Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion/Log/2008/August/28

SouthOssetia-stub/ and Abkhazia-stub/

 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the stub template and/or category above. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the template's or category's talk page (if any).  No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was categories have been populated and parented in every conceivable fashion

We should have run a sweepstake to see how long it would be before these appeared. unproposed, of course, and against the long-standing consensus of not creating stub types for independentist regions until they are recognised by a significant number of countries (at the moment, these are recognised by just one nation). As with all such types, these stub templates and categories should never have been created, and should be deleted until the time if and when other countries recognise South Ossetia and AAbkhazia as independent. In any case, one of the two categories is severely undersized, and furthermore, the creation of these stub types has bundled together generic, bio, geo, struct and other stubs into these categories, reducing rather than increasing the chance that editors will find them - the opposite of what stub-sorting aims for. Grutness...wha?  01:39, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Speedy keep Firstly, I didn't realise there was a procedure for creation of stubs until I had already done so, and I could have held my own sweepstake to see how long it would take for these stubs to brought up for deletion using the precise argument used above. Allow me to propose my own WP:POKEMON, that being Template:Kosovo-stub and Category:Kosovo stubs. Yes, taken straight out of the Russian MFA playbook. I will deal with each case independently. The Republic of Abkhazia has defined borders; the independent Abkhazia correlates to the autonomous republic which Georgia claims sovereignty over. The Abkhaz are a people with self-identity (i.e. an ethnic group), with their own language, own customs, etc, etc, etc; take note of their history. To use another argument from the Russians, Abkhazia (as a legal entity going back over its history) has more right to a stub than Kosovo (which was artificially created out of Albanian nationalist tendecies). The fact that, as at the time of me writing this, only Russia has recognised the independence of this republic is inherent WP:BIAS and ignores the history of Abkhazia as a defined political unit (albeit within Georgian territory, if one is still inclined to subscribe to that notion). In regards to South Ossetia, it doesn't have the same defined borders which Abkhazia has in relation to recognition by Tbilisi (the territory that is recognised by Russia [so far] as South Ossetia is split over a couple of Georgian administrative regions, however, using Yury Morozov as an example, it is unacceptable to have a Georgian-politician stub on that article, when Morozov was until recently the Prime Minister of South Ossetia, and regards himself as South Ossetian not Georgian. This is where WP:BIAS clearly demonstrates that the South Ossetia stub template is required to counter systematic bias, particularly by claiming that Morozov is a Georgian politician, when his own self-identification (which I believe we here at WP take into account) is that he is South Ossetian. Unlike Russia and the US/EU, I have not applied these stub types in terms of South Ossetia with a preference for one over the other (South Ossetia or Georgia), but have and will apply them both for neutrality. In terms of Abkhazia, the Abkhazia stub is enough. And of course, the ensure complete NPOV, the stub cats can be placed in the Georgian cat. Exactly the same as Kosovo. --Russavia Dialogue Stalk me 02:15, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
 * A Pokemon test might well work at AFD, but it doesn't work with SFD for the simple reason that different standards are employed by the two different process pages, if you do want to compare them, then fine: Kosovo is internationally recognised by over 20 countries; Abkhazia is internationally recognised by one; South Ossetia has been recognised by one. As such, it doesn't meet the standards I outlined to you when I notified you of this SFD nomination: they have not been recognised by a significant number of countries, and as such - by long-standing precedent - they should not have separate stub types. Whether they have long-standing ethnic differences to the countries they are within or which surround them is irrelevant for stub purposes - the same can also be said of the likes of Kurdistan, Somaliland, Turkish North Cyprus, Tamil Eelam, etc etc etc - the stub types for all of which were either rejected when proposed or were deleted when discovered, for the same reasons that this one has been nominated. Grutness...wha?  06:30, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
