Talk:List of national capitals/Archive 1

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Archive 1 Archive 2

unsectioned talk

The capital city of the United Kingdom is NOT London! The United Kingdom does not have a capital. The capital of England is London, the capital of Wales is Cardiff, The capital of Northern Ireland is Belfast and the capital of Scotland is Edinburgh. Please ammend.

I decided to add historical capital information. I'm not sure if this shouldn't be in the other list (or a seperate one), but I don't like to have redundant information. I think one list with capitals is enough, why have one sorted by capitalname and one sorted by nation. THe CTRL-F functions works fine.

Further, I don't know if I should add a new comment like this on the top or on the bottem of the page.

What the frig is going on with these stupid tables???

I thought you did an excellent job with this page before you tried converting it to tables. Why don't you just revert it? --Zundark, 2001 Oct 17

I will if I have to, but now it's getting personal :)

Zundark: Why the change for Bahrain to Al-Manamah? That article just links to a note saying it is an alternate spelling for Manama. Why not just link to Manama directly? - MMGB ... note added later: or maybe you didn't actually do this and it's a mistake I made earlier... :)

This page says that El Aaiun is the capital of Western Sahara, but the Western Sahara article says that there is no capital, and the list of national capitals by country name doesn't list it. I couldn't find anything on El Aaiun when I was trying to do my capital cities pages. -- Zoe

The Western Sahara article is wrong, and the List of national capitals by country should have El Aaiun and Western Sahara. According to my world map, Western Sahara does have a capital, and it is El Aiun. Jprulestheworld (talk) 19:37, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, I've started the long and tedious process of moving all the capital cities entries to 'city, country' format instead of just the city. If anyone wanted to help it would make things a LOT quicker! Step one - pick a city, any city and go to its entry (it's easier if you open it in a new window). Step two - if the entry is already under 'city, country' then leave it alone and proceed to the next capital city. Step three - if the entry is only listed under city name, then make a redirect and move the content to 'city, country'. If there is more than one city listed on the page then disambiguate it. Step four - come back here to the capital city list and proceed to the next entry Step five - when a whole letter is finished, change the links on this page to city, country so that it's easier to keep your place.--Karen

Very ambitious, and I applaud you for your effort -- however, it would be a lot easier if you simply waited for the administrative move feature to get fixed first. It also may be a bit premature to do go through all this work just yet -- I only posted the city, country naming convention idea to the wikipedia mailing list a couple of days ago (of course, with the noted exception to US cities being city, state). There does seem to be far more support for this convention than not, so it will probably stand. And if it does, I will update wikipedia:naming conventions -- then nobody can rightly complain about the moves and redirects. --maveric149

I didn't see anyone objecting to it either... I know I could wait but I'm not the patient type, and I had some time to spend and I couldn't think of any constructive article content to write so I figured why not start? ~KJ]

OK fair enough, but there is something for you to ponder over at Talk:New South Wales, Australia. Cheers! --maveric149

So what's going on here? I created several entries in the {city, country} format, and they got redirected to the {city} format. I've put some of them back, but I don't know if I should continue, if they're going to get re-redirected again.

Another question having to do with cities, not necessarily capitals. I was about to create an entry for Palma, Majorca -- should it be called "Palma de Majorca", "Palma, Spain", or "Palma de Majorca, Spain"? -- Zoe

Changing links on you? Well that is a bit rude. Who is changing the links back to the {city} format? Since there is still no official convention on this, whoever sees an article at either format should just leave it alone respecting the original author's choice and just make a redirect for their favorite convention. But please do continue with the {city, country} format, because this format appears to be the one that we will adopt as an official naming convention (with the noted exception about US states). Of course, you are more than free to reverse the article/redirect order of any articles you initially made in the {city} format to the {city, country} format. BTW, it looks like Palma, Spain would be your best bet -- it is in Anglicized as much as appropriate and is in the {city, country} format (the others can redirect there if you think it is needed). --maveric149

The fact that the Spaniards also call it Palma de Mallorca seems to indicate there are more than one Palmas. I know one of the Canary Islands (or a city there) is called La Palma. Also, Palma de Majorca (with the English spelling) doesn't seem to appear very frequently at all. I'd go for Palma de Mallorca, Spain. jheijmans
I think you are right -- I wasn't aware of the "ll" spelling (which got 21,000 Google hits to the "j" spelling's 360 and with "Palma, Spain" getting 3100). --maveric149
The reason I said "Palma de Majorca" is because "Mallorca" seems to have been redirected to "Majorca", so I didn't want to create a "Palma de Mallorca", if there's no entry for "Mallorca". - Zoe
The English name for the island of Mallorca seems to be Majorca, with a J (pronounciation is the same, though). But the name for the city seems to be Palma de Mallorca, however. jheijmans, Wednesday, June 26, 2002

I cannot help wondering: What do local people call "Luxembourg City"?
S.

How about a separate list of List of former capitals? --Jiang 21:59, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Should Tel Aviv be mentioned as the administrative capital of Isreal? Afn 16:56, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

I do not understand...

why should it state that many country's dont see jerusalem as israels capital, that is very political. jerusalem is its capital by definition, I found that remark ofensive and took the liberty of removing it. I think the article is more objective this way and none less informative. that is an unnecessary piece of information wether true or not.

Jerusalem is Not the Capital of Israel Under international law, neither East nor West Jerusalem is considered Israel's capital. Tel Aviv is recognised as Israel's capital, pending a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians. East Jerusalem is considered by the international community to be illegally occupied by Israel, in contravention of several binding UN Security Council Resolutions listed here. A fuller document on the legal status of East Jerusalem is available at:' etc http://www.arabmediawatch.com/amw/CountryBackgrounds/Palestine/EastJerusalem/JerusalemisNottheCapitalofIsrael/tabid/308/Default.aspx

Please amend. Brian —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.202.43.53 (talk) 03:13, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Jerusalem is by defintion the capital of Israel, because the Israeli government is based there. Howeveer, they are illegally occupying Jerusalem, so the capital should be Tel Aviv. I think the best thing to do here is to put Jerusalem as Israel's capital but then add a note saying that the United Nations and most countries do not see it that way, because Israel isn't occupying Jerusalem, but it is Israel's capital according to the Jerusalem Law. Jprulestheworld (talk) 10:36, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

In a word, no. Tel Aviv is not the capital of Israel. IronDuke 17:22, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Jerusalem

If you want to put Jerusalem as Israel's capital, you should balance between Arab and Jewish views and let us put it as Palestine's one.

Why, there is no Palestine, only a Palestinian Authority with its authoriy derived from Israel.--Tomtom9041 00:48, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Jerusalem-is totaly refer to palestinian country---this is as per all the history books pan the world----it is fact and we should all know the facts always.

jerusalem is the capital of israel palestine is not a country, the current de facto capital of the palestinian authority is ramallah, and the capital of hams is gaza. though you might claim jerusalem is your capital i might claim that i am the queen of england, and that is not the case. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.196.91.224 (talk) 07:50, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Where is Cardiff?

I notice that Scotlands capital is on here, I just think it's just plain racism not placing Wales's capital on here!

I think neither Scotland's nor Wales's capital should be on here, as they are not sovereign nations. 85.210.71.114 (talk) 15:55, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

The section name is NATIONAL capitals not sovereign nation capitals, also the list is full of non sovereign nations, the Falkland Islands for example. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.193.5.147 (talk) 01:05, 22 November 2009 (UTC) If you read the introduction, it states the criteria for inclusion. You will notice that it's not just the capitals of independent states on this list. Welshleprechaun (talk) 17:16, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Valparaiso, Chile

I do not think Chile has a legislative capital. Just because the Parliament is in Valparaiso, it doesnt mean it is a capital of any sort...

