Wikipedia talk:WikiProject International relations/Bilateral relations task force


 * See also: Centralized discussion/Bilateral international relations

Albania

 * Prod - Japan, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Malta, Canada
 * AfD - Croatia,
 * Keep - Israel, Greece, Kosovo, Russia, Serbia, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States

Are these actual proposals or is it just an example of "what it might look like"? Most of the suggestions seem reasonable, even though I haven't gone through all yet... however, I guess that now we should make an attempt to find sources for those that are currently listed as "prod" or "AfD". For example: if you look at the link to the Estonian ministry of foreign affairs under Estonia-Albania relations, it presents quite a lot of information, probably enough for a decent article. Now all we need is a few newspaper articles to show that others than the governments of the two countries involved are also interested in these relations. DubZog (talk) 18:31, 18 April 2009 (UTC) EDIT: I found several newspaper articles about Estonian-Albanian relations, and will soon try to expand the article under question.DubZog (talk) 18:45, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I guess it's a "what it might look like", but the whole thing is pretty fluid at the moment. So for instance if you've found sources for Albania-Estonia and believe there's scope for expansion, feel free to move that to AfD or even keep. Once interested editors feel we're done with this set, we move on to the next one in alphabetical order, Armenia. Shouldn't take more than a few months to get through the lot. - Biruitorul Talk 19:14, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
 * You idea about taking this one country at a time is brilliant, that way the afd system is not strained by many different relations articles at a given time. I am curious how we would deal with overlapping, eventually the articles will repeat. - Marcusmax ( speak ) 20:20, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
 * They won't, if the article is either deleted or voted keep the first time we run into it, we don't have to deal with it again. By the way, on the above list, Albania-China relations is interesting from historical perspective and should probably be created. --Tone 20:40, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Im not so sure about Albania-Croatia going through the AFD process, as I have found some nice sources to justify notability. I will update that article now, I also took a moment to look at the PRODS with the exception of Estonia it seems like the others don't have enough to prove any kind of notable relationship. - Marcusmax ( speak ) 20:54, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment - So I figure it's time to get started, perhaps we could at least start on the Prods and make sure that the Afds are non-notable before going forward with that. - Marcusmax ( speak ) 23:44, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Good idea - I went ahead and prodded all on that line except Estonia. - Biruitorul Talk 02:29, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Put Turkey into keep - one need only look at history of Albania to see why. --Russavia Dialogue 02:24, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment China should definitely be included as Albania often sided with China rather than Soviet Union during the Cold War. all nations from former Yugoslavia should be included as Albania would have notable relationis with all of them. LibStar (talk) 02:29, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Albania-China doesn't currently exist, though I'd suggest not having a separate Sino-Albanian split - maybe if the former is created, merge the latter in there. Albania-Turkey is indeed notable, but not because of the Ottoman period (covered under History of Ottoman Albania and having nothing to do with today's Republic of Turkey and independent Albania), but because of things like this & this. - Biruitorul Talk 02:57, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Armenia

 * Prod - South Africa, Argentina, Colombia, United Arab Emirates, People's Republic of China, India, Japan, South Korea, Turkmenistan, Vietnam, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Moldova, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom
 * AfD - Egypt, Canada, Uruguay, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Bulgaria, Germany
 * Keep - Chile (kept at AfD), United States, Iran, Israel, Syria, Azerbaijan, France, Georgia, Greece, Romania (kept at AfD), Russia, Turkey

There's certainly no rush on Albania, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to get a head start on our next case, Armenia, which is quite a bit more complex. Yes, I've proposed a ton of prods, and I expect some of those will move up to AfD/keep, but my thinking was twofold. First, for many of these, the only assertion of notability was the presence of a (usually small) diaspora community - but these are already documented at Template:Armenian diaspora. And second, the other assertion of notability was recognition of the Armenian Genocide: but that too is noted at Recognition of the Armenian Genocide. Anyway, these will take longer to sort through, so I won't put up Austria for a while. - Biruitorul Talk 23:51, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Now that we're mostly done with Albania, can we move on to Armenia? Have any searches of the prods turned anything up? I'm ready to start tagging, but would rather not be accused of "disruption" after tagging 35 articles, no matter how devoid of notability they may be. - Biruitorul Talk 19:59, 1 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Armenia-Japan is not prodded, and a quick look suggests that it has at no time been prodded. The article cites an informative, respectable, and perhaps even reliable source. I admit that the article is boring and that I have nothing to add to it, but I'd remove a prod and vote keep in any AfD. -- Hoary (talk) 06:21, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Moved from main page: can AfD's be suspended

 * Comment, can AfD's be suspended until consensus is achieved at Centralized discussion/Bilateral international relations? Martintg (talk) 04:09, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * the answer appears to be no. AfDs are proceeding. LibStar (talk) 01:15, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * if we arrive at a favourable consensus some of the fine admins over at Article Rescue Squad can possibly help resurrect articles which in retrospect were needlessly deleted. FeydHuxtable (talk) 13:42, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Such as? And no, as long as WP:N is in place, there's no reason to "suspend" anything. - Biruitorul Talk 17:20, 3 May 2009 (UTC)


 * As there's no apparent likelihood of a consensus being reached on these articles and it would take weeks, if not months, to develop notability guidelines and gain endorsement from the community (which I also regard as being unlikely) it wouldn't be appropriate to call off AfDs on the basis of the current discussions. Nick-D (talk) 09:01, 4 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Given the current polarisation there are basically only two possible results concerning the borderline cases where suspension would make sense:
 * The attempt to create a guideline fails, or we get a guideline that only covers the clear cases.
 * The guideline settles the borderline cases by trying to approximate the AfD results as closely as possible.
 * In the first case, waiting for the guideline is time wasted. In the second case, waiting for the guideline reduces the information we have when drafting it. Under these circumstances I believe the attempts to suspend AfDs are either based on failure to understand this or an attempt to game the system. Clearly the guideline should not say "All articles with this or that property are notable [because it was possible to have them kept in an AfD by appeal to this guideline when it was in progress]". --Hans Adler (talk) 09:37, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * So, Hans, users like Martintg and others, and perhaps myself, are either stupid or cheats? I really don't like the tenor of your answer. Drmies (talk) 01:44, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I really don't like this gaming, whether it's intentional or not. I also didn't like the total derailing of batch AfDs of strongly related articles, instead of simply removing dubious cases. All of this looks like defending indefensible "articles" that should never have been created, to better protect the similar ones that actually have merit. For completeness, I also don't like unnecessary AfDs such as WP:Articles for deletion/German-Libyan relations. Just like some people think every bilateral relations article should exist even if it only says that the countries in question have no relations, I think that essentially empty articles on notable topics should be deleted until somebody is motivated to fill them. But there is very obviously no consensus for this. Therefore it's wrong to deprod articles of the first kind, and it's wrong to send articles of the second kind to AfD. We should all concentrate on the borderline cases. --Hans Adler (talk) 11:52, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

AFAIK there was exactly one AfD in which the suspension argument was taken seriously by the closer. The closer was remarkably uncommunicative afterwards, so I felt I had to open WP:Deletion review. --Hans Adler (talk) 12:46, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Moved from main page:stubs
I put a first cut at a list of stubs needing attention at WikiProject International relations/Stubs. These are from the serial stub-creator User:Groubani. Not sure what to do about it. May add some. Aymatth2 (talk) 01:00, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that's a very helpful and well-presented list. Nick-D (talk) 09:02, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Foreign relations of Argentina by country
I just finished merging 45 of these relations articles into one. Ikip (talk) 02:23, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Moved from WT:Article Rescue Squadron
Looking at Articles for deletion/Argentina–Greece relations, Articles for deletion/Greece–Mexico relations, Articles for deletion/Greece–Venezuela relations, and Articles for deletion/Greece–Peru relations, I am wondering if a compromise solution would be an article on Greece's foreign relations with South American countries from which we merge these articles. As a means of "rescuing" the content per WP:PRESERVE, should we start an article as proposed as a merge location (source searching suggests a unified article might be more "notable" than the individual ones)? Or would it be best to just rescue template the individual articles and focus on those separately? Anyway, I like to think outside of the box as it were and thought I would ask before starting a new article or rescue templating these examples. Best, --A NobodyMy talk 19:15, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually me and another editor have been talking about this, and I have started one: User:Ikip/Foreign relations of Argentina by country.
 * Here is a list of pixelface: User:Pixelface/AFDs bilateral relations
 * Also I would raise your ideas at: WikiProject International relations/Bilateral relations task force
 * I am thinking of eventually making 180 of these country articles, and merging all the individual countries into the same one. Ikip (talk) 19:31, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I like this; I agree its a good thing to avoid excessive fragmentation. Just keep in mind that you will need to do it twice, as the relationships are, after all, bilateral. You'll also need for each South American nation an article: Relationship with European countries. DGG (talk) 20:36, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * My only problem, and the reason I haven't pursued this, is because of the GFDL-compatible license issue. I copied and pasted some articles from one article to another and someone complained about this before. I don't want to get into trouble again. I will check around and get permission. I am just going to merge these articles into a new main space article.
 * How about Foreign relations of Greece by country, since there is already a Foreign relations of Greece article, this seems like a natural extension. Ikip (talk) 20:51, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Don't go creating new article titles for the sake of it. Put country-by country listings in a subsection of Foreign relations of Greece. There isn't much content to merge, usually, so a small reiteration of the material along the way while you paste it in is sufficient for GFDL. One things these blasted articles have shown me is that every country seems to have a "Foreign relations of..." article associated with it that was underused in the zeal to create robostubs. Use those articles first! -- Blue Squadron  Raven  21:08, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree that Foreign relations of Greece by country is not a very good idea. I would say if and when Foreign relations of Greece gets too big, WP:Summary style should be applied. At that point it will be easy to identify topics that are closely related, take up a lot of space altogether, and can easily be summarised. That's what should be split of. E.g. this might be Greece – United States relations, or Greek relations with the Americas, or Greek relations with other European states. --Hans Adler (talk) 21:25, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Foreign relations of Argentina by country has 43 sections, it will already be to big for Foreign relations of Argentina, the same goes for Greece, and all the other 180 potential articles.  Ikip (talk) 21:33, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

For me this is not a compromise, it is (almost) exactly what I want. For various reasons I am biased against small articles with little potential. Normally I vote for merging such small articles into appropriate bigger ones, but in this case they were mass-produced and I felt it important to give a signal that they are not wanted before someone finishes the project of putting 20,000 mostly boring stamps into an album. (I think it's a problem that "merge" is considered to be technically "keep", sometimes leading to merge outcomes that are ignored.)