 * So in essence, it's good enough for Kosovo but not for Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Now where have I heard such double standards lately? Such double standards are not acceptable, for in essence you are arguing that Abkhazia and South Ossetia are not historically and linguistically different from Georgia, something which most in the west are totally oblivious to, but thankfully not all are. As User:sephia karta notes it is no different to Quebec, or even dare I say it, Otago Province, an entity which ceased to exist in 1876; are now also going to argue for deletion of Template:Otago-geo-stub, or is that an acceptable stub type to have? The standards you note are flawed as mentioned below, and this nomination has been made with total ignorance of history of the region - its not your fault you are not aware of the history, but these are valid stub types and I will continue to argue against their deletion, and will continue to display double standards employed in such arguments. --Russavia Dialogue Stalk me 11:27, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Otago and the long-gone Otago Province are not the same thing. Claiming that {[tl|Otago-geo-stub}} is for Otago province is like suggesting that Ghana-geo-stub is intended for a region in Mauritania. Grutness...wha?  23:34, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong keep. The 'long standing policy' is deeply flawed: curently Quebec can have its own stub types but if it were to declare unrecognised independence then these would have to be removed? That's ridiculous. Territories whether recognised as independent or not can be the topics of Wikiprojects and can serve as centres for categorisation, and so they should also be able to get their own stub types. And treating Kosovo differently from Abkhazia and South-Ossetia here is applying double standards. sephia karta 11:03, 28 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep Abkhazia, delete South Ossetia. In my experience, stub types are created, first and foremost, to facilitate stub grouping and sorting.  Once a certain stub category accumulates so many entries that it can no longer be efficiently maintained, then further split is warranted, and splitting by geographical or administrative borders makes perfect sense.  Abkhazia is an autonomous republic of Georgia (not to Russia, obviously, but that hardly matters for the purposes of this discussion), and if the Abkhazia's stub cat can be populated with a reasonable number of entries (which it can be), then there is no reason to deny creating it.  As for South Ossetia, I have to agree with Grutness' explanation regarding separatist regions; in addition, it makes sense not to create a stub cat, as the territory of South Ossetia does not correspond to any existing administrative units of Georgia.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:11, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure why the fact that South Ossetia doesn't correspond to an existing administrative unit of Georgia would warrant its deletion. Historically, South Ossetia, as you are no doubt aware, has always been resistant to Georgian rule, Georgia even started started a couple of wars with the region in the 1910s-1920s. There are literally hundreds of articles which can be created for South Ossetia, which relate only to South Ossetia. Refer to Template:Otago-geo-stub above in relation to an entity which hasn't existed in over 100 years, yet we still have on WP - that specifically used as a reference due to the nationality of the nominator, hopefully having them understand. --Russavia Dialogue Stalk me 04:47, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I am well aware of that fact, of course. My vote is based on the rationale outlined in the nomination, which makes perfect sense to me as far as South Ossetia is concerned.  As for the other type of stub, it is out of scope of my interest.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:53, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Strong delete per consensus we can create them when these regions become members of the UN. Hobartimus (talk) 04:13, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Great, then I suspect you will be nominating Template:Kosovo-stub for deletion, as well as Template:California-stub, etc, etc. The hypocrisy here is unbelievable, but expected. And consensus? What consensus? That's what we are here to achieve, and this is nowhere near gathering consensus. --Russavia Dialogue Stalk me 04:47, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Hobartimus is wrong about the standards used for stub-sorting, but Ezhiki is not. Stub-sorting practice is to use official, goverrnment-sanctioned national and subnational administrative regions. California is a state, and as such is a top-level subnational region, as designated by the U.S. government. Similarly, Kosovo is regarded by the Serbian government as a top-level subnational region (and, as already pointed out, its recognition by a large number of other nations makes it pass stub-sorting standards as a separate type in any case). Otago is a top-level administrative division of New Zealand (the Otago Region, which still exists - not the old Otago Province which you seem to be confusing it with). Similarly, your argument that there are "literally hundreds of articles which can be created" (my italics) indicates some lack of understanding of how and when stub types are created. There are literally hundreds of articles that can be created about anything - but that doesn't warrant the creation of a stub type for them unless they actually exist, and even then the creation of a stub type might not be appropriate. As to consensus, precedent should definitely be taken into account as far as that is concerned, and precedent has been to delete such stub types, as already pointed out. Grutness...wha?  06:28, 30 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Strong keep - as President Medvedev said, SO and Abkhasia deserve more than Kosovo their independence and therefore these templates deserve its existence more than the Kosovo-stub templates, in other words I agree completely with User:Russavia. Bogorm (talk) 12:41, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