I don't know where the government of Chile is based, but according to my world map, the capital is Santiago. However, the general definition of a capital is usually the city where the country's government is based. Jprulestheworld (talk) 18:40, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

yo no sabia que gibraltar fuera un pais y mucho menos que tuviera capital, por favor, reconsidere y se que en la realidad es una colonia Inglesa por lo tanto la Capital es Londres, seria justo que si la UN asi lo dice wiki tambien ............

English please; this is English Wikipedia, not Spanish Wikipedia. Jprulestheworld (talk) 18:40, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Recent edit

Hello all,

Here are the details of my recent edit. St.-Barthelemy and St.-Martin have become Overseas Collectivities and have been added to the list. Plymouth in Montserrat has technically not been the capital of Montserrat since 1997 when it was abandoned due to a volcano eruption. Government offices have been setup in another part of the island; this has been noted in a footnote. Hope everyone likes this. - Thanks, Hoshie 04:02, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

UK

I've put the UK back onto the list; I've put London as de facto being as it isn't enshrined in law. Feel free to put a better description in its place.

What I have also done is put England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales in italics as they are not nations (and it annoys me when people say they are). In fact, all the other italics are for dependent territories and the like, so I wonder what E/S/NI/W are doing on this page in the first place. I suggest they be removed; anyone object? 212.137.63.86 (talk) 08:18, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I suggest that dependencies etc. should be kept (but marked in italic of course and it should say what country they belong to), but not England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland because they're not even dependencies. They're just effectively provinces of the UK. Jprulestheworld (talk) 16:01, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
I re-included them (before seeing this) as Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are on fact countries (albeit not independent) as per their WP pages. It has been a subject of long debate but this was the conclusion. Secondly, they are not sovereign nations, but nor are the dependencies and disputed regions etc. which are included on this article. Thirdly, Scotland, Wales and NI are not mere provinces and cannot be compared to provinces or states etc due to their somewhat unique status. Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast are vastly more often that not referred to as capitals and this is generally known so I won't waste my time with references for that. Welshleprechaun (talk) 21:16, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
I see that User:Bastin took it upon himself to "revert [the] inclusion of subnational 'capitals'", as he puts it. This should be reverted. If Cardiff is not the capital of the country known in English as Wales I suggest he writes to the Welsh government and ask them for their opinion on the matter. He could also ask them to confirm that Wales is a "sub-nation" (a racist term if ever there was one) rather than a country. Even the UK government could enlighten him, should he wish. The question of the national status of the so-called "constituent countries" has been discussed ad nauseam so I won't start it again: to put it in a nutshell, the fact that they are not sovereign states does not mean they are not countries. As they are countries (I'll also avoid the disputed status of Northern Ireland/the Six Counties) it follows that they have capitals and those capital cities should be included here. By the way, Bastin, if Wales is a "sub-national" entity how come our national rugby team keeps winning games against the Italian, French etc national rugby teams in the international competition called the Six Nations? Just wondering. Enaidmawr (talk) 23:38, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
I was going to bring the sport point up, as Wales etc. have been compared to states or regions rather than countries. They have sport teams that compete in international events e.g. World Cups etc. that no state or region of a country would. In this case I am reverting the revert and if anyone has a problem with it and can provide some new argument/evidence, they can raise it here. If they take it upon themselves to re-revert and it escalates into an edit war, I'll take it to admin. Welshleprechaun (talk) 00:13, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
I'm not going to get into the debate of whether Belfast, Cardiff and Edinburgh ought to be on this list but sports teams are utterly irrelevant to the issue of what is and is not a country. Further, you are wrong to claim that "no state or region of a country" has its own sports teams. For example, Guam and American Samoa are not countries but send their own teams to the Olympics; Great Britain competes, rather than the UK. FIFA has 208 members, which is sixteen more than the UN; the IAAF has 212. If you're going to determine nationality by sporting affiliations, Cardiff and Swansea must be in England, since their football teams play in the English leagues. (I realise it's bad form to add comments in the middle but I think it would be rather unclear which comment I was addressing if I put this at the bottom.) Dricherby (talk) 10:27, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
I agree with reinstating the information. Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland are verifiably countries [1]. The criteria of the list is just that they are national capitals, not capitals of sovereign states. Nev1 (talk) 00:19, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
I have therefore changed the biased criteria inclusion. It's noteworth that a userbox on User:Bastin's userpage states s/he supports the abolition of the home nations proving a bias towards the exclusion of Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast. Welshleprechaun (talk) 00:24, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
Ad hominem reference to what is actually a joke (how can you scrap something that exists only in the mind? I suggest Orwellian shock therapy). Am I also Jesus? Well, I'll let you decide whether that's also a statement of bias or merely a joke. Your userpage makes references to Wales numerous times, so maybe you're biased! And I'll thank you for referring to me as a he, as my page also clearly states. If you stalked me effectively, you'd know my gender. Bastin 02:04, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
I left Bastin a talk page message, so hopefully there'll be an explanation. It was probably just a misconception about the status of the home nations, although you just have to look at countries of the United Kingdom to see how many sources refer to them as countries. Nev1 (talk) 00:27, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
No, it is not a misconception. This is a list of political capitals, not cultural capitals or regional capitals. How many embassies are there in Cardiff? How many sovereign legislatures? How many supreme courts? How many... anythings that define what a capital is? Barcelona is not included, Munich is not included, and Austin is not included, and with good reason. And, yet, Spain, Germany, and the USA have considerably less centralised political systems than the UK. To include Belfast, Cardiff, and Edinburgh is very much not NPOV. The Home Nations are sub-national entities by any objective measure, and, thus, do not belong in this list. Bastin 02:04, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
As said before, the UK government has defined the 4 countries as countries, not regions or states or anything like that. So yes, it is a misconception on your part that they are not countries. We're not saying that they are sovereign countries, but neither or some of the dependencies etc. that are on this list. Barcelona, Munich, Austin etc. are not here because they are capitals of regions are states. And if you have a look at Cardiff#International relations, you will see how many countries have embassies and honorary consulates. Welshleprechaun (talk) 07:43, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
Bastin: the list includes many capitals of non-sovereign entities, so your qualification that Cardiff, etc., lack sovereign legislatures is a non-criterion for inclusion. Your comparison Munich and Austin is off-point because because Bavaria and Texas, strong manifestations of local pride notwithstanding, Texas is nevertheless an ordinary subunit of the United States, not functioning in any way as a nation or country, and as far as nationhood is concerned, Bavarians certainly consider themselves to be of the German people, while there is no corresponding sense of a British ethnicity to which English, Welsh, Scottish or Northern Irish people subscribe. On the other hand, Catalonia is probably comparable to Wales, and so maybe Barcelona would be just as likely an addition to the list as Edinburgh. Welshleprechaun: many countries have consulates (not "honorary" consulates—I don't know why you qualified consulates as "honorary") in many cities that are not only not national capitals but not capitals at all—Mexico has consulates all over the United States, in cities like New York, Detroit, and Yuma—so the presence of consulates in Cardiff means nothing, let alone a satellite office of the UK's embassy to the US. —Largo Plazo (talk) 11:14, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
An honorary consul is somebody who is appointed from outside a country's diplomatic service to perform a consular role. Often, an honorary consul is a citizen of the host state, rather than the country they are representing. Dricherby (talk) 10:27, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

