be recognized by a majority of the current membership.  Dividing the level of vote in any way is an artificial measurement because there are no levels of membership based on percentage of vote received in the General Assembly.  Second, different countries became members at different times and, thus, the number of votes vary from country to country.  Over time, the number of votes that a country might receive in a subsequent vote might be greater or less.  Thus, the percentage of vote that Israel might receive today could conceivably be different than the percentage of the vote it received when it became a member.  These things can change over time, so dividing UN membership up by the percentage of vote they received when they became a member is artificial because the percentages do not all reflect the same moment in time, nor do they represent the current moment in time.  It is completely an artificial measurement to divide UN members up by the percentage of their vote when they became members.  --Taivo (talk) 00:02, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I didnt say break up the UN members into 2 different categories, it had been stated previously that one of the reasons one could not use a majority of recognitions as a classification was that the data did not exist. I was merely pointing out that the data does exist in the form of UN General Assembly Votes. Similarly for some states the number of countries with accedited diplomats in a country can be used to give a rough determination of a minimum of how many states recognize it.XavierGreen (talk) 16:44, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Acceptance by a majority of states as a list of sovereign states
If we change the top section to a list of states recognized by a majority of states perhaps that would be a better criteria than simply using widely recognized?XavierGreen (talk) 23:52, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Please sign your posts. No, I disagree.  Dividing this list artificially into multiple layers of "recognition" is not useful for readers.  --Taivo (talk) 23:39, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * How would it be artificial? Either a state has a majority of recognitions or it does not. It shows the readers whether or not a state is thought to have legitimacy by the majority of polities in international relations or not.XavierGreen (talk) 23:52, 12 February 2011 (UTC)XavierGreen (talk) 23:52, 12 February 2011 (UTC)


 * There's no way around mentioning the multiple layers of recognition and it's a disservice to pretend otherwise. Some states are universally accepted, others partially accepted, others partially rejected, and others occupied in their entirety and having no de facto sovereignty at all. The page must make note of that either in division or via notation. — LlywelynII 20:15, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The problems here are multiple:
 * what % majority to use? 50%+1? 2/3 (somebody said that this is the requirement for UN admittance)? Something else? And who is to decide this? Wikipedia editors?
 * what is the total? All included states or some subset of these? Or something else? Who is to decide this? Wikipedia editors?
 * what to do with cases where we don't have the number of recognitions? Alinor (talk) 21:39, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Points 1 & 2 are very well-taken. Point 3 will usually be moot, since UN members, eg, will be presumed to have recognized one another by their mere membership or by one of the many treaties they have signed. The non-member states we'll usually have some ability to count the recognitions, and obviously as more were discovered, editors would note them on the page. — LlywelynII  22:32, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * There are really only three types of sovereign states: 1) U.N. members--these are states with no disputes as to their sovereignty and forms the bulk of the list; 2) states with undisputed sovereignty, but not U.N. members--Vatican City is the sole member of this category; 3) states that have disputed sovereignty--there are about a dozen of these states including Western Sahara, Kosovo, Taiwan, Somaliland, etc.  "Disputed sovereignty" in this sense means that the state from which the disputed state sprang has not accepted its independence.  It seems unreasonable to have three lists, especially since the second list would have but a single member.  --Taivo (talk) 23:42, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I really like this. [Moved downthread to mod's section.


 * I agree that in a perfect world, it'd be better to have a unitary list and markers. But I think this does a fine job of creating an objective and non-pejorative division of relative statehood. — LlywelynII  00:43, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I also strongly agree with Taivo's breakdown here. This is my opinion as well. Outback the koala (talk) 07:15, 19 February 2011 (UTC)


 * LlywelynII, "UN members, eg, will be presumed to have recognized one another" - this assumption is wrong. There are known examples of UN members not recognizing each other (Israel, Cyprus, Armenia, PRChina, South Korea, North Korea). Two states having membership in one organization or having signed a treaty - both along many other states - this doesn't mean that they recognize each other. Alinor (talk) 09:59, 18 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Trying to actually define a sorting criteria is not so easy (the above is just a description that is open to interpretation) - please look the list and table with various ideas that we have discussed so far. Alinor (talk) 09:59, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'll look through that and reply below in the Med's section. — LlywelynII  20:50, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Taivo, I tried to formulate meaningful criteria based on the 3-category division that you describe - see no adjectives proposal (later termed "no-disputes criteria"). Other editors found multiple flaws in it - you can find these at the link I gave - we didn't managed to correct these shortcomings - if you have a better idea please make a new proposal.


 * A side note - the groups are not exactly as you say, because there are also UN members with limited recognition. Alinor (talk) 09:59, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I also disgree and I don't see this as an option per stated objections above. Outback the koala (talk) 07:15, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

The issue at hand is sorting, not inclusion
And just to remind - the issue at hand here is sorting criteria for the already included-in-the-list states. We are not discussing the inclusion criteria. Thus the heading of this section "Using the UN as a list of sovereign states" is somewhat out of place. It should be "Using UN membership as criteria for separation in the list of sovereign states" (or something like that). This is the UN membership POV we discussed at lenght before. And this UN-membership-POV is different from the POV-of-the-UN - see my comment below. Alinor (talk) 10:28, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * If that's true, then why is the criteria for inclusion section as riven through with the same [ weasel words ] tags as elsewhere? The mediation is apparently at least partially about that aspect of the criteria for inclusion as well. — LlywelynII 20:15, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Because of the usage there of the sorting qualifiers "widely recognized" and "internationally recognized". Alinor (talk) 21:34, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * If recognition plays no part in the actual composition of the list, why were the terms mentioned in the "criteria for inclusion" section at all? The debate can be punted via a link to sovereign state. — LlywelynII  22:40, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * So that we don't treat the states with limited recognition as though there was no dispute as to their status, thereby taking the Abkhazian side against Georgia, the Northern Cypriot side against Cyprus, the Transnistrian side against Moldova and so on. The distinction in these cases needs to be clear and obvious. Pfainuk talk 22:48, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The inclusion criteria in and of itself takes the side of de facto administration of a region over de jure "ownership."


 * And, still more, it's not "taking a side:" it's purely descriptive. There is in fact a government administering territory and defending its borders which calls itself Abkhazia. It goes on the list. When Georgia destroys the Abkhazian government and asserts control over its territory, it will no longer merit inclusion here.


 * Or we can switch to the constructivist model and separate the states by level recognition. But we can't do it and pretend we're not in our definitions. — LlywelynII  23:02, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Including it in a list of sovereign states alongside states with universal recognition without making it abundantly obvious that most of the world doesn't accept that it exists (such as by putting it in a separate list) would be seen as taking a side, whatever the technicalities of the sorting criteria.


 * We don't pretend anything. We determine inclusion based on Montevideo and states' positions on their own sovereignty.  We then split the list based on recognition.  Even if the details of the split are not as clear as they could be, the fact that it is based on recognition is noted repeatedly in the article. Pfainuk talk 23:08, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Just like including Palestine alongside states which are universally unrecognized, without making it clear that most of the world does accept it's existence, is taking sides. You can't have it both ways.


 * Except we don't actually source any of the Montevideo claims. Tell me, which of our sources supports the claim that Palestine has a defined territory?  Or that the Vatican City has a permanent population?  Or that Somaliland has the capacity to enter into relations with the other states?  We pretend we use this, but we don't.  Does Somalia really satisfy the Montevideo Convention?  LlywelynII is correct.  We pretend we use the Montevideo inclusion criteria, but it's really just a smokescreen for the fact that none of the claims are backed by sources.  TDL (talk) 23:14, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm sure you could find claims about Palestine's defined territory (although it might include sections of East Jerusalem they have no control over) and the Vatican has at least some permanent population if they have any dormitories on site. TDL, I'm sure you could source much of the Montevideo requirements. I'm just desirous that we simply describe what we aim to, not argue about things that are aside the point, and leave anything else for a different namespace. — LlywelynII  23:29, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


 * (ec) I don't believe that I have ever argued where Palestine belongs - beyond that it's not particularly obvious that the State of Palestine and the territory controlled by the Palestinian National Authority are the same thing. There is a reason why I make my points with Transnistria, North Cyprus, Abkhazia and Somaliland.


 * This is not my understanding of LlywelynII's point - I understand that to be that there should be one list and that the sorting criterion should be the same as the inclusion criterion. He's not mentioned anything about sources.


 * I have actually wondered whether a list such as this is actually something that one expects to find in encyclopædias. In my limited experience of dead-tree encyclopædias, I would suggest that they often don't.  Rather, they list specific, easy-to-verify points such as memberships of international organisations.  The conclusion this would lead to would be the redirection of this list to something like Lists of countries. Pfainuk talk 23:37, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Knowing the de facto organized and independent areas of the world is useful information. Knowing the internationally-recognized states of the world is also useful information. I'd be opposed to blanking the page, but splitting the later to internationally-recognized sovereign states would be a fine and helpful project. — LlywelynII  23:51, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I've suggested a two list setup in the past before. One based on recognition and one based on de facto status.  But I couldn't get a consensus behind such a proposal.  See the archived discussion here.  TDL (talk) 23:57, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Er, no, it is not. The criterion is the Montevideo Convention, not the Montevideo Convention + some white paper on diplomatic recognition. I'm not saying that couldn't change, but see Alinor's gloss below about the plain-text meaning of the page at the moment and the "weasel-words" besides each of those mentions of recognition. — LlywelynII  23:23, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The article says, and I quote:


 * The list is divided into two parts. It is arranged alphabetically, and contains 203 entries, as of 2011:
 * The internationally-recognized sovereign states section lists 193 states, consisting of all member states of the United Nations and Vatican City.
 * The other states section lists 10 states which have de facto sovereignty or independence but are not widely recognised diplomatically by other states.
 * Internationally-recognized sovereign states
 * Other states
 * This annex lists states that claim sovereignty and have control over (part of or all of) their claimed territories, but due to disputes over their legitimacy, do not have normal diplomatic relations with many sovereign states. None of the states in this annex list are UN member states.
 * On the basis of the above criteria, this list includes the following 203 entities:
 * 193 sovereign states with general international recognition:
 * 10 sovereign states lacking general international recognition, none of which are members of the United Nations:
 * On the basis of the above criteria, this list includes the following 203 entities:
 * 193 sovereign states with general international recognition:
 * 10 sovereign states lacking general international recognition, none of which are members of the United Nations:
 * 10 sovereign states lacking general international recognition, none of which are members of the United Nations:


 * As these points make obvious the split in the list is transparently based on recognition. There is dispute as to how this split should be achieved, but not on how it's already done.  It is the inclusion criteria and not the splitting/sorting criteria that are based on Montevideo. Pfainuk talk 23:37, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry: you're quite right that the current division that has caused all the bother is based on levels of diplomatic recognition. — LlywelynII  23:51, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Let's not muddle the water further by going into inclusion criteria. Please focus on how to arrange the states-that-are-already-included.
 * And a quick note on the State of Palestine - it is unrelated to the Palestinian National Authority. SoP doesn't control any territory (and it's not clear what it claims - the 1988 declaration includes reference to "Palestinian territory" without specifying further what this means) and actually it has to be removed from the list if we don't adopt this proposal for change (to include entities/GiEs claiming to be sovereignty/independence/statehood even if they don't have control over permanently populated territory - based on recognition as state by other states). Anyway, PNA also does not hold ultimate control over any territory - all of the territory is still under Israel occupation. Israel just allows the PNA to execute some administrative functions in the occupied territory. And even if you disregard this fact - Area A is only 2.7% and "patchy" (a combination of cities). But all this is irrelevant for the sorting criteria, so let's defer such discussions for later, if needed. Alinor (talk) 10:15, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No, mediation is not about inclusion criteria at all. The inclusion criteria will come into play only if we discuss CI/Niue inclusion - but this does not mean to discuss "what inclusion criteria to use?", but "do CI/Niue satisfy the already agreed inclusion criteria?". And a refresher - the current inclusion criteria is: "an entity claiming to be an independent sovereign state and having control over a permanently populated territory". See also this discussion. Alinor (talk) 22:12, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Except it's not. All of this discussion is about international recognition and list inclusion. — LlywelynII  22:40, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * There is a difference between the inclusion criteria, by which entities are included in the list as a whole, and the sorting by criteria, by which the list is split. The discussion we're bringing to mediation is the sorting criteria. Pfainuk talk 22:48, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree, let's focus on this! Alinor (talk) 10:15, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Using what the UN is using — the Vienna Formula — as the sorting criteria
The List of United Nations member states is different from the List of sovereign states. Not all sovereign states are members of the UN - and even if they were we still couldn't use the UN members list as source for the list of sovereign states, because UN membership is not the same thing as statehood. It's neither a requirement nor a proof. There are sovereign states that are not members of the UN (and in the past such cases were even more numerous) and in the past there were UN members that were not sovereign states.

The UN itself uses a different list. See. The list resulting from the Vienna formula is used by the UN itself and by many international organizations and treaties, it is verifiable as both wording and resulting members list (wording - Article 81, and many others; members lists - the lists of members in the various UN specialized agencies are all public and accessible online - see in the article). I think we should use here the Vienna formula - just like the UN and the other international organizations use it. One proposal for such arrangement is Talk:List of sovereign states/Sandbox2. Alinor (talk) 11:27, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Actually the source given includes even something like definition of 'widely recognized' - "...States became members of specialized agencies, and as such were in essence recognized as States by the international community." Alinor (talk) 10:37, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I edited the title of this section to reflect my uncertainty as to how this squares with your argument about sorting versus inclusion above. When you answer this question —
 * Is your proposal that the Vienna Formula be used as a method of dividing the current list into Vienna-sanctioned and -unsanctioned?
 * or as a method of determining inclusion into an undivided list? —
 * please edit it back appropriately. - LlywelynII 20:24, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


 * The proposal is to use Vienna as the sorting criteria, not an inclusion criteria, to divide the list into Vienna Formula states and non-Vienna Formula states. Other proposals have had three sections: UN members/non-UN members but Vienna Formula states/Everyone else.  You can see an example here: Talk:List of sovereign states/Sandbox.
 * Everyone agrees that states such as Somaliland, which is universally unrecognized and doesn't belong to any Vienna Formula organization, belongs on the list. We just can't agree on where to draw the line between the universally recognized states and the universally unrecognized states.  TDL (talk) 20:37, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Is there any reason to divide the list at all? If the inclusion criteria is fixed descriptively, it explicitly doesn't matter what the international community thinks. It remains a state. Somaliland is no less a state under the Montevideo Convention than Canada is. Editors who don't care to see them on the same list can start List of internationally-recognized sovereign states or assist the Somali government in curtailing Somaliland's sovereign status.


 * The only possible subcategory would be states recognized to be independent and possessing a territory but whose sovereignty is compromised in part (possibly: or whole) by its occupation by another power. Palestine, maybe tenuously governments-in-exile like Xizang's. — LlywelynII  22:51, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * POV forking isn't allowed, so we can't go for your article suggestion. Your solution would appear to ignore the POV of every other state in the world, that Somaliland is not an independent sovereign state, in favour of the Somaliland POV that it is.  That's not neutral. Pfainuk talk 23:02, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It's a good faith list of a separate category of nations, not dodging consensus. (For example, by simply rewriting the material at Mate (beverage) in namespace Maté because of a disagreement over accenting.)


 * If you think Somaliland and Abkhazia shouldn't go on the same list as Somalia and Georgia, you should be arguing with the inclusion criteria as POV, because the descriptive criteria countries claim to use justifies their inclusion completely. The fact that countries themselves don't act on their own rules just shows they're led by politicians; we, on the other hand, have to be rational and either follow our guidelines or change them. — LlywelynII  23:12, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You're still confusing the inclusion criteria and the sorting criteria.


 * I think that the existence of these entities needs to be included in this article. I think the inclusion criteria need to be written such that they are included.  But they should be included neutrally: they must certainly not be treated as though their position is undisputed, as you appear to be arguing.


 * This is why I feel a split is necessary for neutrality: it allows for entities such as Abkhazia and Somaliland to be included while recognising the disputes that exist. Pfainuk talk 23:18, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not confusing anything. (Anymore: the first four sections or so of discussion being solely about inclusion criteria did kind of throw me at first.) But I'm saying that with the inclusion criteria we have, they stay and there's no justification for their separation. Their disputed status can be noted in a separate column of the chart by symbol, color, or description. [Regardless of the outcome of this mediation, the page is ugly as sin right now and should be redone, to my mind, along the lines of the format of the French or German articles.] — LlywelynII  23:35, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The german/french pages include much less information that this one and frankly I don't find them better - they are just simpler.
 * The idea of "single simple list" was already discussed. Most of us agree that having all states that satisfy the inclusion criteria in a simple alphabetically ordered list is a good thing. The idea evolved into the idea of "single sortable linkable list" so that it accommodates concerns of those editors that pointed the disadvantages and shortcomings of the "single simple list". The result can be seen in Sandbox2 for example (click on the "alphabetic sort" button on top of the first column). This is some kind of "best of both worlds". Of course some details remained in dispute, some editors have different objections or didn't like it, etc. and that's why we opened mediation. Alinor (talk) 10:25, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Using a list of sovereign states as a list of sovereign states
Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but this strikes me as the best method unless we're planning on abandoning the namespace in favor of List of states recognized by the United Nations or List of internationally-recognized sovereign states or somesuch.

There's two separate ways to go and I'm not particularly choosy about either, but the current page uses the Montevideo Convention, which established a widely-accepted definition of de facto statehood:
 * (a) a permanent population,
 * (b) a defined territory,
 * (c) government,
 * (d) capacity to enter [but not having already entered] into relations with the other states.

Now, that's the definition the page currently claims to use, but not the one it actually uses or that any post above me uses. Every single page of debate in the archives or here has been over the level of international recognition. On the Montevideo Convention's criteria, recognition's aside the point. And in fact, it's only important if the actual criteria isn't the Montevideo Convention, but some variation of constitutive theory. — LlywelynII  22:28, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * "List of states recognized by the United Nations" - there is no such thing, UN doesn't do state recognitions. The only thing that is similar to such a list is one map that shows members, non-members non-observers, non-members observers. The nearest thing to "UN recognition" are UNSG/UNGA statements about some non-member states - and the resulting "All states" and "Vienna formula" (see the link in the section about Vienna formula). Alinor (talk) 11:52, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The UN does by its very function do state recognitions. It has, eg, refused to file treaties by entities not recognized by it as a state. The possible List of states recognized by the United Nations would simply be a list of all and only those nations recognized as states under the Vienna formula (or whatever modification of it the UN might later adopt.) — LlywelynII  20:56, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You are right and I said a similar thing, but naming an article "states recognized by the UN" will be a stretch (prone to OR/SYNTH) and will leave out the non-Vienna states that still satisfy the inclusion criteria (thus will be accused of POV). I don't know what others think about this - I don't remember such proposal in the past, so let's see. Alinor (talk) 21:21, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Under the Montevideo Convention
If we prefer to go with the declarative theory, which is en vogue with current treaty-writers despite the inability to ever put it into practice, we simply This list would be a single, undivided one. Possibly (my vote: preferably,) we would have a separate section for those states (such as Palestine) meeting the Convention criteria but which lack full control and sovereignty over their constituent territory. (Nothing to do with international recognition or UN associate platinum plus membership status.) — LlywelynII  22:28, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Make note of the unutilized constitutive method.
 * Find some source to explain the defined territory can't consist of space currently occupied by another previously-recognized state. The Helsinki Accords might suffice, but I'm not sure whether or not its ban on signatories' recognition of claims against other states' territory is seen to restrict rebels' capacity to enter international relations under the Montevideo Convention.
 * Autochthonous rebels are still permitted; find a source that explains that by the time minority rebels deserve the appellation of sovereign state, they will have already met all the conditions of the Convention, while most rebels do not meet sovereign state status themselves as they are simply aiming to overthrow the government and hold the territory of the actual sovereign entity.
 * List all de facto organized territories meeting the conditions of the Convention.
 * Put an incomplete list disclaimer at the top of the page, until such time as all available territory is claimed.
 * Annotate the entries for states whose territorial claims are contested by other states.
 * Make note of the territory-less oddity of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, a previous state.
 * Define and source some minimal justification for the exclusion of micronations.

We must follow declaratory effect under international law
I don't believe it is an option for us to formulate our own criteria of statehood based on our personal preference. To remain credible, Wikipedia should follow the prevailing opinion regarding statehood, as supported by treaties, declaration of states (including jurisprudence), and scholars of international law. The prevailing opinion of jurists is that statehood is objective: it is achieved by the declaratory effect (i.e. the Montevideo Convention), and recognition merely provides a status-confirming effect, i.e. to corroborate (not determine) the existence of a state. The following is taken from Stefan Talman, The Constitutive Theory Versus Declarative Theory of Recognition, in LXXV British Yearbook of International Law (2004):
 * "The now predominant view in the literature is that recognition merely establishes, confirms or provides evidence of the objective legal situation, that is, the existence of a State."
 * "Alphonse Rivier stated in 1896 that: 'The existence of the sovereign State is independent of its recognition by the other States.' The Institut de Droit International shared that view."
 * "In Art. 1 of its Brussels Resolutions Concerning the Recognition of New States and the New Governments of 23 April 1936, it recorded: 'Recognition has a declaratory effect; The existence of a new States with all the juridical effects which are attached to that existence, is not affected by the refusal of recognition by one or more States.'"
 * "Of particular value are the opinions of the Arbitration Commission of the Hague Conference on Yugoslavia ('Badinter Commission')...Its purpose was to consider questions relating to the recognition of new States and State succession, which arose as a result of the dismemberment of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). In its first Opinion 29 November 1991, the Commission states that: 'the principles of public international law...serve to define the conditions on which an entity constitutes a State; that in this respect the existence of the State is a question of fact; that the effects of recognition by other States are purely declaratory.'"...Opinion No. 11...shows that the question of when a State emerges does not depend on recognition...[the Commission determined that] the date of emergence preceded recognition by other States by several months or even, in some cases, several years." -Jiang (talk) 04:44, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * With respect, given the amount of conversation, I moved your post to the proper part of the structure to keep it organized. Left the separate heading, though to draw attention.