 * My apologies on Otago, I didn't take the region into account. However, this doesn't change the fact that the argument still has a lot to do with WP:BIAS. Using your standards Abkhazia stubs clearly belong; but South Ossetia doesn't. However, the recognition by Russia of South Ossetia gives South Ossetia a defined regional basis for existence, even though within Georgian administrative regions, South Ossetia is split up over a couple of regions (the result of the "Georgia for Georgians policy" undertaken by successive Georgian nationalist government in order to split the Ossetian people). I have almost gathered a list of towns in South Ossetia, and will be working on getting them up on WP; aside from Russia and aviation, I am also working on areas where there is a WP:BIAS, or a lack of overall interest; so instead of recognising like I have at Akhalgori that this town is both a Georgian and South Ossetian stub, that all such towns are Georgian only? That is in essence what is being said. That's inherent bias in my eyes. --Russavia Dialogue Stalk me 12:44, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The only bias is in favour of any country which is widely recognised, over one which is only recognised by one country. This is standard practiced with stub-sorting. If Kosovo was only recognised by one country, the same would apply there - indeed a Kosovo stub type was created before Kosovo was recgnised and became the subject of severe edit-warring before being deleted - it was only re-[created as a stub type once the number of countries recongnising it became sufficient for it to be regarded as a separate country. South Ossetia has not reached that stage yet -it may well do in time, and when it does, then a separate stub for it would be appropriate. As for it being Georgian policy to split the Ossetian people, that is completely irrelevant to this discussion, as are President Medvedev's comments and any views of editors as to what is politically right or wrong with South Ossetia. My own views, for instance, would be to agree that it should be independent. This does not change my views on the correctness or otherwise of a separate stub type for South Ossetia, which should only be judged by the standards commonly used for stub-splitting. Grutness...wha?  23:26, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
 * So once say Belarus or Venezuela or Cuba, etc recognise officially, (Belarus already having gone on the record saying that they will recognise), the stub is able to exist? The South Ossetian stub type is undersized at the moment, but this will change within the next 72 hours (if I can find the time to get these towns/villages up). --Russavia Dialogue Stalk me 06:04, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Once more than about a dozen nations have recognised it there will be no problem in it being on Wikipedia. Until that time, it doesn't belong here. Grutness...wha?  09:48, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * So why is "about a dozen nations" being used as a guide as to whether it belongs on WP or not? Is there any standard which says this is the case? And why a dozen nations? Why not 3? Why not 40? It seems more like an arbitrary number plucked out of thin air in order to create enough WP:BIAS against the keeping and/or creation of a stub. And what "dozen nations"? Does the US have to be one of those dozen? What about the UK? Or how about Djibouti? Seychelles? What dozen nations will meet this (as yet unseen) standard? --Russavia Dialogue Stalk me 10:43, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Why not three? Because many places can gather three nations without being generally legitimised. Why not 40? becuase it is quite clear that a country can be recognised and widely accepted with fewer than that (Taiwan is one such example). As to which dozen nations, it makes no difference which dozen. To answer your point more directly, since it seems clear what you are driving at, if only the US and UK recognised Kosovo, there would be no separate stub types for it. If Russia, Belarus, Venezuela, Cuba, Djibouti, Seychelles, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Libya, Syria, North Korea, and the Maldives all suddenly recognised South Ossetia, then it would pass the bill. The actual countries involved are irrelevant. Grutness...wha?  00:07, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * But why should recognition matter in the first place? A stub type is not a stamp of approval or anything like it. Objectively, there is a historical-geographical region called Abkhazia. Objectively, the political entity that calls itself the Republic of Abkhazia exists. And there can thus be stub types for these. That is how Wikipedia works. If stability is a concern, then protect these templates. The idea that something should be excluded from Wikipedia because it might or may be the subject of edit-warring is preposterous. There are sufficient articles for the Abkhazia stub type. There is an Abkhazian wikiproject which this stub type would support. Those are the criteria. That is why this stub type should be kept. sephia karta  11:13, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * It matters because stub-sorting is designed to help editors and to do so without stressing Wikipedia's resources, either electronic ones or manual ones. As such, it's extremely useful to have a series of stub types that are not so many that it will stretch the ability to sort them to the limit, and it is also extremely useful not to create stub types that are likely to become edit-war fodder. Edit wars on templates