Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Macedonia)/Archive 7

Closing remarks: FlavrSavr
Since this RfC is headed to closure, I'd just like to add some of my thoughts. I believe that the RfC was started too early, before few or any reliable sources weighed in on a lot of issues concerned (especially the nationality, and the state and other adjectival usage) and basically requested contributors to decide on WP:CRYSTAL grounds. Ostensibly, this was done to prevent edit warring (WP:AGF), but I leave the option that this was actually done to force a change in the absence of a clear evidence that usage outside Wikipedia has also changed. A lot of people have already made up their minds without giving much thought on usage in reliable sources, neutrality issues or any existing policies and guidelines.

The most invoked "policy" was WP:COMMONSENSE. Well, the Macedonia naming issue was never about common sense, at all. It may appear that North/South Korea or similar disputes are a good guidance, but that's only WP:CIRCULAR. We have a "North" country that has an exploding sun on its flag - is this common sense?

It is common sense that some of the reliable sources will use "North Macedonian(s)" to refer to nationality, however, this change has not yet happened in the vast majority of reliable sources. It is also common sense that they will not use "North Macedonian(s)" in the absence of a "South Macedonian" nationality and the presence of a quite predictable public outrage in North Macedonia.

It is common sense that some of the reliable sources will use "North Macedonian" to refer to state-related entities, however, this change has not yet happened in the majority of reliable sources, that seem to prefer neutral, non-adjectival use at this moment. It is also common sense that they will also, at some point see "North Macedonian" as too repetitive, in the absence of, for example, a "South Macedonian Prime Minister".

It is common sense that some of the reliable sources will use "North Macedonian" as an adjective, however, this change has not yet happened in the majority of reliable sources. It is counterintuitive, however, that the majority of contributors would like to banish "Macedonian" from Wikipedia, after the adjectival use of "Macedonian" got an official recognition in the United Nations and the European Union.

Anyway, the good people of ARBCOM, perhaps guided by the previous, often nightmarish edit warring on Macedonia related articles established that the consensus must be assessed by a panel of three uninvolved contributors. In assessing the consensus, the panel is instructed to disregard any opinion which does not provide a clear and reasonable rationale explained by reference to the principles of naming conventions and of disambiguation, or which is inconsistent with the principles of the neutral point of view policy or the reliable sources guideline. In assessing the consensus, the panel is instructed to disregard any opinion which does not provide a clear and reasonable rationale explained by reference to the principles of naming conventions and of disambiguation, or which is inconsistent with the principles of the neutral point of view policy or the reliable sources guideline.

It is my firm belief that, in the absence of WP:COMMONNAME changing the Naming conventions (Macedonia) and making it a binding RfC in these three sections would constitute a breaking of the consensually adopted policies WP:NAMECHANGES, WP:COMMONNAME and WP:MOSIDENTITY, thus rendering a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS: Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. With the delicate nature of the carefully crafted Prespa agreement and its unforseen consequences (good or bad), unrolling in the real world - this would directly involve Wikipedia as a part of the dispute and mark a stark departure on its mission to create a neutral and verifiable encyclopedia. In the case of nationality, as "North Macedonian(s)" is almost WP:OR - Wikipedia will actually create a new dispute. As Wikipedia is increasingly seen as a reliable source, I think that any decision based on local consensus, right now, will actually make "North Macedonian" more common and acceptable than it actually it is. It will also probably create a wave of edit wars. I urge the panel of three uninvolved contributors to take these thoughts into consideration and approach the matter as responsibly as possible. --FlavrSavr (talk) 19:02, 17 March 2019 (UTC)


 * I think you have seriously misunderstood WP:COMMONSENSE and the way it was employed by the majority side in this argument. WP:COMMONSENSE does not mean that we expect the world to follow common sense (it often does not), nor that we can use common sense to WP:CRYSTAL, nor even that we expect reliable sources to follow common sense. It merely means that Wikipedia should follow common sense. 'North Macedonian football players playing for the North Macedonian national football team in the North Macedonian capital of Skopje, North Macedonia' is common sense. 'Macedonian football players, playing for the North Macedonian national football team in the Macedonian capital of Skopje, North Macedonia' is not common sense.


 * Under WP:ASTONISH 'the average reader should not be shocked, surprised, or confused by what they read'. Further, under WP:NAMINGCRITERIA, we are instructed to use 'a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize', 'that unambiguously identifies the article's subject and distinguishes it from other subjects' and that 'is consistent with the pattern of similar articles'. The term 'North Macedonian' as an adjectival and nationality reference therefore satisfies all these criteria, while 'Macedonian' satisfies none of them. Everyone immediately understands that a 'North Macedonian' is someone from North Macedonia and there's nothing else it could possibly mean. Neither can be said of 'Macedonian'. Of course, under WP:COMMONNAME, one could argue in favour of overriding these principles if the term 'Macedonian' was used by a consensus of sources in these purposes. However, this has not been proven (right now, sources are divided between 'North Macedonian' and 'Macedonian') and couldn't be proven in such a short period of time anyway.


 * In the meantime, Wikipedia is still using the term 'Macedonian' in all these contexts, even though it has changed the name of the country to 'North Macedonia', unfairly biasing sources towards adopting this terminology and risking the creation of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Doing nothing, or making such terminology permanent, will likely create a nightmarish mess of inconsistent terminology, which will certainly lead to more, not fewer, edit wars. Your argument that adopting 'North Macedonian' is dangerous and will risk real-world consequences is therefore fallacious since either choice constitutes Wikipedia picking a side and both will have the same real-world consequences in opposite directions. The argument from our side is that Wikipedia should adopt the most neutral, common sense terminology, at least for now. Of course, if a consensus of reliable sources emerges in the future, the convention can always be changed.


 * To conclude, this RfC was created to take a tricky decision involving weighing a number of Wikipedia policies against each other and judging certain facts-on-the-ground that are still fluid. A majority view (though not absolute consensus) has emerged among participants, though the final decision will, of course, belong to the panel of uninvolved contributors, who have every right to decide in the opposite direction if they want. However, your attempt to strawman and discredit the arguments of the other side, while mounting ungrounded appeals to emotion, in the RfC Talk Page of all places is, in my view, very unfair and somewhat underhanded and I felt that I had to provide a response.


 * Kkyriakop (talk) 14:32, 18 March 2019 (UTC)


 * I second that WP:COMMONNAME is still not established. If we impose it, we will influence it. I am a computer scientist by training and I offer to develop a methodology (technology) of scanning the wikipedia, google and other reputable English speaking resources, that will enable us to data mine and determine the adoption of the terms "Macedonia" vs. "North Macedonia" in absolute numbers, as well as trending (which one trends up/down). This will give us some objective numerical criteria to make an informed decision. GStojanov (talk) 15:34, 18 March 2019 (UTC)


 * I have created a subsection in this talk page . I used the Wikipedia Redirect Analysis tool. The old official name "Republic of Macedonia" is used ten times more than the new one "Republic of North Macedonia", a full order of magnitude of a difference!!! And the use of the new official name is trending down.


 * I propose we keep the established common name Macedonia, with a note that the new official name is "Republic of North Macedonia". Then we use the two much like we would do with any other country. That would eliminate the need to decide on new adjectives. All adjectives for all purposes can remain "Macedonian" as it is now. We can revisit this in a year to see if the trending reversed and reevaluate. GStojanov (talk) 13:52, 19 March 2019 (UTC)


 * There's a very precise WP:NAMECHANGES policy that I've already quoted many times and explains what common sense means in the context of Wikipedia and renaming: Sometimes, the subject of an article will undergo a change of name. When this occurs, we give extra weight to reliable sources written after the name change is announced. If the reliable sources written after the change is announced routinely use the new name, Wikipedia should follow suit and change relevant titles to match. If, on the other hand, reliable sources written after the name change is announced continue to use the established name, Wikipedia should continue to do so as well, as described above in "Use commonly recognizable names". Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. We do not know what terms or names will be used in the future, but only what is and has been in use, and is therefore familiar to our readers. However, common sense can be applied – if the subject of an article has a name change, it is reasonable to consider the usage following the change in reliable, English language sources. We applied this policy for the state name moving Republic of Macedonia to North Macedonia, however, the other terminology is a completely different matter. The sources do not routinely use "North Macedonian", in fact some of those that have used it reverted back to "Macedonian" or a more neutral formulation. The UK, Dutch and Estonian MFA are among these. It is not impossible that "North Macedonian" will become the common terminology to describe people, state entities and other entities. The change in Wikipedia should follow after, not before that change. --FlavrSavr (talk) 16:10, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
 * BTW, Kkyriakop If you read my arguments I am precisely refraining from emotions and point to policies and guidelines. These policies and guidelines are a result of community consensus built from collective experience and are meant to ensure NPOV, verifiablity and discourage edit wars. It is ignoring policies that creates edit wars, not the vice versa. --FlavrSavr (talk) 16:48, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I would argue that even the name of the country still does not have an established WP:COMMONNAME. Just look at the sources of the main page. Most reputable sources are inconsistent. And all these examples are from the period when the change of the official name was announced and that was "the news". What if the effect of the novelty wears off, inertia (and other considerations) prevail and the current common name "Macedonia" remains the common name? I propose we wait at least for one more month until we get a clearer picture and absolute numbers of use and trending to help us in deciding. GStojanov (talk) 17:24, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Anyone that argues either "Macedoanian" or "North Macedonian" does not meet WP:COMMONNAME really needs to read that guideline again. BOTH terms do meet the requirements for it, however, they are also still MOS:ALTNAMEs of each other (WP:OTHERNAMES). Thus, the common-name question is not not really relevant, but the real question is; which of the two common-names are we to use as general policy by en.wikipedia in specific circumstances? Furthermore I do not see the point in dragging this out for any longer than 1 month, as numerous editors here have advocated. This RfC has stated from the beginning (right at the top of the page mind you), that the closing date is 17 March, a date which has now passed by the way. I know that many contributors wish to extend this debate to ensure that its conclusions are established properly, but I do question how long we are expected to keep this open, when the potential for real/serious dispute that still exits out there on the rest of en.wikipedia's pages. I will state again that the questions/structure of the RfC were not perfectly phrased/structured from the outset, yes this is true, but the debate that has occurred subsequently has been healthy, robust, pointed, and is now deserving of a proper review and an actual closure. Thus, we can get to the actual business of performing the update to WP:MOSMAC in light of the renaming of "North Macedonia", and the outcomes of the debates and votes vocalised during the active period of this RfC. - Wiz9999 (talk) 16:26, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I just want to add to everything that is well said by above a small notice on the procedure, and kindly remind that this RfC is taking place according to ARBCOM's amendment to their previous decision on ARBMAC2, which allows an RfC in order to update WP:MOSMAC with a binding decision. In order for that to happen we need to make sure that the RfC is consistent with the rules set by ARBCOM and the policies that should be considered to establish consensus are explicitly listed, and it's clear that WP:Commonsense is not one of them. If we want to change the rules and allow additional policies to be considered for establishing consensus we need to request ARBCOM's opinion, otherwise we are risking to invalidate the RfC or change its result to WP:LOCALCONSENSUS with no binding effect. My opinion is that this is actually a case of WP:NOCOMMON and should be handled carefully and with respect to previous decisions, while the introduction of WP:IAR rules would actually eliminate the need to have WP:MOSMAC, because if it's common sense why do we need a naming conventions policy in the first place? --Argean (talk) 19:57, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I think that the obsession with WP:CRYSTAL is becoming a bit annoying, mainly because it fails to understand, as pointed out very clearly, the view of the majority. We have heard numerous arguments throughout this RfC, some with more merit that others. The view that most editors seemed to take on this issue is that there does indeed need to be common sense in what Wikipedia should and should not be allowed to do vis-a-vis adjectives, and in particular to allow the  of 'North Macedonian'. The assertion that the term 'North Macedonian' especially as an adjective for the state is original research by members of Wikipedia is not entirely honest (since said editor has been adding sources using the term in the media section), and can be demonstrably proven wrong. The term, it just so happens that it is the view of the majority in this particular instance that it is the most appropriate term for a number of reasons, including WP:COMMONSENSE and clarity/disambiguation concerns.