New Discussion

A discussion has been started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries/Lists of countries which could affect the inclusion criteria and title of this and other lists of countries. Editors are invited to participate. Pfainuk talk 12:17, 17 December 2008 (UTC)


Move to "List of national capitals by alphabetical order"

Since there are a lot more lists of national capitals than this, don't you think it's a bit silly just to call this "List of national capitals"? I think we should move this page to "List of national capitals by alphabetical order" and then create "List of national capitals" as a disambiguation page. Please say what you think about this idea. Jprulestheworld (talk) 16:02, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I think this should not be merged with another article

it is perfectly alright in it's independancy! Ubberflubber (talk) 18:00, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

User:67.162.23.112

Would other editors agree that recent edits by User:67.162.23.112 are vandalism, therefore I wouldn't break WP:3RR by reverting? Thanks Welshleprechaun (talk) 16:51, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I agree, it is vandalism. Snappy (talk) 07:19, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Capitals sharing names with countries

Is there any list of capitals that are sharing their names or part of their names with their countries, e.g., Kuwait, Djibouti, Bissau, Brasília, San Salvador and Luxembourg? Montemonte (talk) 18:22, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

If there is, it should be deleted. That sounds like trivia to me. Welshleprechaun (talk) 21:37, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

My two cents is that it would be legitimate to have a once-sentence statement referencing the fact that some countries' capitals' names are the same as the name of the country. That would be informative and useful. You could give a handful (or less) of examples--it shouldn't be difficult to ascertain the full list of such countries by glancing at the list of all the world's capitals. Otherwise, Welshleprechaun is probably right...--达伟 (talk) 06:56, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Mamoudzou

Why isn't Mamoudzou, the capital of Mayotte, included? Antipoeten (talk) 12:25, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I guess because no one has added it yet. —Largo Plazo (talk) 12:42, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Brunei

Is there some ambiguity, or some reason of protocol, that requires there to be a note on Brunei stating "That is, the State of Brunei Darussalam"?--达伟 (talk) 21:31, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

What makes a capital a capital?

May I know what makes a capital a capital? Is London an official capital of the UK (and of England)? What about Wellington, Hamilton, Kingstown or Adamstown? Or Flying Fish Cove? Why a they capitals? Is there a law or a statute explicitly saying so? 61.18.170.70 (talk) 18:03, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Although it is not apparent from the question, this thread is related to the IPs claims that Victoria City is the capital of Hong Kong, which it is not. O Fenian (talk) 21:12, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
Please don't feed the troll. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Home Nations

Once again, we go back to the issue of whether to include cities that are cultural, and only minor administrative, capitals of sub-national territories. That is, Belfast, Cardiff, and Edinburgh. Indeed, London is secondarily listed as the capital of England, despite England not having a devolved government - it fulfils literally no functions as a capital. In the same vein, presumably, if direct rule were to reestablished in Northern Ireland, as from 2002 to 2007, Belfast would cease to be included? I doubt it.

To be included, they must be there because they fulfil particular functions as capitals that other subnational capitals don't fulfil in other countries. Say (as above), the capitals of federal or confederal subjects in Germany (e.g. Munich), Spain (e.g. Barcelona), the USA (e.g. Austin), Switzerland (e.g. Geneva), Belgium (e.g. Namur), or Canada (e.g. Quebec City). These capitals all have significantly more power devolved to them, and more features of a capital city, than the Home Nations' capitals.

When discussed before, the issue that the 'list includes many capitals of non-sovereign entities' was used as if it meant something. So, because it includes some non-sovereign entities, it can include whichever non-sovereign entities an editor wants? So that's the capital of every state, every région, every land included. The border between inclusion and exclusion must be defined, and it must be defined in a consistent manner. Other lists of capital cities in reference works do not include Edinburgh, Cardiff, or Belfast. Given that the line must be drawn somewhere, why does Wikipedia choose to draw it in a different place to the rest of the world? That seems not to correspond to WP:NPOV. Bastin 11:37, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

The capitals of the home nations CANNOT be compared with those of regions, provinces etc. They are capitals of countries/nations (albeit not independent), and this is a list of capitals of nations. It's as simple as that. Welshleprechaun 16:04, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
They can't be compared? Despite the fact that, in law, Quebec, Catalonia, etc are defined as 'nations', and England is not? Or that those actually have an administrative function, rather than just cultural in England's case? Please find some evidence to back up your claims: either on that front or having a reliable source that treats Cardiff as a capital of a higher rank than any other subnational city. Otherwise, it is clearly not NPOV. Bastin 16:40, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
(ec) If the restriction is that the "list includes many capitals of non-sovereign entities", then yes, there's no restriction. Quebec City and Barcelona would in particular seem to be cases which could not unreasonably be described as parallel to Edinburgh and Cardiff.
But that's not actually the restriction listed in the article. The article's restriction appears to be "national capitals" including capitals of "territories and dependencies, non-sovereign states including associated states, and entities whose sovereignty is disputed". To my mind that's overly vague. By a reasonable interpretation the list should include, among other places, New South Wales, São Paulo, Bavaria and Uttar Pradesh (as "non-sovereign states"), but not England, Scotland, Wales and NI (as they are not states or "nations" in the sense of the United Nations).
OTOH it's possible to interpret "national capitals" to includes the capital of any "nation" - presumably including England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but also (for example) every First Nation in Canada. Such a list is limitless in a different direction. Any list "of countries" or "of national X" with such a vague inclusion criterion is likely to have similar problems.
A far better option would be to apply an outside standard. Some other lists use ISO 3166-1, noting the states with limited recognition in footnotes for neutrality - and note that they use that standard in the lede. This essentially makes the decisions for us. Pfainuk talk 16:52, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Wales, Scotland, England and Northern Ireland are verifiably defined as countries and have national capitals. That is why they are included on this article. Daicaregos (talk) 20:24, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
But, as I said, so are lots of other territories (as listed above) that have been excluded time and time again. If it's a matter of finding one source for any territory that says that they're a 'nation', there will be far, far more inclusions besides that (Kurdistan, Lapland, Recognised Tribes, First Nations, etc). That would ruin the point of a comprehensive list of undisputed capitals - Paris, Washington DC, Ougadougou, etc. Hence, I endorse Pfainuk's idea - non-UN members that are recognised by at least one member should be included with a footnote. Bastin 20:40, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
Quite so, any comprehensive list of national capitals would, self-evidently include Wales, Scotland, England and Northern Ireland. Also, I welcome and endorse the other proposal regarding footnotes, as Wales, Scotland, England and Northern Ireland are non-UN members that are recognised by at least one member - the UK. Daicaregos (talk) 21:22, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
Well, you're evidently wrong on the first count, as I gave links to three reference works that DON'T list Belfast, Cardiff, and Edinburgh. You have also done a valiant, but pointless, attempt to misconstrue diplomatic recognition. The UK does not recognise the existence of England as an institution at all. By contrast, the US government recognises the federally recognized tribes as nations... by definition. Enjoy your 564 new entries. Not to mention the others that I named, which are also recognised as 'nations' by the sovereign government that controls those territories. Bastin 21:33, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
Your links are not to comprehensive lists if they fail to list the capitals of Wales, Scotland, England and Northern Ireland. I did not say nations (you are welcome to re-read my post, but to save you the bother I paraphrase it here). Wales, Scotland, England and Northern Ireland are non-UN members that are recognised as countries by at least one UN member - the UK.
You start with the no true Scotsman argument. Which you can't reasonably expect people to accept.
England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are not states with limited recognition because they have no diplomatic recognition and do not claim to be independent sovereign states. The distinction between the two cases is not insignificant or difficult to understand. Your argument that they must be included because (you say) UK recognises them "as countries" is nothing more than wordplay.
It's also a rather odd argument to be making. Since you draw such distinction between a "country" and a "nation", it's worth mentioning that the existing inclusion criteria say nothing about "countries" at all. They refer to "national capitals". So, if we're distinguishing "countries" from "nations", it's pretty clearly "nations" that belong here.
As I say, I find this overly vague. The word "nation" has so many possible definitions - ranging from a simple case of independent sovereign states to a list including peoples and ethnicities throughout the world - that we could reasonably put anything on this list. Hence my suggestion that we use ISO 3166-1 and then put states with limited recognition on as footnotes as well. It firms up the inclusion criteria to give a clear distinction as to what belongs and what does not. Pfainuk talk 09:40, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
As a Welshman I sympathise with Daicaregos, because there is a certain national amour propre involved in this debate. But as Pfainuk says, the UK doesn't recognise the Home Nations as independent sovereign states, so the Kosovo, Abhkhazia, South Ossetia etc analogy doesn't pertain. And describing Northern Ireland as a country is controversial - even UK Government sources aren't consistent. I believe that we should try to apply some sort of external standard, whether that leads to a longer list or a much shorter list, so be it.--Pondle (talk) 11:30, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
It appears that the inclusion of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland on this list is still causing some dispute. I am not opposed to these "national capitals" being shown on the article but my concern is they appear in line with other sovereign states with no clear distinction at all, "italics" make very little difference to many people who are reading the list. How would people feel if we divided the article into several tables, one for sovereign states, one for territories and non sovereign states, one for unrecognised sovereign states etc. Closest example i can think of is List of national anthems. It seems to work well over there and has remained pretty stable since. At the very least sovereign states should be bolded so they are seen as more senior to those in regular italics and perhaps (part of the UK) could be added to the entries for the home nations. This would help address the problem. Thoughts? BritishWatcher (talk) 22:05, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
That sounds like a reasonable solution, although questions about where we should put disputed places such as Kosovo and Abhkhazia could cause some difficulties.--Pondle (talk) 23:41, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