 * In response to your post: I think you are absolutely right that no OR should predominate in either the inclusion or sorting criteria. Further, you are quite right that the trend at international law over the past 70 years has tended to favor the declaratory doctrine. I agree it's the best choice to use for inclusion.


 * Devil's Advocate: It's not quite as simple as that, though, which is why we have had such a row over an undivided list. States are predicated to exist and to enjoy sovereignty, but cannot actually behave as such prior to recognition. Further, the Helsinki Accord (at least theoretically) debars nations from preemptive recognition of the sovereignty of separatist rebels within an established state. I'm not a lawyer specialized in international law, so I wouldn't know the most authoritative sources to pull on the question, but it's not as simple as you've laid out. — LlywelynII  21:18, 19 February 2011 (UTC)


 * My understanding of the theory is that a state is sovereign when it can exercise exclusive jurisdiction over its territory; whether the rest of the world will allow it to play on the international stage is irrelevant as long as no other actor is imposing restraints on the state government from acting within its own boundaries. Being able to join international organizations is incidental to statehood, not a prerequisite of it. There's no such thing as an obligatory international or supranational organization. Theoretically speaking, of course.--Jiang (talk) 10:43, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * So then this is a proposal for a single list? It seems more inclusion than an issue of division. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 11:11, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the division criteria should reflect the way the states satisfy the inclusion criteria. The division criteria (likely based on recognition) should not be regarded as inclusion criteria (explicitly not based on recognition). Division criteria are merely tools. Perhaps if we treated them as such there would be less disagreement below? --Jiang (talk) 20:57, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Under Constitutive theory
If we prefer to go with constitutive theory, which is the way states actually organize their behavior among themselves, we instead This list would be single and indivisible, but include markers (possibly symbols, footnotes, or cell background colors) to show their comparative status. There's been much complaint in the Archives about how much more work this will take and how not all recognitions may have been formalized. Obviously we only count and source the formalized recognitions, and difficulty doesn't argue against its validity. It just means the incomplete list tag will last longer. So what?
 * Remove the Montevideo Convention rationale from the page and find some source (preferably from after the 19th century...) explaining it in a clear, concise and authoritative manner.
 * Make note of the variant, unutilized descriptive method.
 * List every de jure state currently recognized as such by so much as one other state.
 * Put an incomplete list disclaimer at the top of the page, until such time as all still-valid international recognitions are noted.
 * Annotate the entries for those states with contested recognition.
 * Annotate the entries for those countries with full [sufficient but not necessary condition: UN membership status], partial [necessary conditions: recognized by sourced amount X countries but pointedly unrecognized by at least one other state], and minimal [necessary conditions: unrecognized by sourced amount Y countries but pointedly recognized by at least one state] international recognition. Alternatively, combine categories two and three into a "questioned sovereignty" status and leave the others in an "unquestioned sovereignty" one.
 * Work to assist the development of a wikiproject to uncover and make note of the years of every international recognition in a section of each nation's Foreign Relations of X page
 * Preferably, little by little, make note of every single national recognition for each country in footnotes as editors have time to do the grunt work.
 * Make note of the territory-less oddity of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, a previous state.
 * Note that micronations & various rebel movements are excluded, despite potentially meeting Montevideo criteria, since they are currently unrecognized

Thoughts? — LlywelynII  22:28, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I oppose the single list solution because I can't accept that it's neutral to write a list as though there was no dispute as to the status of such entities as Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh or Northern Cyprus. A single list either includes them, taking one POV, or excludes them, taking the other.  For this reason, the list needs a split. Pfainuk talk 22:54, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Given the definition of sovereign status we're using, it would be neutral to include them with no notification whatever and only POV to exclude them. Granted that would be a disservice to readers, what does a second chart accomplish that "markers (possibly symbols, footnotes, or cell background colors)" doesn't? — LlywelynII  23:38, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree. There's no need to have two separate lists to address NPOV issues.  The current list tries to draw a bright line where none exists, between the "widely recognized" and "widely unrecognized" states.  I've suggested numerous possible ways, such as notes/extra columns/colours, to indicate states which are disputed.  I think this is a much better way to solve the problem than having separate lists.  TDL (talk) 23:47, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I think several users are making a very elementary mistake. We should not confuse "due weight" with "diplomatic recognition". States recognize or refuse to recognize other states as a matter of policy; whether they believe the entity in question is a functioning state or not is in most cases irrelevant to the question. So diplomatic recognition cannot really be a barometer for determining whether an entity qualifies as a state for encyclopedic (scientific) purposes. Ladril (talk) 23:54, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Probably worth noting, though, if there's a valid mechanism. (Column, row color, notes.) — LlywelynII  00:30, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * LlywelynII, what you are proposing is a single list - we have discussed this idea and it evolved in a single sortable list - please see my 10:25, 18 February 2011 comment above. Alinor (talk) 11:46, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm glad you mention and link to prior discussions. They're informative. They're also not dispositive of the issues, or there'd be no point in mediation. I think it would be better served if you argued the view you preferred or the range of views acceptable to you and left it to other interested editors to defend their own viewpoints.


 * Moving forward, we don't need to reargue every point you've previously been through, but — it seems — find a way to reconcile the interested editors (and possibly bother the village pump &c. to exhaust their number) with how to balance the page's actual criteria — which assigns a single value of sovereignty to any state meeting its criteria — with international differences over recognition which in their view diminish the actual level of sovereignty enjoyed by the state's government. — LlywelynII  21:03, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Ladril, you are correct and that's why the current inclusion criteria is "entity claiming to be independent and sovereign and having control over permanently populated territory" Recognition is then mentioned just as additional point of interest, not as requirement for inclusion. Somaliland is included without a single recognition. Alinor (talk) 11:46, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it's a mistake to presume that issue is "an additional point of interest." It's obviously the crux of Pfai's objections to a single list. In fact, I believe it's the only objection thus far raised to a single list (since the descriptive doctrine of sovereignty doesn't differentiate ranks of sovereignty at all but simply assigns equal value to any entity meeting its criteria.) — LlywelynII  21:03, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I just clarified the status quo inclusion criteria. They don't include recognition, but mention it only as one of the examples of proofs supporting one of the requirements - "capacity to enter into relations with the other states". Whether this should be changed or not is a different question. And yes, lack of recognition (mostly related to presence of dispute about secession, succession or territory) is the objection raised against single list. Alinor (talk) 21:32, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

As a naive observer
Just as a naive observer, I want to throw out a thought (mostly to stir the pot with something new and see what the fallout is). It seems to me that part of the problem here is a struggle over the use or the term 'state', so would it solve the problem just to make a language shift? Of course, it would then be the 'list of sovereign states and territories'. That may call for additions to the list (for things like Native American reservations). What problems would something like this solve, and what new problems would it raise? -- Ludwigs 2 00:13, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * 'sovereign state' meaning all the UN-recognized states
 * 'sovereign territory with partial recognition as a state' referring to those regions that are aspiring to recognition as sovereign states but have not (yet) made it
 * 'sovereign territory (otherwise)' for things like Niue which have no recognition as independent states
 * Yeah, it's a definitional problem. Under international treaty, sovereign statehood isn't dependent upon foreign recognition at all. (Except it is.)


 * [Edit: Let me get rid of my proposal. Taivo's division above is more elegant:
 * U.N. members - these are states with no disputes as to their sovereignty and forms the bulk of the list;
 * states with undisputed sovereignty, but not U.N. members - Vatican City is the sole member of this category;
 * states that have disputed sovereignty - there are about a dozen of these states including Western Sahara, Kosovo, Taiwan, Somaliland, etc.]


 * A unitary namespace with a note column as to general (dis)acceptance still seems simpler and less prone to edit wars, but is there a real problem with Taivo's division?


 * Section #2 will be short. Who cares? Section #3 will be a mixed bag, but at least they unquestionably have that status, so division/sourcing/etc. is a non-issue. — LlywelynII  00:20, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * There are three problems with this 3-section layout that I see LlywelynII.


 * 1) How do we define "disputed"? Is a single non-recognizer enough to constitute a dispute?  Do we have any evidence that VC is universally recognized?


 * 2) It's western biased in that it matters WHO you're disputed by. UN membership can be vetoed by 5 states.  So if you are disputed by one of the victors of WWII you get kept out, but if you are disputed by anyone else you still get in.  (ie. Palestine is disputed by the USA so they get kept out, but Israel is only disputed by the Arab world so they get in.)


 * 3) What about for states where the degree of recognition is unclear? We have no idea how many states recognize CI/Niue.  All we know is it seems to be >1.  If there is the possibility that they will be included, it needs to be clear where they will be sorted.  Under this categorization, it's not.


 * I much prefer a single list with notes in the appropriate columns to indicate the degree of recognition/membership in the UN, with each category of state coloured appropriately, so we don't have to deal with the sticky business of arbitrarily dividing the states. Either that or use the more neutral Vienna Formula (which was designed by the UN to take into consideration the influence of the UN veto on UN membership) as a criteria for section #1, and merge sections #2 and #3 into each other.  TDL (talk) 02:13, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * One of the features of my 3-way breakdown was that "disputed" was specifically defined as sovereignty being disputed by the power that claims the territory--thus, as long as Serbia disputes the sovereignty of Kosovo, Kosovo is in list 3, as long as PRC disputes the sovereignty of Taiwan, as long as Somalia disputes the sovereignty of Somaliland, as long as Israel has not accepted the complete sovereignty of Palestine, etc. they are in list 3. Italy does not dispute the sovereignty of Vatican City, so it doesn't matter how many countries do and do not recognize it officially--it is sovereign.  This definition of disputed is not western-based at all.  It's solely based on "disputed by the power that 'gave up' the territory".  Indeed, the "Western Powers" recognize Kosovo, but since Serbia (a non-Western Power) disputes its independence, and since it was carved out of Serbian territory, Serbia's POV is really all that matters.  Kosovo is a disputed state for now and will be until Serbia recognizes its independence.  States whose sovereignty is unclear (CI and Niue are the only two entities in this category) can be discussed or placed with Vatican City depending on consensus--but that is a very minor issue.  The current list places 1 and 2 in a single list--undisputed states--and 3 in a separate list--disputed states.  Counting levels of recognition in this scheme then becomes immaterial.  All that matters is whether the former controlling state disputes the sovereignty of the derivative state.  UN membership removes all cases of disputation, so it no longer matters whether the Arab world likes Israel or not.  Indeed, Britain was the state that 'gave up' its territory to Israel in 1948 (since it was the sovereign power in control of Palestine), so Arab feelings were irrelevant.  Since Britain gave up sovereignty to Israel, and Israel was given UN membership, other issues of dispute concerning it are irrelevant for this list.  This division has the elegance of not requiring a degree in international law to understand--there's no need to talk about Montevideo or Vienna or West Patterson, New Jersey.  It's all very simple--is the state's sovereignty disputed by its former overlord or not?  --Taivo (talk) 04:56, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * "UN membership removes all cases of disputation" - what do you mean by this? If Russia/PRC change their position and grant Kosovo UN membership, that doesn't make Kosovo any less disputed by your definition.  All that matters is Serbia's position.


 * I never suggested this definition of "disputed" was biased. My concern was that you group the undisputed states with the UN members states into a single section.  I'd be much more comfortable with this proposal if there wasn't a UN-membership "waiver".  Why not just have "Disputed" and "Undisputed" sections (regardless of UN affiliation)?  This would address the concern I have about a bias due to the UN veto holders, and be much simpler.


 * As I've discussed with you in the past, I think this definition of "disputed" has flaws. Just because the former sovereign recognizes a state doesn't mean much.  For instance, the USSR insisted that it was a union of 15 soveregin nations.  However, the rest of the world considered the USSR to be a single sovereign state.  Your proposal would have forced us to list Uzbekistan in the main list, when only a single (or a few) states recognized it as sovereign.


 * That being said, I'd be willing to compromise here to finally get a solution if you're willing to drop the UN-membership "waiver". We'd still need to work out what to do in cases where the relationship with the former sovereign is ambiguous (as in CI/Niue).  TDL (talk) 06:16, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I am not married to a tripartite division. Indeed, I prefer a bipartite division just as you suggest--disputed versus undisputed with the key to disputation being the stance of the former sovereign state.  That means the undisputed list is UN members plus Vatican City and the disputed list is Palestine, Kosovo, Taiwan, Somaliland, etc.  I'm not sure what you mean by a "UN waiver", but there are no UN members whose sovereignty is disputed by their former overlord.  CI/Niue is still a gray area, but it always will be because their sovereignty is unclear (probably by their own design).  In essence, this is the current structure of the list, although it isn't described as such in the text.  --Taivo (talk) 07:28, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I was under the impression that you were suggesting that UN member states should automatically be classified as undisputed, independent of whether they were actually disputed or not. If Russia/China change their position on Kosovo and let it into the UN, while Serbia still refuses to recognize it, where would it be listed under your scheme?  Under my suggestion they would remain in the second list until such time as Serbia recognizes them, regardless of whether they gained UN membership or not.


 * My point is that we need to either do away with UN membership as a criteria OR we need to consider a broader selection of international organizations (such as the Vienna Formula) where there is no veto to membership, so that a single, uninvolved state can't influence where another state is listed. Otherwise we get back into a situation where it matters which states don't recognize you.  Either option is fine with me.  TDL (talk) 08:11, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Danlaycock, yes, I do agree that UN membership automatically eliminates all disputes as to sovereignty. If Kosovo, did, by some perverse miracle, gain the vote of Russia and rise to UN membership, then Serbia's objections would no longer matter.  My statement that Serbia's interest is primary only applies to Kosovo before it gets UN membership.  I still fail to see why there is such an objection to UN membership as a marker of "undisputed".  It is 1) straightforward; 2) already recognized by the majority of our readers as an imprimature on statehood, and 3) very easily verifiable.  I reiterate my position--the division of this list into two or three sections should be clearly understandable to any of our readers without a working knowledge of international law.  UN membership is not the same as WHO or IMF membership and the vast majority of our readers understand it as such.  It is on a totally different level because its charge is so all-encompassing.  One of the first international actions that Southern Sudan will take in July is to apply for UN membership.  It will apply for UN membership before it applies to any other international organization.  --Taivo (talk) 14:08, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * "there are no UN members whose sovereignty is disputed by their former overlord." - why should we care only for their former overlord? What about all other states? Anyway, what about Japan non-recognition of North Korea? IMHO this fits "former overlord".


 * About the "dispute vs. no dispute" we had discussed no dispute criteria before (this tries to solve the what constitutes a dispute? Minor border dispute or something bigger? Dispute over some island? How big/small island? etc.), but it had various shortcomings - one of them - it's hard to verify/source it. That's why I propose that we use a 2 section split: Vienna vs. non-Vienna. This criteria is verifiable both as wording and as result and is used by many international organizations and treaties, including the UN. Alinor (talk) 12:50, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * "for things like Niue which have no recognition as independent states". The problem is, this last one is mistaken.


 * See for example: Thaindian News, the PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Register. Ladril (talk) 00:58, 18 February 2011 (UTC)


 * To answer the initial question. There are no "UN-recognized states" - the closest thing to this are this UN map (see what support it gets - option14 in the table) and the Vienna formula list used by the UN (see above).


 * The sovereign states are the following (keep in mind that "mainstream", "few" and other such qualifiers are arbitrary weasel words regardless if the resulting list seems "sensible", "agreeable" and "consensus")
 * "mainstream" "All States"/Vienna formula without any non-recognition issues - 186 UN members, Holy See/Vatican City
 * "All States"/Vienna formula with recognition issues of "few" non-recognizers: Armenia (1), Cyprus (1), North Korea (2), South Korea (1), Cook Islands (2), Niue (2)
 * "All States"/Vienna formula with recognition issues of "more-than-few" non-recognizers: Israel (~20), PRChina (~20)
 * Vienna formula only (no "All States" clause invocation in any of the Vienna organizations, no statement by the UNGA/UNSG), thus "not entirely mainstream", recognized by "more-than-few" "All States"/Vienna formula states - Kosovo (~75)
 * "entirely non-mainstream", recognized by "more-than-few" "All States"/Vienna formula states - Sahrawi Republic (~55), ROC/Taiwan (~20)
 * "entirely non-mainstream", recognized by "few" "All States"/Vienna formula states - Abkhazia (~5), South Ossetia (~5), North Cyprus (1)
 * "entirely non-mainstream", recognized by "few" "entirely non-mainstream" states - Transnistria (~3), Nagorno Karabakh (~3)
 * "entirely non-mainstream" without any recognition, but still controlling permanently populated territory - Somaliland
 * "entirely non-mainstream" without any control of permanently populated territory, but still recognized by "more-than-few" "All States"/Vienna formula states - State of Palestine (~110)
 * IMHO regardless where we draw the line it will be somewhat arbitrary - so it's better that we use the Vienna formula as it's defined outside of Wikipedia editors and is utilized by international organizations and treaties. High WP:V "quality". Also, by utilizing the "sortable list" table (see Sandbox2; Sandbox2 with CI/Niue) we also simultaneously allow for a "single alphabetic list" of all included states. This sandbox also has coloring, so that it allows to distinguish between Vienna vs. non-Vienna (sections) and "All States" vs. non-"All States" (color) - allowing to represent the middle category of "Vienna, but not 'All States'".


 * In contrast to Sandbox2 I suggest that we have two sections (Vienna vs. non-Vienna) instead of three (UN Vienna, non-UN Vienna, non-UN non-Vienna), because I see no reason to split Vienna states into UN and non-UN. The UN itself doesn't use such split. Alinor (talk) 12:50, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Alinor, this list should NOT require an international law degree to understand. You continue to try to manipulate who goes where based on arcane and commonly incomprehensible definitions that are utterly meaningless to a normal reader.  Remember, Wikipedia isn't about demonstrating how conversant you ware with international law and organizations, it is a reference work for the common, everyday man or woman.  You continue to muddy the water of what "disputed" means.  "Disputed" in my definition is very easily defined--1) UN membership resolves all disputes since it is impossible without passing a 2/3rd majority of the General Assembly and a vote of the Security Council. 2) For non-UN members if the former power no longer disputes its sovereignty, it is "undisputed".  This is a very simple and reasonable definition of "disputed" for our purposes.  And Alinor, Japan doesn't matter for Korea, because at the time of the Koreas' admissions to the UN, 1) Japan was no longer the sovereign nation and 2) UN membership eliminates all disputes of sovereignty.  As I will say over and over, a knowledge of international law should not be required for our readers to understand this list or why some states are in the top part and other states in the bottom part. --Taivo (talk) 14:08, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * What requires law degree? To look a simple list of organizations? Or to look at their lists of member states?


 * Wikipedia first and foremost applies WP:V and Vienna formula is very good at this. Wikipedia is not to spread common misconceptions regardless how common to the everyday main and woman these are. You can see at the source provided that the UN itself uses the Vienna formula. It's not complicated at all! It's not a formula, but a list of organizations. Please, give me one reason NOT TO USE it. UN and other international organizations and treaties use it, why should we deviate from the established practice?


 * "UN membership resolves all disputes" - not true, as can be seen in the cases of Israel, PRChina, Armenia, North Korea, South Korea, Cyprus.


 * "Japan non-recognition is not important, Serbia non-recognition would not be important if Kosovo is UN member" - so Israel non-recognition by ~20 states is unimportant? 2 out of 4 neighboring states don't recognize it and this is not important? I don't agree with your interpretation. PRChina non-recognition by ~20 states including the Republic of China? Is this "former sovereign in your book or not"? If it isn't - who is the "former sovereign" of PRChina? And who you think is the "former sovereign" of North Korea?


 * If you have idea for some different wording of the no dispute criteria - please prepare a full wording of the specific proposal for the sorting criteria you want.


 * "recognized by the majority of our readers" - any source to back this up? And is opinion of Wikipedia editors or readers a "reliable source" (WP:RS, WP:V)? I think not.


 * "very easily verifiable." - do you have sources to back this up?


 * "the division of this list into two or three sections should be clearly understandable to any of our readers" - please look at Sandbox2 - what is not "clearly understandable" there?


 * "UN membership is not the same as WHO or IMF membership" - yes it isn't. That's the advantage of the Vienna formula and that's the reason why the UN itself uses it.


 * "the vast majority of our readers understand it as such." - any source to back this up? Are we speaking about common misconception or what? Are Wikipedia editors/readers assumptions "reliable source" (WP:RS, WP:V)?


 * "It will apply for UN membership before it applies to any other international organization." - maybe, but Switzerland, Holy See, Cook Islands, Niue, etc. have another priorities and they applied to other international organizations first. We are not here to judge the importance of UN vs. WHO vs. IMF. Even if we are - we need a WP:V source to back our judgment. Vienna formula is one such example of list of "important" international organizations (UN, specialized agencies, IAEA, ICJ) - well sourced and having broad use.