 * In addition, numerous members have echoed my own view that the current precedent of using the article ethnic Macedonians as the destination article for any mention of 'Macedonian' is problematic in itself, as it brands the 25% of the population who are not ethnically Macedonian as ethnic Macedonians. The main argument of many on the minority side of this issue has been the right to self-determinate, and it seems to me personally quite significant oversight by the side seemingly obsessed with self-determination. I said on numerous occasions that, should an article called People of North Macedonia be created where such mentions of 'Macedonian' may redirect, I am happy to change my vote to that; but until that time, my view is that the term North Macedonian is by far a more accurate descriptor, and one which is the of the name North Macedonia where previously the natural form of Macedonia was . This the view that seems to be shared by the majority.


 * I also have to echo 's views re appeals to emotion throughout the RfC. The introduction of arguments centred around emotion (of the "Macedonians have a right to self-determinate, therefore Wikipedia should call them what they call themselves") has no real place in the RfC. I have clearly stated previously where I think all those editors are coming from and spoiler alert  it's due to a request for Macedonians to contribute to this, posted on the Macedonian Wikipedia. Macedonian editors who are regular contributors to the English Wikipedia have made much much more substantiated arguments.


 * I would also like to rebuff at this point, with all due respect because I value the work you did to maintain this RfC in good shape, 's point that the decision of the majority would directly involve Wikipedia as a part of the dispute. This is a fallacious argument and an appeal to emotion. Whichever position Wikipedia may choose to take on this issue, it is taking a side. Was the outcome of the previous RfC neutral? Was Wikipedia deciding to use the term 'Republic of Macedonia' direct involvement in the dispute? Did Wikipedia not help perpetuate the issue by the very fact that it decided to adopt the name Macedonia for everything? If Wikipedia's official position is to remain neutral and not endanger its position, in any way, in any dispute, should it not have instead opted for the use of 'the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia' instead? Is the argument that you are making right now really an honest opinion that you would hold if you were part of the RfC back when it was decided to take a side and call the country Macedonia? This does not apply to this user in particular, and it is not a judgement. I do, however, believe that this particular argument is more an argument of convenience rather than an argument that the same editors would have used in the previous RfC to lobby for the adoption of 'fYROM' instead of 'Macedonia' in order to maintain Wikipedia's neutrality. To argue that Wikipedia's position did hot 'hurt' the official position of the Greek government would be a flat lie, but naturally that was not a factor when Wikipedia made its decision in the previous RfC. It did what it felt was WP:COMMONSENSE. I maintain the view that the same set of rules should be applied to this RfC, and the fact that it is position of the Republic of North Macedonia that might be 'hurt' by the decision of the majority should not play a role in the decision. Wikipedia is not the United Nations.


 * Lastly, I do not think there is any reason to keep this RfC open for another month. If there is a need for further RfCs in the future we can have another go at it (learning from the mistakes of this one), but all within a logical framework of course. We can't keep voting and voting on the same thing, this isn't Theresa May's Brexit deal. For now this should go to the uninvolved administrators for closure, and we should collectively accept what they decide. --Michail (blah) 20:18, 18 March 2019 (UTC)


 * While I'm constantly being dragged into this thing about me appealing-to-emotion thing, I'd like to point out that I've already said that I don't think that the sentiment in North Macedonia should play a big role in deciding what the English-language Wikipedia should use. I took no part in the previous RfC in 2009, and thus I don't feel any responsibility for any potential harms it has done to the Greek foreign policy. On the contrary, it's appealing to ennui over fundamental Wikipedia policies such as WP:CRYSTAL that's appealing to emotion. As if I'm this boring dude who has nothing else to do but obsess over Wikipedia bureaucracy... And again, you are the ones who are missing the point: the majority of Wikipedia contributors enacted the WP:COMMONNAME and the WP:NAMECHANGES policy and other policies which we constantly invoke. The group gathered here, on this particular RfC, is just a limited group of editors that cannot override these policies, thus we have only WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. --FlavrSavr (talk) 21:18, 18 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Are you implying that for this to be considered consensus we have to engage at least 70,244 of Wikipedia's 140,486 active users...? This was a process open to anyone that was interested in contributing to it. I would also point out that the vast majority of Wikipedia policies were voted on by numbers of people that you can count with your hands and maybe a toe or two. The WP:LOCALCONSENSUS in particular received 9 votes in total. --Michail (blah) 21:44, 18 March 2019 (UTC)


 * WP:LOCALCONSENSUS is very aligned to WP:NPOV and WP:NOTDEMOCRACY, and is precisely meant to discourage limited groups, however large, to decide to override previous consensually adopted policies by the community. If you think it's dumb or whatever, feel free to start a process to change it and see how the community responds, and you might as well challenge WP:COMMONNAME, WP:MOSIDENTITY and other policies and guidelines. If you think that these 50-60 editors represent Wikipedia, it shouldn't be hard to change a policy or a guideline. --FlavrSavr (talk) 23:06, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
 * While I was not involved in the 2009 RfC, I was involved in a previous 2005 poll (the precursor of RfCs) about the naming of Macedonian Slavs/ethnic Macedonians. Wikipedia had barely begun to develop a policy and guidelines infrastructure - and the poll ended up being a draw. It mostly involved ethnic based voting with Greeks voting for 'Macedonian Slavs' and Macedonians and neutrals voting for 'Macedonians'. This dispute dragged on for about 8 months and was solved by a precursor 'Naming conflict' policy of what are now known as the WP:COMMONNAME and WP:MOSIDENTITY policies, I believe (I didn't exactly follow the evolution of policies). My point is that consensus is good, but sometimes voting is a bad idea if it moves away Wikipedia from its most valued pillars of neutrality and verifiability. It is my firm belief that this has happened with this RfC and that's my 'emotional' appeal to whomever is going to preside on the consensus. --FlavrSavr (talk) 23:36, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but I have to back up on this one. After a certain point we have to have to say that WP:LOCALCONSENSUS falls away and accept that the prevailing view IS en.wikipedia's actual WP:CONSENSUS. Otherwise WP:LOCALCONSENSUS could be argued indefinitely in absolutely ANY situation across en.wikipedia. I would argue that we almost have the opposite problem here, in that so many contributors have commented/voted on the RfC that we have used up our repository of available editors which are interested in the subject matter, and are now only seeing users coming from the greek and macedonian language wikipedias coming here to try and influence the vote. Since they each have 'skin in the game' on this RfC. Additionally, the argument that WP:LOCALCONSENSUS is as robust a policy as WP:COMMONNAME and WP:MOSIDENTITY is a bit of a stretch. I also was not around back in 2005, or at the start of the WP:MOSMAC debate, but I do believe that we now have much better principals in place when it comes to making changes to these guidelines. - Wiz9999 (talk) 12:01, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry but on the contrary I very much agree with  and I actually think you misunderstood the point. It's not about the number of involved editors, it's about the arguments that are represented and how much these arguments are in line with established Wikipedia policies. I know that many of us, just like  above, might be annoyed when constantly being reminded of policies and rules, that sometimes seem limiting and non-constructive, and I don't disagree completely with that view. But there is a reason that these policies and rules are here, and this has very much to do with how the Wikipedia community has learned from past problems and disputes, and has developed mechanisms to facilitate the process of decision making, without having to experience the same painful confrontations. These rules represent a form of collective memory of the community, which of course is an ongoing and dynamic process, but we are making our lifes harder if we ignore its' fundamental principles. In my opinion weighing the argument of WP:Commonsense above the policies that have been employed by ARBCOM to resolute previous disputes (WP:COMMONNAME, WP:DISAMBIGUATION, WP:VERIFIABILITY, WP:RS, WP:MOSIDENTITY) is a self-destructive attitude, and will not help solving the current dispute, but carries the risk of creating new problems. In that sense this RfC will be definitely self-limiting to a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, not by its' numbers, but by its' failure to incorporate the previous experience of the Wikipedia community as represented in withstanding policies. --Argean (talk) 12:31, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not implying that WP:LOCALCONSENSUS is as robust as WP:CONSENSUS, I'm only citing it because the consensus that seems to be emerging here is contrary to a wider consensus that are the WP:COMMONNAME, WP:NAMECHANGES, WP:MOSIDENTITY and other policies that are robust as you suggest... As per ARBMAC2 it is not my responsibility to determine the level of consensus, it is up to the three wise (wo)men panel. I'm merely stating my opinion that it is WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. --FlavrSavr (talk) 13:03, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
 * By the way - maybe I didn't get it before - are we discussing if WP:CONLEVEL/WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policy is robust or not? I'm sorry if I'm getting this wrong, but if we are actually questioning the policy, I need to point out that the this policy was set by an WP:ARBCOM decision. Oh, are the 9 votes that mentioned before actually the arbitrators that were involved and unanimously voted for this policy? --Argean (talk) 13:52, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I guessed so. It's pretty robust. I didn't really bring the robust issue on that particular policy but I got sidetracked by that argument similarly to the 'emotional appeal' remarks. What is the most important issue is that this supposedly majority view in this RfC wouldn't be in line with any official Wikipedia policy, in fact, they would contradict many of them. --FlavrSavr (talk) 14:14, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
 * You make a better point arguing about WP:LOCALCONSENSUS being the case here due to the lack of diversity in the opinions of editors who participated in the RfC than did about the number of editors having been only 50 to 60 as being the reason why we should consider WP:LOCALCONSENSUS to apply. With regards to your assertion that we should not ignore the rules, I 100% agree with you. I do not advocate for us to ignore our rules, and I think this is very much a case where WP:COMMONNAME, WP:RS, WP:MOSIDENTITY, WP:CONSENSUS, WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, etc. should govern the outcome of the debate. I have absolutely NEVER argued that WP:COMMONSENSE should be used for any part of this debate, as the only thing that I consider to be WP:COMMONSENSE about any of this is that we need to update WP:MOSMAC in light of the new term "North Macedonia" entering the vernacular. I cannot speak for any others that have argued for WP:COMMONSENSE, as we all have our biases, and what makes sense to me will not necessarily make sense to anyone else. The biggest factor here is really WP:COMMONNAME not WP:COMMONSENSE, as there is nothing obviously sensible about any of the options within the RfC, and the matters of common adjective/citizenship/historical usage/etc. are clearly in dispute. I consider ANYONE who argues for the case of WP:COMMONSENSE to have a weak argument. What this debate really boils down to is what editors see as being the WP:COMMONNAME on one end of the spectrum, and what others see as WP:COMMONNAME on the other end of the spectrum (Macedonian vs. North Macedoniain specifically). I would argue they both DEFINITELY qualify as falling under the definition of WP:COMMONNAME, as we have numerous sources stating the usage of both in various different circumstances. However, and far more importantly, these two terms would ALSO both qualify as MOS:ALTNAMEs as well. But the real core of the issue is not this, and anyone that argues against WP:COMMONNAME applying in either scenario I will argue against. What the real core of the issue is is that the usage of each term should be agreed upon, so as to enable dispute resolution in future in light of en.wikipedia's WP:CONSENSUS. However, we are still faced with the dilemma about which usage is to be the set policy in various circumstances, in order to maintain en.wikipedia's WP:NPOV. And this question is what the entire RfC is really about. For that purpose, I welcome the reminder of en.wikipedia's established policies to its editors, including myself. - Wiz9999 (talk) 15:07, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I admit it was not the best argument, but majorities were brought up as a decisive factor. formulated it better than me. --FlavrSavr (talk) 15:26, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
 * My apologies, I never meant to suggest that you are proposing to follow WP:COMMONSENSE instead of other relevant established policies, that have been agreed upon before the RfC started and are consisent with previous ARBCOM decisions. It was a comment on your support to 's position, which clearly advocated the use of WP:COMMONSENSE as a measure of determining consensus and forming some kind of majority (which is something that is his own arbitrary conclusion, I can't see any clear majority forming). I'm happy to see that most of us agree that WP:COMMONNAME is still the most relevant policy (besides WP:NAMECHANGES and WP:OFFICIALNAME), but this has some limitations as well because this policy is clearly meant to provide instructions for Article titles, not for the entire nomenclature that includes adjectives and attributes of people, as required by WP:MOSBIO. Still and since there are no similar previous examples of renaming adjectival/demonymic references in wikipedia (e.g. we still use Swazi for people from Eswatini and East Timorese for people from Timor-Leste), the only way to validate this RfC is to follow the principles of previous ARBCOM rulings, as reflected in WP:ARBMAC2 decisions. These include Consensus vs the WP:LOCALCONSENSUS that is forming here, NPOV that requires WP:RS to be examined, recognizability that is also based on WP:RS, and disambiguation. It's not random that ARBCOM is explicitly mentioning exactly these policies in their decision that allows this RfC to take place, and by the way and also not randomly recognizability, neutrality and precision/disambiguation are also core elements of WP:COMMONNAME policy. I've seen editors arguing for common sense, simplicity and expectedness and even suggesting that this is related to the naturalness required by WP:COMMONNAME, but this is the biggest fallacy I've seen throughout the discussion, because it completely ignores the history of the dispute and the simple fact that ARBCOM never came to the conclusion that these arguments can be used to assist dispute resolution and consensus building associated with WP:MOSMAC. It's very clear to me that if the involved editors do not explicitly express that they accept previous decisions and established rules and policies, taking their arguments into account for determining consensus is simply risking to invalidate the whole process. I have decided to follow a very precise methodology in all my arguments to respect all these previous decisions and follow the required rules and policies and this is reflected in my votes. And you can see that I'm arguing for "Macedonian" for the people, "North Macedonian" for state-related entities and both for all other uses. Someone might call this pattern as a schizophrenic behavior, but actually I'm trying to be as consistent as possible to my methodology. And as I have previously said there is no one-size-fits-all solution currently, because we are in a transitional phase after the state's name change and possibly we need to wait for some time to make firm conclusions. But in any case wikipedia should always stay descriptive, not prescriptive. --Argean (talk) 16:07, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
 * When I said I supported it was in regard to the specific comment that said: Are you implying that for this to be considered consensus we have to engage at least 70,244 of Wikipedia's 140,486 active users...? This was a process open to anyone that was interested in contributing to it. I would also point out that the vast majority of Wikipedia policies were voted on by numbers of people that you can count with your hands and maybe a toe or two. The WP:LOCALCONSENSUS in particular received 9 votes in total. There is nothing in that comment that relates to the use WP:COMMONSENSE. I will point out to you that the difference between "North Macedonia/Macedonian" verses "Eswatini/Swazi" is that the "Swazi" adjective & people was never described as "Swazilandish" or some other term derived from the term "Swaziland". This is unlike "Macedonian" which is directly derived from "Macedonia". Yes, I am aware that the inverse is true, "Swaziland" does come from "Swazi" but the linguistic distinction, although slight, is relevant and significant. Thus the "Swazi" adjective was never really in question when the "Eswatini" article was renamed, but it does become relevant when the state "Macedonia" becomes "North Macedonia". How does the "Macedonian" adjective get handled? With regards to "Timor-Leste/East Timorese", I consider this to just be a translation issue and not really relevant to the discussion at hand, besides the well established en.wikipedia policy is to use the common name for Timor-Leste, which is actually East Timor, as its article page is appropriately titled. - Wiz9999 (talk) 16:55, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I mixed the 2 arguments, on numbers determining consensus and WP:COMMONSENSE, but the way Michail's comment was formulated, pretty much intermingled both. Well, I'm not saying that "Macedonian" is similar to "Swazi" and "East Timorese" (but again the way that adjectival and demonymic references are formed in English is a complicated isssue), I'm saying that we changed the name of the articles of the countries, but we never changed the adjectival/demonymic references. No matter if it's an issue of translation or differences in endonyms/exonyms, what I'm suggesting is that there are previous examples of adjectival and endonymic references that are used in wikipedia that are different from the name of the Page title that refers to the country, and this, in my understanding, is consistent with the policies of WP:RECOGNIZABILITY, WP:NPOV, WP:PRECISION and WP:VERIFIABILITY based on WP:RS.
 * P.S. Forget "Timor-Leste", since we never changed even the Page title, so my bad for missing this! :)
 * P.S.2 You can actually add Myanmar/Burmese to the examples, but I didn't include it because the name change of the state happened pre wikipedia --Argean (talk) 17:16, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