It is nonsense to suggest that Wales (or Scotland etc) is not a nation. There are numerous reliable souces that say it is e.g. this, this, this (pp. Xvii, 88 &601), etc., etc, etc. Furthermore, Wales has numerous political, cultural and sporting institutions that explicitly cite 'national' in their title: the National Assembly for Wales, the National Library of Wales, Welsh National Opera, National Museum Wales, the National Botanic Garden of Wales, National Theatre Wales, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, National Eisteddfod of Wales, etc., etc. Numerous Governing bodies of sports in Wales regulate their sport at a national level and compete internationally against other nations. You can visit the Wales National Velodrome, the Wales National Pool, the National Wetland Centre Wales, the Welsh National Exhibition of Showbirds, Welsh National Forest, Welsh National War Memorial, apply for a Welsh National Bursary, watch Welsh National League football and sing the Welsh National Anthem (see here) etc., etc., etc.
Here are some referenced sources stating that Cardiff is the national capital of Wales (there are also, of course, countless references citing Cardiff as the capital of Wales) : “... Cardiff is the national capital of Wales”, “... Cardiff has become the National Capital of Wales “, “The Cardiff urban area grew ... to become, recently, the national capital of Wales“, “Cardiff (Caerdydd in Welsh) is the national capital of Wales”, “... Cardiff as the national capital of Wales, not simply a British city”, “Cardiff is the national capital of Wales ... “, etc.
As for the contention that the List of national anthems seems to work well. It does so only in the sense that legitimate nations (such as Wales, you'll be surprised to hear) have been excluded from the main list – which undoubtedly pleases British nationalist editors. For the casual reader trying to find information (you remember; the people for whom this encyclopaedia is designed), it has brought no benefit. A user trying to find the national anthem of Japan, for example, would look under 'J'. This would not change if the number of nations in the list were 260 or 2600. Try finding the national anthem of Wales here: List of National Anthems. Where do you begin to look? It would be easier to look at the Wales article and check in the infobox. The article is of little use with subsections instead of having a single list. And that would be true here too.
In summary: Wales is a nation; Cardiff is the national capital of Wales; and a single list is of far greater use to the casual user than breaking the article down into subsections. The list is just fine as it is and should remain unchanged. Daicaregos (talk) 13:15, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