 * "knowledge of international law should not be required" - yes, it's not required. We need to just use what reliable sources show and apply WP:V. These show Vienna formula (the UN POV) and not "UN membership POV" (Taivo+some other Wikipedians POV). Alinor (talk) 14:55, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, Alinor. The elegance of defining dispute in the way I have is that all these so-called disputed states that are UN members are not really disputed.  Does Britain dispute Israel's sovereignty?  No.  Does the Soviet Union dispute Armenia's sovereignty?  No.  Does South Korea dispute North Korea's sovereignty?  No.  Does Britain dispute Cyprus sovereignty?  No.  These are not disputed.  PRC has been independent since the time of Genghis Khan and Mongolia doesn't dispute its sovereignty anymore.  Your arguments are not really strong at all despite your ability to write volumes.  --Taivo (talk) 15:14, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Does South Korea dispute North Korea sovereignty? Yes. Does Japan dispute North Korea sovereignty? Yes. PRChina didn't exist before 1949, including at the time of Genghis Khan. And Mongolia is not successor to Genghis Khan, but got independence from China in the early 20th century. And you can't simply disregard the ~20 states that don't recognize Israel (unlike the other cases of limited recognition of UN members the Israel case is not one of secession/succession).


 * Please, make a full proposal with specific wording if you so insist (example - previous "no dispute criteria" proposal):
 * section named XXX includes states that ...
 * section named YYY includes states that ...
 * section named ZZZ includes states that ...
 * etc.
 * My arguments are as strong as the sources that back them. Do you have better sources? Alinor (talk) 15:35, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Alinor, there was a specific proposal above which was stated a couple of times, but I'll repeat it:
 * Section 1, UN members
 * Section 2, non-UN members with undisputed sovereignty (Vatican City, and possibly Cook Islands and Niue go here) (we're not talking universal recognition here, but recognition by the former sovereign nation)
 * Section 3, non-UN members with disputed sovereignty (All the states on the "Other States" section of the current list, where the former sovereign state still claims sovereignty)
 * This has the benefit of being easily verifiable in all its points. --Taivo (talk) 17:16, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I disagree with this. We shouldn't be WP:SYN multiple ideas into some sort of combined criteria.  If we want to use disputed/undisputed then fine, but let's leave UN membership out of it.  If we want to classify states according to degree of integration into the international community, lets use Vienna or something along those lines.  The three-category Vienna (UN members/Other organizations members/no membership) would have the same division of states as your proposal, with the exception that Kosovo would get moved to the middle section.  I don't see why you are so opposed to that.  TDL (talk) 17:23, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with TDL. Also Sandbox2 coloring deals with the Kosovo issue. In addition, Taivo, your proposal doesn't solve any of the issues I mentioned above. And this "disputed/undisputed" is hard/impossible to verify easily. Alinor (talk) 17:34, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Taivo, wording of your proposal doesn't make it clear if "disputed" include Israel, PRChina, Cyprus, etc. all states with limited recognition - or only those "claimed by former owner" (whatever that means). Please define it more precisely. Alinor (talk) 17:36, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * (ec)Alinor, it's not hard at all to verify disputed/nondisputed status--just ask yourself, "Does the former sovereign state recognize the independence of X or not?" That's not a problem at all.  And your "issues" above are just smoke because you don't like using UN membership.  And Danlaycock, I've always suspected that the whole purpose of this exercise was to move Kosovo out of the "Other States" category.  UN membership is widely recognized as the single most salutory measure of sovereignty--especially among common people--because that is the whole point of UN membership--to be a gathering of the sovereign states of the planet.  --Taivo (talk) 17:42, 18 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Alinor, Israel, PRC, Cyprus are all members of the UN, so they go in Section 1. There's nothing at all confusing about that.  Please read the proposal carefully--UN members in section 1, non-UN-members in sections 2 and 3.  I've reiterated that at least half a dozen times now, but you continue to be "confused" by Israel et al.  What is so confusing about "UN members in section 1"?  --Taivo (talk) 17:42, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * South Korea does dispute North Korea's sovereignty. That's the whole point of there being a "North" and a "South". Korea has always been supposed to be one, both post-WWII politics have kept it partitioned. Neither regime formally recognizes the other as a state. Ladril (talk) 16:37, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank goodness we have Sherlock here...  Night w   16:52, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Lol, I'll leave the page so as not to bother Watson anymore. Ladril (talk) 17:22, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Do we really need a classification system?
@ Taivo: it would really help if you would avoid personalizing things. I can see several instances in this thread where you make unnecessary comments: e.g. "You continue to try to manipulate who goes where based on arcane and commonly incomprehensible definitions that are utterly meaningless to a normal reader" and "your "issues" above are just smoke because you don't like using UN membership." This goes for everyone in this discussion - if you ever find yourself typing the word "YOU" in a post, stop and check to make sure you're not sliding over the line into a personal comment. These kinds of things just make everyone grumpy. If necessary I'll start riding people on this issue, but I think we're still in a stage where you all can keep it under control.

let me ask this: do we really need to impose a classification system here? what would happen if we just listed everything out, and then gave short descriptions of their status. e.g. That way we don't need to worry about establishing some 'level' of sovereignty, but simply list out every state that claims sovereignty and note who accepts and who refutes it. I mean, sovereignty is really binary anyway (one has it or one doesn't) nd we shouldn't be trying to monkey with some ordinal system unless we're getting it out of sources. -- Ludwigs 2 18:41, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * United States: recognized by the UN and other bodies as a sovereign state, with no disputations
 * Kosovo: sovereignty recognized by the UN, disputed by Serbia
 * @Ludwigs2: This is what has been suggested by myself and LlywelynII previously. I completely agree with you that this would be a good solution.  Additionally symbols or colours could be added to UN members to distinguish them from other states.  (One note: the UN doesn't recognize states, so it would be better to say "UN member state" or something along those lines).
 * @Taivo: You've often suggested that my hidden agenda is to get Kosovo promoted. But this ignores the facts.  As you can read in my statements above, my suggestion to ignore UN membership would keep Kosovo in the "Disputed" section EVEN if they manage to get UN membership.  You could just as well accuse me of an anti-Kosovo agenda.  My agenda is to get a neutral list that doesn't rely exclusively on an organization that 5 states that happened to win a war 65 years ago control membership in.  TDL (talk) 19:19, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * TDL - again, I know this is hard, but could you please avoid personal statements like "You've often suggested that my hidden agenda is...". If someone makes suggestions like that, ignore them - by responding with a personal retort in return you simply perpetuate the personal side of the dispute, which is what I'm trying to tone down.  It might be best if you struck the lines that referred to 'your agenda'.  -- Ludwigs 2  20:52, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * "Let me ask this: do we really need to impose a classification system here? what would happen if we just listed everything out, and then gave short descriptions of their status. e.g." What would happen is that you would get a queue of people saying they strongly oppose (emphasis theirs) any changes to sorting criteria based on the nuances of every situation (check talk page archives for reference). in their eyes, things can only be black or white, it seems. Ladril (talk) 19:49, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Ladril - again, please avoid talking about what other editors would do. It may or may not happen as you say, but it's better to AGF that people will respond to reason.  -- Ludwigs 2  21:02, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * One idea for classification would be to ape the List of states with limited recognition somewhat and merge it (a bit) with the Vienna formula proposal and a UN membership. Thus the categories would be:
 * - UN member states
 * - UN observers(Holy See)
 * - Members of specialized agencies (Kosovo, Cook Islands, Niue)
 * - Other states recognized by at least one UN member (Palestine, Taiwan, SADR, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Northern Cyrpus)
 * - Other states not recognized by any UN members (Somaliland, Nagorno-karabakh, Pridnestrovie).
 * Ladril (talk) 20:03, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * In the status quo article the extant notes already include the "short description of status". In Sandbox2 we have a "single list" capability combined with "section separation" capability, so I think both camps concerns are taken care there. The question is what sections sorting criteria to implement. I don't agree with proposals that heavy rely on "UN membership POV". This is giving undue weight to an organization arbitrary selected by Wikipedia editors, because it nicely fits simplified view of the issue. This contradicts the sources that we have and even the UN POV.


 * Ladril, why should we separate Holy See from the other non-UN Vienna states? As you know "UN observership" is something unofficial - "The status of a Permanent Observer is based purely on practice, and there are no provisions for it in the United Nations Charter." . Not to mention that using it adds additional UN undue weight. Having separate category "UN members" is bad enough. Why should we split the Vienna states in two groups? Then, you add even more UN undue weight by splitting the non-Vienna states in groups depending on whether UN members recognize them or not. Why should we care specifically for UN members recognition? Is recognition by non-UN states somewhat inferior? Are non-UN states inferior than others? Less sovereign? Less independent? Was Switzerland inferior to Nauru in 2002? As some kind of compromise I see the usage of 3 groups - UN Vienna, non-UN Vienna, non-UN non-Vienna (see Sandbox2) - even this is having too much UN undue weight/"UN membership POV" and contradicts the sources - but in the name of compromise and moving forward we could use it. Alinor (talk) 21:04, 18 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I still haven't seen a single reason/source explaining why we should not use "single sortable list" with 2 sections - Vienna, non-Vienna - just as the UN and other international organizations and treaties do. Alinor (talk) 21:07, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * "Ladril, why should we separate Holy See from the other non-UN Vienna states?" One reason is because that category would be consistent through the course of time - today it might look ridiculous with just the Holy See on it, but in the past it included Switzerland and the Koreas, so it would be a helpful categories for the lists of sovereign states in the past. Also, more than one person seems to object to putting Kosovo right next to UN members, so using more categories might help capture each state's situation more closely.


 * "UN undue weight" We ought to be careful here. Despite some states remaining out, the UN is still considered a body that is representative of the international community as a whole (this is an assertion that can easily be found in reliable sources). It's not just any organization. This is also in a certain sense what the Vienna formula implies. So using the UN as an axis of classification doesn´'t look wrong to me. What I do disagree with is the suggestion that non-UN members are not "internationally recognized". Ladril (talk) 22:58, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with Ladril that the UN is not just any international organization. I can be easily demonstrated that the UN is a unique organization whose primary purpose is, and always has been, to include all the world's sovereign states in a single organization.  But I don't mean to suggest that non-UN members are not necessarily "not internationally recognized".  The international recognition of non-UN members varies widely from Transnistria and Somaliland to Palestine and Kosovo.  Like Ladril stated, "using the UN as an axis of classification doesn't look wrong to me".  --Taivo (talk) 23:30, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * "..the UN is a unique organization whose primary purpose is, and always has been, to include all the world's sovereign states in a single organization.." - This is just plain wrong. Please see History of the United Nations.  The UN was originally established as an alliance of the victors of WWII.  Only those states who had joined the allies prior to 1 March 1945 by declaring war on Germany or Japan were permitted to join.  All other states were explicitly forbidden from joining the alliance.  The UN charter was written with this in mind, giving the major victorious powers permanent seats on the UNSC and a veto.  Of course it eventually morphed into an all encompassing international organization, but the UNSC veto is a vestige of the time when it was an alliance.


 * I don't think anyone has disagreed with Ladril's points in regards to the importance of the UN. I'm OK with using a states degree of integration with the UN as the criteria.  The problem with your proposal, as Ladril makes mention of, is how it deals with the non-members.  Under your scheme, if the state is in the UN, then dozens of non-recognizers don't count as a dispute.  But a single non-recognizer makes a state which is not in the UN disputed.  This is WP:UNDUE.  You've justified this with statements such as "UN membership automatically eliminates all disputes as to sovereignty", but this is clearly WP:OR.


 * If you think that the UN's position is so important, then let's use integration into the UN system as our metric. We'd have 4 categories: Members/Observers/Agency Members/No Membership.  If you don't like that, then let's use your Disputed/Undisputed categories, regardless of UN status.  But you can't WP:SYN these completely distinct concepts into a single criteria.  That's the definition of WP:OR.  I don't care what metric we choose, but if we want a divided list we need to choose a single concept and split the states accordingly.


 * If we want to use multiple distinct concepts, a previously discussed alternative is a single sortable list where we can have multiple sortable columns. One column could be disputed/undisputed.  Another could be UN status.  The cells could be coloured according to their categorization.  Using this approach would let the reader sort the states using several metrics.  I've always thought this was a good compromise to address everyone's concerns, but others are opposed to a single list.  TDL (talk) 01:03, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * By looking at things over here, it seems a single table (again, the list is just one) will be hard to agree on. A split list seems to be the most feasible compromise for the time being. Ladril (talk) 01:16, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Why do you preclude the "single sortable table" as hard to agree? It has the flexibility to allow for both "single list" and "divided into sections" concepts to be implemented. So we will combine the advantages of both - readers wanting to see "just a list of states satisfying the inclusion criteria" can do that. Readers wanting to see "list of states satisfying the inclusion criteria and arranged according to the sorting criteria" can do that. Sorting criteria here is what we choose - but if we want, by multiple columns we can implement multiple different sorting criteria (before Sandbox2 we had examples with multiple sorting criteria, but later we've gone in Sandbox2 direction of compromise two-tier structure of UN Vienna, non-UN Vienna, non-UN non-Vienna; now we can implement something different). Alinor (talk) 07:09, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * "the UN is still considered a body that is representative of the international community as a whole" - yes, it's a body, but not the body. The UN is not the exclusive "international community representative". "States became members of specialized agencies, and as such were in essence recognized as States by the international community." and that's why the UN itself and other international organizations and treaties use the Vienna formula. What the sources show is that "widely recognized/recognized by the international community" = "member of the UN, ICJ, IAEA, FAO, ICAO, IFAD, ILO, IMO, IMF, ITU, UNESCO, UNIDO, UPU, WBG, WHO, WIPO, WMO, UNWTO". And some of these organizations are older than the UN. Some are even older than the League of Nations. Alinor (talk) 07:09, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I think two valid reasons are that Vienna status has nothing to do with sovereignty or with the problems being raised by those objecting to a unitary list because of problems with recognition. Further, it is objective, but arcane and nonintuitive. Vienna status might be one of the notes added to the lists however they shake out, but a pure Vienna list belongs at a different namespace or under a separate inclusion criteria. — LlywelynII  22:48, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No, you are not correct. Vienna is used "to determine which entities are States" - this is the criteria used by the UN and other international organizations and treaties. I don't suggest "unitary list" based on Vienna as inclusion criteria. I suggest that whatever separation method we employ (sections, colors, etc.) the first sorting criteria should be Vienna (e.g. we separate the "list of entities satisfying the inclusion criteria" into "entities that are states according to the Vienna formula utilized by the UN and other international organizations and treaties" (e.g. current "widely recognized" section) and "entities that satisfy the inclusion criteria, but not the Vienna formula" (e.g. current "others" section). Whether this is done in a single list with coloring, or in a 2 section split or trough different separation method - this is a separate question. Alinor (talk) 05:57, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

UN membership = "widely recognised"/"internationally recognised"/"whatever"
I'm sorry for splitting this issue off, but as I'm sure everyone knows all issues get intermingled in the tldr walls that this debate has produced. Thus I'd like to see if there is consensus for this one point.
 * UN membership means that a state is a recognised sovereign state, even if a minority of states in the UN still withhold recognition

I say yes, it does, as UN membership has turned into the acid test for international recognition (yes I am using that wording). Kosovo hopes to one day achieve UN membership by gaining enough diplomatic recognition to hopefully force Russia to not veto (unlikely, but that is their argument). As said above, South Sudan plans to apply immediately. The Cook Islands hope to get UN membership one day, which they have so far not obtained, even though they are parties to some organs. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 16:55, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with this. --Taivo (talk) 17:09, 18 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't necessarily disagree. I just think that we shouldn't rely so heavily on a system that is so universally seen to be biased.  If Southern Sudan declares independence and is recognized by everyone but the rest of Sudan, they can join the UN.  If say Puerto Rico declares independence from the USA and is recognized by every other state except the USA they have no chance of joining the UN.  It seems highly POV to state that two hypothetical states in identical situations, with the only difference being that their former overlord has a veto on the UNSC, get treated in completely opposite ways.  The setup that Taivo proposes allows for a situation where a state can be recognized by every other state, except for say the USA, and still kept in the second list.  This seems to be very WP:UNDUE.  TDL (talk) 17:17, 18 February 2011 (UTC)


 * No. This is giving undue weight to a single organization arbitrary selected by Wikipedia editors. This is the so-called "UN membership POV". This contradicts even the UN POV.
 * "States became members of specialized agencies, and as such were in essence recognized as States by the international community." - this is the UN POV and this is used by international organizations and treaties.
 * By the logic you apply Switzerland was not "widely recognised"/"internationally recognised"/"whatever" before 2002.


 * I'm not sure about your Cook Islands comment - do you assume that it somehow fails to get UN membership? And applied instead at other Vienna organizations? Like Kosovo IMF/WBG membership? I find this highly unlikely. Alinor (talk) 17:32, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * This is not saying that non-UN states are not widely recognised, but just that those in the UN are. As for the Cook Islands, that quote was in the source we threw around all those months ago. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 02:50, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * When has CI tried to join the UN? I'm asking because of pure curiosity - I don't think this should influence the sorting criteria. We need a "general rule", not a pick-specific-country rule. Alinor (talk) 07:24, 19 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Narrowly disagree: UN membership does not mean that the member is objectively a state. Due to political jockeying by various governments, not all UN members have been sovereign entities: e.g., the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (before 1991, both constituent of the USSR) and India (before 1947, part of the British Empire). There are other examples; more recent ones include Somalia and Afghanistan - Somalia currently has trouble meeting the Montevideo definition of statehood, and has governments that would better fit the definition which are denied UN membership for lack of recognition in general; in Afghanistan the Taliban controlled much of the country, but the Northern Alliance retained the UN seat. Realpolitik means the UN retains certain members (e.g. Somalia) that are less likely to be a state and denies certain entities (e.g. Taiwan) that are more likely to be a state. But aside from these exceptions, yes, UN membership means the state is widely recognized simply because admission now requires affirmation by a majority of other states. The converse is not necessarily true, and trouble arises when a state ceases being a state since it's harder to revoke membership then it is to grant it.--Jiang (talk) 05:28, 19 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree with both Chip and Jiang. I can agree that historically UN membership does not mean that the member is objectively a state, however, today I do not see a disputable example of this, save Somalia(where the TFG holds the seat, but ~20% of state). But I agree that UN membership can mean for our proposes that a member state is a recognised sovereign state, even if a minority of states in the UN withhold recognition. The idea that this contradicts the UN POV argument that we have all seen is valid, but while it may be contradictory, it works. It is just as arbitrary for us to pick UN membership than to defer to the Vienna formula. Besides, it isn't exclusionary to CI as stated above. Outback the koala (talk) 07:02, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * "It is just as arbitrary for us to pick UN membership than to defer to the Vienna formula." - no, picking UN is arbitrary, but picking Vienna formula is just reflecting what sources say that the UN does and that other international organizations and treaties do. See my 07:09, 19 February 2011 comment above.


 * Disagree, for reasons given below. [Comment placed here to avoiding breaking conversation flow below.] — LlywelynII  22:11, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't argue that membership of the UN is not a testimony for "general recognition". I argue that the UN is just one of ~20 organizations, membership of which is a testimony for "general recognition". Of course there is a big overlap of memberships in all these ~20 organizations - but we should not choose one of these ~20 organizations as "Wikipedia editors preferred organization" and use this as sorting criteria. In fact, the UN is one of the few (if not the only one) of these ~20 organizations where membership is subject to veto by a few countries (5 of over 190), so this makes the UN one of the organizations less suitable for use as sorting criteria. But anyway, we should not make arbitrary choice of organizations - I suggest that we use a WP:V compliant criteria - Vienna formula . Alinor (talk) 07:24, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No, the UN is not one of ~20 organizations, it is unique and is universally recognized as the sole international body that puts an imprimature on sovereignty. While joining the WHO may be the equivalent of getting a certificate for the completion of first grade, UN membership is the final college degree to launch a state on equal footing with all other sovereign states.  It is apples and oranges.  --Taivo (talk) 07:48, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * "it is unique and is universally recognized as the sole international body that puts an imprimature on sovereignty." - any source for that? I find this dubious and giving undue weight to this single one of ~20 organizations that gives veto power for admitting new members to 5 of its more than 190 current members.


 * in contrast look at "States became members of specialized agencies, and as such were in essence recognized as States by the international community."


 * And if you think the UN is so unique why do you object using the criteria that the UN uses? - the Vienna formula? The UN basically says: "widely recognized/recognized by the international community" = "member of the UN, ICJ, IAEA, FAO, ICAO, IFAD, ILO, IMO, IMF, ITU, UNESCO, UNIDO, UPU, WBG, WHO, WIPO, WMO, UNWTO". And some of these organizations are older than the UN. Some are even older than the League of Nations. Some of these ~20 organizations have more member states than the UN. Alinor (talk) 07:58, 19 February 2011 (UTC)


 * The collective of ~20 organizations is naturally more representative of the "worldwide opinion" than a single hand-picked organization, whoever it is. And these ~20 organizations are not arbitrary selected by Wikipedia editors or some particular individual/organization - these ~20 organizations are utilized as criteria my many international treaties and organizations, including the UN that you mentions. Alinor (talk) 08:04, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Age of organization has nothing to do with this. Look in most atlases and you will often see a list of UN members or notes concerning UN membership, but no other international organization.  This is a clear indication that the UN is treated differently by the common reader.  It is the UN which gives the imprimature to sovereignty for most people and not any of these other organizations.  Most readers don't even know what these organizations are except for confusing acronyms.  Everyone knows what "UN" stands for.  Look around the world--what organization is in place protecting sovereignty?  It is only the UN.  You don't see WHO or UNICEF soldiers between combatants.  That's what makes it different than other international organizations.  --Taivo (talk) 13:09, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I mentioned age and number of member states, because I assumed that those facts will be interesting to you. They just show that the UN is not the only organization representative of the "world opinion"/"international community"/etc.