and categories have very far-reaching effects - far more so than those on articles - due to their nature. They can affect dozens or even hundreds of articles, and the editing of a template cat cause problems for Wikipedia's servers due to the multiple transclusions of the template on articles. In order to make sure that neither of these resources is stretched beyond a reasonable point, certain guidelines have to bee put in place, one of which relates to the status of regions. The exact region that is concerned is irrelevant - the current discussion relates to South Ossetia, but the precedent has been set previously due to similar situations with other regions - notably a long-running dispute over a long-since deleted template for the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. If it had been allowed to stand it would have become a precedent for keeping such templates, and we would not be having this discussion now. We would also have no discussion on any other such stub, so that if, next week, someone was to create an Ingushetia-geo-stub, or a TamilEelam-geo-stub, or a TuhoeNation-geo-stub, or a Euskara-geo-stub, or a Cascadia-geo-stub, or a Kurdistan-geo-stub, or a stub type for any of the literally hundreds of independentist groups or breakaway regions around the world that currently exist or have at some point existed. It would render the ability for stub-sorters to keep track of such stub types impossible, and the inevitable edit-warring that would occur on at least a significant proportion of them would render both these new stub types and the onees which would otherwise have been used incapable of being used properly. Because of that, it would be impractical for articles to be assigned to the correct stub categories, and therefore would make the purpose of stub sorting - that is, to make it possible for editors to find stub articles on specific subjects - impossible.
 * As for the argument that there are plenty of articles and a WikiProject, neither of these are either necessary or sufficient arguments for the creation of a stub type. The latter argument, in fact, is one for the creation of a WikiProject-specific talk-page banner template, rather than a stub type. Stub templates aren't for specific WikiProjects - they are intended to be used by stub-sorters for the benefit of all editors across the entirety of Wikipedia. Banner talk page templates are far more useful to individual WikiProjects, as it enables them to assess, grade, and keep track of all articles relating to a project, not just stub types. They can also be tailored directly to a WikiProject's needs. It would be far more appropriate for you to use one of them instead of a stub template. Grutness...wha?  02:09, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I understand that edit wars in themselves are unwanted, especially with templates. But that's where protection is for. So there is no problem here.
 * Your argument that this would open the door to an uncontrollable amount of new stub types for independentist movements is equally invalid. Historical states, such as the Soviet Union or Byzantine Empire constitute valid subjects for stub types and there is in principle no limit to the number of historical states. Yet we don't see your predicted explosion of stub types. The reason is that there are simply not enough stubs to warrant a seperate stub type for say the Empire of Trebizond. And this is the same for the vast amount of the world's independentists movements. And even if there are enough stubs for a Tamil Elam stub type, then how on Earth is this detremental to stub sorting? As long as Tamil Elam stub categories are also included in Sri Lanka stub categories, then it would only improve, not hinder stub sorting to have Tamil Elam stubs categorised together.
 * For territories like Abkhazia and Ingushetia the situation is even simpler. These match existing, 'official', territorial subdivisions so there is no controvery here at all. We have stub types for the Basque country, for Catalonia, for the Faroe Islands, for Quebec, hell, even for Bernkastel-Wittlich. sephia karta  11:09, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Of course it is bias and by the way the town in question is no more A. but Leningor (Ленингор) Where can I heave the question of its renaming, User:Kober has hampered it? Bogorm (talk) 13:12, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
 * That should either be carried out on the article's talk page or at Requested moves. Grutness...wha?  23:30, 31 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete both. This is obvious POV-pushing using categories.Biophys (talk) 04:07, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, that argument doesn't hold any water in this setting, due to precedence of Kosovo stubs, and also due to the fact that Abkhazia is a territorial unit of the country of Georgia and a recognised independent state. In my mind, the only category/stub type which is in question here is South Ossetia. --Russavia Dialogue Stalk me 05:58, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Reply. Having another garbage of the same kind is not an argument per WP:deletion.Biophys (talk) 18:37, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I haven't used that as the only argument, but have managed to put across my point of view entirely. Just how is having Abkhazia stubs POV? --Russavia Dialogue Stalk me 18:52, 5 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete South Ossetia type & upmerge Abkhazia type until the size of the parent stub cat merits splitting, per Grutness & Ezhiki. While