And the point that I was making in my comment was that the situation is different for both "Eswatini/Swazi" and "Timor-Leste/East Timorese" than it is for "North Macedonia". This is because the term "Swazi" is effectively not related to "Swaziland" unlike "Macedonia"/"North Macedonia" - "Macedonian"/"North Macedonian". Thus, to simply argue that 'we didn't debate this adjective stuff for previous country moves' is not really valid with regards to the "Eswatini" move. Also, "East Timorese" hasn't actually undergone any changes, since the example name term you listed for the state is only an official title translation that is currently ruled to not be in use across en.wikipedia, thus it also is not a valid point. You have subsequently brought up "Myanmar"/"Burmese" as an example. This is a far more relevant point, as the adjective of "Burma" is the derived term "Burmese". Additionally, "Myanmar" has the derived "Myanma" term/adjective. Also, the Burma article page was successfully renamed to Myanmar in 2015. I will point out that after the official renaming of the state, the adjective and related terms were officially changed as well to "Myanma". (See here) (Note: this does exclude ethnicity, language, and citizenship, as the citizenship term remains as "Burmese", the dominant ethnic group is "Burman", who speak the "Bamar" language. This is akin to the current situation of the "Macedonian" ethnic group still being the widely accepted term, speaking the "Macedonian" language, post the "Myanmar"/"North Macedonia" renames.) If we were to take that country's article's page renaming as a precedent, as you have suggested, it would heavily favor us renaming the adjective/State-associated/etc. terms of "North Macedonia" to "North Macedonian". Thus, if anything, the "Myanmar" precedent just favors one side of the debate, although it does also suggest that the nationality/citizenship term should remain "Macedonian". - Wiz9999 (talk) 00:56, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Many thanks for your detailed reply, and especially for bringing up the Burma→Myanmar rename discussion, which I was not aware of. It helps to understand better some Wikipedia policies. A few comments: I brought up the Eswatini case because the new name basically means "the land of Swazi" in the country's language (source) therefore Swaziland in English, while the name of the people is Swati in their language - so we changed the name of the country to WP:OFFICIALNAME, but not the name of the people from their exonym to the endonym clearly related to country's new name. We could discuss about toponyms, ethnonyms, endonyms and exonyms for hours, but this is not the right time and place. The Myanmar article renaming case is an interesting one. First of all it is striking that we waited 26 years(!) after the official rename (it happened in 1989) to change the name of the article, while we did it just in a few days in the Republic of Macedonia→North Macedonia case. The discussion also confirms the point that WP:COMMONNAME is by far the most relevant policy, while it's clear that the choice to keep "Burmese" as the name of the people (instead of "Myanmarese" or "Myanmese") took into account WP:MOSIDENTITY, since These adjectives are not recommended as most natives of Myanmar preferred to be called either the old way of "Burmese", "Myanmar", or "Myanma" representing the many diverse races in the country. My conclusion is that the closure of this RfC must happen very carefully, otherwise we are on the verge of setting dangerous precedents in Wikipedia. But I guess the good people of ARBCOM were well aware of all these when they set the rules for this RfC to take place. --Argean (talk) 08:17, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

References with unknown date of publication
There are some references without any evidence about the date of publication:


 * UN Women: "Macedonian"
 * Peace Research Institute Oslo: Macedonian
 * European Training Foundation: "Macedonian National Qualification Framework"


 * I kindly ask you to remove these three references unless you can provide evidence about the date of publication

Moreover, there is a reference about European Union that reports just "Macedonian" but the truth is different. There is a footnote and the footnote says "may be Macedonian". As far as I know, in english language, "may" is used to give permission, but it doesn't mean that it has to be like this. : If I am not wrong, you live(d) in the UK, so you probably know better what may means in this case.
 * Let me try to help: The article European Training Foundation: "Macedonian National Qualification Framework" is from Feb 20th (post name change). The article itself uses the new name. GStojanov (talk) 21:48, 20 March 2019 (UTC)


 * European Union: "Macedonian"


 * Could you please update the reference with "may be Macedonian" which is what is precisely reported by the EU in the footnote?

Peace in balkans (talk) 19:57, 20 March 2019 (UTC)


 * The European Union Style guide in the footnote to "Macedonian" permits the usage of the adjective "Macedonian" and forbids the use of the adjective "North Macedonian". Here is the full text of the footnote: Let me be more precise: The EU Style Guide forbids both adjectives ("Macedonian" and "North Macedonian") for the state entities. They need to be "of North Macedonia", like for example "Government of North Macedonia". For all other adjectival uses it permits the usage of the adjective "Macedonian" only. This looks like a simple enough guideline for us to adopt, don't you think? GStojanov (talk) 22:04, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

, it seems that explained the EU link - this is a clear reference to UN data terminology. ETF features the new name so its evidently been updated. UN Women features International Women's Day, which I hope you know is March 8th 2019. These women were featured in a mass campaign involving multimedia billboards in New York. PRIO, I found in the news back then, it had a publication date, on Google. If you don't trust me please free to remove that link. Best. --FlavrSavr (talk) 22:25, 20 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Yes UN style guide is the same with the EU style guide"Macedonian". They are identical. I just checked them.


 * So this gives us an opportunity to define a simple Wikipedia rule that is also practical: For state entities use "of North Macedonia", do not use "North Macedonian" or "Macedonian". For all other adjectival uses you may use "Macedonian". GStojanov (talk) 22:49, 20 March 2019 (UTC)


 * I think there is a misunderstanding here. I didn't say that the EU says something wrong, EU says the same thing with the UN. I just said that the truth is different than what is presented here in wikipedia. Both EU and UN say that for other ... the adjectival reference "may be Macedonian", but the word "may be" is not a synonym of "has to be". Both EU and UN say that "Macedonian" is an option, but they don't exclude "North Macedonian" in this case, and as you have seen the Ministry of foreign affairs of Greece has already clarified that below.


 * Sources of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Greece) as reported by Kathimerini: (translated from Greek) Other adjectival usages, including those referring to private entities and actors, that are not related to the State and public entities, are not established by law and do not enjoy financial support from the State may be called "Macedonian". However, in these cases, other adjectival references can also be used, e.g., "North Macedonian society, agriculture of North Macedonia"


 * the clarification that you add does not help, because this part of the survey is clearly for NO State-associated entities. I propose to replace "Macedonian" with "may be Macedonian" for the references of both websites of EU and UN below, because this is what is really written on the website of EU and UN.


 * United Nations: "Macedonian" for activities and/or entities not associated with the State or financed by it in not bound by the agreement


 * European Union: "Macedonian" for activities and/or entities not associated with the State or financed by it in not bound by the agreement

Peace in balkans (talk) 07:15, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Oh, I see your point now! I will clarify, although I think post-closure RfC edits are not welcome. --FlavrSavr (talk) 09:29, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Note to closers
Just a convenience link to the Arbcom motion, which provided some specific instructions that closers of this RfC should keep in mind:

"… [T]he consensus must be assessed by a panel of three uninvolved contributors. In assessing the consensus, the panel is instructed to disregard any opinion which does not provide a clear and reasonable rationale explained by reference to the principles of naming conventions and of disambiguation, or which is inconsistent with the principles of the neutral point of view policy or the reliable sources guideline."