 * "UN which gives the imprimature to sovereignty" - you haven't provided a source for that, but instead said "for most people". Does this qualify per WP:RS and WP:V? It seems more as a WP:OR or a common misconception to me.


 * "what organization is in place protecting sovereignty?" - hm, I'm not sure what you refer to, but having in mind your later mention of soldiers - if you speak about peacekeeping operations, then you have also OSCE, NATO, AU and others.


 * We are not speaking about a "List of states that most people know" and neither do I find "known to most people vs. unknown to most people" and "member of organization participating in peacekeeping and protection of sovereignty vs. not member in such organization" as useful sorting criteria. These clearly fail WP:RS and WP:V - unless you have something else in mind.


 * I'm still to see a reason to deviate from UN practice and not to use Vienna formula. I also don't see any other proposal for a WP:RS and WP:V compliant sorting criteria. Alinor (talk) 13:44, 19 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Just to make it clear - a WP:V and WP:RS fact, even if "unknown" by most readers, is still a WP:V and WP:RS fact and we should use this fact and not something else, that is a "common sense" (or common misconception) for most readers, but not supported by sources. So, please stop the "I don't agree because most readers don't know this" - if a reader knows everything he wouldn't read any articles. We are not here to write what readers know, but to write what sources show - WP:RS, WP:V. Alinor (talk) 13:57, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The reliable, verifiable source is UN membership. None of the organizations you mentioned in relation to "soldiers" is international--only regional--thus, the UN is still unique. I cruised through my atlases and both the Rand McNally and Hammond atlases of the world listed UN membership, but membership in no other international organization.  That's a clear, verifiable, and reliable source that UN membership is unique.  --Taivo (talk) 14:06, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Where is the source stating that the only membership related to sovereignty or statehood is UN membership? Because I don't argue that UN is irrelevant, I argue that we should not give undue weight to one of ~20 organizations and specifically to that one that gives veto power for admission of new members to 5 of over 190 members.


 * The soldiers-thing is entirely irrelevant here, but anyway - international organization includes also regional organizations. And some of these organizations have more military capabilities than the UN.


 * You haven't provided a single source so far - can you give a link and relevant quote?


 * And then give a reason why we should deviate from the UN practice and the practice of other international organizations and treaties. Alinor (talk) 14:39, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * We give "undue" weight to UN membership because the UN is given undue weight in reliable, verifiable sources. Sources:  Rand McNally Deluxe Illustrated Atlas of the World and Hammond Centennial World Atlas.  Both of these atlases list the countries of the world and mark UN membership, but no other memberships in international organizations.  That's two out of the three world atlases I own (the third is a small Rand McNally one that does not have a single list of countries included).  The other 20 organizations are not even mentioned, only the UN is relevant to them.  This is the kind of evidence that is easily given to show that the average reader will be more familiar with the UN and its role in determining "the countries of the world", than he/she will be with any other organization or international legal formula.  Membership in the UN is the imprimature on statehood that most people recognize and use for undisputed international recognition.  Their internal structure and how that membership is gained is immaterial.  Our readers consider UN membership to be the mark of accepted sovereignty because that is usually the only source shown to them in every atlas that lists "countries of the world".  --Taivo (talk) 15:34, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * "I cruised through my atlases and both the Rand McNally and Hammond atlases of the world listed UN membership" - Question: How many of your atlases listed VC with the UN members? Everyone agrees that UN membership is important, and I agree with you that it's the MOST important.  My objection to your proposal is that it cherry picks some states which aren't UN members and lists them as equivalent to them.  This is WP:SYN.  If we want to have two sections UN members/not UN members then fine, I agree that's verifiable.  It's not entirely neutral in my opinion, but I'll get over it.  But we can't just promote a few states to the UN members section without doing WP:OR.  TDL (talk) 18:57, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

This has extended past my original question, which was are UN members widely/internationally recognised. I'm sort of reading that they are, but that they shouldn't be listed by themselves (ala Vatican City). As for Taivo's atlases, I think he means that UN membership was noted, not that it was a list of UN states. I recently browsed some new atlases in a bookstore, which explicitly said 193 states. Funnily enough, a new scientist article said that Southern Sudan would be the "193rd country", so there might be a case where the vatican is actually sometimes discluded. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 19:19, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think we should be favoring atlases over treaties, opinions of international commissions and jurists, and international law scholarship. We shouldn't care what the average reader already believes, but rather, what is the consensus among professionals who deal with international law. As I noted above, UN membership is merely used to confirm the status of a state, but does not determine it. Membership of any organization that requires statehood as a condition of membership should in the very least be mentioned in the comments section of each entry. As I understand it, a state does not have to be a UN member to be invited to sign a multilateral treaty under the UN framework. As treaties can be only signed by states, this should be very telling.--Jiang (talk) 19:45, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with Jiang. As I said before - to determine statehood/eligibility-as-state even the UN itself uses Vienna organizations membership (UN + others) and not UN membership. Alinor (talk) 21:39, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Danlaycock/TDL, neither of my atlases listed Vatican City as a UN member, just as Taiwan was not listed as a UN member (the format of both lists was that everything was listed with an asterisk or cross beside the UN member states). Also, I don't cherry pick--non-UN members are divided into two lists depending on whether their sovereignty is disputed or not.  Of course the only non-UN member whose sovereignty is not disputed is Vatican City (leaving the gray area of what to do with Cook Islands and Niue aside).  The list is still a clear split between UN and non-UN, with non-UN split between disputed and undisputed.  --Taivo (talk) 22:12, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify, my point was does your atlas distinguish between VC and Taiwan? Mine certainly doesn't.  The publishers didn't feel the need to add a note to VC that stated that they were undisputed, while Taiwan was disputed.  They clearly felt that listing them equivalently was neutral.  In fact, there isn't even any mention of UN membership.  Somaliland is displayed exactly the same as France.  TDL (talk) 00:35, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Right, my atlases do not distinguish in the "list of countries" between Taiwan and Vatican City since neither is a UN member. My suggestion of distinguishing disputed from undisputed is simply that Vatican City enjoys a different level of undisputed sovereignty than does Taiwan, but it's not based on my atlas lists.  My atlases do distinguish between Somaliland and France in terms of UN membership.  I was in Borders today and browsed some of their atlases.  Not all of them have a "list of countries", but the ones that do usually (but not always) mark UN membership.  But none of them marked membership in any other organization other than the UN.  That's my point about treating the UN differently--it is treated differently in terms of verifiable and reliable sources.  --Taivo (talk) 02:11, 20 February 2011 (UTC)


 * This. Further, no, UN acceptance does not mean universal recognition, but only (correct me if I'm mistaken on this point) recognition of many countries plus non-opposition-to-recognition by all permanent members of the Security Council. Further, the UN occasionally has and could again admit non-nations as members. It's a bad criterion for sorting or inclusion. — LlywelynII  22:08, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I totally disagree with your assessment, LlywelynII. The UN only admitted the two non-nations Belorussian SSR and Ukrainian SSR as a condition of getting the Soviet Union to join.  It was a one-off deal and with current requirements for entry could not be repeated.  It was a historical anomaly and cannot be used as a modern justification for not using UN membership as a criteria for sorting.  Since UN membership is widely used in "lists of countries" in published works, it is a perfectly valid and easily verifiable means of sorting.  Also, by using UN membership, the whole muddy and impossibly difficult issue of levels of recognition is thrown out.  It doesn't matter what level of recognition a country has if it is a UN member.  Recognition is not easily verified with reliable sources.  UN membership is.  --Taivo (talk) 00:19, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Not to mention that the Soviet Union argued that they were sovereign states. It wanted 15 seats for all 15 constituent republics. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 06:03, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * USSR republics in theory (e.g. USSR constitution) were sovereign states. But are you sure USSR wanted 15 UN seats? I would be interested to read how things went back then, what USSR wanted, why it got 3 seats (and not 2, 4, ...), etc. Alinor (talk) 06:25, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * India, Philippines and New Zealand also joined the UN before they got full independence, so it's not only Belarus and Ukraine.
 * On the other hand we have many examples of states that until recently were not members of the UN. Of course currently they are fewer, because some of them joined. And I don't speak about "disputed" or otherwise "problematic" states, but about states that don't want to join the UN for political reasons like neutrality (Switzerland, Holy See) or don't bother to join, because they are too small and don't have resources (diplomatic staff and/or funds to pay membership fees, trips to UN meetings, etc.) or don't consider it their top priority (Tuvalu, Tonga, Nauru, Kiribati, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, Liechtenstein, etc.). I don't think we should disregard these only because they are "small", but the example of Switzerland is very telling - it's not "small", it existed before the UN, it hosts some of the UN offices, but still wasn't member of the UN in its first 57 years.
 * UN membership is not valid way of sorting, because it is arbitrary picking/undue weight of 1 of ~20 organizations - that one that gives veto power for admitting new members to 5 of more than 190 current members.
 * UN membership is not valid way of sorting, because even the UN itself doesn't use it. It is a highly relevant thing to be noted (as we do currently in the extents and as some atlases you seen), but that's it. The UN and other international organizations and treaties DON'T use UN membership, they use Vienna/All States.
 * Vienna is just as easy verifiable in terms of resulting states. Vienna is easy verifiable as criteria wording (unlike "dispute" and "recognition" criteria that have to be worded by Wikipedia editors).
 * Vienna is also verifiable as actually used as "statehood differentiator" by the UN, other international organizations and treaties. UN membership is not. Alinor (talk) 06:25, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

UN membership is an absolutely valid way to sort simply because it is used as a valid way of sorting in many more publications than use any other method. It is the only way to sort "lists of countries" in many published works that don't even mention Vienna or any other international organization. This has been demonstrated. It is not a case of giving undue weight to 1 of 20 organizations--it is a case of acknowledging the simple fact that it is the only sorting criterion of choice for many, many reliable sources. --Taivo (talk) 06:33, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No, the two (or more atlases) that you supplied don't use UN as differentiator, they just mention it as important fact - just as the status quo article does in the extents. And TDL gave you example of another atlases that don't even mention UN membership. And even if your atlases did use it - "I don't think we should be favoring atlases over treaties, opinions of international commissions and jurists, and international law scholarship. We shouldn't care what the average reader already believes, but rather, what is the consensus among professionals who deal with international law." and some unofficial atlases can not be chosen over UN Office of Legal Affairs. And Vienna is also used by other intergovernmental organizations and treaties - if you insist I can fish up some links from the archives. Also, treaties that don't use Vienna use the "All States" and I'm not aware of any treaty restricted to UN members (unless it deals with internal UN affairs). Alinor (talk) 08:03, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Alinor, please give me a date for when New Zealand became independent. In addition, please respond to the actual question rather than turn this into a separation discussion. Does being in the UN mean the state is recognised enough to appear in whatever the highest level category we have (assuming we sort by recognition) turns out to be? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:33, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeach, we all know about NZ independence. I'm referring to "If judged by the Montevideo Convention criteria, New Zealand did not achieve full de jure statehood until 1947." That's besides the point - I just said that there were more such UN members than Belarus and Ukraine (because it was claimed that these two were the only examples). Alinor (talk) 21:13, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * How does the New Zealand argument justify your case? Curious, since a) being a "list of sovereign states" and not a "list of UN members", it wouldn't have appeared anyway if it weren't independent; and b) the "Vienna" thing is formulated from UN membership also, so your argument applies to your own case just as easily. Forgive me if I've missed the point.  Night w   16:11, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Alinor stated New Zealand entered the UN before independence. I challenge that on the face that no-one really has a date for when it did become independent, so saying it joined before it became independent is contentious at best.
 * I'm simply (I was simply I suppose now) trying to get views on whether being in the UN qualified as being "widely recognised" or other such variations, with no comment as to whether states outside of the UN could also qualify. Basically if all widely recognised states are rectangles, then all UN members are squares (math analogy). I was hoping for simple answers and no protracted debate, as it might help resolve general feelings about splitting UN members etc. Establishing any baseline would be good. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 16:20, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, the UN is one of the ~20 Vienna organizations. But I don't think we should choose one of these ~20 organizations, when the legal practice is not doing so. We should not split these. Alinor (talk) 21:13, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Selecting which division to use is an arbitrary exercise
The polls below on how best to split the list of states,, , , seem to be relying on an arbitrary decision on our part. With so many possibilities, and much disagreement, I think the best solution is to minimize the manifestation whatever we ultimately decide to do. People are more willing to accept a decision with which they disagree if the decision is not important.

An example of how this can be done is the previously proposed combination of sections + color coding that would allow two separate strands of categorization to be conveyed at the same time. A benefit of a single sortable list is that the effect of this categorization is structurally minimized.--Jiang (talk) 10:55, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree, something along these lines could actually work! Alinor (talk) 13:20, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I completely agree with you Jiang. Any choice we make is arbitrary.  There is no "right" division.  That's why I support a single sortable and divided list, as was discussed previously, since it allows us to represent all the different characteristics simultaneously.  Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be any willingness to consider such an approach by several editors.  TDL (talk) 20:55, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * How does a "single sortable and divided list" negate the need for a sorting criteria? You are still dividing...  Night w   16:16, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It doesn't; it mitigates them by (1) allowing multiple sorting criteria to be displayed and (2) minimizing the display of any one system of sorting.--Jiang (talk) 18:23, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Exactly. The source of our dispute here is that each user has their own preferred sorting method.  There is no "right" way to sort them, it's a completely arbitrary choice.  If there was, we would have found it long ago.  A single-divided-sortable list can divide them along multiple characteristics, and so several different perspectives can be presented.  And it de-emphasizes the division, making the specific choices less important.  TDL (talk) 19:35, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Trying to get a grip on this
Ok, let's see if I can get a grip on this. The main dispute here revolves around giving excess prominence to certain 'questionable' states, which most people feel should be represented on the list somehow, but which some people don't want equated with other more established states. That's a reasonable concern, but unfortunately it is causing the conversation to split along too many lines, and that is making things too tangled to be resolved easily. So in the interest of clearing this up, I'm going to try a trick of sorts - go with me on this:

For a short time (a week or two maybe) I'd like us all to pretend that we have agreed to the following: Let's work on the article as though we've agreed to this and see if we can produce something that everyone can agree to. If we can, great; if we can't, we will find out a lot about what is wrong with this approach that will then steer us in the correct direction for a second try. does anyone have any strong objections to giving it the old college try? -- Ludwigs 2 05:18, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * We will use a single sortable table format.
 * We will use coloring, highlighting, or other visual cues to distinguish between different criteria for determining sovereignty and different levels of sovereignty
 * We will set the default list order to reflect the best-sourced criteria (which I think would be the Montevideo convention or UN membership, right?)


 * Nope. Outback the koala (talk) 05:52, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * outback - this is not a decision, this is a trial run to see if we can make it work. You will have the opportunity later to say that it didn't work, but I'm asking you to give it a chance so that we can actually see if it does and/or why it doesn't.  Otherwise (as I can see from the ongoing discussions) this is going to go round-n-round-n-round in circles forever. are you really going to nix it without even giving it a chance?  -- Ludwigs 2  06:40, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Whoops - just occurred to me that I grossly misread what that 'nope' referred to. dude, gotta give me a little more to work with!   -- Ludwigs 2  06:42, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with such "trial" approach.
 * Just to note on the "best-sourced criteria" - Montevideo is used as inclusion criteria, so we can't use it for sorting (will result in no division at all). If we are going to use the "degree" of satisfying Montevideo we go into OR/SYNTH/POV issues - at least I haven't seen a source giving such "degrees" that we can use. You mention also UN membership, but we don't have source using it either - we have Taivo statement that some atlases mention UN membership in their lists (just as the status quo article mentions it in the extents for each state) and not as "statehood differentiator". We all also know that "people's common sense" sometimes goes in that direction - but as Jiang explained (19:45, 19 February 2011) this is irrelevant. The only criteria that we have source for are Vienna formula/"All States" - UN Office of Legal Affairs - this is the differentiator used by the UN and other intergovernmental organizations and treaties.
 * But anyway, as TDL stated below - we have to go in baby steps - so, let's first agree to use the trial approach. Then we can discuss the default-view-sorting-criteria. Alinor (talk) 07:53, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm fine with this. Perhaps this would give us something more concrete to chew on.--Jiang (talk) 08:15, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds better than the tldr walls the mediation page has regurgitated already. I believe one of the existing Sandboxes may already be done in a similar format. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 09:12, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I think these are Talk:List of sovereign states/Sandbox2 and Talk:List of sovereign states/Sandbox. Alinor (talk) 09:49, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * ok then, let's pick one (is there a reason to pick one over the other?) and spend a week trying to make it work for everyone. which should we choose?  Once we pick one I'll make a section below for discussing the trial revisions.  -- Ludwigs 2  23:58, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, but I'm concerned that "let's pick one and spend a week trying to make it work for everyone" sounds a lot like you've already decided that a single list is the final answer and have ignored those of us who disagree with that approach. There are those of us for whom a single list won't "work" no matter what the configuration.  --Taivo (talk) 01:24, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * And there are those of us for whom a list which has been arbitrarily divided into two rigid sections won't "work", no matter what the choice of division. A single, sortable, divided list is a reasonable compromise between the "there must be divisions" camp and the "there should be no divisions" camp.  TDL (talk) 02:04, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Guys, you're missing a couple of points:
 * This is a trial to see if you guys can make it work. rather than arguing endlessly about it, I just think you should try something and see what happens - if it doesn't work then you haven't lost anything (except some time that you'd have wasted arguing fruitlessly anyway), and you've gained some knowledge about why it didn't work whych you can apply to a new solution.
 * I'm not here to decide anything; I'm here to get you all out of the loop you've been stuck in. That can mean a lot of different things - in this case it means I just grabbed something that struck me as a workable idea, but I have no attachment to it.
 * Mediation requires a certain flexibility and openness. If you refuse to even consider anything except what you've already decided, then we might as well close this mediation now and go to arbitration, because the mediation is going to go nowhere.
 * Please try to keep in mind that this is just a list article, and you guys are not wrestling over some major content issue. This is a question of achieving proper weight and balance for the material by structuring its presentation properly.  Don't just poohpooh it; sit down and give it a try, and then if (as you expect) it fails to convince you we'll try something else. -- Ludwigs 2  02:17, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that I wouldn't be willing to work with your suggestion. I'm happy to consider such an idea.  (See my sandbox below).  TDL (talk) 02:51, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Between the above Sandbox and Sandbox2 we should use Sandbox2 - I think the only differences between the two are of technical nature - Sandbox2 has better embedded linking capabilities and such things. Alinor (talk) 10:24, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Another sandbox
Here's another sandbox I've been working on along these lines. It's basically Taivo's original proposal with the WP:SYN removed by allowing for sorting of the two points independently, as opposed to simultaneously. It's got two additional columns: "UN Affiliation" and "Disputes". The "UN Affiliation" column divides the states into categories by their membership in international organizations: UN Member/UN Observer state/Other Vienna state/None. Disputes is as per Taivo's definition: Claimed by another state or not. Both columns are sortable, separating the states into separate sections dynamically depending on the sort mode selected by the user. Colour has been added to clearly distinguish the UN Members from the other states, as has been insisted upon.

Of course, we can discuss what the default sort mode should be, what colouring scheme should be extended across the the remainder of the row, or whether additional sortable columns should be added. But I really think this approach could be adapted to reasonably address everyone's concerns. TDL (talk) 02:04, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Sandbox3 discussion
I could agree with something similar, but I would like some (minor?) adjustments made: My suggestion is that "UN Affiliation" column is renamed "UN membership" column and that the coloring of each row should be for the whole row (spanning all columns) and should be based on a sorting criteria not used for any of the columns. I propose that this criteria is a criteria utilized by the UN Office of Legal Affairs, international organizations and treaties (2 colors for Vienna and non-Vienna or 3 colors for Vienna+All States, Vienna-only, non-Vienna). Alinor (talk) 10:24, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) "Disputes" column to be labeled "major dispute", "dispute over the whole territory" or something like this, so that it is clear that this doesn't include territorial disputes and border disputes like Kashmir, Aegean Sea, etc. that are common everywhere around the world.
 * 2) "UN observership" is something unofficial - "The status of a Permanent Observer is based purely on practice, and there are no provisions for it in the United Nations Charter." - see my 21:04, 18 February 2011 comment. - so I object using this - using UN membership is also undue and deviation from international practice and I don't agree in going further away from it.
 * 3) coloring - it seems that the coloring duplicates one of the two criteria columns and also the other criteria column has its own separate coloring. That is too much colors IMHO. Also, I don't think that we should use two separation methods (coloring, column) for one sorting criteria - this implies "forcing a preferred sorting criteria" (because one of the sorting criteria will have more separation methods applied to it than the other sorting criteria).