Note that I am not gaming the system: I only vote for deletion when an article doesn't satisfy the notability guidelines. "Foreign relations of X" is much more likely to be notable; I would go so far as to say that there should be a presumption that they are all notable. And even if they were not, such articles can easily be made big enough, with relevant information, to justify their existence by WP:Summary style.

Now the reason for "(almost)": In some cases there is a better choice than "Foreign relations of X". An excellent example is Sino-Pacific relations. This article discusses the relations between both the People's Republic of China and Taiwan on one hand, and 14 Pacific states on the other hand, replacing 26 bilateral relation stubs and summarizing two bilateral relations articles (Australia – People's Republic of China relations and People's Republic of China – New Zealand relations).

Similarly, it might make sense to discuss the Benelux countries together, and certainly some of the Polynesian states. --Hans Adler (talk) 21:18, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I could sure use some help at Foreign relations of Argentina by country merging those 41 other countries. Ikip (talk) 21:30, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh Geez, you didn't just create a superfluous new article, did you? -- Blue Squadron  Raven  21:36, 8 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Perhaps this would be appropriate for some states that share a common area such as the Pacific or Micronesia, however, again, don't create articles for the sake of creating articles: We've seen the crapflood that causes. Stick with existing articles first and foremost. -- Blue Squadron  Raven  21:35, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I have no desire to create new stub articles. What is amazing, and I didn't see this with all the pretty graphs, subsections, and external links, is just how little valuable information are in these stub articles. My views on the whole keep/delete debate are definetly slowly changing. Ikip (talk) 23:32, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Having 180-200 trivial articles is definitely better than having 3,000 or so (but keep in mind it won't be anywhere near 180, as the problem of dozens of stubs per country is mostly concentrated in Europe, with certain exceptions like Argentina), although a) trivia is still trivia; b) this can be done far more neatly in existing "Diplomatic missions of..." articles. See e.g. List of diplomatic missions of Romania - where known, the dates relations were established are included, as well as the locations of embassies, and countries with which relations exist but no embassies. So really, there's an existing framework ready for us to use. - Biruitorul Talk 22:40, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Diplomatic missions pages? I didn't realize that existed. I will look into it. Thats a great idea Biruitorul, I think you deserve a barnstar for that. Ikip (talk) 23:32, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Another concern I have is what to write in these article edit summary when I merge them. There is (what I see) as a silly GFDL-compatible license rule, which is not very enforced, but with me, editors will find a reason to cry foul, and assuredly enforce it. A Nobody, you were involved in that disupte, what was it? Ikip (talk) 23:32, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Biruitorul, how would you take the information in Foreign relations of Argentina by country and merge it into List of diplomatic missions of Argentina? Also it seems like these Foreign relations articles are much bigger than diplomatic missions, covering trade, etc. Ikip (talk) 23:35, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I am not sure if this works, but at least in some cases the articles contain only information about diplomatic missions plus dates of mutual recognition. I think it would make sense to put all this into the diplomatic missions articles. Perhaps what remains is small enough to go into the main Foreign relations article? I am assuming that you leave the main, very notable X–Y relations articles with plenty of content intact, so they only need to be summarised in a sentence or two. --Hans Adler (talk) 00:59, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Ikip, I was thinking along the lines Hans suggested. If the information an existing stub contains is just dates of recognition, existence of relations, and location of embassies/consulates, then the "Diplomatic missions" articles should be able to handle it. If not, a separate article should generally be preserved. - Biruitorul Talk 01:25, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, realizing how little information there actually is in these articles, I went ahead and made a graph at Foreign relations of Argentina by country


 * This large graph can go into each of the diplomatic missions pages. The maps maybe are not used, maybe just a link to those maps? The references are at the bottom. Larger articles like Argentina-holy see have their own articles.
 * But: I need a couple of things from you guys, one, cease the AFDs. Two, I need help doing this. This is a lot of work.
 * Lets agree, and then I can post a notification on both pages. I really don't see that many people complaining, if they do, then we can open a straw poll. In the meantime, the AfDs stop, and we work on this together. Ikip (talk) 02:40, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

International relations are not normally one of my priorities and look like a huge time sink, but if I can stop wasting my time at AfD I will channel some of it into merging. The reason I have not done this earlier is that I felt it would be contentious. I think we should not have more than one, or a perhaps a handful, of maps for each article. For example one map showing only the country of focus on the world map. Or the bilateral relations of X could be sorted primarily by continent of the other involved country, and then it would make some limited sense to start each section with a map of X and the continent in question. (Personally I would like this, but I imagine some people would object on the grounds that it doesn't really add much information since readers tend to know where the continents are.) --Hans Adler (talk) 10:07, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment Could this be moved to WikiProject International relations/Bilateral relations task force? -- Banj e  b oi   03:06, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That's a great idea, A Nobody. Stifle (talk) 09:03, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 09:14, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I removed the maps at Foreign relations of Argentina by country. I think the flags are good enough. Help would be appreciated. Ikip (talk) 03:32, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * These articles are still being put up for deletion in mass. I would appreciate it if editors would withdraw there nominations and help with this difficult process of merging articles. Ikip (talk) 15:54, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree. Nominating more articles doesn't seem to be a good idea at this point. But I notice there hasn't been as much input from either side of the dispute as I would have hoped: Is everybody happy with this compromise? In particular:
 * Is it enough to have the information collected in larger articles, or does it absolutely have to be distributed over 20,000 articles?
 * Is it enough if the articles are merged, or does the little information they contain absolutely have to be nuked?
 * I would appreciate it if those who still consider creating or AfD-nominating bilateral relations articles could respond to the applicable question so that we know whether we have a consensus. --Hans Adler (talk) 16:04, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * This seems like a reasonable solution to me. There will be rare exceptions that merit an article, but this is more-or-less what I'd like to see. JJL (talk) 17:15, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I did not notice this section and will give the AFDing a break. I still however think that there are many articles which will not serve a purpose as there is nothing (encyclopedic or at all) to report on them. Personally if Country X has an Embassy in country Z with a few hundred nationals living there, it does not seem to be very notable to me. Just and Opinion. PMK1 (talk) 22:28, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * This type of thing has been done before, ie. Canada–Caribbean relations and I think it is the solution to all our problems, however for very important relations articles like Canada-United States or Australia-New Zeland. should retain there individual articles - Marcusmax ( speak ) 22:32, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you everyone, especially PMK1.
 * Every article which is deleted, has to be userfied by a admin to get relevant information from it. It took me weeks to get 70 articles userfied for my study, User:Ikip/AfD on average day . Since most of these articles have a small fraction of information of use, it seems like a lot of work for me and for admins for such little info. Ikip (talk) 23:55, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Much as I'm flattered that one of my articles is being cited as an example here, I'm a little puzzled as to how, in most cases, articles on bilateral relations can be merged into a single other article, i.e. without the content being duplicated. Or is duplication not a problem? For example, if there were an article on relations between Panama and Sudan, and it were to be merged, that would mean merging it into both "Foreign relations of Panama by country" and "Foreign relations of Sudan by country", correct? Aridd (talk) 22:35, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes. thats correct. there will be duplication. We could probably make templates for this, (similar to the bilateral relations template with the flags) but since we are all starting this process, I think we can wait.
 * The scope of this project is huge though. So we will see how far everyone gets before interest wains. Thus far the cooperation is heartening. Ikip (talk) 23:55, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * If it's really worth looking into, this experiment (which strikes me as another attempt to divert focus from the main issues) should have been limited to user sandboxes, not dragged into mainspace. Am I the only one to find the the artificial distinction between "Foreign relations of X" and "Foreign relations of X by country" an arresting absurdity? Dahn (talk) 00:17, 12 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I dont know about Ikip, but it seems here that he is acting in good faith. I dont think that it is necessary for every country to have its relationship with every other country to be listed. Possibly for main countries however it is necessary, however articles such as Finland–Tanzania relations and Israel–Kenya relations are not necessary. PMK1 (talk) 06:05, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree whole heartedly with PMK1. we definetly do not need a list of every country. I just created a huge, huge list of all the combinations. see below.
 * I need to finish one page, (thanks again for everyone pitching in) so I can show people and saw, look, this isn't so bad, can't we all agree on this? Ikip (talk) 06:42, 12 May 2009 (UTC)