The full motion can be found here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:24, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Protection
Since people kept editing the text of the RfC, even with the box in place which announced the pending closure, I've fully protected the page for two weeks. If you have further information relevant to the RfC that you would like the closers to consider, add it here on the talk page. If any of the RfC closers want the page unprotected please let me know. Thank you, EdJohnston (talk) 18:30, 21 March 2019 (UTC)


 * You removed a clarification with the surprising excuse: "You didn't add precisely the text reported by the EU. If you wanted to do so you the text should read "according to the Prespa Agreement, the reference ‘Macedonian/citizen of the Republic of North Macedonia’ is to be used in its entirety". I have requested to stop updating the repository asap and I expect all editors to respect that)"


 * If your problem were that I didn't add the text "according to the Prespa Agreement", then you could have just added it yourself. You have no excuse to remove completely the very correct and very necessary clarification that is exactly what the EU reference reports. As I said in the comment of my revision, I added this clarification for those who use the argument that the citizenship is "Macedonian", and now everybody sees who has an agenda here. There is no reason to hide the truth about what the EU says. Your behaviour is not surprising, I didn't expect something different from you. All your comments are very biased and you try do redefine everything to push your agenda and spread your propaganda.


 * Nobody added new data after the closure. I don't see any problem if we remove incorrect references, update references, and fix mistakes. The goal is to provide reliable data and not to stick on deadlines and keep wrong data. Please add the necessary clarification in the reference of EU about the citizenship by adding the text proposed by, i.e., "according to the Prespa Agreement, the reference ‘Macedonian/citizen of the Republic of North Macedonia’ is to be used in its entirety". This clarification addresses the wrong arguments of many people and I consider it crucial for this RfC, but removed it with unclear intentions.


 * Peace in balkans (talk) 19:49, 21 March 2019 (UTC)


 * My problem is that on top of the closed RfC there is a banner that clearly reads "The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion." The fact that you ignored it and kept making edits does not mean that others should follow your example and do the same. I haven't made any edits to the page not just after the closure, but actually after the 17th of March which was the proposed date of end, and I wouldn't make any further edits to correct an edit that was falsely presented as to add precisely (verbatim) the text when it skipped a sentence, even if this was done by mistake.  Wikipedia has rules and there is no place for people who ignore them because they don't like them. Please, expect no more replies from me on that issue. --Argean (talk) 20:02, 21 March 2019 (UTC)


 * By continuing to make ANY edits to the closed discussion you are in violation of WP:TALK and WP:CLOSE. was correct in reverting your edit, even if you disagree with his reasoning for doing so at the time. The fact that entries were REMOVED from the list post-closure should not really have been permitted. Editors making changes without agreement/consensus is simply not allowed. - Wiz9999 (talk) 20:06, 21 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Thanks . Actually I wanted to revert all edits that happened since yesterday, but I tried to keep WP:AGF as I thought that according to comments made by editors these were the last ever edits that were allowed. I disapprove the fact that made also 2 edits since yesterday, although he apologized for that. As for the comments made by  on bias, I'm aware of 5 people that were involved in adding sources in the repository and 4 out of 5 have been adding sources for BOTH sides. I leave it to everyone's judgment to decide who has an agenda and who tries to do POV-pushing. --Argean (talk) 20:15, 21 March 2019 (UTC)


 * . I will repeat one more time... updating wrong data cannot be forbidden... it's actually essential and crucial to give reliable data to those who will evaluate this RfC. There were references that report "North Macedonian" and this RfC mistakenly said that they report "Macedonian", do you think we should leave these mistakes for a formal reason? You should be happy that someone spent time to make these corrections, unless you have your own agenda and I disappointed you. I expect no more replies from you anyway, your responses are always irrelevant to the issue that we discuss. It's probably part of the agenda. Anyway... once you realize your mistakes I will be here to accept your apologizes. Peace in balkans (talk) 21:40, 21 March 2019 (UTC)


 * I only did the edits because requested so in his/her very own peculiar way. I don't think my edits would have made any difference anyway. I appologize and  please WP:AGF on my part, but I didn't wanted to be accused of POV-pushing like I was repeatedly in this RfC. :( I'm disappointed by the personal attacks that Peace in balkans has brought in this debate post-closure. --FlavrSavr (talk) 00:45, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
 * No reason to apologize (apologies accepted anyway), because I'm aware of how 's WP:PUSHy behaviour forced you to do the edits, but this has just encouraged him/her to continue the disruptive post-closure editing, which is something unacceptable - no matter if the goals are good, post-closure changes to an RfC require broad consensus and unilateral actions by a single user should be discouraged. Anyway, I'm not surprised by the WP:PERSONAL attacks by this WP:SPA - they were part of his/her behaviour from the very first day he/she landed on this RfC, he/she just reached a new low - at least now he/she finally admits of performing personal attacks... --Argean (talk) 08:19, 22 March 2019 (UTC)


 * The personal attack is limited to and it has some important background as explained. In the past she/he corrected some of my revisions, and I thanked her/him, but yesterday, she/he undid my revision. I have never removed references added by other uses, I have only added comments, and after a proposal of  I start discussing issues here in the talk page. I find the behavior of  very biased because she/he does this only with references that he she/he doesn't agree with. Deleting work of other users is not acceptable. My corrections may not be perfect according to her/him, but if that were the case, she/he could have just correct it properly as she/he did in the past and everything was fine.  the changes you did after the closure were clarifications, so nobody can blame you. Our top priority is to present correct data, and you contributed to that. I thank you for that. If you notice my revisions before March 17, they were made until 22:44, I respected the official deadline. So nobody can blame me. Once I saw that people still revise, I did the same, I didn't complain as I could, and  didn't undo any revision because of that, so she/he has no excuse to undo a revision of mine that was super-correct. After the closure nobody added/removed anything.  just decided to undo a revision that contradicts her/his arguments all these weeks, and she/he uses the excuse of the closure to cover her/his propaganda. Why  did not notice the incorrect text of the EU reference when it was added? She/he always notices my "mistakes"... but she/he never notices mistakes that are in favour of "Macedonian"... This is her/his agenda, and this is why I complain. Peace in balkans (talk) 07:53, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Just stop squabbling now. Enough. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:56, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Creating a relevant sources page post-RfC
Regardless of the outcome of this RfC, for the purpose of establishing how common each of the respective terms is used in reliable sources, we should move the media link repository section to Naming conventions (Macedonia)/Sources. Excluding the 'country name' subsection, this page will be a collaborative joint research effort and will address the limitations of the current media section and evolve to have a better, more defined, structure for the listed sources. The end goal of this page is to aid and to ensure the verifiability of the community-based decision making. The page will close or freeze once it is absolutely clear which terminology has become WP:COMMONNAME. Please state whether you support or oppose this project. --FlavrSavr (talk) 10:44, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Survey (media links post-RFC)

 * Support. per nom --FlavrSavr (talk) 10:44, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Support. as previously explained --Argean (talk) 11:15, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Support: As I stated previously. Although I am slightly concerned that some aspects/terms may never establish a WP:COMMONNAME over one another (or at least not for the next few decades), but hopefully I am wrong. Either way I do support the idea of this in principal, the benefits of proceeding seem obvious to me. - Wiz9999 (talk) 11:23, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment: As I said above, there needs to be a mechanism in place to ensure that both 'sides' are being updated. I have given up on trying to update this (it becomes chaotic when there are many sources and it simply takes too much time). People need to be constantly on top of it, which is almost impossible to do. A week's delay in being involved makes it practically impossible to continue contributing as you have no idea which sources have already been included and which have not how do you avoid duplicates in that instance, and who will police this in future months when others might get involved, who were not previously involved, and add duplicates? How will we make sure that both sides of the argument remain up-to-date, and avoid having one side updated because of someone interested in updating it, but the other has less involvement? It just seems like a logistical nightmare to be honest.  --Michail (blah) 15:51, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 * The entire Wikipedia is build on the idea that if more people participate there will be more quantity and quality... and neutrality. The best mechanism is the actual involvement of as many possible people with differing POVs. I expect that in time it will evolve into something less cumbersome, as most news agencies and references will have developed their own terminology and there won't be need to include countless reproductions. Local websites will exist too, but they won't have the same weight as now. BTW, while I have been accused of POV-pushing for one-side, I've been also actually updating both sides. I have a busy schedule during the week, but most of the time it's like max up to 10 news items per day. Of course, I encourage everyone to participate - but I don't have the skills to find time or motivation for them. --FlavrSavr (talk) 18:02, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I have been reviewing all the edits to this section as they have been occurring (since the Peace in balkans signature issue above), and I can vouch for FlavrSavr here. He has been actively updating references for all sides of the debate, I have come to trust his aspiration for neutrality here as being 100% genuine. - Wiz9999 (talk) 18:21, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks ! Means a lot. While some might perceive me here as some kind of Macedonian nationalist, it's only because of my dedication as both Macedonian and Wikipedian. In RL, I'm exactly the opposite, I've been quite vocal against the nationalist regime and I've openly supported the Prespa agreement - this hasn't exactly made me the most popular person in my country, and even in my native Wikipedia which I helped create 14 years ago. My primary motivation here is to ensure that, if there is change in terminology, Wikipedia follows it's own policies and guidelines. I place big faith in Wikipedia although I must admit I'm kind of disappointed by this particular RfC. --FlavrSavr (talk) 18:59, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I was not implying that has not been updating both sides, I was referring to a hypothetical situation where other more one-sided editors might get involved and there is no one to supervise the procedure :) --Michail (blah) 19:21, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 * a hypothetical situation where other more one-sided editors might get involved and there is no one to supervise the procedure. Well, actually this has happened already and has managed to control the situation very well. I've been checking occasionally the sources as well, although I don't have enough time to contribute myself, and I can confirm that the repository is very well representative of the current situation of media references and I don't expect that we will lose control in the near future, if this hasn't happened so far. As I said before, if we change a few things in the structure it will be easier for more editors to help by both contributing and monitoring other contributions. Although I'm also disappointed by many things during the process of this RfC, I'm pretty confident that most of the heavily involved editors have shown firm commitment to neutrality and other Wikipedia principles and I expect that will keep doing so. --Argean (talk) 23:35, 16 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment. Is this within our purview to decide? Won't we need a more than local consensus to get it done? Does anyone find we need this is project space specifically?, could this not be just as well served in User:FlavrSavr/NCMAC sources? I must be missing something here, and if so I would vote WP:IAR Support. &#8211; MJL &thinsp;‐Talk‐☖ 01:26, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
 * , putting in my user space would actually discourage other people to contribute to it - and that will defeat its purpose. This shouldn't be my personal project, it should be a collaborative project. However, we will inform the panel of three admins or even ARBCOM that this project is taking place and how it will benefit Wikipedia - if they decide that it is useless, I will move it in my user space. --FlavrSavr (talk) 16:16, 17 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment. Since the RfC is currently under closure and while we are still waiting for the panel of 3 uninvolved editors to be formed and assess the consensus, I think we should stop updating the media repository, and ask from the panel to decide on its future. I think that there is no major opposition to proposing the creation of a Naming conventions (Macedonia)/Sources sub-page that in my opinion should be reformed and continue updating after the decision is made. I have to say that it's rather annoying to see continuous updates AFTER the RfC has closed. The media repository is supposed to give an impression of the WP:RS at the time that we have agreed that a decision should be made - sources may continue changing in the meantime. If users keep editing the repository, why shouldn't we continue editing the survey and the discussion as well? --Argean (talk) 18:00, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

as an administrator with a very long experience in Macedonia related issues, do you think this proposal is a good idea? If so, is there anything stopping us to create the page in the Wikipedia username? Like waiting for the panel to decide, ARBCOM decision, some policy or guideline... or should we just be bold and resume the project? --FlavrSavr (talk) 09:55, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