 * I would like to see examples of entries for Palestine and an associated state of New Zealand, please. If the latter is too controversial at this time, go with the former. Ladril (talk) 12:55, 24 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Are we getting into NZ associated states again? I'd like to see a Taiwan entry myself. Is the last column necessary? Information is already in the infobox second column, and I'm unsure if, say, Armenia, would have that box filled in. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 13:05, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * If this mediation decides that a single list is preferable, this format, giving first place to UN membership and official UN affiliation, is preferable to listing all international organizations in a single column. The UN is special and non-UN international memberships should be in a second column and not mixed with UN affiliations.  Rather than "major disputes" the column should be labelled "sovereignty disputes" since that's what we're really talking about--not border issues, but existence issues.  --Taivo (talk) 13:10, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * "Sovereignty disputes" includes all non-recognitions, including such where no conflicting claim/occupation is present - like Armenia and others. Alinor (talk) 12:04, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No, "sovereignty disputes" does not include all non-recognitions. We have made this clear many times in the past that the only sovereignty disputes that are relevant are those of former sovereign powers (Somalia's claim on Somaliland, e.g.) or other parts of a former whole (North Korea's claim over South Korea, e.g.), not the Arab world's non-recognition of Israel.  --Taivo (talk) 14:03, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you have any source where this is described/defined so that we can use its wording directly? I have already explained that this leads to ambiguity and WP:V problems - see 09:07, 20 February 2011 comment. And please, be exhaustive about who is in such dispute and who isn't of the following: PRChina, Cyprus, Israel, Armenia, North Korea, South Korea, Cook Islands, Niue, Taiwan/ROC, State of Palestine, Somaliland, Sahrawi Republic, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria, Abkhazia, Kosovo, Northern Cyprus. Alinor (talk) 15:10, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

@Alinor: I agree that we need to clarify what our definition of what "Disputed" means. I left this unresolved to see if there was any support for such an idea in general. I'm not opposed to eliminating the "UN Observer" colour, but I suspect that others won't be OK with this. Same with your colouring proposal.

@Ladril: Let's leave CI/Niue for the time being to see if we can agree on the sorting first. As for Palestine, that would depend on how we choose to define "Disputed". I think this should only be a minor obstacle though, if we can agree on the major structure.

@Chipmunk: I'm not opposed to removing the last column. I only added it because Taivo felt that it was important in previous discussions. The previously discussed definition of disputed was: a state claimed in whole by another state. This eliminates minor boarder disputes and non-recognition for other reasons. But we would have to decide how to deal with a state such as Palestine.

@Taivo: I'm not sure I completely understand your statement. Are you suggesting that you're OK with the above divisions? I'm getting thrown off by your use of the word column. I suspect you meant category? TDL (talk) 18:35, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I see columns. I don't think my bifocals are deceiving me.  I'm only referring to the sortable columns--UN affiliation and disputes right now.  There should be a third column for other international organizations and not group them with the UN affiliation, which should remain separate.  --Taivo (talk) 19:52, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Well then I guess I was confused by your statement that "this format" was preferable. I thought you were referring to my column layout.
 * So what you're suggesting is that you are OK with one column for affiliation with UN organizations (UNGA members/Observers/Agency members), but think there should be another column for non-UN organizations? What organizations would we consider here?
 * Or are you suggesting that the first column should be UN members/non-members, and that the second column should be Vienna/non-Vienna? TDL (talk) 20:33, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I guess what I intended to say originally was that for a single list format, this one is as good as any. I'm suggesting that the sortable columns should be 1) UN affiliation, 2) other international organizations (e.g., IOC, IMF, etc.), 3) disputes.  --Taivo (talk) 20:54, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I could live with this if it produces a compromise, but it seems unnecessary to create an additional column when a single column can contain all the important information. Are we really going to list every single "other international organization" that France is a member of in this column?  Under the current setup, if a state is a member of the UNGA then that is enough said.  We really only need to list other organizations for states which can't or won't apply for full UNGA membership, to demonstrate that they have "significant" (although possibly not universal) acceptance by the international community.  TDL (talk) 21:03, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Taivo, you say "IOC, IMF, etc." - how/why did you choose exactly these two and what do you include in "etc."? Alinor (talk) 11:48, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I picked those two off the top of my head as examples of international organizations that are not affiliated with the UN. But others have rightly pointed out that we don't want a column where every single international membership for every single state is mentioned.  The UN membership and affiliation column is probably sufficient for our purposes here.  --Taivo (talk) 14:03, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * So, there is no criteria in choosing "IOC, IMF" and it's unknown what "etc." includes. The next time, please try to use some reliable source for such things - such as UN Office of Legal Affairs. Alinor (talk) 15:10, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I dont understand why ABK and Somaliland are the same colour, it completely misrepresents the fact that the former is recognised by multiple UN member states- UN membership is key, but recognition is the basis really for the constitutive theory in the first place. Perhaps another column or something to reflect this? It certainly should not be excluded. Outback the koala (talk) 05:35, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Why don't we just say near the start of the article that UN membership is noted, and if they are not UN members then membership in organisations under the UN or relations with UN states. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 07:37, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Currently coloring duplicates the "UN Affiliation" column, that's why. I don't think we should do such duplications - each sorting criteria should be used only once.
 * But also, I don't agree that "UN membership is key" (this contradicts ). Recognition is important, yes, but I'm not sure we should divide recognizers at all or we should say "recognized by another state included in this list/satisfying the inclusion criteria". If we are going to do this it should be 'Recognized by "Vienna states"/"All States"' instead of 'Recognized by UN members'. Alinor (talk) 07:52, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * UN membership is still key, otherwise you get Transnistria, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Abkhazia all recognizing each other and this is somehow treated as equal to being recognized by three UN members. Nope, it's not the same.  UN membership is key to the "quality" of recognition.  --Taivo (talk) 08:08, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No. If we are going to "prefer" some recognitions over others - then recognitions by Vienna/All States should be the metric, but not recognitions by UN members - because these exclude recognitions by non-members of the UN such as Vatican, Cook Islands, Niue, Switzerland and many others in the past, etc. Alinor (talk) 11:35, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Can I strongly suggest we avoid discussing the NZ associated states? I only see them bogging down conversation.
 * Anyway, based on the current list, UN/Vienna makes no difference, the only outlier being the Vatican. The Holy See hasn't gone and recognised a bunch of states not in the UN, with the only limited state recognition being that of Taiwan, which is also recognised by many other states. I can't think of any different the NZ associates would make either for that matter. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 11:49, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, currently the result will be the same - but I'm opposed to further spreading the UN membership POV undue weight and using it additionally. It is bad/compromise enough to have "UN membership" column. Also combining "recognition" with another criteria (UN membership or Vienna membership or whatever) seems wrong/SYNTH to me - if we have "UN membership" column, then the "recognition" column should show all recognitions from any state included in the list, no matter if it's UN member, Vienna member or not. Alinor (talk) 12:04, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, there is no point in using the same sorting criteria multiple times. Alinor (talk) 12:06, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Some want to see where fits Palestine, others Taiwan, others CI/Niue, etc. - I will try to prepare another proposal (resolving the issues commented at 10:24, 24 February 2011) with all of these. Alinor (talk) 12:04, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It has been requested that we leave CI/Niue out of this for now. The UN membership and affiliation column is sufficient for our purposes and there is no need to spread the anti-UN-POV.  Recognition by a UN member is much more important on the world stage than recognition by Transnistria.  --Taivo (talk) 14:03, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, but other editors continue to ask about "what would happen under this proposal if CI/Niue are included", so obviously we have to take into account that too. What we don't have to do is argue about "should we include CI/Niue" - this is a unnecessary distraction. Thus - any proposal including CI/Niue is doing that only for illustrative purposes of their potential sorting/arrangement and is not related to the issue/discussion about their inclusion in the list.
 * I don't know what you mean by "spread the anti-UN-POV" - the UN POV is this and it's different from the "UN membership POV". But anyway, we can implement both, simultaneously, trough different separation methods.
 * "Recognition by a UN member is much more important on the world stage than recognition by Transnistria." - maybe, but recognition by UN member is not more important than recognition by non-members of the UN that are members of another Vienna formula organization. (see UN Office of Legal Affairs)
 * In addition we should not make a combination of two sorting criteria and we should not use more than one separation method for the same sorting criteria. Alinor (talk) 15:10, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Revisiting this
Since all of the sandbox's below seem to be strongly opposed by one editor or another, I think we should return to this proposal. It seems that no one is particularly opposed to it, and with minor tweeks it might be acceptable to all. The issues still to be resolved are: Does everyone agree that the above sandbox would be acceptable, provided we can resolve these issues? If so, then perhaps we can focus on these issues one at a time, to try and get a consensus step-by-step. TDL (talk) 02:50, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The "Disputes" column: Do we need it?  What should the column title be?  What should the wording of the footnote be?  How do we deal with Palestine, which isn't claimed by anyone?
 * Do we need a separate colour/category for UN Observers, or should they be lumped together with the other agency members?
 * Colouring: Should the entire row be coloured, or just the cell under the heading that determines the colour? Should UN members remain uncoloured, with just the remaining states be coloured to indicate their status?
 * The Disputes column should be renamed "Sovereignty Disputes". It is useful in that it notes the principal reason why the state in question is not fully integrated into the international community by UN membership.
 * Palestine is a state in transition, so the Sovereignty Dispute column should reflect this. Israel claimed its entire territory after 1967 and that claim has not been finally laid to rest with a treaty.  Yes, Israel is in the process of relinquishing control, but the dispute has not been definitively laid to rest.  The column should read "Occupied by Israel" or "Transitioning to sovereignty" or something like that.  --Taivo (talk) 04:50, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * State of Palestine is in no "Transitioning to sovereignty". Israel doesn't claim the whole West Bank/Gaza Strip - it claims/annexed only East Jerusalem and some particular zones around the Green line.
 * But I agree on using "occupied by Israel" (since this is actually the case). Alinor (talk) 09:31, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * TDL, excuse me, but I don't see any objections to Sandbox5 or 6. Chipmunkdavis asked about a missing footnote in Sandbox5 that was later copied from Sandbox6. Nobody has state his opinion yet on these two.
 * Disputes column - do we need it? I don't insist on it, but I don't object either. So, if others agree to have this column, OK. Footnote - "Information is included on: any dispute where the whole territory of a state is claimed as its own or occupied by another state.". Column name - just "Dispute(s)". Let's not complicate things by adding adjectives that not everybody agrees on. What is included in the scope of the column can be described in enough details in a footnote.
 * UN observers should be treated as any UN non-member. If they are Vienna organizations member - as such, if they are not - as such, etc. I propose this column to be "UN membership" with a simple yes/no. If it's going to mention Vienna organizations membership, then I don't agree with its name "UN affiliation". And generally I don't agree with mixing different criteria in a single separation method. A separate note - not all Vienna organizations are UN specialized agencies - besides the UN the ICJ and IAEA are not such. Alinor (talk) 09:54, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Coloring - I think rows with non-uniform color (e.g. only some cells) are not a good solution. Also, coloring criteria should not repeat columns or another criteria utilized for other separation method. Alinor (talk) 09:31, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Get rid of that silly disputes column. The information is already in the description column, or if it isn't it should be.  Night w   11:02, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, Nightw, the "Sovereignty Disputes" column is useful as a sorting criterion. We could put everything into the description column, but that column isn't sorted and the point to having a single list is then lost.  Alinor, Palestine is, indeed, transitioning to sovereignty.  It is not fully sovereign over its own territory and its sovereignty dispute with Israel has not been finally resolved.  It is in a midway point between fully non-sovereign and fully sovereign.  What else is that other than "transitioning"?  --Taivo (talk) 13:54, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Let's not argue about Palestine, we both agree on "occupied by Israel", right? Alinor (talk) 15:03, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

"Palestine is, indeed, transitioning to sovereignty". I agree this is the case. However it is too vague a moniker to consider using as sorting criteria. Ladril (talk) 16:17, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, Ladril, it's not completely clear. Fortunately, Palestine is the only state in that situation and we can profitably leave it aside for now as we are with Cook Islands and Niue.  --Taivo (talk) 18:15, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * We could sort them between the two clear-cut cases of disputed/undisputed. TDL (talk) 21:57, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Restart
So, putting all of the above together, it seems that we generally agree on keeping the separate disputes column for sorting and labeling Palestine "Occupied by Israel". We still need to decide on a wording for the column heading, but this should be a rather minor issues. Are there other issues with this layout? TDL (talk) 21:57, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, there are - there are multiple issues with coloring (too many colors, coloring criteria duplicates column criteria) and UN observership. About the heading of the dispute column I propose simply "dispute" with a footnote. My proposals for solving these are in Sandbox5/6 (disregard "non/recognitions count", "CI/Niue", etc. that you don't like there - and these are easily fixable - we can just remove these, but look at the "dispute" column footnote and at coloring). Alinor (talk) 08:03, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Sandbox4
Please see this proposal. There are some technical issues - the "service" rows don't arrange properly in all column-sort cases, the "default" view is the Sandbox2-default instead of alphabetic-sort (column1), column2-sort isn't working. These issues can be resolved easily - they appear only because this is based on Sandbox2. Alinor (talk) 15:10, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I just made the default view alphabetic. The non-alphabetic version is. Alinor (talk) 15:32, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Sandbox4 discussion
What problems do you see in Sandbox4? Alinor (talk) 15:10, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Still not happy with the "Major disputes" column. Title does not convey the contents at all. Instead of looking at this as editors, let's approach it as naive readers. What is a major dispute? If anything, it should be "Sovereignty dispute" or some such. I am still actually unconvinced about the necessity of this column, and would prefer a simpler colour distinction. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:40, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, we can rename the "dispute" column. But "sovereignty dispute" seems not to be more clear - doesn't it include Armenia, Cyprus or Israel? Have you seen the footnote - isn't it descriptive enough? Alinor (talk) 19:23, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Alinor, we have clarified the sovereignty dispute issue several times, please stop ignoring the clarification. "Dispute" here only involves a dispute between the former sovereign power and the new state.  It does not include disputes from bystanders.  Israel's sovereignty is not disputed by Britain, so it is not disputed.  Armenia's sovereignty is not disputed by the Soviet Union, so it is not disputed.  Cyprus' sovereignty is not disputed by Britain, so its sovereignty is not disputed.  Northern Cyprus, of course, has its sovereignty disputed by Cyprus, so it's disputed.  "Sovereignty dispute" is crystal clear.  The existing footnote is clear as mud.  "Major dispute" can mean a border dispute.  "Sovereignty dispute" is quite clear--its sovereignty is disputed by the former controlling power.  --Taivo (talk) 04:10, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Concerning Armenia, it is trivial to point out that a non-neighboring state doesn't recognize it. Pakistan's relations with Armenia are really immaterial to this list.  The column on broad information shouldn't be sortable.  There's too much of a variety of information there to make sorting it useful in any way.  --Taivo (talk) 04:14, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Taivo, we haven't clarified "sovereignty dispute" otherwise I would've used it - please see&reply 09:07, 20 February 2011 and 15:10, 25 February 2011 comments. Also "sovereignty dispute", by itself, doesn't restrict anything to "former controlling power" (and we got into debate about who these powers are - see cited comments). What is unclear in the footnote about "major dispute"? It clearly shows that "border disputes" do not apply.
 * The column "Information on status and recognition of sovereignty" can be sorted according to the number of explicit recognitions/non-recognitions ("clear" cases, then lowest number of explicit non-recognition, then higher, etc., then highest number of explicit recognitions, then lower, etc. - resulting in the following ordering: "clear" cases, Armenia, South Korea, Cyprus, North Korea, Israel, PRChina, State of Palestine, Kosovo, Sahrawi Republic, Taiwan/ROC, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria, Northern Cyprus, Somaliland) or according to the number of Vienna organizations memberships (in case of equal numbers - if one of these two states has UN membership and/or lower number of explicit non-recognitions, then it will get listed before the other). Since we can't remove the sorting button from this column anyway - I suggest that we use it as proposed - in this way we will implement one more sorting criteria - thus broadening the NPOV of our decision here and also upping the odds for consensus. Alinor (talk) 06:19, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * About naming of the "dispute" column - I can agree with "sovereignty dispute" if we use the current footnote (or a variant thereof). I don't think "sovereign" is less ambiguous adjective than "major" in this case, but for the sake of compromise, I don't object its use. But really, how does it apply to the State of Palestine for example? Israel doesn't claim sovereignty over the West Bank/Gaza Strip (Israel claims only some specific parts of the West Bank that are adjacent to it).
 * What about column "dispute"(no adjective, like in Sandbox3)+footnote? Alinor (talk) 06:30, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

I think this is the best one list proposal I am going to see. Other than some minor appearances changes, the only way we could include it is by removing anything relating to Vienna formula - UN membership is sufficient to cover that aspect, the only reason I can see for wanting to include it might be to try and change the inclusion criteria to the end of pushing the CI/Nuie issue later. But alas this is only speculation. With regard to the Armenia comment above; we for sure should include this, but maybe changing the column to say "Note" or "other issues" or something more along those lines; if it is a dispute or war or what have you then the description will note that in more detail. Outback the koala (talk) 07:09, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The CI/Niue inclusion issue is/was already resolved in the CI/Niue discussion. Regardless of Vienna or other criteria use for SORTING criteria CI/Niue inclusion depends on the INCLUSION criteria - and the previous discussion reached consensus that CI/Niue satisfy the status quo inclusion criteria. So - nobody is "pushing" for CI/Niue inclusion trough Vienna sorting criteria - CI/Niue inclusion was already agreed - and even if somebody objects it now - their INCLUSION is unrelated to the SORTING criteria.
 * Armenia. What column do you suggest renaming to "note/other issues"? Anyway, I think the current format/wording of the extent is sufficiently mentioning the Armenia explicit non-recognition by Pakistan.
 * "removing anything relating to Vienna formula - UN membership is sufficient to cover that aspect" - strong disagree. If we are going to remove one of the two (UN POV/Vienna vs. UN membership POV) then it should be the UN membership POV.
 * Vienna is still the only one criteria that is WP:V and WP:RS for:
 * criteria wording
 * results of criteria usage
 * real world usage (by the UN and other international organizations and treaties).
 * UN Office of Legal Affairs. So, it clearly should be present in the article. UN membership POV could also be present, as big compromise in adding UN membership POV notwithstanding that it's unsourced/undue weight/POVed/"I like it so"/common sense/common misconception/what-readers-expect-against-what-international-law-uses, only if some editors insist on it (and, strangely as it is, they do). Alinor (talk) 08:18, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with Outback, the Vienna POV simply overlaps the far more common and more reader-friendly UN membership NPOV and should be removed as being redundant. UN membership is perfectly NPOV, perfectly verifiable, and is based on multiple reliable sources.  Indeed, the sources I referenced earlier (two common atlases) only mark UN membership in a listing of "countries of the world".  If we adopt a one-list solution here, we replicate the one international membership that is of any relevance to published lists.  "Vienna formula" doesn't provide us with any new information beyond UN membership and UN membership is what our readers know and expect.  --Taivo (talk) 08:54, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You haven't supplied a single source for the UN membership POV. All you have for it is your "reader/common sense" (irrelevant, especially when it contradicts WP:RS and resembles a common misconception), "I like it" and some unofficial atlases mentioning UN membership like all of our sandboxes and the status quo already do - but not using it as statehood differentiator - and other unofficial atlases not mentioning it. The fact that the UN itself doesn't use it is also very telling. And the fact that no international organization or treaty uses it.
 * UN membership POV clearly fails 08:18, 26 February 2011 comment WP:V #3 requirement and arguably its #1 requirement too. Any usage of UN membership POV will be a subject to a big compromise on WP:V and WP:RS. But total disregard for these core Wikipedia policies is of course unacceptable and Vienna formula should be used (alone or along other sorting criteria implemented trough other separation methods). Alinor (talk) 11:06, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * @Outback: The reason for mentioning Vienna organizations is that it helps address the significant POV the the UNSC is a highly biased organization. A single state can keep another state out of the UNGA.  Treating a state which is recognized by 191/192 UN members the same as one who is recognized by 0/192 is highly WP:UNDUE.  Personally, I think sandbox3 is a good compromise between the two camps in that it makes the distinction that UN membership > agency membership.  This addresses concerns you've raised.  But it also distinguishes between agency membership and no membership, to indicate states which have significant international acceptance, but who can't or won't join the UN for whatever reason.
 * @Taivo: You are confusing your POV with NPOV. By definition, if you advocating for using a single POV (UN Membership) then it's a POV, not NPOV.  NPOV is an attempt to represent all significant POV's.  Like it or not, there is a significant POV out there that the UNSC is a highly biased, and far from neutral body.  Mentioning other UN organizations without a veto helps to address this POV.
 * I think the approach to this in sanbox3 has a much better chance of gaining a consensus, but I'll support either. TDL (talk) 18:52, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * @Taivo, I agree with you, I also don't see the need right now for the Vienna formula.
 * @Dan, I'm really just not sure about using Vienna. I see that it(sand box4) addresses concerns I've had in the past, but when it comes to Vienna inclusion I seem to be hung up on the prospect of using it. Yes, it creates another trier which informs the reader; however by including for say Kosovo, its status as a member of specialized agency, but we don't include any recognition info, then its almost like we are hiding the disputed aspect of that state. I really dont think there is a member of the Other Ten that does not wish to join the UN or refuses to do so. And no one is suggesting still that any of the Other Ten be at par with regular states; again this is one of the few things we all agree on. Outback the koala (talk) 19:22, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I could make the same argument, that by not including information about Kosovo's UN specialized agency membership we are hiding the fact that it has significant (but not universal) acceptance by the international community.
 * I agree with you that we shouldn't try to hide the status of Kosovo's recognition. But we do include the "disputes" column which makes clear that Kosovo is claimed by Serbia.  Also, the "Information" column mentions the number of recognizers.  Maybe another option is to put the # of recognizers in the disputed column, but only for states which are claimed in full by another state.  (This avoids the WP:V issues with sourcing the # of recognizers for the UN members which are presumed to be universally recognized, but for which we don't really have sources).
 * If you concern is just that full UN members should be distinguished from states which are just agency members, then we can always add another colour, as in sandbox3, for such states to make it clear that they lack full UN membership. TDL (talk) 22:24, 26 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Hey dan: yes I see where you are coming from. I honestly didn't see that recognition/non-recognition was included was included in the information column. Silly me. :-S That's handled. Anyways yes, another colour would handle that. I do like the set up where the regular states are uncoloured and the 'others' states are highlighted with colours. We just need to make should all of these Vienna states; only one (Kosovo); is highlighted with it's own special colour. Outback the koala (talk) 15:53, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I tried to implement something along these lines in Sandbox6 (see discussion below). Alinor (talk) 20:12, 27 February 2011 (UTC)