 * (ec) As soon as we have all bilateral relations of Ruritania in one article, the information will naturally migrate into one big table for date of establishment of diplomatic relations etc., or may even be summarised. ("In the early 1970s, Ruritania established diplomatic relations with all the remaining South American countries except Uruguay, which followed in 1989. [citation to source with complete information]") And instead of one sentence for each country in the Americas about Ruritania's embassy, we will have one sentence saying that Ruritania has an embassy in Washington which covers all North and South American countries with which it has diplomatic relations.
 * I don't think we need 20,000 (or 40,000 as proposed above) redirects for all the X-Y relations. They are not easy to find that way anyway. Even if you know the naming scheme, you can't input them directly without yet more redirects because of hyphens and ndashes. (If you put a hyphen into the search box, an article containing an ndash but no hyphen will not be found.)
 * As to duplication: The duplicated information is mostly very limited, trivial and static. With the duplication it takes less space altogether than with all the connecting text of a dedicated article. (Even more so when it is artificially inflated with random trivia about handball games and joint membership in the World Knitting Association.) This only looks like a problem because we are discussing it. Town twinning is a similarly symmetric relationship, and there is nothing we can do about this short of creating separate articles for each town twinning plus a meaningless stub for each potential town twinning. It's natural if the information is changed in one article, an editor watching it will have a look at the "opposite" article to see if it's up to date. If we have roughly 1,000 articles rather than roughly 20,000, most of them will be watched by enough people. --Hans Adler (talk) 07:12, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion on Mechanics
This is a huge job, and should not be rushed. Maybe one way to stop the AfD flood is to be a bit bold, as follows: With this approach there will be fewer edit conflicts, no loss of the small amount of information in each of the stubs, and the first pass can be completed fairly fast. After that, there is the job of systematically filling in the gaps in the "foreign relations" tables, but less urgency about it. The country pair articles that have been expanded should be left for now, and if they are nominated for deletion they have to sink or swim on their own merit. The ones that survive can be referenced from the "foreign relations" tables. But a "delete" decision should always be interpreted as "redirect" to a "foreign relations" table to preserve the title, which is useful for someone searching for the subject. I would be fine with 19,000 redirects into "foreign relations" tables and 1,000 real articles. Aymatth2 (talk) 18:50, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Make a template table holding a blank entry for each of the 200 odd countries, with an "under construction notice". I am fine with the structure of the Argentina example, although perhaps it needs a bit more thought before the next step, which is
 * Make 200 clones of the template into a "foreign relations" table for each country, with a standard explanation on the Talk page
 * Work through the stubs, just the ones with nothing more than the date and embassy/consulate locations, and move that information to the two corresponding "foreign relations" tables
 * Change each stub into a redirect to the table for the first country named (be bold - I am sure nobody will object)
 * Fascinating idea. Do you have the technical skills to create such a graph? I really have no desire to make MORE sections that what is already made, but maybe your approach makes more sense. Ikip (talk) 23:56, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

(contries removed)

I will see if I can put them in a graph.... Ikip (talk) 00:25, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * What is the name of this type of table? This is simliar to distance tables in map books correct? I guess not States_and_territories_of_Australia Ikip (talk) 00:36, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I think this maybe too big of project for now. Ikip (talk) 00:57, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

---

I don't know. After a walk and a meal and a couple of glasses of wine, I am starting to think my suggestion was dumb. I was thinking about mechanics of creating the tables, not really about value or practicality of maintenance. One way or another, there would be 40,000 entries that have to be maintained and I find it hard to see who would maintain them. Plus Wikipedia is not a directory. Other web sites are dedicated to managing this kind of table. In a silly discussion about X/Y relations the other day, I pointed to Liechtenstein Visa for Greenland Passport Holder residing in Cook Islands. Wikipedia does not have to be so trivial.

On a personal level, I enjoy trying to salvage these articles. It is interesting to discover if there is much to say about each pairing, and often the result is unexpected - although with some of them there really is nothing much of interest. More seriously, it bothers me when they are deleted, because that raises a red flag against anyone who does have something to contribute and wants to start an article on the subject. It discourages additions to the knowledge in Wikipedia, which has to be wrong. I wish the stubs had never been created (although it amused me to try to salvage a few of them).

How much information would be lost if the stubs were simply redirected to one of the "country X" articles, with the content of the stub (what little there is) simply put into a L4 section in the target article? Redirect Liechtenstein - Mongolia relations to a small section in Liechtenstein, and maybe redirect Monglolia - Liechtenstein relations to a small section in Mongolia. At least it would preserve the title without the red flag, so someone could convert the redirect into a real article without worrying too much, if they had some well-sourced content. I see the end result as: That way, there might be a bit of duplication of the trivial content, some risk of forking where a section in one article on "Country A-B relations" would have a different viewpoint from a section in a different article on "Country B-A relations", but on the whole the structure would align with normal Wikipedia practices. I am inclined to avoid building structures that may never be used. I don't like special rules and guidelines for the country X/Y relations articles either - prefer to just follow the carefully thought-out, general and highly successful rules that apply to all articles: neutral, verifiable, notable etc.
 * Countries like Bermuda that do not have complex foreign relations have a section on "Relations" that gives a short description of each relevant relation: Britain, the USA, Canada, maybe one or two more
 * In some cases, these descriptions would have a link to an article that explored a particular relationship in more detail, such as Bermuda - Canada relations (hang on - that one is red - someone should start it, a lot to discuss)
 * Countries like China or the USA that have a lot of relations would have their own sub-articles on bi-lateral relations, which in turn would have short notes on some countries, links to larger articles like China–Russia relations.

Not being very helpful. Aymatth2 (talk) 02:11, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * FYI, Bermuda is not a country although I can see the US-Bermuda article as notable becase the two share a common currency, and US accounts for most of Bermudas tourism. In fact the US has an ambassador to Bermuda. Oops I am drifting away from the main point, but in general each article should be assessed on a individual basis first, then determine wheter it should be merged to one large article, or kept due to its significance. - Marcusmax ( speak ) 02:16, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * O.k., so Bermuda is not yet in the List of active autonomist and secessionist movements - not yet. But I have a strong suspicion that the "local" fish chowder for the tourists gets shipped down in tankers from Halifax, pumped onshore when nobody is looking. That in itself would be the basis for an... Aymatth2 (talk) 02:49, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Im not disagreeing with you I looked around and canada has a high council in Bermuda, and there are apperently close ties. I think it would be a fine article. - Marcusmax ( speak ) 02:56, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I was not serious. I think we are in complete agreement. Each article should be considered on its own merits. Actually, there are long-standing ties between Britain and a sort of strategic ring of Halifax, Bermuda and Jamaica that was meant to preserve British naval supremacy over the USA. It didn't work that well, in the long term. But there are close relations between the three countries to this day. Someone better qualified than me may write on them. I hope they are not turned off by some forbidding red warning that they are trying to recreate an article that has been debated and deleted. Aymatth2 (talk) 03:24, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I tried to create something similar to what Aymatth2 suggests by writing Foreign relations of Ethiopia, based on my knowledge of Ethiopian history, politics & culture. It was a stab to not only list subjects which were likely to be notable, but also to exclude articles which were not likely to be notable -- say, Bermuda-Ethiopia relations. I admit that I included a couple that weren't notable -- but I also excluded a few which arguably could be. And for my efforts, the template was slashed down to existing articles without discussion. Twice. So if I am unable to assume good faith to individuals who disagree with me on this matter, that is why. -- llywrch (talk) 18:26, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Monster tables
Well, regardless of the merits of your idea Aymatth2, I created the huge tables:
 * User:Ikip/countries a
 * User:Ikip/countries f
 * User:Ikip/countries t

As I was working on this, I started thinking maybe this wasn't such a good idea either. But I pushed on, and there they are. there is one mistake in countries f, but other than that I think they are accurate. What a pain in the ass to make them. Ikip (talk) 06:40, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * no, I take that back, sigh, they may all be incorrect. Ikip (talk) 06:45, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry - I was not clear at all. I was thinking of a sample page like User:Aymatth2/x y foreign relations, basically just an empty table with an entry for each country in the world. Then we would make 200 copies, one for each country, each with a name like "Australia foreign relations", "Albania foreign relations" etc., each with a slot for all possible countries with which it could have relations. Then work through the country x/y stubs, taking whatever information they hold and putting it into the tables for country x and for country y, and turn each stub into a redirect to one of the "Country A foreign relations" tables. This would be a bit tedious, but fairly mechanical, and takes out all the stubs that could be AfD candidates. And then the long slog of filling in all the blanks and maintaining the 40,000 entries. And that is the point where I wonder if this would just be impossible. Aymatth2 (talk) 12:49, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * No problem, I learned some neat progaming tricks on autohotkey. (i love that free macro program). I am going to worry about the existing articles. I think afghanistan is next. it is small (14 existing, 1 deleted), so it should be much easier. Ikip (talk) 19:05, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

how you can help us
1. Finding all of the relations pages by country:


 * For example, for Afghanistan. (I used the search term "relations" and "Afghanistan", simply change the country, (no quotes)) (now lists up to 500 pages in search term)

2. Then search for Afghanistan AFDs (because I am going to ask editors who put these articles up for deletion to request to userfy the articles (undelete them)), for example afghanistan again. (now lists up to 500 pages in search term)

3. Then copy a list like this onto this talk page:

For example, Argentina:


 * Argentina – Saudi Arabia relations


 * Argentina–Austria relations


 * Argentina–Belarus relations


 * Argentina–Belgium relations


 * Argentina–Costa Rica relations


 * Argentina–Czech Republic relations


 * Argentina–Dominican Republic relations


 * etc...