Russavia's arguments are passionate, they seem to be based on politics, emotion, and rapidly changing circumstances; stub sorting is guided solely by logic, numbers, and completely impartial evaluation. No one is saying your views aren't worthy or welcome; no one is singling out these regions for personal reasons. Please put your neutrality cap back on. Her Pegship  (tis herself) 16:31, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * What you call "neutrality cap" shall be put after the deletion of the completely analogous Kosovo-stubs. Bogorm (talk) 17:28, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Exactly such a "cap" was in place on Kosovo-stub until recently, when it became apparent that sufficient countries had recognised Kosovo as independent for it to warrant its own stub categories. You are right that the situation is completely analogous, and as soon as a similar number of countries recognise the independence of South Ossetia, such a cap would be removed. Grutness...wha?  02:19, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately not, because you have removed Serbia categories from all Kosovo stub categories, thereby destroying the same NPOV. Meanwhile, Georgia categories go on both South Ossetia and Abkhazia stub categories, inline with keeping NPOV; hence why I don't much appreciate people telling me to put my neutrality cap on, when I have been nothing but neutral. --Russavia Dialogue Stalk me 18:47, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep, but remove the flags from the templates. I think that when it comes to a disputed territory, sorting a related stub under one of the participants of the conflict (be it Georgia or the Republic of South Ossetia) violates the NPOV policy. Therefore, the best way to maintain NPOV (and NPOV guidelines applies to stub sorting as well as anything else on Wikipedia) is to remove the flags suggesting that the seccessionist governments are synonymous with these territories, making this sorting "territorial" (as with the aforementioned California stub sorting) instead of "national". 96T (talk) 22:30, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Listen to this person because they have grasped what NPOV means. sephia karta  23:26, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * If removing flags from templates also goes for Georgia, then great, let's do it. --Russavia Dialogue Stalk me 18:47, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Er, what? Why? What I'm trying to say is that since these territories are disputed, flags are not appropriate. Georgia is not a disputed territory. But of course, in my opinion, no flags belong in templates related to, say, Kosovo, Chechnya, Kashmir, Taiwan, etc, as well, unless those are templates dealing specifically with one side of the conflict - something the Abkhazia/South Ossetia templates do not. 96T (talk) 21:29, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep - per Kosovo precedent.--Avala (talk) 21:05, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The Kosovo precedent would actually be either "delete or redirect until it has been recognised by more countries", since that is exactly what happened with kosovo-stub. A precedent for an independentist region that has only currently been recognised by a small number of countries would be the deleted TRNC-stub. Grutness...wha?  02:22, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete POV categories. Kosovo categories mean nothing here, read WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Ostap 00:05, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * That article only states that sometimes OSE is a valid argument, and sometimes it isn't. Just pointing at it does not constitute an argument in itself. sephia karta  01:13, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * SK is right. The existence of Kosovo-stub is completely relevant here, since exactly this same process happened with Kosovo-stub. it is, in a way, a perfect example of a precedent for this. At a time when no countries recognised Kosovo as independent, a Kosovo-stub was created. It was brought to SFD and was deleted. It was re-created as a redirect later, but was the subject of severe edit-warring and needed to be protected. During the time of the edit-warring it became virtually impossible to sort any stubs relating to - as it was then - Serbia and Montenegro. Kosovo-stub was only accepted as a full stub type with its own category when it was apparent that a considerable number of countries recognised it as independent. From that point on it has been accepted as a stub type by both Kosovan and Serbian editors with no problems. Exactly the saame situation exists here. Grutness...wha?  02:19, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Are you suggesting that we wait until "a considerable number of countries recognised it as independent", the point you said that the Kosovo stub was accepted? Because right now that criteria is not met. Ostap 03:04, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I think that's what he's saying. And I say that the cut-off point is arbitrary, that there should have been a Kosovo stub-type right away and that we had an absolutely ridiculous situation when we could have a Vojvodina stub type but not a Kosovo stub type because people in Kosovo wanted independence and people in Vojvodina did not. sephia karta 11:19, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Speedy Keep. It is no more POV than Template:ontario-stub is POV, these stubs make no assertion that the regions are currently independent other than the flags. However, there is nothing wrong with the flags as they are part of Abkhazian and Ossetian culture and history. For example, the Abkhazia flag comes from the Abkhazian_Kingdom.Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 00:56, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. Per nom. --KoberTalk 05:55, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep: These two are important stub types. The two regions in question are recently recognized by Russia and many other countries are likely to recognize, and these regions will play important role in international and regional politics. Many contents are likely to come associated with these two partially recognized countries and these are valid stub categories. Wikipedia also has Template:Kosovo-stub.  Otolemur crassicaudatus  (talk) 20:31, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment Per the arguments of nom, I will vote delete if Template:Kosovo-stub is also deleted.  Otolemur crassicaudatus  (talk) 20:42, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
 * And I'll also vote delete if Template:ontario-stub is deleted. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 21:22, 6 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Update: For those of you just joining us, the current consensus is: delete=5, conditional delete=2, keep=6, upmerge Abkhazia & delete South Ossetia=2. Too close to call, and most of the "keep" arguments do not follow the stub sorting guidelines. Her Pegship  (tis herself) 00:03, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * It should be closed as no consensus then. Also, most of the delete arguments have a problem with the image in the template and not the template itself. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 00:51, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, this shouldn't be a vote. 96T, gave a very good argument for keeping. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 00:54, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Uhm, I think for Abkhazia it is rather
 * delete=5
 * keep=7
 * keep with flag removed=1
 * upmerge until size of parent sub is sufficiently large then keep=1


 * and for South Ossetia
 * delete=7
 * keep=6
 * keep with flag removed=1.


 * So either I missed a vote or you counted double. And what do you mean by following the stub sorting guidelines? Can you give us a link? sephia karta  11:28, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I was not suggesting these are "votes", only noting the opinions expressed for anyone interested, hoping to expedite some kind of consensus, and thanks for the recount. The stub sorting guidelines on the project page mention that there should be 60+ qualifying articles to merit a stub type, which some have not seemed to consider. The Stub page goes into more depth for the reasons to create stubs; some of the discussions above seem to argue that a region "deserves" to have a stub type, or suggest that the image is the problem, when in fact neither of these criteria are relevant to stub sorting guidelines. Her Pegship  (tis herself) 23:03, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the clarification. I hadn't realised that there were fewer than 60 South Ossetia stubs. Given this, and because I think that the number of relevant stubs is really a very sensible criterion, I agree that for the moment a seperate South Ossetia stub type is unwarranted. Given that there is a Wikiproject Ossetia (which according to the guidelines modifies the threshhold) and since there will be more stubs that would fit in this broader type anyway, I propose changing the South Ossetia stub type to an Ossetia stub type. sephia karta  17:42, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment I would also like to point out Category:Transnistria stubs and Template:Transnistria-stub that have been in existence for over 2 years now, and by looking at them, they have no real problems with vandalism and the like. --Russavia Dialogue Stalk me 18:33, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep. Regarding the argument that these are POV stubs, this is actually quite easy to solve. Just nest these two and make them subcategories of Georgia's stubs. This is how it was done in the case of Transnistria, where the stubs are subparts of Moldova. Surely the Georgian nationalists will be glad to know that Abkhazia and South Ossetia are part of Georgia (at least within Wikipedia's stubsorting) and not "independent" like Kosovo is. If I recall correctly, the Kosovo stub is not sorted under Serbia's but merely lives within the "Europe" category. Jagiellon (talk) 22:58, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment I myself made these subcategories of Georgia's stubs. The nominator of this discussion is the one responsible for removing Serbia-stubs category from Kosovo-stubs, then proceeded to protect the entire category on the ill-founded pretext of too much edit warring. I urge other editors to look at the categories and view the history for themselves. By all rights, based upon that, the Georgia cat should also be removed from these stub types, but no, to prevent POV concerns I've left them. I'd be asking the nominator to explain why Kosovo has been de-linked from Serbia!! That sounds like POV-pushing to me. --Tovarishch Komissar Dialogue Stalk me 20:13, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

MAJOR UPDATE. Russavia has been blocked from Wikipedia as a sockpuppet (see here). Technically that would mean this could be speedied, but given the scope of the arguments it's probably fairer to keep this open but disregard his comments.