I am sorry you feel that way about the List of national anthems page, i thought it was very useful to the reader to have the types of country / nations / regions split into their types. This is easily navigated via the contents at the top of the page. I think readers would be more confused if they saw non sovereign states and regions in line with sovereign countries, there is a big difference and we should not be ignoring this fact.
I am not disputing that Cardiff is the capital of the nation of Wales. The question is does it belong in this list along side what is almost all sovereign states. The suggestion about doing what is done on the national anthem page seems like a sensible compromise that all sides could be happy with. We get stability with Wales etc mentioned but avoid the confusion of having them in line with sovereign states. Far from making it harder for the reader, it makes it easier as regions / territories will be kept away from the main list of sovereign nations so we do not end up with one huge list as happened over on the national anthems page originally. There would only be a few tables, its not going to take a minute for someone to go to C for Cardiff and see its not in the first table so they check the second table and find it. Most of course will understand that Wales is not a sovereign state so they will go to the second table right away. BritishWatcher (talk) 13:30, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
You may not have disputed that Cardiff is the capital of the nation of Wales, BritishWatcher. Should you read the discussion in this section above, you will see that others have. It is hardly a compromise to remove a nation's capital from a list of national capitals. This is not a “List of sovereign states capitals”. It is a “List of national capitals”. I am at a loss to understand how anyone with even a fairly low IQ would be confused on finding the capital city of a nation included on that list. Indeed, it would be confusing to find it not listed there. There is no NPOV reason to require a reader to check other tables to see if a city is included or not. Anyone searching for Tokyo would look under “T”. This would not change if the number of entries on the list were 260 or 2600. A city is either a national capital or it is not. Cardiff is a national capital and should therefore be included in that list. Not on one of those lists, but on the list. Daicaregos (talk) 14:07, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
But that is one of the many reasons why i offered the suggestion of splitting the list into separate tables so that these sorts of disputes about the status of non sovereign countries do not come up because people do not think they belong in line with a country like the USA.
There is nothing in the rules that says there must be a single long list of 100s of entries. We would be helping the reader by splitting the table into several categories and taking into account there are different types of nation. This works very well over at the List of National Anthems page and i can not see why there would be a problem with it here.
It is helps to ensure stability and it is helpful to the reader. I am even prepared to put the time in to sort through the list if people here support the idea. At the very least the sovereign states should be bolded in the current list so that they stand out among a long list of territories and non sovereign national capitals. I remember one of the early disputes i got involved in was over the use of List of countries in the end to provide stability it was decided to make the article just about sovereign states, that is of course always an option that some might support. BritishWatcher (talk) 14:20, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
If I remember rightly, this page was (until 2009) originally a list of the capitals of sovereign states and dependent territories. I even made an edit to clarify the (then) inclusion criteria.[2] Then the Home Nations were added, prompting the questions (a) if this list is broader than ISO 3166-1 or something similar, what is the inclusion criteria? and (b) if it is broader, how should the list be structured? I don't see the problem in distinguishing between various sorts of entities that can be described as 'nations' - sovereign states, states with limited international recognition, dependencies, stateless nations, etc. etc. Personally, I'd find that helpful.--Pondle (talk) 14:35, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
If you feel that further information would be helpful to users, why not add a column to the right noting each nation's status? This would allow a single list to enable users to find each entry without having to hop to different sub-lists, while noting its sovereign/non-sovereign/dependency etc. status. Daicaregos (talk) 16:36, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
The trouble is we would then basically have to have 180+ rows all saying sovereign state. I would accept such a change though, provided in the entries for non sovereign states we include details like "part of the United Kingdom". It could not just say non sovereign state. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:58, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are not non-sovereign states. They may be countries, they may be nations, but they are not states.
There is a problem inherent in using the word "nation" or "national" alone as an inclusion criterion. It can mean different things to different people. The UN, for example, has a narrow definition of the word, using it synonymously with "sovereign state". Or one can take it widely to include peoples such as First Nations. Is Yorkshire a nation? By some definitions, I'm sure it is. It's capital is York, by the way.
So that's not a useful position in my view. It renders the list effectively limitless, which I think is a bad thing.
So we have to find something else. Whatever we find is not going to match everyone's definition of "nation" because there is no single universal definition of the word. Whatever we choose is going to leave off cities that some people would consider "national capitals". Inevitably. The best option, it seems to me, is to stick to an outside standard - such as ISO 3166-1 with states with limited recognition represented as required.
On the national anthems issue, to my mind the potential issue is the opposite of that which Daicaregos argues. If everything is merged into one list, it makes things more difficult to find because it means that someone looking for Japan is looking through dozens of non-sovereign entities that. The list will quickly become unwieldy. I would suggest that a reasonably large proportion of our audience comes here expecting to see national capitals, applying "national" in the sense of "sovereign state", possibly including dependent territories in a way similar to ISO 3166-1. We should provide that list. This has the added advantage of avoiding the POV implication that non-sovereign entities are or should be considered equivalent to the sovereign states that they are not. Pfainuk talk 17:56, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
I would support the use of an external international standard which is certainly more neutral and will reduce the number of potential POV disputes that could break out if we follow such a clearly defined criteria. BritishWatcher (talk) 20:29, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
I think we need a wider discussion, across the community, about how we treat these 'national' lists. How should we go about starting that?--Pondle (talk) 11:54, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
We had one about a year or so ago, i can not remember where it took place but the general outcome i seem to recall was just to focus on the sources for a list, so if sources include something there is justification for it to be there. People were against the idea of wikipedia wide policy on when countries should and should not be listed. Looking at the responses on here i think there is support for some type of change, just different opinions on what the best way forward is. Would u support use of the ISO list like Pfainuk mentioned? something like that helps take the debate out of our hands and to an internationally respected standard. BritishWatcher (talk) 12:08, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
I would disagree with pan-Wikipedia standards in that regard. Clearly, matters related to government (e.g. capitals), culture (e.g. anthems), and geography (e.g. mountains) will have very different requirements as to how to include and categorise 'countries' or 'nations'. In all cases where other reference works publish the same list, lists should follow NPOV by copying the style of established reference works: whether or not it's internally consistent. Bastin 12:21, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
Agreed on using sources and the fact that different types of lists will have different requirements. What is your preferred method for this page as there is no single source? BritishWatcher (talk) 12:29, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
I'm a bit uncomfortable with inconsistency - after all, if there is a 'nation' that has an anthem, a flag and a capital, why should it be on one list but not on another?--Pondle (talk) 13:23, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
The previous discussion was at this page. The conclusions were:
  • Where a list gets its data from a single source, inclusion criteria will be based on that source.
  • Where a list gets its data from multiple sources, inclusion criteria will be ISO 3166-1 with some accommodation made for states with limited recognition.
  • Where the nature of a list means that it is more logical to follow some other criterion, that criterion should be used (the point being, the position is above is a default, to be ignored if needed).
My view is that those criteria allow us to make an objective decision, we should use them. Pfainuk talk 17:08, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Well it has all gone quiet, if there is no further debate we should implement the proposal by Pfainuk about using the ISO list which was in line with the debate held previous on how to deal with these sorts of lists. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:24, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

ISO 3166-1 is, basically, a list of United Nations member states (plus a few UN and international legal agencies) so has no relevance here. This is a list of the capital cities of nations. Not all nations are members of the United Nations. If a nation has a capital city and can be reliably sourced to say so, it should be included on this list. Daicaregos (talk) 20:31, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
This is why the idea of separate tables for sovereign / non sovereign states seemed like a reasonable compromise but you were not too happy with that either. The fairest way is to take this whole matter out of our hands by using an international standard like the ISO mentioned. BritishWatcher (talk) 20:39, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Choosing criteria designed to exclude some nations and not others is not taking this matter out of our hands. If you feel that further information would be helpful to users, why not add a column to the right noting each nation's status? This would allow a single list to enable users to find each entry without having to hop to different sub-lists, while noting its sovereign/non-sovereign/dependency etc. status. Daicaregos (talk) 20:54, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
But i responded to this suggestion before, it would result in over 180 empty rows in that new column or they would all simply have to say sovereign state which is pointless. It makes far more sense to split this into several tables, i think it has been very stable over at List of national anthems since the change was made. Using an ISO makes sense as well and is in line with the debate that took place linked above by Pfainuk that was advertised on lists across wikipedia. BritishWatcher (talk) 20:58, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Should we take this to WP:RFC to try to achieve a broader consensus?--Pondle (talk) 21:14, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
If consensus can not be reached soon then yes. Trouble with RFC is it will simply kick this whole matter into the long grass for days as we wait and hope for responses. At the moment it seems there is support for some form of change, even Dai is suggesting an alteration as a compromise. Use of ISO would result in the UK countries being left off the list, but if we copied the setup of the List of national anthems page Wales etc would remain on the page, just in a separate list which fully addresses concerns people have about its inclusion in the current single table. I hope Daicaregos would support this suggestion, it seems like a fair compromise for both sides. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:24, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
What do you mean by 'even Dai is suggesting an alteration as a compromise'? A little AGF would be pleasant. If you consider defining each nation's status is pointless then let's leave the list as it is. We should discuss this article on this page, other articles are not relevant. And ISO 3166-1 is not a list of nations, so it's a non-starter. Daicaregos (talk) 22:02, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Above you suggested an extra column to include information about the status of the nation in question, that seemed like an alteration as a compromise to me. I am saying it would be pointless to have "Sovereign state" in over 180 boxes when we can simply have it written once as a title for a table of sovereign states, then a table of non sovereign states etc. BritishWatcher (talk) 22:08, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
It was your unwarranted use of the word "even" I objected to. Daicaregos (talk) 21:18, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
I think the current system with italics is fine, its a simple solution that respects all perspectives. --Snowded TALK 20:54, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
I disagree, if the current setup was fine several different editors would not have questioned it in this section. I think the solution used over at List of national anthems helps the reader the most, ensures Wales etc remains listed, but also addresses the concerns people here have about non sovereign nations being listed in line with sovereign nations. I do not mind putting the time into separating the list, just need to know people here will support the change before i do. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:02, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
I would support splitting the list into categories, as I said before I think that would be helpful to a general reader. So the categories would be Sovereign states as per ISO 3166-1, States with limited recognition, Countries of the United Kingdom, Dependent territories and possibly further additions from the list of Stateless nations?--Pondle (talk) 21:13, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for your offer. However, I do not support your suggested amendment to the article. Daicaregos (talk) 21:18, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
(ec) I'd support it, and would suggest the same categories as at List of national anthems. But I remain of the opinion that the inclusion criteria for this list need to be firmed up further than the thoroughly ambiguous word "nation". Pfainuk talk 21:21, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
I wouldn't. A list of countries is a list of countries, a list of sovereign states is a list of sovereign states. The problem with all of these articles is that terms are being used ambiguously or incorrectly and then various constructs are being used in the body of each article to overcome the deficiencies of the name. --Snowded TALK 21:43, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
The term nation is ambiguous, that is why it makes sense to split the list into several tables so the different types of nations can clearly be defined. Doing this on lists for "Nations" does seem reasonable, i think on "country" lists we should follow the ISO or source where possible. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:46, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
If anyone wants to create an article entitled List of capitals of United Nations member states, which is what a list based on Pfainuk's preferred criterium (ISO 3166-1) would be, then please go right ahead. The current criteria for this article “This is a list of national capitals in alphabetical order.” is quite right. Inclusion criteria should conform to the Wikipedia principal that entries should be cited by a reliable source. That is: any entries likely to be challenged must have a reliable source stating that the entry is a national capital. Daicaregos (talk) 21:50, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
Ok how about we use this reliable source to build our list of national capitals? [3] BritishWatcher (talk) 01:13, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