Eventually these entries will be merged on one of these pages: Category:Lists of diplomatic missions by sending country

Thanks. Ikip (talk) 19:11, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

See Bulgaria below - takes no time. Where to put them? Aymatth2 (talk) 21:29, 12 May 2009 (UTC)


 * See Bulgaria below - takes no time. Where to put them? Aymatth2 (talk) 21:29, 12 May 2009 (UTC)


 * An approach that seems reasonably efficiently using Microsoft Word is:
 * Search on Wikipedia for Countryx relations (no quotes)
 * View 500: All the articles with both Countryx and relations in their title will be at the front of the list
 * Select and copy all these
 * Paste into textpad, select all, copy (this is to get rid of formatting, which confuses Word)
 * Paste into Word
 * Change all relations to ~relations
 * Select all, table, convert text to table, delimiter ~
 * Select the whole table, sort on column 2, then column 1
 * All the lines where the first occurrence of the word relations is followed by no other word will be grouped in the middle of the table - delete all other entries
 * Insert a column to the left
 * Select all, table, convert table to text, delimiter ~
 * Change all ~relations to relations]]
 * Change all ~ to * [[
 * Select all, copy, paste into a new section below
 * That is the easy bit. What next? Aymatth2 (talk) 01:00, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Solution?
See the table below for Bulgaria, which could be made a stand-alone article on Bulgaria foreign relations.

It is a simple, mechanical job (see note in previous section) to create a starter table with one entry per existing article on Bulgaria-CountryX relations - takes a few minutes. Then it takes a couple of minutes per entry to check if it is a stub, and if so cut-and-paste the content that user:Groubani painstakingly tracked down, preserving the information. If it is not a stub, just add the date relations started and leave the link to the article that discusses the relationship. Depending on the number of entries, a given country could be "done" in an hour or two. There are only 200 of them, so this would not be a huge job.

The stub content would end up in two tables, one for each country, so there is a minor risk of forking, but that does not seem a real problem. After the job is done, the stubs could be turned into redirects to one of the new table-type articles. Think this is worth doing for accessibility reasons: people will search on the terms.

My preference is to keep the number of columns to those shown, putting information in list format within the "Notes" column, because that is visually simpler, makes the cut-and-paste step easier, and is very flexible. Think this is a pragmatic solution. Aymatth2 (talk) 15:03, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Wow, it looks great! Have you merged these pages yet? Ikip (talk) 20:22, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I prefer having seperate colomns for the embassies, but this is up to you. Ikip (talk) 20:28, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * List of diplomatic missions of Bulgaria is probably a better place.
 * I have been thinking--maybe it is easier to simply find a graph online that has all the information already. Formating it, then adding the extra information we find on these pages and merging them. Ikip (talk) 20:34, 13 May 2009 (UTC)


 * On naming, I prefer to use "Bulgaria foreign relations" because it is a bit broader than "diplomatic missions". It can record times when there were no missions in place, but were relations. And the natural title for a row that gets broken out into a separate article is "Bulgaria - Czechoslovakia relations". Aymatth2 (talk) 22:37, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Checking some of the countries, there does not seem to be much consistency on naming or article content. Some of the "Foreign relations of ..." articles discuss history chronologically, and do not have room for a list. Some go country by country, but only the main countries. Some have a more complete list. Some point to another article that has a list. The USA one redirects to "Foreign policy of the United States", which links to "List of diplomatic missions of the United States", which just lists American embassies, but does not give date relations established or reciprocal relations. Etc. Maybe someone someday should try to bring more consistency to these articles, but for this lot I think it is best just to choose the name and place for a table on a country-by-country basis. If an article exists that is a natural container for a table, put it there. Otherwise, I prefer "Foreign relations of..." or "Foreign relations of ... by country". "Country diplomatic missions" to me implies a list of embassies and consulates of Country, not dates and reciprocal missions. But the main thing is to get the content into tables ASAP. Clean up later. Aymatth2 (talk) 12:58, 14 May 2009 (UTC)


 * On number of columns, we have to be aware that some readers will have relatively low-resolution screens, and may not have great eyesight. Text should not be made smaller than the default if possible, and tables should not have too many columns. Try resizing the browser window and seeing how it looks when it is quite narrow - a reasonable accessibility test. Another accessibility test is to listen to the page on a page reader. Interesting to hear the way it deals with table headers and columns. Remember, the web is a key resource for the blind. Finally, once you have scrolled down and the column headings are out of sight, is it obvious what the content of each column means? My vote is to keep it simple wherever possible. Aymatth2 (talk) 22:37, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Backwards approach
I am starting to take a backwards approach to pages from here on out, starting with List of diplomatic missions of Afghanistan, I format the diplomatic page first, then find the pages, then add the materials. Ikip (talk) 21:23, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I am adding country tables into some of the "Foreign relations of articles", places to hold stub content. I will note the ones I have started below. First priority is to salvage material from the AfD stubs. Aymatth2 (talk) 18:16, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Completed pages
See List of articles for a listing of most all articles.


 * Click country name to go to the Foreign relations of ... article
 * Click list next to the country name to go to the complete list of articles on wikipedia (if the list currently exists)

Background color means completed by Ikip Background color means started by Aymatth2 Background color means completed/working on by Hans Adler Background color means being worked on by Ikip

Ikip (talk) 05:39, 14 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Here is a page with all articles (AFDs and mainspace) up to Japan, it needs to be formatted correctly:
 * User:Ikip/test67. Ikip (talk) 09:20, 14 May 2009 (UTC)


 * If this helps any, the ones I did from AfDs that were current at the time are: Australia/Luxembourg, Australia/Montenegro, Bulgaria/Peru, Bulgaria/Paraguay, Cyprus/Vietnam, France/Nauru, Gabon/Canada, India/Malta, India/Paraguay, Rep. of Ireland/Slovenia, Malta/Pakistan and Serbia/Singapore. Note that I did not, in all cases, put the same information into both countries' "Foreign relations of..." articles as in some cases there was no clearly defined spot for them. -- Blue Squadron  Raven  19:52, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Greece
Started list in Foreign relations of Greece

Switzerland

 * I have started working on these. --Hans Adler (talk) 14:30, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * All relations to EU members merged into Switzerland and the European Union. Only Romania and Greece were too big. --Hans Adler (talk) 13:06, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


 * European Union
 * Austria–Switzerland relations
 * Bulgaria–Switzerland relations
 * Cyprus–Switzerland relations
 * Denmark–Switzerland relations
 * Estonia–Switzerland relations
 * Finland–Switzerland relations
 * France–Switzerland relations
 * Hungary–Switzerland relations
 * Ireland–Switzerland relations
 * Italy–Switzerland relations
 * Latvia–Switzerland relations
 * Lithuania–Switzerland relations
 * Malta–Switzerland relations
 * Romania–Switzerland relations
 * Slovakia–Switzerland relations
 * Slovenia–Switzerland relations
 * Switzerland – United Kingdom relations
 * Relations of Germany and Switzerland
 * Relations of Greece and Switzerland


 * Rest of the world
 * Argentina–Switzerland relations
 * Armenia–Switzerland relations
 * Australia–Switzerland relations
 * Azerbaijan–Switzerland relations
 * Belarus–Switzerland relations
 * Canada–Switzerland relations
 * Croatia–Switzerland relations
 * Egypt–Switzerland relations
 * Georgia–Switzerland relations
 * Iran–Switzerland relations
 * Iraq–Switzerland relations
 * Israel–Switzerland relations
 * Japan–Switzerland relations
 * Kosovo – Switzerland relations
 * Malaysia–Switzerland relations
 * Moldova–Switzerland relations
 * Montenegro–Switzerland relations
 * Paraguay–Switzerland relations
 * Russia–Switzerland relations
 * Serbia–Switzerland relations
 * South Africa–Switzerland relations
 * South Korea – Switzerland relations
 * Swiss–Turkish relations
 * Switzerland – United States relations
 * Switzerland–Ukraine relations
 * Switzerland–Uruguay relations

Finding a home for these articles
I removed the merged information from List of diplomatic missions of Argentina and List of diplomatic missions of Afghanistan because of concerns of long time editors there. I think the important thing is the information is still in the history of these articles, even though they temporarily don't have a home.

I was thinking of merging the info into the Foreign relations of... articles, such as Foreign relations of Argentina and Foreign relations of Afghanistan what does everyone think? I will ask the longtime editors of these articles what they think.

If no one wants this info, we can simply start our own series of articles...but I think this is rather silly to do, as much of the info will be in several places and repeated.

Here are the versions before the reverts:


 * List of diplomatic missions of Argentina
 * List of diplomatic missions of Afghanistan

Ikip (talk) 14:22, 14 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Put them in a new subsection (if one doesn't already exist) of "Foreign relations of..." articles. The "list of diplomatic missions" articles might not have been quite the right place, but it's mostly semantics. If anyone complains, tell them to get stuffed and ask what they've done lately. -- Blue Squadron  Raven  17:24, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * LoL. I will ask first, but okay, I will try that. thanks for the suggestion. Ikip (talk)


 * This page is getting so long, it is hard to spot changes ... following is cut-and-pasted from a long way above.


 * Checking some of the countries, there does not seem to be much consistency on naming or article content. Some of the "Foreign relations of ..." articles discuss history chronologically, and do not have room for a list. Some go country by country, but only the main countries. Some have a more complete list. Some point to another article that has a list. The USA one redirects to "Foreign policy of the United States", which links to "List of diplomatic missions of the United States", which just lists American embassies, but does not give date relations established or reciprocal relations. Etc. Maybe someone someday should try to bring more consistency to these articles, but for this lot I think it is best just to choose the name and place for a table on a country-by-country basis. If an article exists that is a natural container for a table, put it there. Otherwise, I prefer "Foreign relations of..." or "Foreign relations of ... by country". "Country diplomatic missions" to me implies a list of embassies and consulates of Country, not dates and reciprocal missions. But the main thing is to get the content into tables ASAP. Clean up later.