Oh, and as for the comments above about "ill-founded pretext of too much edit warring", there is nothing ill-fonded in that context, given the number of articles which found themselves having templates moved, removed, re-applied, and generally trashed at the time when the Kosovo stubs were first created. It was because of this edit-warring that discussions were held with various of the parties involved to decide what the most sensible links for the various categories and templates were. Though the outcome of those discussions was, of course, not unanimous, the general consensus was to have the Kosovo templates feeding directly into the European categories until such time as there was more certainty on Kosovo's future. When the number of articles using those templates reached the threshold for separate categories, they received them, and those categories were linked in an identical way to the way the templates had been. Yes, I removed from  - but only when it was added to that category long after the fact by someone who had not been aware of the original discussions on the subject. Grutness...<small style="color:#008822;">wha?  10:09, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Russavia is not a sockpuppet, see AN. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 23:31, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Indeed not, by the looks of it. This is getting very messy. Grutness...<small style="color:#008822;">wha?  00:15, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * That's an understatement. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 02:07, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, people might edit war over the inclusion of certain stub templates in articles. (They haven't so far, and there hasn't been edit warring over the Transnistria template.) But that's just as people might edit war over other things. If you protect the templates, then the extra drain on resources that occurs when templates are changed is averted.
 * And I think that in all fairness, the Kosovo stub category should be included both in the Europe stub category and in the Serbia stub categorey. Likewise with Abkhazia, Europe and Georgia. sephia karta 11:47, 18 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with sephia karta here and I think that Abkhazia stub should be kept . Abkhazia, besides being a de facto independent partially recognised state, has the special status per Georgia's constitution so Abkhazia-stubs are as legitimate as California stubs or Category:Volga Federal District geography stubs. Furthermore there are more than 100 articles falling into this category currently.
 * South Ossetia issue is more complex. It's not entirely true that "the territory of South Ossetia does not correspond to any existing administrative units of Georgia" since about a year ago Provisional Administration of South Ossetia was given the official status by the Georgian government (details). Alæxis¿question? 05:54, 19 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep both. Independence issues aside, plenty of subnational entities have their own stub templates. Regarding flags, the entity which was known as the Provisional Administration of South Ossetia was using the same flag, as the Republic of South Ossetia. Which image should be used for Abkazia may be a subject for further discussion. However, as far as I know, the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia doesn't have its own insignia. Óðinn (talk) 19:51, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong keep of both, per Kosovo precedent -- TheFE ARgod (Ч) 15:57, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Sum up?
It sounds like most of the contributors to this discussion agree that the Abkhazia type is numerically viable and that its category can be a sub-cat of Georgia stubs. The South Ossetia type is not viable numerically, so it seems the only issue remaining is to decide whether to upmerge it to Georgia stubs, Caucasus stubs, both, or delete it altogether. Ideas? Her Pegship <small style="color:green;"> (tis herself) 00:26, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * In relation to South Ossetia, I will work on (and hopefully get others to pitch in) on creation of (what will likely be stubs for time being) SO places, as per the list at User:Russavia/SouthOssetia. If we could have a few weeks to get cracking on these, and perhaps revisit the SO stubs in a few weeks, instead of having to recreate what will be valid stubs/cats all over again? --Russavia Dialogue Stalk me 00:32, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * In that case, perhaps we should upmerge the SO template to Georgia for now; when it has over 60 articles we can reconsider the category and its placement. Can the more seasoned stub sorters address whether this would be appropriate? Her Pegship <small style="color:green;"> (tis herself) 19:53, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * While I think that the Abkhazia category should indeed be a sub-category of the Georgian one, it should also be a sub-category of Europe, just as the Kosovo stub category is. sephia karta 00:58, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Both Abkhazia and South Ossetia stub types meet the 60 stub threshold. And I have left them as subcategories of the Georgia parent. Additionally, Kosovo needs to a subcategory of Serbia stubs, as leaving them out of that category is an unacceptable POV problem. --Russavia Dialogue Stalk me 09:39, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Shouldn't this be closed off, seeing as both categories/stub types are over the 60 threshold? --Russavia Dialogue Stalk me 14:36, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the template's or category's talk page (if any). No further edits should be made to this section.