 * "full UN membership" - there are no different types of UN membership - no "full", "partial" or other. Membership in the other Vienna organizations (UN is also one of these) is not a sub-type of UN membership. But anyway, if we speak about Sandbox4 - it has a special column for UN membership and UN membership is also specifically mentioned in the "Information" column. I don't think any more emphasis on this is warranted - on the contrary, anything more will give it undue weight. UN members are clearly distinguished from the rest and even the table can be sorted according to this criteria.
 * Kosovo. I don't think we hide anything - it has "claimed by Serbia" in the dispute column, its number of recognizers is mentioned in the "information" column, its lack of "All States" clause invocation is mentioned in the "information" column. If Kosovo needs to be further distinguished I see the options (including modification of what TDL proposed above):
 * we can use some separation method to show states that haven't invoked an "All States" clause so far - for example some sign or italics.
 * we can replace "UN membership" column with "Vienna membership" - and use "'All States' clause invoked" for coloring (like in Sandbox2).
 * trough number of explicit recognizers/non-recognizers. What about having a "dispute" column (no adjectives) that mentions both "claimed/occupied by", but also "XX non-recognizers" (for "regular" states that have invoked "All States" clause) and "XX recognizers" (for states that haven't invoked "All States" clause so far - the 10others). Alinor (talk) 11:16, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Motion - These reiterated accusations by the Koala and one other person that there is an evil, secret, POVish agenda to get CI and Niue into the list are both unsubstantiated and of terrible taste. Just like some of you people have asked we leave the issue of these two countries aside for the moment, you should stop mishmashing it with the sorting criteria. Can we agree on this behavioral standard? Thanks. Ladril (talk) 14:16, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Agreed completely with Ladril. Please try and show some WP:AGF.  If you don't wan't CI/Niue included, then you will be free to object to this if and when that discussion happens.
 * It's especially frustrating since those who make these accusations specifically requested that the issues remain separate during acceptance. TDL (talk) 18:52, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * @Dan and Ladril - this is true. Since the discussion on whether CI/Nuie should be included has not taken place yet, and since I was one of those who asked for them to be dealt with separately I will redact my statement above from this discussion. I apologize for blocking the discussion, and I'll try not to bring it up until we get to discussing that issue separately. Outback the koala (talk) 19:11, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for doing that. TDL (talk) 22:24, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Outback the koala, you have participated in the discussion on whether CI/Nuie should be included. You may disagrees with the conclusion reached there or may have changed your opinion, and we will discuss it in any case before any addition is made, but please don't say that it "has not taken place yet". Anyway, let's leave this issue for the moment and focus on the sorting criteria only. Alinor (talk) 11:16, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, I think Outback's concerns are well-placed. Since consensus was never reached about whether they should be included, since it is a separate matter still to discussed, it doesn't help this discussion to include them in any proposal regarding the sorting criteria. If nothing else, it shows poor etiquette in the form of arrogance on behalf of the author. I'm tempted to oppose all of these proposals purely based on their inclusion.  Night w   04:05, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Night w, objecting only because CI/Niue are shown is nonconstructive and stubborn. They were added, because an editor expressed curiosity where they would fall if they are included (see 12:55, 24 February 2011). It is easy to remove them or just imagine they are not there (because they won't be in the actual implementation - since their inclusion depends on a separate discussion) and I don't agree that just "seeing" them is a reason to object the proposal about the unrelated issues of arrangement, columns, sorting criteria, etc. If you or somebody else is so much bothered with CI/Niue shown in the proposals - I invite you to hide them from Sandbox4, 5, 6 (these that I made recently). Alinor (talk) 09:04, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Did I say I objected only because they're shown? Maybe you should read that one again...  Night w   11:02, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Maybe I can't find it, but I don't see any reason non-related to CI/Niue in your comment. Alinor (talk) 11:31, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Sandbox 5 and 6
Following discussion above and hopefully addressing some of the issues raised, please see: That are the main differences. The additional columns don't sort properly right now - this is a technical issue and can be corrected. What do you think? Alinor (talk) 12:53, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Sandbox5 - Sandbox4 with number of recognitions/non-recognitions in a "dispute" column, together with "whole territory claim/occupation"
 * Sandbox6 - Sandbox4 with number of recognitions/non-recognitions in a separate column and with all 10others (including Kosovo) colored differently from the rest


 * Remind me what the All States clause is again? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 12:57, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You can read about it in the UN link (I would refrain from re-posting it). Look for "All States formula". Alinor (talk) 13:21, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I can, but surely you don't expect a reader looking at the article to. Should be explained. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 13:33, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It's explained in the footnote. Alinor (talk) 13:52, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, sorry, the footnote with this explanation is only in Sandbox6. Maybe you speak about Sandbox5. I will add it there too. Alinor (talk) 14:08, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, yes I didn't notice it was in Sandbox 6. That clarifies that point up. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:13, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Proposal to facilitate discussion
I am formally requesting that in all theoretical sandboxes etc., we for now simply ignore the NZ associated states. This conversation has gone around in circles, and the whole point of the above theoretical situation by the mediator is that we start from a point and see what agreements and disagreements there are. I haven't asked what CI/Niue will look like in the new sandbox, and I don't intend to. There are obviously more than enough problems simply dealing with the states we have, before throwing more into the mix. If a sand box is agreed to (and let's remember the above is still only just a theoretical situation), then maybe the NZ associate question can be raised. In fact, certain editors continuously make a point that this is not an inclusion criteria mediation, but a sorting criteria one. Therefore why anyone would want to discuss political bodies which aren't currently included remains a mystery to me. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:40, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I fail to see why these two issues (sorting criteria and CK statehood) were bundled together. They are entirely separate issues for me. Ladril (talk) 17:20, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Ladril, maybe I misunderstood your 12:55, 24 February 2011 comment, but I thought you asked about CI/Niue.
 * Chipmunkdavis, I haven't said that you ask about CI/Niue, but you can see in the archives at article talk page that after almost each proposal the issue was raised by somebody. Anyway, I agree not to discuss this now - let's focus on sorting/arrangement. Alinor (talk) 19:45, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It's hard to avoid this issue. They are directly linked. By getting the Vienna criteria included on the page, whether sorting or inclusion, it gives a foothold to the argument in favour of CI/Niue inclusion. Therefore, regardless of where you stand, you can admit it would be advantageous for those on the side in favour of inclusion to try and get Vienna formula used in one way of another. To me at least, they are very closely linked. If we look back, I believe, discussion regarding Vienna formula on the talk page only began when the issue of CI/Nuie inclusion was raised. If we were talking about sorting alone, then the Vienna formula should not even be on this page. Outback the koala (talk) 07:18, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No. It's true that the sorting criteria discussion grew out of the CI/Niue discussion. The CI/Niue discussion reached consensus that CI/Niue should be included because they satisfy the inclusion criteria, but we couldn't agree on the SECTION where these two should be added - because the status quo doesn't have sorting criteria, but uses vague/weasel wording. So, a discussion about this issue began. Vienna formula was brought into this non-CI/Niue discussion later - when the initial proposals for sorting criteria were shown to have multiple flaws. And it's still the only one criteria that is WP:V and WP:RS for wording, results and real world usage (by the UN and other international organizations and treaties). Alinor (talk) 07:55, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Is the entire sticking point on this dispute over the NZ associated states? Because if that's so, then I'd say yes - let's ignore them until we have a system that covers all the other states satisfactorily - after that we can worry about how to handle those odd case.  That's generally a good rubric, incidentally - get something that works 98% of the way working, and then twiddle over the last 2% from that basis.  -- Ludwigs 2  23:38, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No, IMHO it isn't the biggest disagreement. I think WP:RS, WP:V and "UN POV vs. UN membership POV" are much more important. Alinor (talk) 10:35, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * "The CI/Niue discussion reached consensus that CI/Niue should be included because they satisfy the inclusion criteria" I don't remember any real consensus. Someone jog my memory.
 * For Ludwigs2, this started because of the CI/Niue inclusion discussion, but as you can see, it apparently shifted towards greater things... Chipmunkdavis (talk) 11:01, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * There wasn't a consensus of any kind. Alinor, stop claiming such. It's pathetic.  Night w   11:14, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't recall any consensus on the CI/Niue issue either. But I also agree that we can profitably place that issue to one side for the moment and figure out how to arrange this list first, then return to the CI/Niue issue.  --Taivo (talk) 11:17, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Taivo, I don't recall you to have participated in the CI/Niue discussion. Anyway, we will continue it later.
 * Night w, OK, in order not to argue unnecessary - the CI/Niue inclusion or non-inclusion will be discussed later. I hope you OK with this. Alinor (talk) 11:38, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Alinor, you might be surprised how many people read these discussions, whether they actively post comments or not. --Taivo (talk) 15:58, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I was there too. There was no consensus, regardless of the fact that I was on the other side of the issue. Outback the koala (talk) 16:01, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree that there was no consensus at that time. It's not appropriate to be impositive about this (i. e., to talk or act as if the consensus was reached, it wasn't). Ladril (talk) 04:20, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * My impression was that there was consensus back then. Maybe I'm wrong about that. But this doesn't matter - I thought we all agreed to postpone this issue for later, why do we continue with it? Alinor (talk) 08:56, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Amazing! You just got snowballed by nearly the entire mediation committee, and you're clinging to the idea of a consensus. Why are we still talking about it? Because you were claimed a number of times on this page that there was one. Duh!  Night w   11:02, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not clinging on anything - I said that I agree that this issue will be discussed after we finish the sorting criteria discussion. All the rest is WP:STICK. Alinor (talk) 11:34, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

"My impression was that there was consensus back then." There was a greater acceptance of the idea, but not yet a wide enough consensus to implement. Ladril (talk) 12:33, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Straw Polls
A section for quick straw polls - these are non-binding polls just to determine whether we can get consensus on specific points, and possibly to open new avenues of discussion. try not to get into extensive debates in this section - usually it suffices to give your vote with a quick note in the poll section, and then leave brief comments in the 'commentary' section that might open new venues for discussion above.

as a rule, sign your agreement or disagreement on a bullet point, using a tick or cross, with a brief note. e.g.
 * ✅ I'd be open to this, under certain conditions -- Ludwigs 2 05:38, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think this is a good idea -- Ludwigs 2 05:38, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Using a single (possibly sortable) list?
There's some back and forth above about whether a single (possibly sortable) list would be acceptable. so let's find out for sure.

Question: would you be willing to try a single (maybe sortable) list here, or do you feel that we need to have a split list?

responses (single list)
A single list puts completely unrecognized de facto states such as Somaliland on the same level as completely undisputed UN member states such as Great Britain. --Taivo (talk) 06:43, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

It is not NPOV to present states on the annex list at par with widely recognised states. These states are subject to dispute, international disputes as to their legitimacy, while they are also de facto state - we cannot take sides and it would be POV to have a single list. Outback the koala (talk) 06:50, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

✅ There is no dispute over the de facto status of these states. All neutral observers agree on the fact that Somaliland is de facto independent, or at least moreso than a state such as Somalia. As long as it's clear that we are listing de facto states, there are no neutrality issues listing them together. TDL (talk) 06:55, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

✅ The degree to which political entities fulfill the criteria for statehood forms a continuum rather than two clearly delineated categories. Having separate lists forces us to draw clear boundaries where they do not exist.--Jiang (talk) 07:21, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

✅ Yes if it's sortable. The other way to look at this is "Do you agree with a table split in sections, that can be combined in an alphabetical list if the reader makes explicit additional action - indicating that he wants to read an alphabetic list instead of using the Wikipedia sorting criteria" Alinor (talk) 07:30, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely not. We are listing de facto states, but the arrangement of these states, in order to maintain a neutral point-of-view, should take legal matters into consideration. "Sovereign", the qualifier in the title, is a legal term. The sovereignty of some states is disputed, heavily in some cases. As long as the title includes that qualifier, neutrality must be kept.  Night w   13:54, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

- just as it would be POV to act as though certain states don't exist, it is POV to act as though they are undisputed even when the large majority opinion among other states is that they do not legally exist. The distinction between the two must be clear and unmistakable at a glance, even to editors who have not read the introduction. The way to ensure this is by splitting the list. Pfainuk talk 19:19, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

✅ NightW is mistaken. I respectfully disagree with some of my fellow editors: If the criteria is de facto states and the states in question meet those criteria, non-inclusion is the only NPOV violation. While it is very worthwhile to note objections and disputes, Montevideo explicitly rejected recognition as a criterion for sovereignty. As Alinor points out below, a unitary list is also necessary for decent sorting functionality of all states meeting the list's inclusion criteria. — LlywelynII  21:31, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

commentary (single list)
@Taivo: The point is that colours/asterisks/bolding/notes would do the distinguishing as opposed to separate sections. I'm rather confused by your position here, since you previously stated that you would supports such a proposal:. TDL (talk) 06:55, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

@dan - I could introduce you to some editors that would blow your socks off with a response to that comment. The key wording there is neutral observers. :) Outback the koala (talk) 07:05, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh trust me, I've met my fair share of them! But the point is that WP:NPOV doesn't requre us to equally represent every WP:FRINGE theory advocated for by nationalists. Our job is to write a neutral enclopedia. Neutral observers all agree that Taiwan is de facto independent from the PRC. This isn't in dispute. It's only the de jure status which is disputed. There is no need for qualifications, provided we're clear that what we're attempting to list is de facto independent states, with the more subtle issues of the de jure status explained in detail and highlighted by adding colours/bolding/etc to UN members. TDL (talk) 07:25, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank God, Lets keep this rational thinking going! It's the de jure status that is really in dispute for these cases.(lets not even get into confusion about de facto recognition, eh) The colours on a single list might work; but with two clear lists, there is no confusion. Outback the koala (talk) 07:34, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * This is exactly what Sandbox2 does - "two clear lists" (in Sandbox2 there are three, but this depends on the criteria applied, we can implement a different one resulting in two lists) and colors (implementing a different criteria). If we agree on "split table combinable into one"/"sortable sectioned list" we can move forward and discuss the criteria for "table sections", "coloring", "italics", "signs", whatever methods we select to do the sorting. Alinor (talk) 07:49, 19 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm confused Outback, was that sarcasm? It's been a long time since someone actually agreed with me on this page!


 * The benefit of a single section with colours/asterisks/bold/notes/etc to distinguish the different de jure situaitons, as opposed to multiple sections, is that we don't have to draw a bold line between two groups when none really exists. As Jiang argues below, it allows us to capture the continuous nature of the degree of sovereignty with several different colours.  Also, multiple categorizations can be used simultaneously (UN member or not/Disputed or not).  With only two sections to the list we're forced to pigeonhole states into oversimplifed and generalized categories: "widely recognized" or not.  TDL (talk) 07:57, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I can agree to remove sections altogether as a "sorting method", but this will reduce the "compromise space" and IMHO will complicate things (we will have to use more numerous colors and/or not-so-easy sorting methods such as italics/bold/signs/etc.) I see sections just as one of the "sorting methods", but it has the advantage to be one of the preferred methods for some editors - those opposed to single list (thus making compromise easier if at least one of the sorting criteria is implemented trough sections - for example the sorting criteria preferred by single list opposers).


 * Anyway, if everyone agrees to start with a single list ("clean sheet" defined by the inclusion criteria) and then to select different sorting methods (I don't think we should exclude "sections" from the beginning, but don't object even this) to implement different sorting criteria (but not multiple sorting methods for a single sorting criteria) - I'm fine with such arrangement.


 * The sorting methods that I remember are: sections, colors, italics, bold, signs, multiple columns (e.g. column for "dispute", for "UN membership", for "recognition", etc.) Alinor (talk) 08:18, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

@all: The concept of statehood, as accepted under international law, is based on natural law principles: a state is either a state, by fulfilling the Montevideo Convention, or it isn't. The problem is that in practice, the criteria for statehood is subject to interpretation, and certain states more closely fulfill the criteria than others. The result is that the degree of "stateness" is subjective and forms more of a continuum rather than clearly two clearly delineated categories. For example: Could we argue that the United States is more of a state than the Holy See because under the population criterion, the Vatican City only has a ecclesiastical (professionally-situated) population? or that Taiwan is more of a state than Somalia because the latter only controls a few blocks of Mogadishu (hardly a defined territory)?

While the single list isn't perfect, I believe having separate lists is less NPOV because it conveys a hierarchy of statehood counter to the doctrines of international law and counter to the difficulties of having to interpret international law. --Jiang (talk) 07:21, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a highly misleading comment, in multiple ways. Yes, it's subject to interpretation that's why we look to sources. I'm not sure about the factual accuracy of those examples either. Outback the koala (talk) 07:28, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * If I'm being misleading, then please elaborate. I'm not trying to mislead anyone. I'm just putting up some hypotheticals for thought and to illustrate that categories don't necessarily exist; posing the question does not mean I believe in the affirmative. I don't believe there is a yes/no answer.--Jiang (talk) 07:34, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Ok, well we aren't philosophizing are we? I really don't think that if we display what recognition stands at for the reader to see themselves, that somehow makes the two lists a sliding scale of stateness. When did discussion on the Holy See come up? Outback the koala (talk) 07:39, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Koala, Jiang - please tone it down. don't talk at or about other editor; keep the discussion focused on the topic.  Outback, I'd prefer it if you redacted the 'philosophizing' comment, and the 'misleading' comment from the previous post  -- Ludwigs 2  07:43, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure how Jiang is being misleading and he's right that in the 21st century it risks OR to pretend the Montevideo Convention doesn't control sovereignty under international law. Noting problems/questions/disputes is one thing, but if an entity meets the Montevideo Convention standard, it's presumed to possess sovereignty. Since all states listed possess the trait, there's no real occasion to separate them under a NPOV.


 * The only rationale for separation is not recognition but the level of meeting Montevideo criteria (listed above, I believe). Are there any states on the list whose de facto possession of its territory is disputed? Palestine. Any others? — LlywelynII  21:45, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

@Taivo, Outback the koala: is there a problem in a table split in sections in the default view of the article (as you want), but with the additional capability to sort it alphabetically (as any list is supposed to be ordered, actually) - only if the reader makes an explicit action showing that he wants to view the list alphabetically? Please keep in mind that the list already has "inclusion criteria" - there is no reason to prevent the reader viewing entities satisfying those criteria in alphabetical order. If you think that some state doesn't satisfy the inclusion criteria, or that these should be changed, or that another list with different inclusion criteria should be established - all these issues are separate. But I see no reason to prevent a reader making an explicit decision to use alphabetic sort instead of the sort we decide to force on him. And of course the table is easily restorable into "our" sort view (in Sandbox2 there are two buttons - "our sort" and "alpha sort"), and is restored into "our sort" on page refresh, and is shown as "our sort" to any reader not clicking on the "alpha sort" button. Alinor (talk) 07:44, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ These points about list functionality are very important and should be addressed by all editors who feel a single list is unacceptable, despite the ability of notes/colors/markers to address disputes in a NPOV fashion. — LlywelynII  22:59, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

@Night: No one disagrees with this. But there are many ways to take into consideration the various legal situations. Bold/colouring/asterisks/disclaimers can all be added to clearly indicate that some states are disputed. Sectioning is only one way, but unfortunately it's a very rigid way that doesn't allow much freedom. TDL (talk) 19:00, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

@Nightw: Sovereignty is exercised; it is not disputed. It is meant to reflect a state of being under natural law. What is commonly disputed is the legitimacy of a state, not the sovereignty of a state. The reason why I think separate lists is less NPOV than a color-coded sortable single list is because the degree of dispute varies, and to put a borderline state in one section instead of the other would be making a judgment call that I don't think we should be making.