 * If anyone complains about your adding a table to "their" article, you should inform them that after frank and open discussions between editors representing all interested parties and viewpoints, and taking due consideration of all aspects of the problem, the joint task force as duly appointed has issued the recommendation, subject to ratification, that the most appropriate action would be to ... Or just follow the advice of Blue  Squadron  Aymatth2 (talk) 00:51, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Ikp, are you going to duplicate the content into two separate lists, e.g. once into Foreign relations of Afghanistan and once into Foreign relations of Argentina? -- User:Docu
 * I assume there should be matching entries in the two lists, giving date relations started and missions/representation in each country. Some duplication, but not a lot. If there is much more material, it deserves a separate article.


 * I just checked two of the smaller countries. Djibouti has just two stand-alone bi-lateral relations articles: United States and China. Guyana has four: United States, Canada, Barbados and Brazil. But both countries have articles listing their missions abroad: List of diplomatic missions of Djibouti, List of diplomatic missions of Guyana, and missions from other countries: List of diplomatic missions in Guyana, List of diplomatic missions in Djibouti. I prefer the "foreign relations" type of list because there is room to add notes about the relations - more than just a list of physical offices or buildings, and can include low-level relations where neither has a physical mission, but there is stuff going on (e.g. São Tomé and Príncipe – United States relations). Not sure what the right approach is. Maybe create the "foreign relations" lists, leave the "missions in" and "missions of" lists, then consider merging into one list later? Or just leave the three lists? Aymatth2 (talk) 14:06, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Docu, what would you suggest? Ikip (talk) 15:17, 16 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Basically, the stubs get copied into to separate lists? Isn't one single article easier to maintain than two large tables? How do we make sure the two table are in sync? -- User:Docu
 * Good question. But given that the stubs do not have much information or any sources to prove notability, and several editors are therefore determined to wipe them out, it seems better to preserve the information (replicated) in the tables than to lose it altogether. Aymatth2 (talk) 15:39, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Discussion
I opened a discussion thread on the main project talk page at WT:WikiProject International relations. I started it there, as it's not primarily about deleting or merging articles. 08:47, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Merge and delete

 * The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Recently, we've had several articles with this problem: Their AfD's closed as delete, but portions of the articles been merged into corresponding foreign relations articles. See Estonia–Luxembourg relations (AfD, DRV, my talk) and Malta–Moldova relations (AfD, RfD) for examples. These articles are very problematic for this reason: If you delete it, you violate GFDL (Merge and delete). If you redirect it, you violate NPOV since it implies preference for one country over the other. -- King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  &spades; 03:52, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: Look at Redirects for discussion/Log/2009 May 22 first, which contains several possible options. -- King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  &spades; 03:54, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

For an existing article that was merged, e.g. Malta–Moldova relations, here are the options: The first one isn't really an option. -- User:Docu 04:11, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) stop using GFDL and delete Malta–Moldova relations
 * 2) create a disambiguation page at Malta–Moldova relations
 * 3) redirect Malta–Moldova relations to one Foreign relations article and create a second redirect Moldova-Malta relations to the other Foreign relations article
 * 4) keep an article at Malta–Moldova relations


 * Those were pretty much the same options that I came up with. Comments:
 * Um... no. I agree.
 * Terrible, but I find this at the moment to be the lesser evil.
 * I'll reiterate what I said at the Malta/Moldova RfD: "I feel that the presence of two redirects, based solely on the order of the countries, is confusing and inefficient. For notable relations (e.g. France/Germany), one redirects to the other because Germany – France relations is the same as France – Germany relations, and should be treated as such."
 * Well, can't really argue against consensus.
 * Another way would be to store the history somewhere else and provide a link to it. We don't have any precedent doing this because there was no such need to (redirects usually don't violate GFDL). While pretty inefficient, I think it's actually not so bad considering the circumstances. -- King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  &spades; 04:44, 28 May 2009 (UTC)


 * comment. KofH: Malta–Moldova relations is not a case for license compliance. There was nothing but a statement that they don't have resident embassies; paraphrasing one or two lines shouldn't take a long time. NVO (talk) 06:48, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
 * comment. I agree with what is happening in these bilateral relations articles, and think it reflects consensus in discussions here and elsewhere. A lot of the stubs being deleted have nothing like enough information to stand as articles, and are unlikely to ever grow: there is very little going on between the two countries. On the other hand, an entry in a table on Foreign relations of each country is useful, even if it shows that the relations are minimal. "Minimal" is real information - in a table entry. (An analogy would be an article on Malaria holding a table of deaths by country, including an entry for Iceland:0. This gives information, while omitting Iceland from the table might imply "don't know". But an article on Malaria in Iceland would be ridiculous.)
 * I suppose we have to follow GFDL, although these articles tend to have little history
 * I dislike a disambiguation page, because both target articles should hold the same (minimal) information. It would just slow down the reader
 * I prefer two redirects - cheap and avoids POV. But the history will only go with one. Is this an issue? See comment on 1.
 * Not an option. Consensus is to delete, since content is trivial
 * There must be other examples of series of articles about pairs of things where this has come up. I can't think of any. Is a single redirect really POV though? Think about the articles that have substance, such as Canada–United States relations. Why that title, and not United States-Canada relations? The common rule seems to be to sort the names alphabetically, which is neutral but a bit tough on Zimbabwe. Aymatth2 (talk) 11:28, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Malaria in Iceland may be a better analogy than you thought. It exists, so it's notable!!! --Hans Adler (talk) 12:43, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Copyright doesn't matter in this case The articles that were merged were often very trivial. Copyright does not protect trivial works that are simply listing facts. For example, the listings in a telephone book are not protected by copyright. Unless significant creative work was merged, this is simply not a real problem. Merge and delete is only a problem when you are merging nontrivial articles that include more than simply the statement of a few trivial facts. Gigs (talk) 21:06, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I raised this same point yesterday, that a simple recitation of facts in one article made into a bullet list in another was likely not something we had to worry about here. Tarc (talk) 23:49, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
 * There are no copyright issues for unsourced stubs listing, at best, directory information (or worse the classic "X-Y relations are relations between country x and country y.") There's no content to be attributed in these cases. It's just a BS lawyering way to prevent deletion.Bali ultimate (talk) 00:06, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Please calm down. -- User:Docu
 * Just show minimum courtesy for your fellow editors by signing properly. The rudeness and flaunting of community norms you display in this makes me worry for you. So, please, try harder.Bali ultimate (talk) 00:41, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Is it an inconvenience for you? -- User:Docu
 * Yes it is -- it makes it harder to access your user page and user contributions. The absence of a date makes it much harder to know precisely when you replied in a thread. And finally, after multiple editor requests, discussions at AN/I asking you to comply with the sig policy, you continue to flaunt community norms. You're basically giving every other user who does follow community norms and tries to show some respect for fellow editors the finger. This is particularly bad form for an admin. You also have a habit of refusing to answer straightforward questions and generally behaving in a deflective and dismissive manner towards the views of others. That makes you aggravating to deal with. I know that you have absolutely no regard for others now. Hope that clears it up. Any other questions?Bali ultimate (talk) 12:18, 29 May 2009 (UTC)


 * No pressing need to delete the edit histories unless there's something libelous, copy vio, or hoax in there. So long as we can just redirect somewhere per User:T-rex/essays/the more redirects the better.  Besides per WP:PRESERVE and WP:BEFORE, outright deletion is an extreme last resort.  Even if we don't have enough for more than a stub, no real legitimate reason why not to just redirect to a foreign relations of X going with which country is listed first in the redirected article as the redirect point.  Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 00:16, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

It seems we need to settle this issue: Is this copyrightable? X–Y relations are foreign relations between X and Y. X is represented in Y through its embassy in Yachtsville, and Y is represented in Malta through its embassy in Xylophone City. Both are members of the Blah Union. X and Y established diplomatic relations on January 15, 2001. If so, how minimal does the information need to be in order to be considered non-copyrightable? If not, how much more information is acceptable? -- King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  &spades; 00:59, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The problem is that it isn't just one stub that was merged into the Foreign relations articles, but a series related to the same country. -- User:Docu
 * Yes or at least err on the side of caution then not. In any event, so long as the information is verifiable and relevant to some of our readers, no real reason why not to at worst merge and redirect.  We are not here to only cover subjects that any of us personally think notable.  That's why I defend many an article I have no real interest in aside from recognizing its verifiability and relevance for others. Best, --A NobodyMy talk 01:17, 29 May 2009 (UTC)