If the so-called "home nations" and other non-sovereign countries are kept in, at least can a better system than "they are in italics" be used, especially as I am unsure how things like that are rendered on screen readers and similar technology. My first point might have been said already, but I cannot be bothered reading the entire discussion. O Fenian (talk) 21:56, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Indeed the use of italics hardly shows up on my screen. Use of Bold for the sovereign states and then italics in regular for non sovereign states does at least make the difference a little more clearer although it would be so much easier for readers if the table was split into several tables to cover the different types of nations. BritishWatcher (talk) 01:11, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
BW's suggested link is world capitals according to the US, and based on US recognition of states. For example, it lists the partially recognised Taiwan and Kosovo, which it recognises, but not the partially recognised Abkhazia or South Ossetia, which it doesn't. It isn't an NPOV source.
Before this dispute can be settled a consensus on the definition of "national" used here needs to be found. It is used to mean both sovereign states, and nations that exist separately to states.
If England is included, why not Catalonia? Catalonia has a Parliament, England doesn't, it's legally recognised as a nation by Spain and it's more devolved than Wales. But use of Catalonia would mean the definition of "national" would not be "sovereign state" but "nation", so there would then be no basis for excluding all other nations. This would then result in debate over a nation's criteria for inclusion - all nations? Nations that are devolved? Nations that have local government borders? Stateless nations? What do we want the term "national" to mean here? --Joowwww (talk) 10:38, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
The point you make is a very good one, all the more reason why we should adopt the ISO as suggested above which is not one country's POV and will ensure we have a strict criteria that does not treat some nations like England a certain way whilst ignoring others. BritishWatcher (talk) 10:46, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
I don't think including nations on this list is viable. If only sovereign states are included, then the article should be renamed List of capitals of sovereign states, to prevent confusion (and hopefully educate people that a state isn't the same thing as a nation). --Joowwww (talk) 11:10, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
That is a possibility and an option i would support. Lets not forget List of countries and List of nations which once had these problems now simply redirect to the sovereign states article. perhaps we should do the same here. BritishWatcher (talk) 11:43, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
I agree that the links given as possible sources are not NPOV. As suggested above, anyone can create an article entitled List of capitals of United Nations member states, which could be based on ISO 3166-1. There is no reason the two articles cannot co-exist. I note that List of sovereign states, held up as the example to which this article should aspire, has an additional column to its right providing information on status and recognition of sovereignty. All but ten entries begin with the statement “Widely recognized member of the UN.“ I would support an additional column in this article too, as noted above. Thank you for pointing it out, but we should be discussing only this article on this Talk page. Inclusion criteria for this article should be that any entries likely to be challenged must have a reliable source stating that the entry is a national capital. Daicaregos (talk) 13:14, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
We could get agreement to keep Wales etc on this article if you are prepared to support splitting it into several sections. There is a separate column on the sovereign states page where it talks about being a recognised UN member state but that is not the only thing it says, a large number have much more detail of the breakdown of their system and territories they may control which is relevant to such a list. It is hard to see the need for that sort of information on here, and if it was needed then it would mean England /Scotland / Wales and Northern Ireland would need to be placed in the UKs row and list each of their capitals there. I would be prepared to support that but again it seems to be a bit of a waste when it is far easier to have separate tables. BritishWatcher (talk) 14:59, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
Such a list could not be based upon ISO 3166-1 because there fully 54 non-UN members included on the ISO specification. It would also be a redundant content fork.
There is an immediate problem whenever we try to list "nations" in this way - in that the word itself is ambiguous. Given the definitions of the word at wikt:nation, I see little objective basis to assume that Yorkshire is not a nation, for example. A nation within a nation, perhaps? Is Quebec a nation? If so, what about Prince Edward Island or Manitoba or the Yukon? If Catalonia or the Basque Country are nations, what about Andalusia, Extremadura or Ceuta? If Tibet is a nation, what about Shanxi, Yunnan, or Zhejiang? I believe a case could be made that all of those places are "nations" and far more besides - but also that none of them are. Strong inclusion criteria are a good thing: they make life easier for the editors and guide readers as to what to expect in articles. Pfainuk talk 19:20, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
The official name of ISO 3166-1 is “Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions – Part 1: Country codes”. It is not a list of nations. I may be wrong, but defining Yorkshire as a nation would be original research and probably synthesis too. Any perceived problems of defining nations disappear when Wikipedia's criteria for article inclusion is applied: i.e. that any entries likely to be challenged must have a reliable source stating that the entry is a national capital, which rules Yorkshire out. Daicaregos (talk) 19:48, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
Well there are sadly sources suggesting that Cornwall is a nation despite it clearly just being a county of England.
"Cornwall is recognised as one of the Celtic nations by many Cornish people, residents and organisations"
I have tried to have that text removed from the article, i seem to remember one or two editors here opposed my attempts suggesting the term was totally justified so do you not think Cornwall could be on this list as well because its apparently a "Nation" ?BritishWatcher (talk) 20:34, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
If you want to discuss improvements to other articles please do so on the relevant Talkpage. It is not appropriate to discuss other articles here. Please stop. The quoted statement says nothing about the national capital(s) of Cornwall, Celtic nations or Cornish people, so would not qualify as a source, wherever it's from. Daicaregos (talk) 21:01, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
The point is, "reliable sources" say that Cornwall is a nation and i am sure you yourself along with others blocked my attempts to remove that claim about Cornwall being a celtic nation. So if we think that is a nation, surely you would want it in this table? Other sources are around saying Truro is the capital of Cornwall if that is the problem.
Bottom line we all know a county of England does not belong on this list, yet if we allow any definition of nation it could be. That is why we need strict criteria about what can and can not be done.
It seems to me there are 3 potential solutions to our problems that have been mentioned above.
1) Redirect this to a new article on capitals of sovereign states, in the same way we solved List of countries and List of nations.
2) Use the ISO mentioned in the debate above and clearly state this in this article introduction so people understand why some may not appear.
3) Split the current table into different categories so there is a table of sovereign states, then non sovereign states and disputed states like the solution over at List of national anthems
I think any one of those 3 options would solve our problems and resolve this matter once and for all. The current system used is too flawed and is clearly opposed by many. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:18, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
As far as what you term “that claim” on the Cornwall article, it has seven WP:RS references, which is completely ridiculous for an intro. I have asked you several times not to discuss other articles on this Talkpage. Your continued refusal to abide by Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines has become rather tiresome. Please familiarise yourself with those guidelines, in particular the opening paragraph: “The purpose of a Wikipedia talk page (accessible via the discussion tab) is to provide space for editors to discuss changes to its associated article or project page. Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views on a subject.” and item 2 of the section “How to use article talk pages“: Stay on topic: Talk pages are for discussing the article, not for general conversation about the article's subject (much less other subjects)." Nevertheless, WP:Verify states that any entries likely to be challenged must have a reliable source. For this article that means stating that the entry is a national capital. I suspect that there would be at least one editor challenging that Cornwall has a national capital. Daicaregos (talk) 21:51, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
I am sorry you think my point about Cornwall was going off topic, i think it highlights perfectly the problem that comes up by just accepting anything that is a "nation" belongs in this list. As you say yourself, it has 7 sources which are deemed reliable enough to class it as a celtic nation. There for it is a nation (not as far as im concerned) but it could be argued belongs in this list. That is why we must have a strict criteria, perhaps following one of the above 3 options i mentioned. BritishWatcher (talk) 22:13, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
So, the argument is that it is possible to be a "nation" without having a "national capital". Is it also possible, I wonder, to have a "national capital" without being a "nation"? Presumably.
From our perspective it's going to mean that we have people continually adding things without references, something that would be painful on both sides as this nonsensical distinction has to be explained and argued every time. From a reader's perspective it means that the reader will have very little idea of what to expect on the article.
Obviously it's a criterion that relies on the use of language: it reeks of systematic bias and in some cases actual bias. It's pretty trivial to source Quebec as a national capital for example. If Quebec City is listed but Charlottetown isn't, then listing Quebec is POV: not allowing for those who consider Canada to be an equal union of ten provinces (and three territories). Indeed, listing any such case among the sovereign states is local nationalist POV as it assumes that the entity with a "national capital" (as opposed to the "nation", since the two concepts are apparently distinct) should be treated as equal to a sovereign state. Pfainuk talk 06:31, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
If we have people continually adding things without references they will be reverted. As has been stated many times above, WP:Verify states that any entries likely to be challenged must have a reliable source. For this article that means stating that the entry is a national capital. With regard to listing sovereign nations and non-sovereign nations on the same list, as they are all nations and this is a list of national capitals there could be no NPOV reason to separate them. However, as also stated above, a column added to the right noting each nation's sovereign/non-sovereign/dependency etc. status, would not be treating non-sovereign nations as equal to a sovereign nation. Daicaregos (talk) 17:46, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
Well sadly i have sources saying Cornwall is a celtic nation an sources saying the capital of Cornwall is Truro there for some may argue it deserves a mention. This additional column idea would be a slight improvement, provided or England, Wales, Scotland and NI just appear in the UK row, so basically handling it like we do on this list. Or if Wales etc are to appear in separate rows, the extra column would have to clearly state it is a country of the United Kingdom and repeat London as the capital.
I still do not think this column idea is the best solution, it would be an improvement but it is not as good as some of the other options that have been discuss above. At the moment there seems to be strong support for some change, you are just holding up any form of change at the moment :( BritishWatcher (talk) 19:19, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
You have said that. But it is not a response to my arguments. When all are theoretically equal, how is it neutral to list some members of a federal union but not others, as you effectively propose? How does a criterion relying on a phrase that is not used in the same sense in many languages not clear evidence of systematic bias? How does it aid the reader to come to an article with little hope of knowing how the entities that are chosen are chosen? How does it aid the editor to have to continually explain why this entity belongs and that entity does not, based on such an apparently arbitrary distinction, as opposed to actually improving the encyclopædia?
Either you're arguing that "nations" should be on the list, or entities with "national capitals". Since you've made it clear that you do not feel that the two are the same, I suggest you be careful with your usage.
Non-sovereign "nations" (or rather, entities with "national capitals") should not be treated equally with sovereign states. To do so would be POV, as it would imply that non-sovereign entities either are sovereign or should be sovereign - an implication that is totally inappropriate in a neutral encyclopædia. Pfainuk talk 21:43, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