I do believe this would be a WikiProject: Groups of like-minded editors may start new WikiProjects at any time and are encouraged, but not obligated, to propose them before doing so. Since we already have a consensus that this project is welcome and needed, as we are not obligated to formally propose it to the WikiProject committee, and we need to start ASAP, if there are no objections I will start the page tmrw and add it to the WikiProject category. --FlavrSavr (talk) 14:55, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
 * 👍 Proceed ahead. - Wiz9999 (talk) 23:29, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

I hope you've noticed that Naming_conventions (Macedonia)/Sources is up. I've been doing mostly cleanup work, by updating links, deleting obsolete links etc. Indeed it requires a lot of maintenance, but I've also suggested some improvements that could unburden some load of the sections. Please feel free to contribute. We should also find interested contributors to the page... --FlavrSavr (talk) 19:04, 24 March 2019 (UTC) if you want to contribute please do... --FlavrSavr (talk) 16:52, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Note to participants
There is a discussion at AN that you might be interested in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Closing_panel_needed_for_Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(Macedonia)/2019_RFC -- QEDK ( 後  ☕  桜 ) 17:14, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for linking this and for volunteering to arbitrate. Can I ask what the procedure is for selecting the panel of 3? It looks like 2 administrators (User:Neutrality and User:BD2412) and two experienced editors (you and User:DannyS712), the latter of which there have been some objections to, have volunteered so far. Is it first come first served? Is there a vote? Or will you sort it out amongst yourselves? Kkyriakop (talk) 00:55, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Given the discussions about whether it should be admins or not, as well as my relative inexperience, I will simply withdraw from consideration if needed. --DannyS712 (talk) 00:56, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Closing the RfC and next steps
Why hasn’t the RfC been closed, why haven’t the votes been counted, why haven’t the next steps been taken? I deliberately haven’t been around for a couple of days (weeks, really; I’d made my argument and didn’t want to unduly influence other voices), but I’m a little bit surprised now that apparently there is some support for not closing the RfC. This sounds like goalpost-moving to me. We’ve had a process, with a deadline, so let’s abide by it, no? (BTW, I have not counted the votes, so I have no idea on how many question I may have won or lost.) —ThorstenNY (talk) 16:44, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Well, it's not going to be a vote counting. We need a panel of three closers, and they'll have a lot more work to do than just count stuff. But I agree it's time to ask for such a panel to be formed. Not much new input has been coming in. But there's no harm in leaving it open for a few more days until the panel has been established. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:50, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I understand that this neither is nor should be a situation where a one-vote majority unequivocally wins the day, but we’re not even going to count the votes at all? What good are simple Support or Oppose votes then? I would think vote tallies should at least be taken into account, no? Anyway, thanks for clarifying that we need to go through/form/initiate the process of forming a three-person panel. I do think that there has been a piece of recently submitted input that could be significant in resolving the apparent conflict between WP:ASTONISH and (predominantly used) WP:COMMONNAME. (To me, this is at the core of the conflict: the “North Macedonian camp” favors WP:ASTONISH, while the “Macedonian camp” favors (the most frequently used) WP:COMMONNAME. All other arguments strike me as essentially derivative and secondary. But I do think that both have merit and are not easily reconcilable.) And here is where the recent proposal (that hasn’t made it into the RfC in time) comes in: redirecting the disputed adjectives to a page where the different viewpoints are explained. I’m not sure yet about the exact format, but something along the lines of redirecting both North Macedonian and Macedonian to something like People and entities from North Macedonia. That way, editors could simply use either adjective and we would also catch almost all legacy cases for both people and entities. (And obviously, such a page would need a note that it is about people and things from the modern country, and other uses of Macedonian could be found at linked page about the ancient tribe, the older region, etc. etc.) Thoughts? —ThorstenNY (talk) 17:14, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * According to the procedure we should follow we need a panel of three uninvolved contributors that will assess the consensus. I don't think we are allowed to proceed to a vote counting, because the panel is the one that will decide on the consensus, and the ARBCOM decision instructs that the panel should disregard any opinion which does not provide a clear and reasonable rationale explained by reference to the principles of naming conventions and of disambiguation, or which is inconsistent with the principles of the neutral point of view policy or the reliable sources guideline. In that sense I'm afraid that the argument of WP:ASTONISH is very weak, because it's not consistent with the ARBCOM rules, since it doesn't refer to any of the above policies. I wouldn't argue though that is the only policy deployed by the pro-"North Macedonian" camp and I believe that we should leave that decision to the panel. On the issue of redirecting the adjectives, both and myself have proposed to create an article on People of North Macedonia, but I believe that the question on what will be the exact redirects depends on the decisions of the RfC and I guess that this requires further discussion. --Argean (talk) 18:59, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't want to enter an another debate but I'd like to add that apart of the WP:COMMONNAME, the "Macedonian camp" also invoked a very direct and precise policy which is WP:NAMECHANGES. This policy means that article titles should be changed if reliable sources routinely use the new terminology. We gave the necessary extra weight and included only reliable sources post-renaming. This doesn't mean that reliable sources pre-renaming have zero weight. However, so far, to me, it seems that there's no evidence of routine and consistent usage of "North Macedonian" in reliable sources: they've been split on the 'state-entities' and 'other adjectival usage' and in the minority for the 'nationality' issue. This only accentuates the need to keep the media section open. I'd also like to clarify that I'm not against closing this RfC. --FlavrSavr (talk) 23:00, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * After consulting the UN and EU style guides I think we can come up with a simple Wikipedia rule for the state entities and adjectival use: For state entities use "of North Macedonia", do not use "North Macedonian" or "Macedonian". For all other adjectival uses you may use "Macedonian". This is simple, practical and in line with UN and EU style guides. Now I am not against closing this RfC. GStojanov (talk) 23:16, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * We can definitely use UN and EU style guides as references, included in WP:RS (although I believe that other reliable sources such as WP:NEWSORG are even more important), but I want to kindly remind that previous RfC decision was not to follow UN's (provisional) convention to use FYR Macedonia as name (or designation if you prefer) of the country. The relevant Wikipedia policies that were considered in the past should be considered now as well (WP:COMMONNAME, WP:DISAMBIGUATION, WP:VERIFIABILITY, WP:NPOV, etc) , no matter what are the UN guidelines. That's the reason we have been holding this RfC for the last month and the closing panel is requested to weigh all arguments according to their compliance to these policies, not to UN guidelines. By the way, I'm not against the closure of the RfC either, but rather trying to point out to the flaws of this RfC, that I believe should be acknowledged by involved editors, before the panel of uninvolved editors tries to assess consensus. --Argean (talk) 23:59, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * So the next step now is to request for three univolved editors to form the panel. According to previous discussions it seems that we can recruit them at WP:AN? Does anyone have more experience on that issue? --Argean (talk) 18:59, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Oh, I just discovered that this has already been requested by (thanks for doing that!), and we already have one of the three volunteers, so now we need to expect for another two! --Argean (talk) 19:12, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, I decided to be WP:BOLD and request a closure on the WP:AN notice board. I thank for beginning the review and closure process, and to the two other editors that will be joining him/her as well. I wish this panel of closers a good council, and a sound logical mindfulness in finding resolutions to the questions addressed by the RfC. Thank you and good luck! 🙂 - Wiz9999 (talk) 00:05, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
 * My thanks to for joining in the closer team as well. - Wiz9999 (talk) 00:12, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid I'm not quite convinced DannyS712 has the necessary level of experience for this task. He's only been around for 6 months and I can't find any record of him dealing with policy issues of this depth before. I've noted my concerns on the requests for closure page . Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:07, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
 * If you look at my contribs to WP:ANRFC, you'll see that I've done a number of RfC closes already --DannyS712 (talk) 08:19, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
 * My thanks to and  for joining our team of closers. - Wiz9999 (talk) 04:20, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks and ! --FlavrSavr (talk) 09:26, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Given that both and  are admins, and noone has expressed any objections against  participating in the panel, although not an admin, are we happy with having 2 admins and 1 experienced non-admin in the panel, or we want to follow the suggestions that all members of the closing panel should be admins? Personally, I agree that the most important issue is not the admin status, but previous experience in dealing with complex wikipedia policy issues and the the level of trust that the editors enjoy within the community, and I don't have any objections against the current panel that has been formed. I would like to thank as well all editors that have volunteered to take part in closing this RfC, and I wish the panel a good and considerate decision-making process! --Argean (talk) 12:09, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
 * QEDK + BD2412 + Neutrality sounds like a fine panel. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:16, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Britannica reverts back to 'Macedonian' and other post-RfC media developments
Hello, I guess most of you probably know but the reliable sources research is still open. There's been some interesting developments post-RfC, like Britannica reverting all the 'North Macedonian(s)' references in the main article to 'Macedonian' or a neutral formulation, the United States Department of Defense (or their photo agency) preferring 'North Macedonian', the Associated Press seemingly departing from the neutral 'North Macedonia's' to 'North Macedonian', and then again to 'Macedonian', this Deutsche Welle musing about the 'right word to use for the nationality', etc. The point is, the world hasn't yet decided on the terminology, so it's important to keep the reliable sources research updated, especially since old links get updated or die out... --FlavrSavr (talk) 09:57, 27 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I can't find even a single place in the article where Britannica contrinutors reverted back to "Macedonian". --StanProg (talk) 10:13, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Similarly to Wikipedia, Britannica has an article history, so you can see the changes described, for example In Daily life and social customs section changed "North Macedonians" to "Macedonians." and In the Drainage section, changed "North Macedonian territory" to "North Macedonia." --FlavrSavr (talk) 10:40, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I know that and checked the history. I saw the description, but I also checked the diff and saw that no such changes were actually made. Can you make a screenshot of the diff, maybe we see different things? --StanProg (talk) 11:43, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
 * And one more thing. Even if this is changed and not indicated in the diff, this text is mostly related to the so called Ethnic Macedonians (I can hardly believe that the Albanians eat selsko meso - "pork chops and mushrooms in brown gravy", due to the Islam), not to the citizens of North Macedonia as a whole. When we come to conclusions we should think a little if the term is related to the ethnical group or to the people that live and are citizens of North Macedonia. --StanProg (talk) 11:56, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
 * It's on the second page. It was North Macedonians also enjoy other foods that are common throughout the Balkans, including taratur (yogurt with shredded cucumber) and baklava. Now it's just Macedonians. And no, it's not ethnic, they refer to the people as Macedonians (By 2010 more than half of Macedonians had Internet access). What is important, however, is that Britannica is using Macedonian as an adjective in the main article. The remaining references to "North Macedonian(s)", even from the territory reference were excluded from the article. --FlavrSavr (talk) 12:27, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Panel to close
,, should we deliberate by email or on-wiki? Neutralitytalk 23:25, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I prefer on-wiki deliberations (preferably on a new sub-page). So long as it is made clear that the discussion is not open for participation by non-panel members, this should go smoothly. bd2412  T 23:28, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Fine with me., are you OK with that plan? Neutralitytalk 00:36, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
 * It's preferable if we do it on a userspace subpage instead (like User:QEDK/Naming conventions (Macedonia) RfC), it can be off-wiki in conjunction as well. -- QEDK ( 後  ☕  桜 ) 04:11, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Userspace is fine with me. I think very little would need to be done off-wiki. bd2412  T 04:22, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Closure, and how to move on?
Thanks to the closing panel for their closing statements. This was a difficult job, and you did what you could to make some sense out of it.