 * We could ask Michael Snow what he thinks of it. -- User:Docu 08:23, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Two possibilities: Put a null edit in the history of each article saying "this article incorporates text by foo, bar, baz, quux, plugh, and xyzzy", or wait until the CC port is finished and then merge and delete. Stifle (talk) 08:41, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm with Stifle, except that another way to eliminate the NPOV issue is to move it to a subpage of the talk of the new location: Talk:Foo/merged histories. This hierarchy can be used as many times as necessary, with numbering: merged histories 1, etc. So long as a note is made in edit summary pointing to the history, such a move would be GFDL compliant. We have to note where it came from, but if there are problems with the anchor, we don't have to keep it there. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:11, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Is there a precedence for "moving to talk namespace"? The standard solution is to redirect the old locations to the new one. -- User:Docu
 * Is there any good reason not to? If the redirects are unnecessary and problematic at their title for NPOV versions, as asserted above, then moving them resolves both NPOV issues and GFDL issues. Wikipedia only cares that authors be properly attributed. After all, we could also eliminate the articles altogether with a history merge, but I gather this is undesirable in this case because of the number of articles involved. The idea occurred to me because of my frequent use of Selective deletion in addressing copyright concerns. However, we could not move the older articles into a subpage of the main title because it's disallowed. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:36, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * There's plenty of precedent for Moonriddengirl's solution: it's been regularly used in tricky merge-delete situations for at least three years. I don't think that this is a huge problem: at worst, we wait for relicensing and then it will go away all by it's little self. I also don't see any great harm in transforming these pages into disambigs, if that will satisfy the people who are worried abot NPOV here: note, however, that you have exactly the same PoV porblem in choosing the order of names in the title or in listing the articles on a disambig page. De minimis should probably be strongly applied here. Physchim62 (talk) 12:59, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * History merges are generally problematic if it's anything else than a cut-and-paste move of a single article. NPOV concerns can be addressed by the creation of two different redirects. To topic being adressed in a list, each is one of the usual r to list entry redirect. -- User:Docu
 * I'm not sure when you wrote this response due to your lack of timestamp or to what you're responding given your indentation, but I'm not proposing a history merge. I'm proposing potential subpaging. My mention of history merge was in response to your note that "The standard solution is to redirect the old locations to the new one." There are other standard solutions. This isn't a case where only one answer works. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:29, 29 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Is there no better example of the issue than Malta–Moldova relations? As stated above, all versions of that article contain no original text or original combinations that need to be preserved. What if I create an article saying "GMH became bankrupt in June 2009" (with relevant facts gleaned from current news reports)? Would there be a legal problem if that event occurs and a proper article is later created? Would WP have to attribute my crystal ball nonsense? Johnuniq (talk) 00:42, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I support providing attribution in dummy edit summaries (per Stifle; if it fits) or on Talk subpages. For the Talk page solution, the history can be retained by moving the articles themselves (per Moonriddengirl) or by copying and pasting it (as used by some admins when userfying). With the C&P method, mapping each word to an individual editor will not be possible, but that precision is excessive in this case. Flatscan (talk) 04:43, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * TLDR; but have page history merges been considered? You simply merge the page history of Malta–Moldova relations to Malta, for example, then drop a note onto the talk pages of Malta and Moldova that some information in the Moldova article was merged into it from the Malta article. Inelegant, but legally compliant. Hiding T 13:21, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't see histmerges discussed previously, but I think they're a poor choice due to interleaved history, per WP:How to fix cut-and-paste moves. Flatscan (talk) 03:23, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Here is an updated list of the various options, for an existing article that was merged into Foreign relations of Malta, e.g. Malta–Moldova relations (not the best sample though), together with several other Malta-xx relations:
 * 1) stop using GFDL and delete Malta–Moldova relations
 * 2) create a disambiguation page at Malta–Moldova relations (one currently listed on AfD)
 * 3) redirect Malta–Moldova relations to one Foreign relations article and create a second redirect Moldova-Malta relations to the other Foreign relations article
 * 4) keep an article at Malta–Moldova relations
 * 5) Make a null edit with the attribution on, e.g. Foreign relations of Malta (not backed by current guidelines)
 * 6) Move Malta–Moldova relations to talk namespace (if the title would be confusing or objectionable)
 * 7) Merge all edit histories Malta-xx relations into Foreign relations of Malta (not advisable as it's not a cut-and-paste move of a single page)

-- User:Docu 06:32, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * There are no GFDL concerns with no content stubs ("x-y relations are relations between x and y" is not work that needs to be attributed or that could in any universe be copywritable). Just delete the unsourced garbage and move on.Bali ultimate (talk) 13:16, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't understand why "Just stop worrying about this massive waste of time" isn't one of the options, as per Bali. Enough is enough. It's over now.  This copyright concern is just an excuse to drag this out longer.  There is no copyright protection of a short list of facts.  There's absolutely no copyright protection of a factual bullet in another list article that these got merged into.  So just drop it.  Trying to contravene consensus to delete this way is not accomplishing anything. Gigs (talk) 01:31, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Gigs, don't worry about it, you wont be asked to do anything. -- User:Docu
 * How many of these are there? If we implemented the talk namespace subpage, it shouldn't take very long, even for a relatively large group. Move them to neutral subpage names, say: "Wikipedia talk:Foreign relations of Malta/Merge 1", Merge 2, etc. Put a note in edit summary directing to primary talk page for attribution history. Put a note at talk page directing to various talk subpages. No fuss, no bother; it's over, with few resources wasted. If there are many articles, the null edit summary solution would be time-consuming. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:48, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Moonriddengirl, quite a few: there is a summary further up on this page and a full list of articles at WP:WikiProject International relations/Bilateral relations task force/Articles. Most mergers have already taken place. Aymatth2 and others went through many of them quite efficiently. Merging them is generally considered desirable. Partially, the articles have already been redirected, but I suppose they didn't get to redirect all of. -- User:Docu 12:32, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Holy cats! Yes, that's quite a few. :) I'd be happy to help with moving pages, but copyright issues don't leave me a lot of time for merging non-emergency material. Sadly, just not enough hours in a day. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:56, 2 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment The trivial amount of information kept from these articles, and the way that it is represented in the others following merging, is more than enough difference to warrant the merged information being thought of as a separate contribution. If you really want to go down the path that one piece of information, once submitted, can't be submitted anywhere else ever again by anyone, you may as well shut Wikipedia down now. Otherwise if anyone thinks it isn't enough of a change, then screw it! -- Blue Squadron  Raven  14:57, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Merger edit summaries, best practice
I have started a discussion on formalizing merger edit summaries at Help talk:Merging. Flatscan (talk) 05:31, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Scope of "relations"
One thing I have thought of today is the word "relations". Well, "relations" can mean "cultural relations," "historical relations," "diplomatic relations," etc. so given the titles of the articles, should they either be clarified to "diplomatic relations"? Or allow for the articles to essentially include sections on any number of different kinds of relations, because technically one can argue, "The article title just says 'relations' and does not restrict it to solely treaties and embassies"? Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 16:25, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * There is no need to specify the type of relations: the article should cover all relations: cultural, trade, tourism, conflict – anything significant. However, I would say that listing arbitrary facts (politician X said such-and-such, politician Y visited some-place, a treaty on something-minor was signed in 1970) borders on original research and should be avoided. Johnuniq (talk) 02:32, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Interesting point you raise A Nobody. I tend to think these are primarily relations between nation states, but should also cover trade and conflict. other things like tourism, and cultural only if there is significant coverage and historical...well if it relates to the existence of the 2 nations yes, but I've seen editors talk about relations 100s or decades of years before a nation state was created. these are best left to history of articles or ones like Soviet Union-X ones. Lastly, sporting relations should generally be avoided as these are best for national sporting team articles. the only exception is say South Africa where many countries used sporting boycotts as a means of applying political pressure because of apartheid. LibStar (talk) 13:57, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I favor a broad interpretation including all significant ways in which the two countries interact including treaties and disputes, trade and investment, migration and so on. The different aspects tend to overlap. Take Canada–Haiti relations: Canada accepted many francophone Haitian refugees during the Duvalier era, most of whom settled in Quebec; Canada contributed to peacekeeping efforts in the ensuing troubles; Canada gives aid to Haiti, but Haitian residents in Canada contribute much more in the form of remittances. These are interlinked topics about the ties between the two countries, and belong in one article. I prefer to accept any information that has reliable independent sources, whatever my personal interest in that aspect of the relationship. Obviously material covered in detail in other articles should just be briefly mentioned, not duplicated. Bottom line is I don't see the bi-lateral relations articles as different from any other type of article. They should provide neutral coverage of all aspects of the topic implied by the title, backed up by solid sources. Aymatth2 (talk) 18:53, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Use of pictures of people in bilateral articles
Dear all, I'm posting this conversation Talk:Belgium–Mexico relations to get consensus on whether we should include/exclude pictures of leaders/princes/ministers etc in bilateral articles. Here are my reasons why we shouldn't: LibStar (talk) 14:06, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
 * the pictures of such people are easily available by going to their own article, simply by clicking their blue link
 * we are going to start cluttering articles with pictures of every notable person in these bilaterals. for example do we start putting George W Bush in every USA-X article? Tony Blair in every UK-Y? Putin in Russia-X etc?
 * inclusion of such pictures are only relevant if it shows 2 notable people from each country meeting such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bush_Yushchenko_2005.jpg or when notable person of country X is actually visiting something in country Y.
 * Sorry but the argument of "Putin in Russia-X" is ridiculous, and I will revert on sight any removal of photos of relevant materials from such Russian articles. We have the resources available, and we can, and will, use them. --Russavia Dialogue 19:40, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Could you write a bit more clearly please? You are not making any sense to me. Do you mean to say it's appropriate, say, to have http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vladimir_Putin_official_portrait.jpg in China–Russia relations? Or are you trying to say the opposite? --Hans Adler (talk) 19:50, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * another example of a useful picture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PK-Jordan_relations.jpg LibStar (talk) 03:12, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Certainly pictures of meetings between diplomats or members of governments of the states in question are fair game and probably should be included. Same thing for a picture of Diplomat or Head of State of government A in country B. As for pictures of President/PM of Country A in Country A in an article on A-B relations, I don't see how it adds anything to the article. But I also don't see it taking away from the article either, provided it's not used in a misleading way. So I guess I would say--and I'm open to other points of view--that for a long article without any illustration other than in the infobox, a picture or two is nice simply for the sake of breaking the text up, and if a better picture isn't available, then a pic of President/PM of Country A in Country A is better than no picture at all, provided that President/PM of Country A is mentioned in the article. But for shorter articles, I'd say that such pic is not justified or appropriate, and these pics are never appropriate if there's actually a picture of President A in Country B, or a pic of President A meeting Prime Minister of B. Yilloslime T C  21:47, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * In the article in question, Belgium–Mexico relations, I think neither picture is justified, and neither the picture of the Corona 6 pack, especially with the Pedro de Gantes illustration already in the article. Yilloslime T C  21:54, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The only broad rule here would be that non-free images are definitely out. Other than that it's on a case by case basis. Stifle (talk) 10:14, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Relevance of treaties?
While looking something completely different on the US State Department website, I found this document, which is a list of all of the treaties the USA is a party to with one or more countries. And I mean every treaty: for example, it lists three treaties currently in force between the US & Bhutan (which cover the employment of the dependents of diplomatic officials, the surrender of persons to the International Criminal Court, & an agreement on the exchange of express mail). And I'm sure an industrious Wikipedian could find the equivalent list for many other countries (e.g. a list of treaties for the UK, or Germany, Russia, etc.) Which leads to the following questions: No, I'm not saying that the discussion over notable bilateral relations be reopened. What I am saying here is that there is a category of material waiting to be mined for use in Wikipedia, much of it arguably notable, but whose use needs to be discussed -- especially before some troublemaker finds it & uses it to ignite another acrimonious argument. -- llywrch (talk) 17:27, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Are these individual treaties notable in themselves? (And what is the criteria notability should be determined on?)
 * Does a sufficient number (either in bulk or certain type) of treaties establish notability for "X-Y bilateral relations" articles?
 * If there are no treaties of any kind between two countries, then is this absence notable in itself? If so, where should it be recorded? (Say, a section in the "Foreign relations of X" articles?) And if an absence of treaties is notable, are we forced then to admit that even treaties of arguably trivial importance proves notability?
 * A lot of governments have websites that list all the treaties they have made with other countries. http://untreaty.un.org/ has a fairly comprehensive list (but a bit awkward to search) since all UN members are required to file all bilateral treaties with the UN. I don't think it is appropriate to reproduce the lists in Wikipedia or practical to maintain them. Better to just have a reference or external link pointing to the site. But if a treaty is noted in the media or in a book, it may be reasonable to mention that in an article. I don't see any special rules for notability. Usually the more significant treaties get coverage (show notability) and the mundane ones do not. Aymatth2 (talk) 18:42, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