This article should be limited to capitals of independant countries, IMHO. GoodDay (talk) 23:08, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Truly insightful. Daicaregos (talk) 17:46, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
Glad (and slightly surprised) you agree. GoodDay (talk) 19:27, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
Spoon out again I see GoodDay. No objection to your proposal if the article is renamed to say it is a list of capitals of sovereign countries or similar. Otherwise as far as I am concerned its fine as it is, the italics work great no need to create some massive table.--Snowded TALK 21:36, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
Fork out again I see, Snowded? Anyways, list of sovereign countries would do. GoodDay (talk) 22:16, 8 July 2010 (UTC) GoodDay (talk) 22:15, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
Actually GoodDay I think its fine as it is, my point is that if you want to confine it to sovereign states then the article needs a name change, suggesting one without the other is needlessly provocative --Snowded TALK 22:27, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
No probs. I need little reminders (now & then), to help keep myself in check. GoodDay (talk) 22:31, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Article name change

Would anybody object to List of capitals of sovereign countries? It would clarify things. GoodDay (talk) 22:23, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Define country exactly. Sovereign country redirects to Sovereign state. List of sovereign states as a template for this article has already been discussed above. Not sure exactly if that was rejected as a solution, but renaming to "List of sovereign state capitals" might be what you may have been aiming for. --HighKing (talk) 00:33, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
As 'sovereign states' and 'nations' are not the same thing, the best solution is to create a new article entitled to "List of sovereign state capitals" and leave this article as it is. Daicaregos (talk) 07:02, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
The new article should be "List of capitals of sovereign states". I'm not sure there's such a thing as a "sovereign state capital", outside of Singapore. If this article is kept then the meaning of "national" will have to be agreed on. It could mean anything from Kurdistan to Cornwall to Catalonia. Even then, how can we say what the capital of a nation is? Nations don't have capitals, because they're not states. Barcelona is seen as the capital of the Catalan nation, but it is really just the capital of the Catalan Autonomous Region. This is a minefield of POV. --Joowwww (talk) 12:15, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
Inclusion criteria should conform to the Wikipedia principal that any entries likely to be challenged must be cited by a reliable source stating that the entry is a national capital. That way, we don't have to argue over what we think a 'nation' is, as the cited references do that for us. Unless, of course, there is anyone who thinks that three of Wikipedia's central content policies (Neutral point of view, Verifiability and No original research) are either irrelevant or don't need to be adhered to. On the basis that the capitals of sovereign states are are unlikely to be challenged, we could build on ISO 3166-1 (list of UN member states) to include the capitals of other nations. Daicaregos (talk) 14:00, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
The trouble is there are quite a few things described as nations that people would want included on here and sources are available calling them a nation and calling somewhere its capital. This is why we need a strict criteria for this article. Basing it on the ISO as talked about above solves this problem and takes it completely out of our hands. BritishWatcher (talk) 14:38, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
I would support a name change to List of capitals of sovereign states or something along those lines. on the condition that no Content folk will be created here simply to include a couple of dozen non sovereign states capitals. I find myself in full agreement with Joowwww which is very rare based on previous encounters lol. BritishWatcher (talk) 14:07, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
Separate articles would not create a content fork as 'nation' and 'sovereign state' are not synonymous. The guideline states it is possible for different articles to be legitimately created on subjects which themselves represent points of view, as long as the title clearly indicates what its subject is. Articles on distinct but related topics may well contain a significant amount of information in common with one another. Further, in encyclopedias it is perfectly proper to have separate articles for each different definition of a term; unlike dictionaries, a single encyclopedia article covers a topic, not a term. Daicaregos (talk) 14:26, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
I think having two articles one which just includes a few dozen others that would not make it onto the main list of sovereign states would be a content folk. The fact there are different meanings to nations highlights exactly why the solution of splitting this article into several tables makes sense. One table on sovereign states, one on disputed nations, then a 3rd for non sovereign nations. It is a fair solution which addresses both sides concerns. But at the moment looking at all the different comments, there is a clear majority for some form of major change. With only a couple of editors opposing. BritishWatcher (talk) 14:36, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
On the other hand, step back and ask yourself the question: "Is it good for WP to have an article listing capitals of non-sovereign states?" I think it is. I believe people would find it useful to be able to look up the capitals of regions, nations, constituent countries, etc. So it's not really a content fork since you're saying the above doesn't belong with capitals of sovereign states... --HighKing (talk) 14:51, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
That is why i suggested we follow the solution used at List of national anthems. Over there the different types of "nations" are split into separate tables. This avoids confusion and addresses peoples concerns about the inclusion of non sovereign states at the same time as keeping nations like England, Scotland and Wales that some people want. Seems like a fair compromise but Dai rejects that. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:11, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
As discussed above, it is not a compromise to remove a nation's capital from a list of national capitals. This is not a “List of capitals of sovereign states”. It is a “List of national capitals”. It is not confusing to find the capital city of a nation included on that list. List of national anthems is not user friendly. There is no NPOV reason to require a reader to check several tables to see if a city is included or not. Anyone searching for Washington here would look under “W”. This would not change if the number of entries on the list were 250 or 2500. A city is either a national capital or it is not. If a city is a national capital it should be included in that list. Not on one of those lists, but on the list. Daicaregos (talk) 16:16, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
No the compromise is to split the list into several tables so that there is no confusion between sovereign and non sovereign states. We have been through all of this before over at List of countries and the exact same problems apply here as apply there and at other articles which have now been resolved.
I thought the compromise of doing what is done at List of national anthems is very reasonable. The alternative which some support is for us to change this to List of capitals of Sovereign states or something like that. We can then exclude non sovereign states without a problem. Or we simply follow the ISO here. But every single suggestion (there have been several) you reject despite most people here supporting some type of change. You reject and dismiss our concerns sadly. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:24, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