Now there's the question how to move ahead. First, somebody will need to condense the RfC statements into an actual guideline text that will supplant the current WP:NCMAC. Any thoughts about how to proceed about that?

There are also some obvious issues about remaining questions that the RfC leaves open. It's all very well to say that there was "no consensus" about the adjective issue. I think we can all agree that was a fair assessment of the RfC. But how are we going to handle the issue in practice now? The recommendation by the closers, to "follow the usage of the reliable sources with respect to the specific topic at issue", is making a presupposition that is probably not warranted: that reliable sources for each specific topic domain will show a clear preferential usage that we could follow. But from the data collected so far, it appears there is a pretty even split between "North" and plain "Macedonian", and that split goes right across all topic domains. So, if I'm going to work on an article about, say, Balkan fauna, and I need to refer to this country, will I first have to conduct an investigation of how many sources in the specific topic areas of biology and geography use which term? Only to find out that, just like everywhere else, they are evenly split? Or are we supposed to follow whatever individual source we happen to have used for referencing an individual factbite in the article? What if I use multiple sources for multiple points of fact in the article, and they all follow different naming conventions, does that mean I have to switch between them mid-article? What if I find a source that uses "my" favourite naming convention, but tomorrow somebody else finds a different source supporting the same factual point but using a different one? Will that editor then be entitled to change the wording to "their" favourite naming pattern? What if the sources happen to not use an adjectival reference at all, does that mean I'm not allowed to do it either? What if the sources are all pre-2019?

In short, this is simply not practically viable. I can think of various good and fair compromises that could accommodate the basic fact that both adjectival forms will be allowed in principle, but we need something a bit more concrete than what we have now.

There's also the issue of the curious mismatch between the "state-related adjective" and "other adjective" outcomes. According to the closers, we will be using only "North Macedonian" for state-related entities, but both forms remain possible for the "others". I suspect this outcome is due more to the vagaries of voting and to the skewed wording of the RfC questions than on actual policy arguments. For some reason, the "state entities" section didn't even contain an option allowing both "North" and plain "Macedonian", while the "other adjectives" option did. But there's no policy-based or data-based reason to make such a distinction. The only reason the state entities formed their own section was the Prespa stipulation that we should avoid adjectives for them altogether; a stipulation that the RfC (rightly) rejected. But that issue is quite orthogonal to the issue of which adjective, if any, to allow. I can see no reason, either in the arguments offered by the participants, or in the usage data in the reliable sources we collected, to make such a distinction here. Plus, of course, it will lead to no end of argument and potential edit wars about what actually counts as a "state-related entity" and what doesn't. In the original closing drafts at User:QEDK/Naming conventions (Macedonia) RfC there was still the intimation that there might be room for compromise between the positions, with appropriately structured guidance indicating that "of North Macedonia" is preferred, and with "North Macedonian" being used where there is any potential for ambiguity, but "Macedonian" being permissible where the context has already been made clear. That has unfortunately been lost from the final closure (while, curiously, in the "nationality" section, a statement about a converse class of exceptions was retained).

I'm not sure how to condense all this into a unified guideline that's actually presentable and viable in practice. What do others think? Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:51, 11 April 2019 (UTC)


 * I was also puzzled by the conflicting statements in the nationality and the state-related entities section and why that particular compromise statement was left out while a class of exceptions was introduced in the 'nationality' section, that, IMHO, is not supported by any policy. I'm considering a closure review, however, AFAIK - the statements are not 100% final until they all sign in? --FlavrSavr (talk) 12:41, 11 April 2019 (UTC)


 * The job of the closer is to simply reflect consensus as they see it. While we could have picked a (subjectively) optimal outcome, editors could claim that our supposition was a supervote, and rightly so. Attempts to force a particular consensus is significantly worse than having no consensus at all. As an analogy, even widely-accepted policies like WP:RS are meant as guidelines, because there could be no suitable number of usecases that can be summarized and made into a stringent procedure, and are thus, accompanied with the understanding that we should treat them with a decent amount of common sense and recognize that there will be exceptions. The very basis of having policies is that we are able to take them with a grain of salt, there cannot be an exhaustive handbook of what to do, and especially here, where there's no consensus and everyone agrees that something must be done, but cannot come to the conclusion of what exactly that is. And, that's my opinion.
 * Pinging co-closers for their views. --qedk (t 桜 c) 14:33, 11 April 2019 (UTC)


 * I agree with QEDK: a lot of this is contextual and source-based. To give more guidance than we have already given would risk going beyond the consensus here, and would risk undercutting the core principle of following reliable sources (which is ultimately also what WP:COMMON is based upon). I accept entirely that in some cases, the reliable sources for each specific topic domain will not "always show a clear preferential usage." But I don't think the solution to that is to put our thumbs on the scale.
 * In terms of amending WP:NCMAC, one idea is to just mark the page as historical using, with a pointer to the new RfC. Neutralitytalk 15:31, 11 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I intend not to comment on post-close analyses of the close. There are issues that, when resolved by determining the consensus of the community fractured across different lines for different subjects, will be of little satisfaction to anyone. bd2412  T 15:52, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

I'd like to remind everyone that the reliable resources research continues on this WikiProject. --FlavrSavr (talk) 23:22, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Partial closure review?
First of all, I'd like to thank all three panelists, and  for the very good tackling of one of the historically most contested subjects on Wikipedia, a hot RfC that they dealt with an admirable knowledge of Wikipedia policies and a sense of compromise. I think we couldn't have realistically hoped for a better panel. However, I have some misgivings about the closing statements on some of the sections and I'm considering a partial closure review request on WP:AN. A lot of these stem from the structure and the timing of the RfC, the relative lack of consistency in the behavior of reliable sources and a significant body of votes just vaguely interested in policy and reliable sources.

A significant additional information or context was left out of the discussion. The closing panel was gauging consensus, following the discussion itself, but I'm not sure if they have been following the developments in reliable sources post-RfC, some of which have shown interesting behavior. During the RfC, Britannica, for example, briefly introduced a very limited "North Macedonian" terminology in the main article, only to return to Macedonian(s) or some neutral wording (you can check the article history). I believe that this type of behavior of a tertiary reliable source of significant weight signals that we should be very cautious in deciding the terminology here. In addition, I've also noticed that some of the major media (The Telegraph, BBC among others) reported about the "historic selfie" of the Greek and "North Macedonian" PMs - only to revert to Macedonian PM or North Macedonia's PM. The dust has definitely not settled in.

I specifically challenge the following sections and closing statements:

Nationality of people. I welcome the recognition that "Macedonian(s)" is indeed supported by policies and non-SPA voters alike. However, the statement the closing panel does find a consensus that "North Macedonian(s)" may be used in particular cases where necessary to avoid ambiguity or confusion; for example, in articles or sections of articles that discuss both Macedonians as a nationality and Macedonians as an ethnicity is problematic. Not only I'm not seeing that this supposed consensus (local?) is developing in the survey but I fail to see how introducing a term ("North Macedonian(s)) that is not accurate (WP:CONCISE), not neutral (WP:NPOV), not official (WP:OFFICIALNAMES), terribly uncommon (WP:COMMONNAME), not self-identifying (WP:MOSIDENTITY) and in addition, controversial makes any encyclopedic sense. The Prespa agreement didn't create a new demographic reality in North Macedonia, rather it ended a problem that all Macedonian citizens or citizens of RoM, regardless of ethnicity, had with Greece. In international organizations they were known as citizens of FYROM and now they are known officially as Macedonians/citizens of North Macedonia - and this is not disputed even by Greece. Sorry, but, at this moment, it is not appropriate or correct to refer to them as "North Macedonians", on Wikipedia, for any reason. The rationale you gave 'use North Macedonian to disambugiate nationality from ethnicity', seems a bit of an original research - to my knowledge, there's not a single reliable source that employs 'North Macedonian' in this capacity. The entire thing looks like an excuse to soft-introduce 'North Macedonian' in the mainstream because of popular demand. Potential ambiguities or confusions could be easily solved the way they were solved before - by adding "ethnic" when Macedonian is used in an ethnic sense, in fact in the way it is done for almost every European country out there.

State-associated and other public entities. I don't contest the consensus, but I do contest the rationale noting the fact that public entities are being retitled per Prespa agreement, newer sources find "North Macedonia"-related terminology more common.... I don't think that anybody ever seriously denied that "North Macedonia"- related terminology is more common or that the Prespa agreement didn't happen - this is reflected in the proposals themselves, all of which have "of North Macedonia". All the state-related entities will bear "of North Macedonia", "national" or similar official names now. It's the adjectival use that's the crux of the dispute here, and no, I don't think that there is conclusive evidence that "North Macedonian" is indeed more common than "Macedonian". WP:NAMECHANGES stipulates that we should give extra weight to sources after the name change - however, this doesn't mean that more than two decades of "Macedonian" now equals to zero weight. But even after the name change, both names are equally common. Reliable sources do not use "North Macedonian" routinely (in a consistent manner), they use "(of) North Macedonia" routinely. I think that it is crucial here to stress that "of North Macedonia" is preferred to "North Macedonian", as it was done in the draft closing deliberation by.

Adjective. No contention here, however the closing statement uses an old version of the question, so I think it is important to somehow note that culture and / or ethnic adjectival use was excluded as non-contentious by consensus.

It seems to me that it would be very hard for me to convince you to make these changes since it took so much time to make the closure, however, please let me know if you're sticking to your closing statements as is so that I might eventually proceed to WP:AN. No hard feelings. --FlavrSavr (talk) 02:16, 12 April 2019 (UTC)
 * "Sorry, but it is not appropriate or correct to refer to them as "North Macedonians" for any reason." Sorry, that is just ridiculous. A person from the country of North Foobaria is most naturally referred to as a North Foobarian in English usage. I don't know why the North Macedonians or the Greeks or anyone else would have a problem with that, and I frankly don't care. It is beyond the power of those countries or their agreement to regulate such usage in English. --Khajidha (talk) 15:38, 12 April 2019 (UTC)
 * It is not appropriate to impose a name on someone, anyone, including you. GStojanov (talk) 17:20, 12 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Language communities settle on terms for people and entities outside the community all the time — and quite frequently terms settled on are less or not at all favored by the described community. There are many, many examples: North Korea, Burma etc. etc. This has nothing whatsoever to do with “imposing”, let alone “bullying.” —ThorstenNY (talk) 18:18, 12 April 2019 (UTC)
 * That's quite true in principle. But let's not forget that in the present case, the English speech community, according to the sources we've seen, actually hasn't settled on a name for the nationality that differs from the self-chosen one, but is in fact continuing to use that in the large majority of cases, and that, accordingly, this RfC has also (rightly) come to the conclusion that we should do the same. So there's not really an issue to get all worked up about, in this particular matter.
 * On the whole, I don't think it's worth trying to re-argue all the points here yet again (from either side). For the moment, we should just determine in what manner we can actually use the results in practice, what needs further clarification, and how we'll deal with the "no consensus" items. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:45, 12 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I think that the English speaking world actually did settle on the name of the nationality, and all other adjectival uses, and that name is "Macedonian" Most people consider it a common courtesy not to use unwelcome names and adjectives when referring to others.GStojanov (talk) 19:33, 12 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't wish to start the debate here all over again, there's been two months of vigorous RfC debating, reliable sources research etc. I've additionally clarified what I've meant. I don't wish to regulate anything, (nor do I have the power to) let alone usage in English. The job of Wikipedia is to describe, not to prescribe usage. Currently, the vast majority of reliable sources refer to the people as "Macedonian(s)" and that is even two months after the name change of the country. We don't know what the future brings - WP:CRYSTAL. I'd also like to refer to WP:UNDUE: If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts. If "North Macedonian(s)" was as natural as you would claim, in this period most, or a lot of sources would refer to them as "North Macedonian(s)". The fact is - they don't. Anyway, the whole section was mostly addressed to the panelists - I'm still considering a closure review on WP:AN, however I might change my opinion if the panelists reconsider their statements and/or the discussion(s) on how to translate the closing statements in actual policy prove to be more productive. --FlavrSavr (talk) 19:00, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

I too would like to thank all three panelists, and  for the good tackling of one of the historically most contested subjects on Wikipedia. Unfortunately I think you were not given a fair chance of success. This RfC was set up with a wrong assumption that we can use the adjective "North Macedonian".