See also WT:WikiProject International relations. -- User: Docu at  22:11, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Another dumb question
I just discovered this page, which lists (thru a pull-down menu) Ethiopia's relations with a number of countries. It includes a few I was dubious about (e.g. Ethiopia-North Korea relations), while omitting some that do exist but understandably wouldn't be (e.g. Eritrean-Ethiopia relations). However, this page also omits one relationship which we fought a contentious AfD over: Ethiopia-Romania relations. Should this source be used to determine which bilateral articles involving Ethiopia are notable? (And let's ignore the issue about primary & secondary sources: if the MFA of Ethiopia says a relationship is notable -- or vice versa -- then it would take a very tendentious editor to ignore this Ministry's authority on the matter.) -- llywrch (talk) 20:34, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
 * No, let's not ignore the "issue" of primary and secondary sources. They are integral to determining notability and these articles are not exempt. -- Blue Squadron  Raven  20:57, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Then we run into the circular argument that what a source says about itself cannot ever be used -- even when common sense otherwise dictates that it is otherwise a reliable source. -- llywrch (talk) 21:04, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not a circular argument, and it is common sense. If there are sources other than the subject which say something is notable, meaning there is independent study of a topic, then it is notable. Otherwise, it is not. I fail to see how this is hard to understand. -- Blue Squadron  Raven  21:13, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with BlueSquadronRaven. Use standard notability guidelines. A government source like this is a starting point for research, but an article about a particular relationship needs reliable independent sources - someone other than a government bureaucrat must have noted the relationship. My (biased) list of countries that really do need basic articles about relations with their neighbors follows. Let's clear this list, then worry about the marginal cases. Aymatth2 (talk) 22:34, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Angola, Benin, Bolivia, Botswana, Burundi, Cape Verde, Comoros , Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Djibouti, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, French Guiana, Gabon, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Honduras, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Oman, Panama, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Swaziland, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Yemen, Zambia.
 * That said, Foreign relations of Ethiopia is very poor quality. It is bizarre that there are no primary article on relations with the neighbors. Eritrea? Somalia?. And what about Italy? Yes, it needs work. But I would start from the viewpoint of the country: Ethiopia looking at the world. What relations are really important to them, apart from the immediate neighbors. Saudi Arabia? China? Yemen? Egypt? Kenya? Aymatth2 (talk) 22:54, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Attempt to merge all of the stubby articles
No more merges. If you all feel like you need to discuss this further, feel free to remove the archive section. The last few I was careful to: Ikip (talk) 14:34, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Not redirect any Russian articles, per the request of Russaiva.
 * 2) Not redirect any articles with any signifigant history, per request of Matt.
 * 3) Not redirect any articles that are bordering each other, per request of LibStar.

Now that I am back, I will actively work towards finishing merging these articles, and I would love some help. Ikip (talk) 14:51, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Please note that any attempts to merge any Russian articles without discussing first on the talk page of the article, will be reverted without question. Kuwait–Russia relations and Russia–Swaziland relations have appeared on the front page as DYK's in the last month. Russia – South Ossetia relations also appeared on the front page a couple of days ago and also survived a disruptive AfD nomination. Also in the last month, Russia – Timor-Leste relations, Mali–Russia relations, Guinea-Bissau–Russia relations and Benin–Russia relations have all survived AfD nominations, and one could say that further attempts to merge Russian articles without article talk page discussion first could be seen as a tad disruptive. --Russavia Dialogue 15:30, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 * DYK is no sign of endorsement by the community. And I for one attribute the AfD results to the fact that some people get tired of countering circular arguments and some people never tire of producing circular arguments. It's the conveyor belt system put in motion for creating these monomaniacal articles that's more than a tad disruptive. Dahn (talk) 20:51, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Ikip, just which articles do you intend to merge? (I agree with Russavia that the relations of a major power with every individual country is appropriate for a separate article, except in unusual cases. Most recent AfDs involving two medium importance nations have also been kept. I do agree with Dahn that the articles should not have been made in the way they have been, but given that they are here we should do the best we can with them. Mass merging projects tend to be disruptive and I think we could avoid a good deal of trouble by prior consensus. Although anyone can do a bold merge, anyone else can revert it, and then trying to merge it again without discussion is  improper edit warring. It's BRD, not BRRD.    DGG ( talk ) 23:46, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
 * This effort had plenty of support. Go for it.-- Blue Squadron  Raven  05:46, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Um, what is a "medium importance nation" and how is it defined? Or is it something we just make up? -- Mattinbgn\talk 08:16, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

The recent redirecting by is a clear demonstration why mass redirecting without discussion is a terrible idea. Some of the poorly thought-out redirects include (but there are plenty others): No rationale was given for redirecting any of these article or any of the others mass-redirected today so I can only assume the redirect was made on the basis of "I never heard of it". That an editor feels it is somehow appropriate to redirect Egypt-Israel relations boggles me but it does make it clear that short cutting the process by mass redirecting is a disaster waiting to happen. In addition the redirecting seems random and arbitrary. Why for example was Malaysia-Thailand relations redirected to Foreign relations of Malaysia rather than Foreign relations of Thailand? I asked for an answer but none was forthcoming. I suggest all of Ikip's redirects be reversed and consensus sought for each in turn. -- Mattinbgn\talk 08:16, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Malaysia-Thailand relations
 * Kenya–Uganda relations
 * Iran–Palestine relations
 * Lithuania–Russia relations (seriously?), and my favourite
 * Egypt–Israel relations!!!!!!
 * Matt, there have been several years of conversation, maybe you missed it all, so I will let you in on it:
 * 18 April 2009: WikiProject International relations/Bilateral relations task force created
 * 30 sections on ANI. Including one specifically about LibStar
 * 6 sections at Articles for deletion main talk page.

A few months ago we attempted to have a moritorium on deletions. LibStar absolutly refused. The deletions continued.

A few months ago two other editors and I started to merge the articles to foreign relations of... The process was long, taking 2 to 3 hours per country.

Another editor started redirecting these articles a few months ago, three editors complained, so he stopped.

I started redirecting the stubs and short articles this week, after LibStar got me involved again...

I was in contact with LibStar a couple of days ago when another editor notified me that several of my redirects were up for deletion. After a long argument which felt like peeling onions, one layer at a time, LibStar told me that the reason he was deleting those redirects was because they were redirecting to the wrong page. He could have contacted me and I would have changed the redirect, he could have done in in two minutes, but instead, he decided to put it up for deletion. I mention this, because the RfDs are currently at snowball keep: everyone agrees that redirects are cheap. Redirecting these articles means no more AfDs, and snowball keeps for the RfDs.

Matt was notified by Libstar about my redirects today.

Matt voted for delete right after Libstar in two more relations articles Libstar put up for deletion today. As with me, LibStar did not have the courtesy to notify the editors of the AfDs.

I find it really funny that when it comes to redirects, LibStar has had an epiphany, and now strongly supports no articles being redirected. Even supporting the unredirect of one page he now feels are notable, but two months ago voted to delete.

If all of these pages are unredirected, LibStar and editors like him, will start a new round of deletions, as they have continually been doing. LibStar has brought up twice that he has deleted 150 relations pages.