@Pfainuk: The list contains a description section on the far right column. Just because a state is included on this list does not mean we deem their status not to be in dispute. It would, as it is now, explained in the individual entries. How would the distinction not be clear and mistakable at first glance if the default view were separate categories (via headings/colors), but readers would still be given the option to sort and rearrange the list?--Jiang (talk) 19:35, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

UN versus not UN
What about a division strictly between UN members and non UN members. Clearly there is the argument that we are repeating List of United Nations member states, but everyone seems to think that UN membership is very important, so let's try this. Again, we could bold/colour/asterisk/note the states in the "non-member" category to indicate the various levels of acceptance. The benifit of this setup is that there is no WP:SYN by arbitrarily merging VC into the UN members section. TDL (talk) 23:40, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

responses (UN membership)
✅ I don't particularly like this setup, but I'm running out of compromises to offer. TDL (talk) 23:40, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure who wrote the above (kindly sign your posts, please,) but that division would have nothing to do either with the namespace or the current inclusion criteria. Further, even under a constructive inclusion criteria, there are some disputes within the UN over recognition of legitimate sovereignty. As posted above, this rationale should just lead to the page being a disambig pointing to the list of UN nations page and the one for states of disputed sovereignty, which I think would be unhelpful. — LlywelynII  23:41, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

There is no reason for such arbitrary picking of this particular organization, no source to support it, and there are reasons NOT to pick it: sources show otherwise, UN itself uses a different set of organizations, membership in UN is subject to veto by 5 of more than 190 member states (thus it's POVed by these 5 states - undue weight). Alinor (talk) 22:05, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

✅ Picking the UN as the primary feature of sorting the list is not arbitrary at all, but is the criterion used in most published lists as well. Vatican City is the only gray area, but we can build a separate consensus on how to deal with it. --Taivo (talk) 22:16, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Discussion (UN membership)

 * What is this "single list" in the headline? Isn't this about UN vs. non-UN two section split? Alinor (talk) 22:05, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Compromises - What about Vienna vs. non-Vienna (per UN practice)? What about Sandbox2 (additionally splitting Vienna into UN Vienna and non-UN Vienna; adding coloring per "All states")? Alinor (talk) 22:05, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I disagree with using Vienna since it is not the criterion used in published sources. Published sources use UN membership in lists of countries, not some international legalistic formula that can lead to gray areas as far as inclusion or non-inclusion is concerned.  UN membership is used in published sources, it is quickly and easily verifiable, and it doesn't leave gray areas or the need to synthesize information from a variety of sources to determine.  Alinor claimed above that there is no source to support using UN membership to divide the list, but he is absolutely wrong in that since I have provided two sources right above that use UN membership (and UN membership only) to distinguish the states in their lists.  --Taivo (talk) 22:19, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Vienna IS used - by the UN itself and by other international organizations and treaties (there are numerous - you can see links to some of these in the archives). And you didn't gave sources that show somebody "using" UN membership as differentiator for statehood - you named two atlases that mention UN membership in their list of countries, that apparently (because I haven't see these) includes a mixed bag of non-UN states such as Vatican, Taiwan, etc. This is not "using" UN membership, this is just noting it in a list.
 * UN membership is not valid way of sorting, because even the UN itself doesn't use it. It is a highly relevant thing to be noted (as we do currently in the extents and as some atlases you seen), but that's it. The UN and other international organizations and treaties DON'T use UN membership, they use Vienna/All States. Alinor (talk) 06:38, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You are collapsing two different issues here. We are not talking about inclusion in the list--that's where Vienna can be used to build the total list.  We are only talking about sorting within the list--that's where UN membership is exactly what is used most often to sort lists of "countries of the world" that include both members and non-members.  Indeed, no other criterion is used in any of the sources I've looked at.  Not one.  Only UN membership is used to distinguish one state's status from another.  It doesn't matter what the UN uses, it matters what people use and what reliable sources use.  And both people and reliable sources use UN membership to sort their lists of "countries of the world".  --Taivo (talk) 07:43, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not collapsing anything. We use different criteria for inclusion in the list, that's not what we discuss here. UN membership is unsuitable both as inclusion criteria and as sole sorting criteria - I can accept its usage as one of the sorting criteria (I think this is wrong and giving undue weight and unnecessary since we already include UN membership information in the extents).
 * And no, the two (or more atlases) that you supplied don't use UN as differentiator, they just mention it as important fact - just as the status quo article does in the extents. And TDL gave you example of another atlases that don't even mention UN membership. And even if your atlases did use it - "I don't think we should be favoring atlases over treaties, opinions of international commissions and jurists, and international law scholarship. We shouldn't care what the average reader already believes, but rather, what is the consensus among professionals who deal with international law." and some unofficial atlases can not be chosen over UN Office of Legal Affairs. And Vienna is also used by other intergovernmental organizations and treaties - if you insist I can fish up some links from the archives.
 * And no, it doesn't matter "what people use" (people generally don't "use" such things anyway - where do you "use" your knowledge of who is a state and who isn't? Or who is more-of-a-state than the others?), but what WP:RS say. Alinor (talk) 08:12, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

@First responder: Sorry, forgot to sign my post. (As did you apparently!) Also, I agree with all of your points. I'm just trying to find a compromise here. As I stated, I don't like it for the reasons you gave, but other users have advocated for such at setup. I'm just trying to see if there is any room for compromise here. TDL (talk) 23:40, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that was ironic. :) Feel free to rip apart my ideas below. You did a very good job arguing the flaws of Taivo's original proposal above. — LlywelynII  23:50, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

@Alinor: I agree with you. But perhaps bolding/colours/etc can be used for the "Other" states to make such distinctions. No one is going to get exactly what they want here. TDL (talk) 23:40, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I don't object using the unsupported-by-sources-and-the-UN, but preferred-by-some-Wikipedians UN membership POV as a second sorting criteria - in order to do a compromise. But we can't disregard Vienna/All States. Alinor (talk) 06:38, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Vienna versus non-Vienna
"States became members of specialized agencies, and as such were in essence recognized as States by the international community." - the UN basically says: "widely recognized/recognized by the international community" = "member of the UN, ICJ, IAEA, FAO, ICAO, IFAD, ILO, IMO, IMF, ITU, UNESCO, UNIDO, UPU, WBG, WHO, WIPO, WMO, UNWTO". And some of these organizations are older than the UN. Some are even older than the League of Nations. Some of these ~20 organizations have more member states than the UN.

The collective of ~20 organizations is naturally more representative of the "worldwide opinion" than a single hand-picked organization, whoever it is. And these ~20 organizations are not arbitrary selected by Wikipedia editors or some particular individual/organization/atlas/reader-common-sense/common misconception/etc. - these ~20 organizations are utilized as criteria my many international treaties and organizations, including the UN.

Vienna formula is WP:V easily verifiable both as exact wording of the criteria and as resulting list of states. Additionally its actual usage as criteria for distinguishing states is also easily verifiable. What more do we need? Alinor (talk) 22:05, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

responses (Vienna)
✅ I see no reason to deviate from UN practice and I don't see other WP:V and WP:RS proposals (besides additionally applying "All states" by second sorting method) Alinor (talk) 22:05, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

No. Vienna requires synthesis of information from various sources and is not the criterion used in common published sources and is not the criterion used by our readers, which is based on the published sources they're most familiar with. --Taivo (talk) 22:21, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

As I just posted above: "Vienna status has nothing to do with de facto sovereignty or with the problems being raised by those objecting to a unitary list because of problems with recognition. Further, it is objective, but arcane and nonintuitive. Vienna status might be one of the notes added to the lists however they shake out, but a pure Vienna list belongs at a different namespace or under a separate inclusion criteria." — LlywelynII  22:50, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

✅ More neutral version of UN members/non-UN members. TDL (talk) 09:10, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Discussion (Vienna)
The proposer claims that using the UN is "arbitrarily picking one organization out of 20". That is not the case at all. The UN is the organization that is picked above and beyond all others in published "lists of countries" to distinguish one set of states from another. The Vienna formula also claims that membership in a single international organization makes a nation's sovereignty equivalent to every other nation's sovereignty. That is not the case. Indeed, who has picked this list of 20 organizations? The UN, us, anybody who claims that their organization is "international"? Does it include international organizations like Freemasonry or the Boy Scouts or the Rotary? There are too many opportunities for disagreement and gray areas in using the Vienna formula. --Taivo (talk) 22:29, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Using the Vienna criteria actually recognizes the importance of the UN as the selector of Wiki's criteria. It arguably is a better choice than "UN v. other," but it's still unhelpful, arcane, and aside both the point of Montevideo-based sovereignty and that of the recognition disputes underlying the disagreements about simply listing Mbs-qualified entities. — LlywelynII  22:54, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * about "arcane, etc." - see my comment below for "sources vs. readers", WP:V, WP:RS. Montevideo-based sovereignty is already utilized as inclusion criteria - we can't further use it for sorting (this will result in single uniform list). UN membership also doesn't take care of recognition disputes - there are UN members with limited recognition. And Vienna is not worse in that aspect - as you can see by the unsuccessful attempts of Taiwan to join WHO and by its lack of membership in any of the Vienna organizations. In addition we have the "All States" invocation that can be used as additional sorting criteria (it's not so easy to verify as Vienna memberships). Alinor (talk) 07:14, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Taivo, as Jiang said "I don't think we should be favoring atlases over treaties, opinions of international commissions and jurists, and international law scholarship. We shouldn't care what the average reader already believes, but rather, what is the consensus among professionals who deal with international law." - so I suggest that we don't deviate from UN Office of Legal Affairs.
 * Vienna formula doesn't claim anything, but the UN Office of Legal Affairs uses it "to determine which entities are States" and states that "States became members of specialized agencies, and as such were in essence recognized as States by the international community."
 * "That is not the case." - I suggest that we don't contradict the UN position with our own blanked statements.
 * "who has picked this list of 20 organizations?" - the people (legal and diplomatic professional working for state governments) that prepared the Vienna convention and all other treaties that use the Vienna formula, the governments of the states that signed all these treaties, the UN. I think all of these can be called something like the "collective of world states", "international community", etc.
 * you made some complain about "international organizations" such as Boy Scouts that it seems you find unreliable for our case here. I agree. But Vienna formula has nothing to do with them. It is used by intergovernmental organizations, not by International nongovernmental organizations or other private groups like these you mentioned (or rather, private groups&NGOs may use or not use it, but this is irrelevant).
 * "There are too many opportunities for disagreement and gray areas in using the Vienna formula." - please, could you be more specific - what are the gray areas or other problems? Maybe we can solve them somehow, if there are any. Alinor (talk) 07:14, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

@Taivo: Vienna doesn't require any SYNTH (??) and it is the only WP:V and WP:RS criteria proposed so far. Vienna IS used - by the UN itself "to determine which entities are States" and by other international organizations and treaties (there are numerous - you can see links to some of these in the archives). And you didn't gave sources that show somebody "using" UN membership as differentiator for statehood - you named two atlases that mention UN membership in their list of countries, that apparently (because I haven't see these) includes a mixed bag of non-UN states such as Vatican, Taiwan, etc. This is not "using" UN membership, this is just noting it in a list. UN membership is not valid way of sorting, because even the UN itself doesn't use it. It is a highly relevant thing to be noted (as we do currently in the extents and as some atlases you seen), but that's it. The UN and other international organizations and treaties DON'T use UN membership, they use Vienna/All States. And you are not correct in implying that we should write what "readers expect to see" instead of what "sources say"UN Office of Legal Affairs: "to determine which entities are States", "States became members of specialized agencies, and as such were in essence recognized as States by the international community.", etc. about the Vienna formula. Alinor (talk) 07:14, 20 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Alinor, your comment that Vienna is the only WP:V and WP:RS criteria proposed so far is absolutely false. UN membership is perfectly verifiable as a sorting criterion.  You can look it up in any list of UN members.  So please do not continue with that untruth.  I have also provided you with references to at least two lists where UN membership is used as a sorting criterion, so your claim that atlases are not reliable sources is also false.  WP:NCON is also very clear that "what readers expect to see" is one of the things to be considered in Wikipedia.  We should not be using unfamiliar sorting criteria.  --Taivo (talk) 07:49, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Please, provide a source that uses UN membership as "statehood differentiator". The two (or more atlases) that you supplied don't use UN as differentiator, they just mention it as important fact - just as the status quo article does in the extents. And TDL gave you example of another atlases that don't even mention UN membership. And even if your atlases did use it - "I don't think we should be favoring atlases over treaties, opinions of international commissions and jurists, and international law scholarship. We shouldn't care what the average reader already believes, but rather, what is the consensus among professionals who deal with international law." and some unofficial atlases can not be chosen over UN Office of Legal Affairs. And Vienna is also used by other intergovernmental organizations and treaties - if you insist I can fish up some links from the archives.
 * I don't claim that unofficial atlases are not reliable, but that they are much less reliable than official UN Office of Legal Affairs document dealing with the issue. And also we have other unofficial atlases that contradict your claim.
 * And no, it doesn't matter "what people use" (people generally don't "use" such things anyway - where do you "use" your knowledge of who is a state and who isn't? Or who is more-of-a-state than the others?), but what WP:RS say. Anyway, "what people use" is not a reference and I don't see how we can 1. know for sure what they use 2. use it in the article with WP:V.
 * I don't know what WP:NCON has to do with this, but if you refer to WP:COMMONNAME I don't think it is related either (we are not discussing article title that people use to find the information they want - we are speaking about article content sorting criteria). Would you explain? Alinor (talk) 08:24, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

@LlywelynII: see reply to Taivo about usage of Vienna as statehood differentiator by the UN itself and other international organizations and treaties and about "nonintuitive" (common sense, common misconception, what readers expect to see). And for me also to copy from my reply above "I don't suggest "unitary list" based on Vienna as inclusion criteria. I suggest that whatever separation method we employ (sections, colors, etc.) the first sorting criteria should be Vienna (e.g. we separate the "list of entities satisfying the inclusion criteria" into "entities that are states according to the Vienna formula utilized by the UN and other international organizations and treaties" (e.g. current "widely recognized" section) and "entities that satisfy the inclusion criteria, but not the Vienna formula" (e.g. current "others" section). Whether this is done in a single list with coloring, or in a 2 section split or trough different separation method - this is a separate question." Alinor (talk) 07:14, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

@Taivo: Our job isn't to give readers what they are familiar with or what they want to here. It's to give readers the correct information, even if that is slightly more complicated. WP:COMMONNAME applies to the article name only, not the content. TDL (talk) 09:10, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Sovereign and Quasi-Sovereign States
All states meeting the page's sovereignty criteria deserve (per NPOV) inclusion into a single sortable list. Challenges to recognition aside the point both of the international-consensus interpretation of the namespace & the page's stated inclusion criteria may nonetheless be noted in a column of the chart.

States such as Palestine who do not fully meet the Montevideo criteria (per WP:V/WP:RELY) but nonetheless are recognized by at least one other nation as possessing a sovereign government may be noted in the second chart.

Responses
✅ Tossing this out there. — LlywelynII  23:26, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

✅ Willing to consider this, but unsure of how we could verify it. TDL (talk) 00:04, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

This is nothing more than the single-list option which I opposed above for cause. --Taivo (talk) 00:10, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Discussion (Sovereign)
I'm ok with this in theory, but I suspect that it would be nearly impossible to verify. It can't be us as editors that goes point-by-point through the Montevideo criteria to verify whether they qualify or not, since this would be WP:SYN. Plus the criteria is too vague to definitively verify anyways. What the hell does "capacity to enter into relations with the other state" really mean anyways? Just answering that question requires us to do OR before even trying to verify it. Are there any RS out there which have published a list of states which satisfy the Montevideo criteria? If so, this could work. TDL (talk) 00:04, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

@Taivo: No, you missed the second paragraph. This is a two list setup. Those states which completely satisfy Montevideo are in section 1. Those states which don't, such as Palestine, are in section 2. TDL (talk) 00:19, 20 February 2011 (UTC)


 * The problem with both Montevideo and Vienna is that they have multiple criteria which are not always perfectly verifiable or determinable. There can always be debate based on minute legal points of their relationship to some state or other.  Using UN membership as a single point criterion eliminates all debate about which list a particular state belongs in.  It is either a member of the General Assembly or it is not.  Crisp, clean, verifiable, and commonly used as a criterion in reliable sources.  --Taivo (talk) 02:17, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Vienna doesn't have "multiple criteria" - the only criteria there is membership in UN, ICJ, IAEA, FAO, ICAO, IFAD, ILO, IMO, IMF, ITU, UNESCO, UNIDO, UPU, WBG, WHO, WIPO, WMO, UNWTO. Both the wording of the Vienna criteria and the membership lists are easily verifiable (see the membership lists sources here).
 * "debate based on minute legal points of their relationship to some state or other." - membership of what state in which Vienna organization is debatable? And how could it be - it is either a member state or not, pretty simple - and the lists are publicly available, online - you can see them yourself.
 * The UN membership (being one of the Vienna organizations) is just as easy to verify, yes - but Vienna has the additional advantage to actually be used by the UN and other intergovernmental organizations and treaties as "statehood differentiator" and this is also verifiable - UN Office of Legal Affairs - not in some unofficial atlas or by readers/Wikipedians common sense and interpretations. Alinor (talk) 07:51, 20 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm unsure about this. I agree with TDL that this seems very hard to verify. About Montevideo (Declarative theory) - we already do our share of OR/SYNTH by utilizing it for inclusion criteria - and my interpretation (yes, this is not WP:RS) of the inclusion criteria is that they boil down to "entity claiming independence, sovereignty and statehood, and having full control of permanently populated territory" (of course who satisfies this can be debatable). And since the page currently includes one entity that doesn't satisfy these criteria - the State of Palestine - the proposal above is to split it in a second section according to the Constitutive theory criteria "be recognised as a state by at least one other state". Is this the proposal? I think that both "full control" (Do Russian troops "protecting the independent state" disqualify it or not?) and "capacity to enter into relations with the other state" (Do having only recognition, but no diplomatic relations established disqualify it or not? Do having some kind of official relations, but without recognition disqualify it or not? If not, what level of relations is needed and are we going to judge if the sources that we have - that are often ambiguous - show "sufficient" level of relations?) - but all of this already applies to the status quo inclusion criteria. Is this proposal to have 2 section split Declarative theory vs. Constitutive theory or rather Declarative+Constitutive vs. only-one-of-the-two? I tried to put example result, but didn't because it would only spark protests - I agree with TDL and I think that this is very hard to verify and thus prone to objections. Alinor (talk) 07:51, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Undisputed Sovereign States & Disputed Sovereign States
Taivo's original proposal suffered from a number of problems, including the UN's recognition of the Ukraine SSR as a member state and disputes among UN states. (See above.) But it's still possible, non-POV, and non-OR to separate the list of sovereign states into those whose sovereignty is unimpeached and those whose sovereignty is questioned (per WP:V/WP:RELY) by at least one other nation.

This may mean that some generally-recognized states, such as the Koreas, will be placed on the second list. So be it: that is, in fact, their actual, verifiable, and non-POV status. Further, the obvious and objective criteria (and its inclusion of "obviously real" countries) mitigates the pejorative nature of the second list.