UN specifically defines what adjectives are appropriate and in what situations. The adjective "North Macedonian" is marked as do not use for any and all purposes. The adjective "Macedonian" is the only adjective that is available to us, and for non-state entities only. The same definition is followed by the European Union:

In addition to that the adjective "North Macedonian" is not neutral (WP:NPOV), not official (WP:OFFICIALNAMES), not widely accepted (WP:COMMONNAME), not self-identifying (WP:MOSIDENTITY). Furthermore it fails the search engine test. Its usage is simply nowhere to be found, and trending down. GStojanov (talk) 17:59, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Estimations for when the final outcome will be announced?
Are there any estimations for when the final results/outcome will be announced? While the duration of the RfC itself was known, (with opening and closing dates having been agreed and set), I've failed to find any info about the RfC's closure procedures and how long they are supposed to last, and if there is any deadline agreed and set before the results are announced. Sorry if this question has already been asked anywhere else, I haven't found it. Been myself looking across Wikipedia but failed to find any info about this, so I thought it is better to ask here just incase, since this is the Talk page of the RfC. Any ideas? :-) --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ (talk &#9993; &#124; contribs &#9998;) 12:09, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
 * The answer to this question can be found at There is no deadline :) &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:53, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Apologies for the delay, the result should be posted shortly. --qedk (t 桜 c) 13:23, 10 April 2019 (UTC)
 * No need to apologize, my question above was merely meant for informative purposes, not to cast pressure on you or the other volunteers. Take care. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ (talk &#9993; &#124; contribs &#9998;) 21:32, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

RfC has failed to produce a new guideline
First of all, I would like to thank, and , for participating in the closing panel and for doing such a good job in assessing the consensus in such a faulty and contentious RfC. It was really a demanding task and I acknowledge that they did their best to stay neutral and respect all opinions, and at the same time to keep in accordance to ARBCOM's ruling over holding an RfC to update WP:MOSMAC.

Yes, there are issues and some of the closing remarks are indeed puzzling, as both and  have very well outlined above, but there is no use in trying to post-closure debate the actual outcome of the RfC as summarized in the closing statement. The problem seems to be more fundamental and is actually the RfC itself to blame and not the closing statement, which simply reflects the result of a badly structured and inadequately-thought-out RfC, on top of which many of the involved editors decided to ignore the instructions on citing policies and guidelines when contributing to the discussion.

It's pretty clear to me that this RfC has simply failed to reach any major policy-making decisions and it's obvious that it cannot be translated to a new guideline to replace WP:MOSMAC. Out of the 7 questions only 3 (and a half) managed to get enough policy-guided consensus and one of them was actually the "Non-contentious housekeeping", while others like the description of the country in the disambiguation page or the redirects, didn't even require a centralized RfC that would incorporate them to a guideline. The only policy-making decisions that the RfC has managed to achieve were actually on '''1. Historical names, and 2. State-associated and other public entities''', and the circumstances that lead to the second one are already being questioned.

In all other cases where the panel rightfully notices that there is WP:NOCONSENSUS, this obviously means that there is no decision made to be translated to a new guideline, and the questions should by definition default to the status quo, until a new consensus emerges. Even some hints of WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, as noticed by the closing panel, cannot be included in a guideline, because this would override withstanding ARBCOM decisions.

I'm really sorry to say but, in my opinion, this RfC has unfortunately failed miserably to reach the standards set by ARBCOM and therefore is unable to update WP:MOSMAC and by default invalid for the intended purpose. We need to think very carefully how we should proceed. --Argean (talk) 17:51, 12 April 2019 (UTC)


 * I’m sorry to have to disagree with such a dedicated and fair-minded contributor on the subject, but I think the RfC did what it was supposed to. In that sense at least, it seems to me that the process worked quite well. The RfC seems to have managed to separate the aspects which are completely or virtually uncontroversial from those where usage (and English-language sources’ understanding of common or prescribed usage) is still very much in flux. If some of the most highly respected sources in the English-speaking world such as the BBC and the Encyclopedia Britannica go back and forth, there simply is no clearly right or wrong term (yet.) This needs more time to settle. In the meantime, I don‘t see why we couldn’t distill the RfC into a set of guidelines that basically say something along the lines of Refer to the post-2019 country as (the Ro)NM. Refer to the pre-2019 country as the RofM. Don’t omit “North” when describing post-2019 state entities. Don’t use “North” for ethnicity and culture. Things are more complicated for other cases; consider context, possible ambiguity and situation-specific RS most closely related to yours. —ThorstenNY (talk) 18:48, 12 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Oh well, I do have the tendency to being misunderstood, but I'm not saying that the discussion didn't go well or was not useful at all, on the contrary it was very productive and unexpectedly very civilized, at least from the majority of the involved editors. I'm saying that the RfC has failed to produce a new guideline and unfortunately that was its purpose, therefore it is unfortunately invalid as a policy-making procedure. You condensed all the conclusions very well in just 3 lines - I'm sorry to say this cannot be a guideline, since it doesn't address all the issues, especially the more contentious one, which is the use of adjectives. Many editors have noticed the bad structure, the problematic wording, and the lack of policy-based arguments during the process, and that simply reflects to the outcome. The issue might be even more simple - maybe it's too early to set a new guideline and this has been also noticed many times during the discussion. In any case the outcome is the same: good and potentially useful discussion but inadequate policy-making decisions. I can't see that being translated to an actual guideline, sorry. --Argean (talk) 19:09, 12 April 2019 (UTC)


 * On a more specific issue, I do see wisdom in the seemingly diverging views on state-related vs. other adjectival use. The Prespa compromise (in spirit even more so than in the text) is all about using NM for the state, avoiding M for certain aspects (culture etc.) and allowing M for almost everything else. Doesn’t the RfC reflect that quite well? —ThorstenNY (talk) 18:48, 12 April 2019 (UTC)


 * I also think that the RfC has been useful in the sense that described - the glass is half-full. :) --FlavrSavr (talk) 19:06, 12 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Guys, we all love taking part in long, complicated discussions, that's pretty much obvious. But when it comes to decisions being translated to an actual guideline, things have to be much more straightforward. The questions that managed to get substantial policy-guided consensus can be added as an amendment to WP:MOSMAC, but do you believe that we can add statements that gathered WP:NOCONSENSUS or WP:LOCALCONSENSUS to an actual guideline? I'm sorry but I do have the habit of being the skeptical and the heretic one. :) --Argean (talk) 19:23, 12 April 2019 (UTC)


 * I’m not really worried about the formal flaws the RfC might have had (and I think there is a WP guideline that says something along the lines of “look at the big picture.”) Why can’t our guideline say something like Use NM for these and M for those [non-controversial cases]. *** For nationality [and other possibly controversial cases], no consensus has emerged. Until it does, do not revert NM or M. For new content, keep in mind issue-specific RS, clarity, avoidance of ambiguity and local preference [We could possibly add a note of the apparent strong RofNM preference for M when referring to people].? Or ultra-short: Use A for this, B for that; and don’t revert A or B in other cases? —ThorstenNY (talk) 20:29, 12 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Or maybe we can cite UN and EU instructions and say: For state entities use "of North Macedonia", do not use "North Macedonian" or "Macedonian". For all other adjectival uses you may use "Macedonian". GStojanov (talk) 20:58, 12 April 2019 (UTC)


 * The UN and EU ALSO have no jurisdiction over the English language. And most especially no control over Wikipedia policy. The reality is that North Macedonia has agreed to use that name officially and Greece has agreed not to officially complain about it. That is the sum total of what their decision can control. Usage by anyone, in any language, outside the officialdom of those two countries is beyond the power of their agreement. --Khajidha (talk) 02:15, 13 April 2019 (UTC)


 * UN and EU have jurisdiction over Macedonian and Greece. They coaxed them to negotiate for three decades. They negotiated bitterly: nouns, adjectives, interpunction signs, even blank spaces between words. Now that the two have arrived at a painful compromise, if we don't follow it as close as we can, we will be rubbing salt on a fresh wound.GStojanov (talk) 18:08, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Any "compromise" that ignores the realities of English grammar and attempts to force us to use nearly illiterate gibberish deserves to be ignored. --Khajidha (talk) 20:32, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

In Re: I'm sorry but I do have the habit of being the skeptical and the heretic one. Regardless, as my primary purpose is to always agree with whatever says on this talk page as  clueless devotee, I will state that I fully agree with  here. In all seriousness, I would suggest a follow-up RFC that is influenced/drawn from this closure. It would simply be a proposal to amend WP:MOSMAC in compliance with the arbcom ruling. The proposal would be based on a draft by local consensus here. Would people agree with that step forward? &#8211; MJL &thinsp;‐Talk‐☖ 20:55, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
 * In Re: Guys, we all love taking part in long, complicated discussions, that's pretty much obvious. Yeah, apparently so. I mean, I contributed to this without even having any connection to any of the major players involved.
 * Well, by being heretic I'm primarily trying to stir-up the discussion so we can actually make some progress, but thanks anyway for approving my contributions to the subject. :) So going back to the practical issues, I'll try to summarize my thoughts in the order they pop into my mind:
 * do we have a guideline? Certainly not. I've already explained that the RfC has failed in the sense it hasn't produced a new guideline. There was some useful discussion and we have some conclusions, but that's it.
 * do we need a guideline after all? So WP:MOSMAC has to stay for the moment (maybe with a couple of amendments), but imho we probably need a more substantial update, and the lack of consensus in the most contentious questions of this RfC (nationality, adjectives) just confirms that.
 * so do we have a draft to proceed? We could certainly draft a summary of conclusions of the RfC, based on the closing statement, that will reflect the current consensus of the community on the use of terms for North Macedonia-related entities. I cannot see though as a basis for a new guideline, but rather as an WP:ESSAY.
 * will a follow-up RfC solve the problem? I highly doubt it that a new RfC on the same issues, presenting the exact same statements that were used in this RfC, will produce any different results so soon after closing the first one. If we decide though that we need a new RfC soon, we need to change completely our approach, incorporate the conclusions of the RfC, eliminate any options that fail to gain policy-guided consensus, be more specific and more detailed, and include only proposals that are based on relevant policies and guidelines. We've seen how the recipe for failure looks like, so we need to change it. --Argean (talk) 17:13, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

How and what of the RfC closure statements will become actual Wikipedia policy is the actual discussion here. , do you believe that we can add statements that gathered WP:NOCONSENSUS or WP:LOCALCONSENSUS to an actual guideline - I'm also skeptical. Also, on the state-related adjectival issue, can we all agree that „of North Macedonia“ is preferred to „North Macedonian“ that was part of the panel deliberation by appropriately structured guidance indicating that "of North Macedonia" is preferred, and with "North Macedonian" being used where there is any potential for ambiguity, but "Macedonian" being permissible where the context has already been made clear? I understand this preference to mean that we will use "of North Macedonia" for state-related entities in article titles, categories, templates etc. --FlavrSavr (talk) 18:16, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Whatever the decision, such constructions as "the Greek Prime Minister and the Prime Minister of Northern Macedonia" or other such (like what User:Stevepeterson was arguing for a while back) will not be tolerated. --Khajidha (talk) 20:35, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm 100% certain that we cannot add those statements in a new guideline. It will be absurd to add rules that have failed to gain policy-based consensus and have some degree of vagueness in their exact wording and therefore will create more confusion. On the state-related adjectives issue, I have made a very specific proposal with my !vote during the RfC "of North Macedonia" seems to be the only appropriate choice for page titles, given that it is the only WP:OFFICIALNAME, ... (but) I don't see however what should prevent us to use the natural adjectival equivalent, within articles, when we would do exactly the same for any other case. It's not the closing panel's fault that they didn't include a similar conclusion in their closing statement - it's our fault that we didn't make the question specific enough. Now we have a conclusion that acknowledges that public entities are being retitled per Prespa agreement and newer sources find "North Macedonia"-related terminology more common. This is absolutely accurate, but does not distinguish the use of the 2 forms (and if I remember correctly that was the purpose of the question...), and gives no guidelines about when one or the other form could or should be preferentially used. --Argean (talk) 17:30, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