Matt doesn't mention all the tiny stub articles which, if they were not redirected, would eventually be put up for deletion by LibStar or other editors. Redirects are cheap, if an editor disagrees with them, they can reverse them, hardly as contentious or disruptive as AfDs.

Lithuania–Russia relations and Egypt–Israel relations are mere stubs. Matt and LibStar have made no efforts to improve these articles they reverted or add sources. I am reminded of WP:BURDEN which is often brought up in the AFDs that LibStar creates. It goes both ways gentlemen. It is nice for once to be the person demanding another editor show sources, or else. Ikip (talk) 08:46, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Another odd redirect: that of Armenia–Japan relations. I can't blame you for not knowing that this (easily) survived an AfD: the "this survived an AfD" notice was never posted on the talk page. (I've since added it.) However, a look at the article should have shown that, however crappy it was, an actual human (me, as it happens) had put some work into it. &para; But this is a trivial example. The examples that Mattinbgn brings up above are indeed mind-boggling. -- Hoary (talk) 08:50, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * My apologies, I looked at that page, and thought about it for longer than most. LibStar has made a habit of making the rounds nominating articles that he nominated before for deletion a second time. Even if I would have known it survived deletion, I would have redirected it anyway, it took you two seconds to revert the redirect, that is much less disruptive than a AfD. By redirecting these articles we have dropped the numbers of future AfDs to much lower. It is a tough imperfect solution to a several year problem. Ikip (talk) 08:57, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * That's OK, I didn't take it personally. &para; I'm not sure I agree with what you're doing, but certainly multiple AfDs are a pain in the bum and there's something to be said for being bold. -- Hoary (talk) 09:09, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * A few points in reply to Ikip. Firstly, I haven't voted or expressed any opinion in any AfD on a bilateral article at all today. Please provide cites if you have them. Secondly, LibStar and I are generally opposed on bilateral articles, LibStar is generally deletionist, I am generally inclusionist. Check my talk page history for confirmation. Thirdly, I am aware of the long and tortured history behind these articles. I would not have created the overwhelming majority of them myself but mass deletions/redirects will create more problems than it solves. Lastly, I disagree strongly with LibStars continual assertion that people wishing to see an article kept have the burden of fixing it and I have said that to LibStar several times so there is no point quoting that at me. AfDs should not be about the state of the article as it exists but what it could be with available sources.


 * You seem to think that LibStar and I are in cahoots, I assure you we do not agree on much with regard to bilateral articles, which makes our agreement on your poor quality redirecting quite amazing. While the continual AfD process has been poorly handled by LibStar and others, it is much, much less disruptive than individual editors with a poor understanding of international relations (and I don't pretend mine is much better but I do know what countries border each other for a start!) unilaterally mass redirecting perfectly valid articles. While it takes only a short time to rrevert each edit, sorting through the mess you have made has already consumed a good hour or so of my time. AfD is the place to find consensus, let it do its work.


 * You still haven't given me any basis you used to determine what articles you redirected and how you chose which article to redirect to. -- Mattinbgn\talk 09:14, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Are you serious with this edit? You are redirecting articles that you actually think are OK for the purpose of making other editors look bad?!? That is reprehensible, disruptive and quite frankly behaviour unfit for an editor. I am even more strongly in favour of mass reverting your redirects if that is your motivation. -- Mattinbgn\talk 09:28, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * You are redirecting articles that you actually think are OK for the purpose of making other editors look bad?!? That's not how I read the message at all. Let's all cool down a little, shall we? -- Hoary (talk) 09:37, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * No. First your personal attacks and now this.
 * First, as I was going to write, the cardinal rule is to never say anything in a disagreement that you haven't double checked. I didn't follow that rule today.
 * My apologies, the AfDs today, Kosovan–Panamanian relations and Nepal-Albania relations were commented by Mansford, not yourself.
 * You would be suprised at how much I know about International Relations. International Relations did not come into the decision to redirect.
 * The simple criteria was this: stubby article and short: redirect. Take your prized example of Egypt–Israel relations in which you launch an entire absurd fantasy of who I am and my understanding of history. This article is a stub. It has no sources.  There are better articles about this relationship, such as Six-Day War.
 * The question of were to redirect has been brought up before. We have never gotten a clear answer, any answer.  I would be interested in hearing anyones answer about this.
 * I will put requests to merge on the article talk pages. It is much more work.
 * I don't know how involved you have been in this bilateral edit war, but I have spent dozens of hours on this, so although I feel bad about the one hour you spent, it does not compare to the sheer amount time I have been forced to spend on this project. Ikip (talk) 09:38, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I am still waiting to see some evidence of these personal attacks you keep mentioning. I will ask you a simple question, do you think that a decent article can be made about the relationship between Egpyt and Israel? If your answer is "yes" then why did you redirect other than to prove a point and win a WikiBattle? The whole point of these articles on relations is to bring together topics such as the wars etc. that these nations have been involved in. Of course other articles are going to have better content on the specifics, that does not make the generalist articles invalid. Did you really think an article on Egypt-Israeli relations would be deleted at AfD? Stubs are valid articles and your continued redirection, not for any valid purpose but merely to shield them from AfD, is flat-out bizarre. With the cack-handed way you have approached this topic, you have turned me someone who basically agrees with you (and disagrees with LibStar) that a great deal of these bilateral articles are notable into someone who thinks your method of trying to save them is worse and more disruptive than deletion! As for your knowledge of history, of course I have no idea. Like all of us I can only judge other editors based on their edits and by that criterion you appear to be someone who thinks that Egypt-Israeli relations is not worthy of a stand-alone article. I am pleased to see you have committed to going back and tagging all these article for a merge discussion, it is what you should have done in the first place. Lastly, I have no idea how you should determine what article to redirect to, but since I am not the one proposing mergers that really isn't my problem. Personally, I think merge is a poor option, these articles should stand or fall on their own basis. Mattinbgn\talk 10:17, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * As you wrote on your talk page and here:
 * If you knew about the history of the nations
 * therefore
 * you were deliberately disruptive
 * Matt, could there be any other reason why I redirected those pages? Any other reason in the world? I am sad to see that it has moved on to accusations of disruption and WP:BATTLE.
 * Matt, if you have a better suggestion about how to end the 2 year edit war, please let me know, I am very, very flexible and I grasp onto a good idea immediatly when I see it.
 * If it helps, I apologize for redirecting country stubs which have historical signifigance or are adjacent to each other. In the future I will try my hardest to avoid this. Ikip (talk) 11:15, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you, you should also check discussion pages to see if the article has been through an AfD. for the record, your claim of me now strongly supports no articles being redirected is wrong. Some of your recent redirects are ok, but some are inappropriate. so if you want to redirect less notable pairings (and check they don't have significant coverage), please do. LibStar (talk) 12:50, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Iran - Ecuador relations
i just created this page and expanded it quite a bit, but I was wondering if someone can add the image map? Lihaas (talk) 14:18, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Delsort queue fixed
I noticed somebody had created WikiProject Deletion sorting/Bilateral relations, but it wasn't working properly. I have fixed it. By the way, it should have been announced at WT:DELSORT. Somebody might have fixed it earlier, had you done that. Pcap ping  09:43, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Bilateral relations task force Invitation
Template:Bilateral relations task force Invitation has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you.

Also, is this task force still active? The last activity on this page/talk page was in May 2010. TheFeds 05:46, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Activity
Hello! This task force is quite important, but it looks like it is not that much active. Is there anyone active here? If does, please, you should respond to me! -- WhiteWriterspeaks 10:55, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Country comparison tables in bilaterals
A user has insisted that bilateral articles contain country comparison articles such as Brazil%E2%80%93United_States_relations I have looked at almost all bilateral articles in WP, and these do not appear or were removed. I don't see the value of such tables because they don't describe actual interaction between countries, if people want key facts on a country it is best to visit that country's article. putting this debate here for consensus. so the question is: "do you support country comparison tables in bilaterals?" LibStar (talk) 00:11, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
 * This may be four years late, but I only encountered such tables recently as simillar tables got integrated with Philippine bilateral relations articles (such as Cambodia–Philippines relations) which gives undue weight to trivial matters. I share the view that a reader could visit the articles of the respective countries involve (There's appropriate links for the bilateral relations infobox) I don't agree with the comparison tables.


 * But perhaps a compromise would do like the Germany–United Kingdom relations and such tables I believe should be placed last. However it would be better to add some parameters to the Bilateral infobox (since as its stands it more serves as a decoration, though a parameter for diplomatic missions and ambassadors were new additions). Nothing trivial like adding a parameter for the coat of arms, population (except expatriate populations), largest city, land area that doesn't involve bilateral relations at all. I suggest adding date of formal relations on the template's talk page but no feedback at all so far. Perhaps trade info could be added too.Hariboneagle927 (talk) 05:16, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

RfC on first sentence of bilateral relations articles
There is an RfC on the formatting of the first sentence of bilateral relations articles at Village pump (policy). As previously raised, the "X–Y relations refers to bilateral relations between X and Y..." construct is not in compliance with the Manual of Style. Please consider voicing your opinions there. Thank you. --Paul_012 (talk) 04:06, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

listing of diplomatic missions, in intro or separate section?
currently in bilateral articles, there are 2 ways we list embassies/missions: in intro or separate section, like in Mexico–North Korea relations. putting this out for community discussion. , . LibStar (talk) 00:46, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

RFC on the title for bilateral relations articles
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (country-specific topics) has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Pilaz (talk) 02:30, 17 January 2022 (UTC)