Responses
✅ Another idea. This is perhaps the only obvious and short division by recognition available. After this, the idea of separate lists blows up into Alinor's 9-10 category monster in one of the discussion threads above. — LlywelynII  23:40, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

No. Without separating the UN members out in a separate category, this becomes meaningless--see below. --Taivo (talk) 00:11, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

✅ I'm not a big fan of this because it moves a few states which are otherwise universally recognized into the second category, but it's completely NPOV as long as we're careful what we say. And the division is well defined. Much better than what we've got currently anyways. TDL (talk) 00:17, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Clarification: I'd support if we used Taivo's definition of disputed, but I'm not sure that a single random non-recognition is notable enough to put the state in a separate section. TDL (talk) 00:29, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

I really like this because its something we haven't seen, really outside the box. Plus it addresses alot of the issues we have. However, it would necessitate breaking apart the widely recognised/UN members list, which for me is a no no. Outback the koala (talk) 00:22, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Discussion
Alinor, I believe, raised the point above that it is difficult to (eg) verify that no one currently challenges the sovereignty of the Vatican. This is a non-problem. States will belong to the first list pending a WP:V/WP:RELY source which states that the sovereignty is in fact questioned. — LlywelynII  23:40, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No, it wasn't me - I don't think we have a reason to put Vatican into "disputed" category - there is no source showing a state disputing its sovereignty. There are just a few states that haven't yet established diplomatic relations with it or haven't issued statements of recognition - but they haven't issued statements of non-recognition either, on the contrary - most of these have kind of "contact" with it. Alinor (talk) 09:07, 20 February 2011 (UTC)


 * The way it's phrased here, if the dictator of Liechtenstein wakes up one morning and suddenly decides that he will post a decree denying the sovereignty of the U.S., then the U.S. would have to be placed in the second list. This is not acceptable.  The argument about the Ukrainian SSR is past tense and was an artifact of the UN's creation.  It is not a problem that has occurred since and is not likely to occur in the future since the UN no longer accepts dependent states.  It was a one-off issue.  So the argument that UN membership should not be used because of this is not valid.  --Taivo (talk) 00:09, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I think LlywelynII's suggestion was to use your definition of disputed. So only disputes between a newly declared state and the former sovereign would be counted.  TDL (talk) 00:17, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * That may have been his/her original intent, but the way this is worded, any state whose sovereignty is "questioned by at least one other state" is the way he/she worded it. --Taivo (talk) 00:23, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * On re-reading it, I think you're right. I just saw the reference to your previous proposal and assumed LlywelynII was working with that definition.  TDL (talk) 00:26, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Liechtenstein is a principality. Outback the koala (talk) 00:24, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is.....today ;) --Taivo (talk) 00:33, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * lol, who says this cant be fun? Outback the koala (talk) 00:51, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Funny you should mention Liechtenstein, since until just over a year ago, the Prince refused to recognise both the Czech Republic and Slovakia because they'd confiscated some of his castles after the war. It'd be silly to separate these two from the rest just because they won't give some prince his stuff back.  Night w   09:15, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * One problem with Taivo "disputed by former sovereign" criteria is that we already got in disagreement over whether North Korea and PRChina are in this situation (by Japan and ROC respectively) and the dispute could be stretched further to include Cyprus (Turkey is one of the three "guaranteer" states of the Cyprus constitutive treaty - along with UK and Greece) and Israel (Its territory was a League of Nations mandate and later UN trust territory - under British rule, yes, but it could be argued that all UN members were "holding" it collectively - and some of the countries not recognizing Israel as a state were members of both the League of Nations and/or UN founders or joined the UN before Israel). And let's not start with more difficult cases such as duality of statements - for relations with third countries and for bilateral relations (CI/Niue).
 * "disputed by former sovereign" needs a big amount of OR/SYNTH. "at least 1 non-recognition" is better at verification (but still has some problems). Alinor (talk) 09:07, 20 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Unsure. I tried to put +/- signs below for advantages/disadvantages, but most of them became a draw in the end.
 * + "explicit non-recognition by at least 1 state" is easy to verify, yes. Thus it is a real criteria unlike the weaselish "widely recognized" in the status quo.
 * - "by at least 1 state" - do all states included in the list qualify here? What if Northern Cyprus doesn't recognize Philippines? This is open to disputes and some already complained about the "1 non-recognition" even if it's by a "regular mainstream" state and not some of the 10others like TRNC (see next point).
 * (draw) It can be argued that this is NPOV, but others may find it otherwise - "1 non-recognition gives undue weight to the non-recognizer" (Liechtenstein).
 * (draw) This will break "widely recognized" (regardless if you see this per "UN membership POV" or per "UN POV"/Vienna/All States), but criteria should be applied impartially - we are not here to create "our preferred" list.
 * - Vatican issue - I don't think this is a problem and I see it just as "non-declared recognition", but somebody else may argue that it is "non-declared non-recognition". Alinor (talk) 09:07, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

@LlywelynII: just to clarify that my 9-category 12:50, 18 February 2011 comment was not a proposal for a way to split the list, but was just a description of what kind of states there are. As was pointed already "everything is not black and white, there is a gray area with varying degree of recognition/control/statehood/sovereignty/etc. and it's hard (or impossible) to draw a solid line there". Alinor (talk) 12:43, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

A new approach
So since none of the above discussions seems to be going anywhere, let's try approaching this from a different angle. If others insist on a division into multiple sections, then our first priority needs to be to figure out what characteristic of statehood is most important to us, which we can then use as our axis to plot the states. It can't be a combo "If A or B but not C" since this is WP:SYN. So we need a single characteristic to utilize in the division.

Please state below what you think is the most important characteristic of statehood, which you believe we should use for the divisions. Is it "membership in international organizations", "existence of disputes", "degree to which Montevideo criteria is satisfied", or something else I've not considered?

Note that this isn't the place to discuss HOW we actually divide the states along this axis. This can be negotiated at a future time. The point here is to try and get a general consensus on what axis we are going to plot the states. Perhaps if we can agree on this, it will be easier to come to a consensus on how to do the divisions. TDL (talk) 09:30, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Responses

 * UN membership. --Taivo (talk) 09:56, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Degree to which Montevideo criteria is satisfied. See above.--Jiang (talk) 10:31, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Vienna organizations membership, utilized by UN Office of Legal Affairs and other international organizations and treaties. Alinor (talk) 11:07, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Assuming this is still just sorting and not inclusion; UN membership. Outback the koala (talk) 15:55, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * In terms of splitting the list (as opposed to inclusion in the list as a whole), the most important factor is the degree of international recognition, or put another way, the degree to which the legitimacy of the state concerned is disputed - since the NPOV issues surrounding the existence of such disputes is the reason for the split. This may be measured using membership of international organisations or by some other means. Pfainuk talk 16:36, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Degree of international recognition. States may exist de facto, but many basic functions that states today perform, such as organising visa rights for their citizens, can only be achieved with diplomatic recognition. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 16:23, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Degree to which Montevideo criteria is satisfied. We can make notes about diplomatic confusions, but anything else belongs at a different namespace. List of UN nations already has its own page and doesn't need to be replicated here. — LlywelynII  02:25, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Discussion
@Taivo and koala: Since the UN is a voluntary association, it cannot technically be a "characteristic of statehood."--Jiang (talk) 10:31, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

@Taivo and Alinor: Please answer the question I asked. As I explained, this isn't the place to argue over which organizations to use. If we can at least agree that "membership in international organizations" is the thing to use, then we can debate which organizations to use further. But we haven't got to that point yet. TDL (talk) 11:56, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, I see what you mean. One more "axis" is "number of recognitions/non-recognitions" (degree of Constitutive theory).
 * All of the axes have some advantages, but major disadvantage in most of the cases is the lack of non-OR/SYNTH/judgments-by-Wikipedians and WP:V/WP:RS way to implement these. That's why I think we should not invent our own criteria, but use a criteria that itself can be sourced (e.g. that is actually used outside of Wikipedia/our common sense). Thus you may count me in the "membership in international organizations" axis at this stage. Alinor (talk) 12:29, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I did answer the question--what criterion/a should be use to sort the list? As should be clear from my previous responses, the UN is not just any old international organization, but is a unique international organization, not only in its charter, but in the way that the average reader perceives it.  "International organization membership" and "UN membership" are different things.  --Taivo (talk) 16:44, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The relevant UN uniqueness here is its granting veto power for admission of new members to 5 of its more than 190 member states and the resulting undue weight. What the average reader perceives is irrelevant. What matters are WP:RS and WP:V.
 * In the context of TDL question both "UN membership" and "Vienna organizations membership" are in the axis of "membership in international organizations". What he said is that we choose an axis first and debate details later (e.g. in the case of this axis - what international organizations to use). Alinor (talk) 18:13, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Right, as Alinor said. I didn't ask what criteria to use.  My question was, what is the characteristic we are trying to measure?  UN membership is just a specific choice of divisions along the axis of "membership in international organizations".  We all get that you're pushing for using UN membership, you've made that abundantly clear.  But we need to build a consensus here by baby steps.  If everyone agrees to measure things along the axis of "membership in international organizations", then we can discuss how exactly to do this.  Perhaps we can have 2 sections, UN members/Non-UN members, with those states in the non-member section who are in a Vienna Organization coloured.  Perhaps we can have 3 sections: UN Members/Other Vienna/Other.  Perhaps a single divided and sortable section between UN members and Other Vienna, with a completely separate and unsortable section for the other states.  There are many creative ways we could try and bridge the gap if we can at least agree on the big picture.  TDL (talk) 19:19, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * As I mentioned above, we should not take the perception of ordinary readers (whatever those are) above treaties, opinions of international commissions and jurists, and international law scholarship. Here, we are first trying to determine the most important criterion for statehood. I really can't comprehend in what way UN membership, in any rendering of international law, can be it.--Jiang (talk) 20:49, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

@Alinor: in order to answer the question, perhaps your response could be phrased as "right to sign multilateral treaties"?

@Pfainuk: I thought this question was asking for the most important characteristic of statehood, explicitly not how to divide the list of states.--Jiang (talk) 20:36, 20 February 2011 (UTC)


 * My reading the question was: what is the most important factor in splitting the list was - not the detail, but the basis of the division. By your reading my answer would be to reject the premise of the question that the splitting criteria must necessarily be based on the inclusion criteria or what editors consider to be the most important feature of statehood.


 * The whole point in splitting the list is so that we can actually have neutrality through the division of entities that are not considered states by most of the world from the rest of the list. Plainly, there is no reason to assume that the splitting the list using the most important characteristic of statehood or the inclusion criteria will actually address the neutrality problem that is the whole point of the exercise. Pfainuk talk 21:19, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Maybe I didn't word the question very clearly, but I think Pfainuk's answer was fine. My intent was to ask "What is the most important characteristic of statehood for distinguishing between marginal states and generally accepted states".  He said the most important characteristic is "degree of international recognition" and proposed to measure it using "membership of international organisations".  All I wanted here was to avoid the arguments over what subdivisions to use, ie wheter we should use UN exclusively or Vienna.  If we can all agree to base the sections on international membership, then we can decide how to make the divisions in a future discussion.  TDL (talk) 21:53, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Jiang, this whole discussion isn't about "what constitutes a state". We already have a list of entities that are sovereign states by some definition.  We are not deciding inclusion in the list.  We are trying to decide how to sort those entities into one or more sublists.  --Taivo (talk) 23:38, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I guess I misunderstood the question. As a result, what I proposed above is probably the least workable. The sorting criteria is better based on a "manifestation of statehood" (involving the recognition of states) rather than a "characteristic of statehood" as the latter will encounter verifiability problems. Given that membership in international organizations is voluntary and degree of international recognition does not lend itself to categorization, I'm torn. The right to sign multilateral treaties (Vienna formula) is an alternative. I believe in a solution that uses "all of the above".--Jiang (talk) 08:13, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

IMHO, only sovereign states, shuold be included in that article. GoodDay (talk) 03:29, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Only sovereign states will be included in that article. There's no dispute about that (especially since the title of the article is List of sovereign states).  --Taivo (talk) 07:17, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * For example: The USA's territories should be excluded, as well as the UK's England, Scotland, Northern Ireland & Wales. Just have the United States & the United Kingdom. -- GoodDay (talk) 15:02, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * That's exactly what the current list does. The "new" listing we're discussing here is simply a potential reordering of the list as it now stands, not an attempt to add more entities to it.  --Taivo (talk) 15:15, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * This is one of the only things that we ALL agree on. TDL (talk) 19:31, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Indeed. Outback the koala (talk) 03:52, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

@Chipmunkdavis. I don't think this rationale is true for Taiwan and the way it conducts "unofficial relations" with most of the world. Nominally private organizations such as the American Institute in Taiwan and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office are funded/controlled by their governments and staffed by professional diplomatic personnel and offer the whole range of consular functions, functioning as embassies all but in name.--Jiang (talk) 18:32, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * And doesn't the US still officially offer military assistance to Taiwan? If that isn't recognition...  --Taivo (talk) 19:20, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

@Chipmunkdavis: How do you suggest measuring this? We can't count recognizers, since we don't have the sources. So we need something more easily verified. TDL (talk) 19:30, 21 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I saw Taiwan coming up. I think there are going to be grey areas in every situation, Taiwan of course being a strange case of a former recognised sovereign state that was never quite eliminated by the new government. I'm not starting a discussion here, but the UN counts in my mind as the highest level of recognition, and from that I think the important factor is countries whose full territory is not claimed by another. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 00:15, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * "full territory not claimed by another" - I tried to formulate such criteria and there were the following problems:


 * 1) North Korea, South Korea, PRChina and maybe Israel, Cyprus - these would fall in the "third, least-prestigious group" if we don't add some kind of "wavier" (UN, Vienna, "All States")
 * 2) Palestine - that would rise into "second group" if we don't add "occupation" to the "claim" (because Israel occupies, but doesn't stake claim over the whole of WB/GS)
 * 3) It was pointed out that both "claim" and "occupation" will result in debates, thus OR/SYNTH in worst case and very weak WP:V/WP:RS backing in the best case
 * 4) Adding any kind of wavier is also prone to disputes (and can be accused of being OR/SYNTH itself) and makes the criteria a complex multi-criteria. Also adding wavier/occupation seems like "manual fixing", e.g. we add these so that the end result is compliant with our common sense, "I like it that way", etc. - this is also OR/SYNTH issue and fails WP:V/WP:RS.
 * 5) The whole criteria wording is not sourced from anywere, but written by Wikipedians. (and can be accused of being OR/SYNTH itself)
 * I don't know if we can overcome these problems. Alinor (talk) 09:21, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

@Night w, why do you think that "if membership in international organisations must be a criteria, then it should be restricted to the General Assembly"? This contradicts the practice of the UN itself and of other international organizations and treaties. UN Office of Legal Affairs. This gives undue weight and seems by arbitrary pick of one single organization. And what about Switzerland and many others that joined the UN much later than its formation/their independence or haven't joined it yet? If we apply that criteria in 1980 what would be the result? Inappropriate. Of course, today the non-member states are fewer, but that doesn't mean we should do such arbitrary choices that contradict WP:RS. Alinor (talk) 10:19, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Alinor, this is not 1980. This is 2011--times have changed and attitudes have changed.  What does the history of the UN matter now?  Every undisputed state except for Vatican City is now a member of the UN.  Vatican City is so unique in its characteristics that it really isn't as much of an exception to the rule as it may seem on first glance.  Indeed, Vatican City is the exception that proves the rule.  In today's world, states no longer put off joining the UN once they are eligible.  --Taivo (talk) 15:54, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Epic Agree, Every widely recognised state except for Vatican City is now a member of the UN.Outback the koala (talk) 16:11, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * This may be true by chance TODAY, but what about tomorrow? What if Southern Sudan's membership is vetoed, in spite of overwhelming recognition?  You can't WP:CBALL that this will always be true.
 * Again, I agree with you that UN membership is the MOST important, and I'm not opposed to presenting the states in this way. But I don't understand the opposition to also mentioning Vienna organizations.  If we can present both POV's, then why not?  It's a pretty simple compromise, and then we can end this argument and all move on with our lives.  TDL (talk) 19:47, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It's not true "by chance". It's true because every undisputed sovereign state in the world has made the choice to join the UN except for Vatican City.  Vatican City, however, is not really a "normal" state.  Indeed, if we have a single list marking UN membership for members and then other sovereignty notes for non-members ("member of X", "recognized by Y", etc.), then all the information for a reader to determine its Vienna status is already there.  Marking Vienna status is unnecessary for UN member states and is redundant for non-member states based on the notes.  --Taivo (talk) 20:21, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No, this is not true. What is the definition of "undisputed sovereign state"?
 * In your proposal what do you mean by "marking UN membership/member of X/recognized by Y/etc."? What type of marking (separation methods, extent note, etc.)? And please, keep in mind that disregarding WP:RS and WP:V is unacceptable. Alinor (talk) 20:36, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * @Taivo: But that's precisely the problem, it IS true just by chance. If Israel had of been unrecognized by Russia, as opposed to Iraq, it wouldn't be in the UN.  It's ONLY in the UN due to the coincidence that it happens to be unrecognized by states which don't happen to have a veto on the UNSC.  The point is that to get in the UN you have to be BOTH "widely recognized" and be recognized by all of the "special 5".  Excluding a state simply because they aren't recognized by one of the "special 5" is WP:UNDUE.
 * By the same logic of your argument, if we already mention UN membership in the notes then why do we need a special column for it? All of the information is already provided for the reader to see.  A column as I proposed in sandbox3 seems like a simple compromise, since it presents both POV's.  TDL (talk) 21:08, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * "In today's world, states no longer put off joining the UN once they are eligible." - I'm not so sure about that (let's not give examples right now) - any source for that?
 * "Every widely recognised state except for Vatican City is now a member of the UN." - I hope you don't define "widely recognized" as "UN member", because this will be a circular reasoning - so, what definition of "widely recognized" is used for this statement?
 * And even if the only UN non-member state is the Vatican (but there are sources contradicting that) and even if we disregard such high profile example as Switzerland non-membership until recently - this still shows that we can't use ONLY this criteria. We still can't say "we use UN membership as sorting criteria, because regardless of the contradiction caused for Vatican, we consider that the Vatican is too unique to bother with it".
 * Also, there are two ways to non-membership of the UN - 1) not to be a priority of a state with limited resources (above) and 2) to be objected by either sufficient number of UN members or one of the 5 veto holders. The sorting criteria (or at least one of the multiple sorting criteria) should be "immune" to both. And even if we consider 1) not to be an issue anymore (and this is dubious), 2) remains a valid issue - we have Palestine and Kosovo practically in the "waiting room" with a potential veto, etc.
 * I don't want to argue right now about whether UN or Vienna is MOST important, how we measure this, etc., but I agree with TDL that a compromise can be made and both sorting criteria can be utilized. Each trough a different separation method. Alinor (talk) 20:36, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Alinor, if you are going to quote something, quote it accurately or not at all. I did not write "widely recognized state" I wrote "undisputed sovereign state".  If you are going to lie about what I wrote, then please do not comment.
 * Danlaycock, there is a separate column for UN status so that it can be separately sorted. The "info" column shouldn't be sortable.  Also, the issue of the vetos on the Security Council really isn't relevant.  If a state can garner 2/3ds of the states of the General Assembly in support, then it's generally a foregone conclusion that no one will veto their membership.  The whole issue of the Security Council vetos is a smokescreen in this discussion.  My knowledge of the history of the UN is not perfect, so perhaps you can provide an example of a state that had a 2/3rds vote in the General Assembly, but was vetoed in the Security Council.  --Taivo (talk) 23:11, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You missunderstand how the process works. The UNSC doesn't veto decisions taken the the GA, they block a vote from ever taking place.  So it's never known how that vote would have went.
 * "If a state can garner 2/3ds of the states of the General Assembly in support, then it's generally a foregone conclusion that no one will veto their membership" - that's a rather bold claim. Do you have a sources to back this up?  It seems like a rather dubious claim to me.  Do you really think that if 2/3 of states recognized Taiwan, then the PRC would say "Oh well, I guess the people have spoken.  Better let them in."?  A quick look at history would suggest otherwise.
 * China vetoed membership of Mongolia in 1955, since they claimed it was part of China. Another example is Bangladesh.  China vetoed their membership in 1972, since they were allied with Pakistan. .  Taiwan has applied for membership numerous times in the past, but China has blocked it before the GA had a chance to vote on it.  Whether or not these applications would have been approved by 2/3 of the GA is obviously unknown.  The point is that they never even got the chance to be considered by the GA.
 * The whole reason the Vienna formula was invented by the UN-SG was because of these exact concerns. The UN-SG felt that UN membership could be denied due to political interference by the veto holders:
 * "But when a treaty is open to "States", how is the Secretary-General to determine which entities are States? ... a difficulty has occurred as to possible participation in treaties when entities which appeared otherwise to be States could not be admitted to the United Nations, nor become Parties to the Statute of the International Court of Justice owing to the opposition, for political reasons, of a permanent member of the Security Council. Since that difficulty did not arise as concerns membership in the specialized agencies, where there is no "veto" procedure, a number of those States became members of specialized agencies, and as such were in essence recognized as States by the international community."
 * Perhaps you should write a note to the UN-SG informing them that this issue is a "smokescreen"?
 * "there is a separate column for UN status so that it can be separately sorted" - right. Just like there should be a separate column for Vienna formula agencies so that they can be separately sorted by this POV.  Filing the "UN Status" column with either "UN member" or "Agency member" and making it sortable, as I did in sandbox3, is a reasonable compromise because the "only UN matters" POV and the "only Vienna matters" POV by allowing both POV's to be presented simultaneously.  If you insist, then 2 columns could be an awkward solution.  TDL (talk) 00:25, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the clarification. I was under the assumption that the voting took place in the opposite order--GA then SC.  Thank you for the examples.  However, these are old examples and not recent.  They also illustrate the issue of "disputed sovereignty"--the vetoes were because of sovereignty disputes.  That is why the "disputed sovereignty" column is relevant.  Once the sovereignty disputes were resolved, both Mongolia and Bangladesh were admitted.  Taiwan's sovereignty issue is not resolved, so it is reasonable to expect a veto in the SC until it is.  Same with Palestine, Kosovo, etc.  We can reasonably assume that South Sudan's sovereignty will be clear and it will be on a fast track to UN membership.  Also, I have no objections to the column on Sandbox3 that you set up that includes full UN membership as well as membership in UN agencies for states that are not members.  I think that was a good column and obviates the need to mention the Vienna formula specifically.  Alinor's yes/no column in Sandbox4 is not usable since a simple yes/no in that column means that multiple columns would be required for adequate sorting.  Your single column in Sandbox3 is quite sufficient for me since it offers more subtle distinctions than a simple yes/no.  I actually have no objections to your Sandbox3 and think it is superior to Alinor's Sandbox4.  --Taivo (talk) 01:06, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Great, well if you're OK with a sandbox3-style column, then that addresses my major concerns. I think we'd be best to refocus on such a layout and try to hammer out the remaining details.  TDL (talk) 02:36, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Taivo, do you have some reason to attack me? You reverted my edit, that was only removing an obvious section duplication typo. And you deleted my comment. When Outback the koala removed the same duplication you didn't revert his edit. Now, at 23:11, 27 February 2011, you accuse me of inaccurately quoting you " I did not write "widely recognized state" I wrote "undisputed sovereign state". " and accuse me of lying. As you can see in my  comment I ask you "What is the definition of "undisputed sovereign state"?". And in the other part of my comment, that is replying to Outback the koala 16:11, 27 February 2011 , I include the full quote "Every widely recognised state except for Vatican City is now a member of the UN." of his comment. Alinor (talk) 09:44, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Alinor, your misquote above followed your clear label "@Taivo". If you're going to quote someone else, then don't present it as a response to me.  That is prevarication.  --Taivo (talk) 13:57, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * In my comments here I haven't used "@Taivo". Could you give the timestamp of the comment do you refer to? Alinor (talk) 14:13, 28 February 2011 (UTC)