RfC didn't fail completely in the creation of a new guidline. Thanks to the RfC, a consensus has been reached already for the following cases: '''1. Disambiguation, 2. Historical names, 3. State-associated and other public entities, 4. Non-contentious housekeeping and 5. Northern Macedonia Redirect''', which IMO is a tangible progress nevertheless. If there has to be any new RfCs in the future, it shouldn't be again about these 5 aforementioned cases, but only for the other cases where there was no consensus in the current RfC. . according to the consensus, both "North Macedonian" and "of North Macedonia" are valid when describing state associations (i.e. Prime Ministry). In this example here, it will simply be "the Greek Prime Minister and the North Macedonian Prime Minister". Simple as that. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ (talk &#9993; &#124; contribs &#9998;) 21:51, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
 * The closing editors did a great job. We could not expect more, having in mind that this is not a simple case – it's a recent change and there's no firmly established naming, which affects the consensus, but we need "some" rules at least for the most basic cases, and we got them. In future, maybe in an year we can come back and reasses the stuation. --StanProg (talk) 22:49, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I have no problem with "of Macedonia" or "North Macedonia's". I have a problem with the idea, repeated by various people above, that we cannot use "North Macedonian" in any situation bdcause of the Prespa agreement.--Khajidha (talk) 23:10, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
 * That is obviously not the case because the RfC (involving many editors) actually reached a consensus on the state-related entities, where both "Macedonian" and "North Macedonian" are WP:COMMONNAME and "North Macedonia" related terminology is prevalent. The consensus is that "North Macedonian" or "of North Macedonia" will be used. This, however, doesn't mean we need to force "North Macedonian" everywhere just to spite the Prespa agreement. This isn't NPOV, accurate or verifiable. --FlavrSavr (talk) 02:10, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree. "North Macedonian" can simply be used only when needed and depending the context. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ (talk &#9993; &#124; contribs &#9998;) 16:14, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Exactly, the consensus doesn't distinguish when one or the other form should be used. If we need such a rule (i.e. on Page titles, Categories, etc) we need to propose it and decide on it. --Argean (talk) 17:36, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Well said. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ (talk &#9993; &#124; contribs &#9998;) 17:44, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
 * So we're back at the issue of how to translate the RfC results into a new guideline. Who does that? ARBCOM? I think it is very sensible to use "of North Macedonia" in article titles, categories and templates. It is the most verifiable, most neutral and the least contended (sub)option. Do we actually need a new RfC to specify this? :) --FlavrSavr (talk) 11:41, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

I argue the consensus on the use of the adjective for State-associated and other public entities. The voting was split, we didn't really reach a consensus. The questions were biased in the way that both A and C are opposing B. So it is 31 pro B and 24 against B. That is not a consensus. Furthermore the reliable sources up to March 20th are nearly split but biased toward option C using "Macedonian" instead of "North Macedonian". The trending also favors "Macedonian" over "North Macedonian". The reliable sources now are even more biased toward option C "Macedonian" over "North Macedonian". Last, but not least, the search engines tell a drastic story: the use of "Macedonian" (option C) is at least two orders of magnitude higher than the use of "North Macedonian" (option B). We can't ignore data and conclude that we reached a consensus about this issue. We need a repeat RfC for it. GStojanov (talk) 12:26, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
 * The consensus is still consensus, even if you don't agree with it or don't see it as such. The RfC was problematic in its wording, as I pointed out earlier, regarding nationality, but nevertheless the editors reached a consensus, at least on the other cases besides nationality, and the volunteers verified the consensus. Our role as editors here is not to question the will of the majority, is to respect the consensus regardless of personal opinions, and see how can we move ahead with what we have in the best possible way. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ (talk &#9993; &#124; contribs &#9998;) 16:17, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
 * As it's been said many times before, the consensus is not about counting heads, but about arguments based on wikipedia policies and guidelines. There is no rule to prevent the use of a natural adjectival equivalent of the name of an entity, which is an WP:OFFICIALNAME and can be confirmed by WP:RS. I've been saying many times (and becoming often annoying) that wikipedia is not some formal service that has to abide to legal documents and definitions. We have reached a policy-based consensus on that question, and the consensus is that both "of North Macedonia" and "North Macedonian" can be used for all officially renamed entities. --Argean (talk) 17:48, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Although I voted for the other option I agree with . We must remember, however, that "North Macedonian" or "Macedonian" are not official so it would make sense to prefer "of North Macedonia" or "North Macedonia" - related terminology in article titles about state entities. The statement about "of North Macedonia" being preferrable, "North Macedonian" used to disambiguate and "Macedonian" permissible would have saved us from a lot of trouble. While I realize that this could have kind of meant for the panelists to overstep their "jurisdiction" that didn't stop them to do introduce a class of exceptions in the "nationality" closing statement. --FlavrSavr (talk) 11:48, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
 * What is so hard about this? Forget that this is North Macedonia. Pretend that it is North Korea or South Africa or East Foobaria. Just write about the country, using "North Macedonia's", "of North Macedonia" or "North Macedonian" as would seem most natural for each instance. If you have to bend over backwards to get a particular form into the sentence, it probably shouldn't be used there. --Khajidha (talk) 12:09, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
 * It is not hard, however for article titles, categories, etc. we need a guideline preference toward "of North Macedonia" (official) because that's the most official, neutral, verifiable term. That would set a standard - this is a naming convention discussion after all. In prose, of course we'll just write about the country, using "North Macedonia's", "of North Macedonia" or "North Macedonian" as would seem most natural for each instance. --FlavrSavr (talk) 13:22, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

How about this: "For state entities that changed the name, use the new name. Don't use adjectives to describe them. Use pronouns to refer to them." What is unnatural with these two statements: "The government of North Macedonia has 23 ministers. It also has a speaker. The government also has three cooks." or this one: "Presidents of Greece and North Macedonia greeted each other with a warm embrace." (I am talking syntax here, not semantics). Why would we want to use adjectives where the English language clearly calls for nouns and pronouns?

If we permit the use of the adjective "North Macedonian" for any use, some editors will use it for any and all uses. Bulgarian editors already re-branded ethic Macedonians as Northmacedonians. If we poke that hole in the Prespa Agreement, what is now a difficult and painful compromise will turn into an unbearable yoke. Something will have to give. GStojanov (talk) 13:02, 15 April 2019 (UTC)


 * This is not a realistic, nor a consensually adopted approach. You can't really ban Wikipedia users to use adjectives in a guideline, especially if those are commonly used in reliable sources. In practice, however, I think that in a lot, if not all instances editors can agree on a more neutral, non-adjective usage. This needn't be prescribed by a guideline (I hope). --FlavrSavr (talk) 13:22, 15 April 2019 (UTC)


 * I would not bet on good will of all editors. We do need a good guideline that will prevent using adjectival references where a plain and natural noun or pronoun would work just fine. GStojanov (talk) 15:03, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
 * This is just simple English grammar. As for your example of Bulgarians using "northmacedonian" as an ethnicity, this is just as ridiculous as using "northkorean" as an ethnicity and should be treated the same: as vandalism. Change it to the correct form and block the user if it continues. --Khajidha (talk) 15:25, 15 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Yes, it is a simple English grammar. But we better put it in the guideline to avoid future wars. As for the Bulgarian Wikipedia I tried and failed miserably. They banned me once. I also failed to convince them that Macedonian language exists (they call it "a literary norm" which they understand as a subset of the Bulgarian language). I had a somewhat better success on the Greek Wikipedia, but Macedonian language there is still Slavomakedoniki glossa Σλαβομακεδονική γλώσσα, and Macedonians are still Slavomacedonians Σλαβομακεδόνες. And those are our two biggest and most powerful neighbors. It is a tough neighborhood. GStojanov (talk) 16:00, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Wait, you meant on the Bulgarian Wikipedia? That is completely irrelevant here. (However, if Bulgarian linguists generally define Macedonian as a literary norm of Bulgarian, then they SHOULD present it that way on the Bulgarian wiki. While also mentioning that other sources consider it a language in its own right.) It's not "bullying", it's being different languages. --Khajidha (talk) 16:09, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Whatever is happening in other language versions of Wikipedia, is none of English Wikipedia's concern. We can't point out to problems that other Wikis face, just to make our point here more valid than it can be. The English Wiki has its own rules and consensus, and these cannot be overriden by those of the Bulgarian or Greek Wikipedias. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ (talk &#9993; &#124; contribs &#9998;) 19:18, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

How do we present the eventual consensus
I propose we create a page Naming_conventions_(Macedonia)_2019 with similar structure to the current Naming_conventions_(Macedonia). Then after we all agree on the contents of that page, we can retire the old one and use the new one going forward. GStojanov (talk) 14:59, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Why would we not just update the existing page? --Khajidha (talk) 15:35, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Because the page contains a serious warning not do touch it, punishable by 1RR restriction. GStojanov (talk) 15:45, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Which will not apply to updating it to the new consensus. It means that the page describes the current consensus and should not be changed until that consensus changes. --Khajidha (talk) 15:59, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * This page here is where we are discussing the nature of the new consensus. There is no need to create another one. --Khajidha (talk) 16:01, 16 April 2019 (UTC)


 * I don't know if we can reach a new consensus yet. But if we can, we should be formatting it in a way that can be used to update the current Naming_conventions_(Macedonia) page. GStojanov (talk) 16:15, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Just the current article is enough for Wikipedia, I think. We simply have to update the oudated sections in it with new information stemming from new consensus and developments. This can be done no matter what 1RR restrictions may apply, because these 1RR restrictions are meant for editwarring and disruption, not for agreed changes due to consensus for these changes among the Wikipedia's community. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ (talk &#9993; &#124; contribs &#9998;) 16:28, 16 April 2019 (UTC)


 * We already have a new consensus in cases this was made possible. This is a result of a long and elaborate RfC, no matter how faulty it was, and it is not under review. What we are trying to do here is to translate the rough consensus in the cases that the conclusion of the closing panel was WP:NOCONSENSUS or WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, no matter what was the reason for that (bad structure, problematic wording, lack of policy-guided arguments etc), to an actual guideline. The current WP:MOSMAC doesn't provide a good enough template to incorporate all the issues addressed by the current RfC. Fut.Perf. has offered a good compromise that seems to be in line with that rough consensus, and respects the relevant policies and the results of the RfC. If you want to contribute to that, your proposals are welcome. But, please stop undermining the whole process because you don't like it. I'm sorry, but I'm honestly getting tired of your repeated comments that do nothing to help the current discussion here. --Argean (talk) 16:39, 16 April 2019 (UTC)


 * We need to structure our proposal in a way that can be used to update the current page Naming_conventions_(Macedonia). What do we want to change, what do we want to keep and what do we want to add. Section by section. GStojanov (talk) 16:57, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * That page is organized in way that will no longer be relevant after we update it. Future Perfect's outline above is more like the sort of outline we will end up with. --Khajidha (talk) 19:06, 16 April 2019 (UTC)