A correction

Somebody erroneously mentioned that Quebec was a nation. The act-in-question passed by Parliament, declares the people of Quebec as a nation within Canada (note: not the province itself). GoodDay (talk) 18:28, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I believe you've just made the point that I intended by mentioning Quebec. The proposed standard is that an entity can be reliably sourced to have a "national capital", regardless of whether it is a "nation" or not. In the case of Quebec this is pretty trivial to do. Why should Quebec, an equal partner in the Canadian confederation, be included where no other partner in that confederation is? The fact that the Quebec government happens call its capital a "national capital" (something it does to promote its POV) is a poor excuse to introduce such bias into our articles. Pfainuk talk 20:14, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
Yet a great many Quebecois think that it is a "nation" (creating all those "sources" you mention) and therefore by the standards of this particular bit of Wikipedian silliness, it's capital should be right in the list according to many editors. In fact, things are so flexible around here, that we surely should also include capitals of nations from science fiction (Arrakeen? Trantor?), other fictional national capitals (is there a capital of the Hogwarts country?) and why not all of the capitals of all the historic nations that have ever existed? Xian, Persepolis, Tiwanaku and Babylon should all be in there. Then we can move on to the Bible and other useful sources. What fun! There are literally millions of so far unlisted capitals awaiting placement. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 16:02, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
nation' |ˈnā sh ən| noun a large aggregate of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory
nation-state' noun a sovereign state whose citizens or subjects are relatively homogeneous in factors such as language or common descent.
I think that even in Hogwarts a dictionary would be consulted in the event as to a dispute on meaning. --Snowded TALK 18:56, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
Being a magical dictionary, both meanings would be true at once, in a superposed quantum state. Much like here in Wiki-land. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 19:05, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
Then its a good job that most editors don't rely on magic in forming a view  :-) --Snowded TALK 19:07, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
I got the last word, but it was in invisible typing. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 20:01, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
"Nation" isn't the same thing as "state" or "country". That's the first thing you should learn if you're going to be contributing to discussion on this topic. --Joowwww (talk) 00:46, 11 July 2010 (UTC)


It has all gone quite. Over the next couple of days if there is not new opposition, i will be splitting the table on this article into several groups such as sovereign states, territories etc. That seems to be the least problematic way of proceeding, other proposals whilst valid and in some cases more desirable would result in certain nations being removed which would be opposed more strongly. I there for hope that those who want Wales and UK nations listed on this page support the compromise of splitting the list. Thanks BritishWatcher (talk) 11:11, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I have split the list into the different sections. The introduction could be expanded a bit but ive just put the basic point its split into sections based on the status of the nation. Hope thats ok, the section titles could be changed a bit if people have better wording. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:11, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

You really need a consensus before you issue that sort of notice you know. At least as many people were happy with the existing position as wanted a change --Snowded TALK 06:49, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
That is simply not true. A clear majority supported some form of change, the problem was there were several changes that were possible ranging from the option i just implemented to imposing a strict criteria based on an ISO or to redirect this page to something like List of capitals of Sovereign states. I gave plenty people notice above. The last comment by someone on this page about this was the 11th of July. On the 18th of July i posted that as it had all gone quiet and there was support for some form of change, i would implement the least controversial option if there was no new opposition. I then waited for 4 days and nobody responded, not even the main editor that had previously objected. BritishWatcher (talk) 08:01, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
I just went through the discussion again - its far from clear that there was an consensus for change. --Snowded TALK 08:15, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
I count 7-4 or 8-4 for some form of change. I accept there was no agreement on what change to implement, but there was a clear majority wanting something to change. BritishWatcher (talk) 08:20, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
Well looking at it (and apologies for those I have wrong) Remove Batsin & Pfainuk; Retain Welshleprechaun & Daicaregos; Neutral or related to name of list Pondle, Snowded, O Fenian & Joowwww; Unclear Jamesinderbyshire &GoodDay. Wanting some change does not equate to your change. --Snowded TALK 08:31, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
But i have not removed anything, i simply restructured it. I said a clear majority wanted some form of change, something you denied.
I counted you, Welshleprechaun, and Dai as the opposed to any form of change, I also included Highking but looking back on his comments, he is neutral .
Pondle supported some form of change saying the proposal i just implemented was a reasonable solution, O Fenian said if we are to list non sovereign countries can we do something other than just italics, Goodday wanted the article title changed. Jowww said England shouldnt be listed if Cornwall cant be. Bastin and Pfainuk wanted some form of change. From James comments it seemed to be more anti the current position than for it. My views on these matters are firmly on the record.
I accept my change is not what everyone wanted and it does not resolve all the problems, but the change seems a reasonable compromise which allows nations like Wales to remain on this page whilst addressing the concerns about them being in line with sovereign states which causes confusion. BritishWatcher (talk) 08:41, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
Clarifying: Edinbugh, Cardiff & Belfast should be excluded under the current article title. To avoid arguments though, we should only have 'London, United Kingdom, under the sovereign states version. GoodDay (talk) 21:40, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
As this points out the position is far from clear and your solution is just one, each editor had a different position with different qualifications. I remain convinced that we need to stop the political debates and focus on the words used. Renaming the list sovereign states would make it simpler, but its national capitals. So while there is a case for indicating which are not sovereign states (as it is a present) I really don't see the case for splitting it. --Snowded TALK 08:48, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
And 2 of the other proposals would have been even more controversial because they would have resulted in Wales etc being removed from the list all together. Surely by splitting the list we are helping the reader by explaining the status of the nation, it helps avoid potential confusion that arises from non sovereign nations being in line with sovereign nations. Something that has been a problem and has been one of the reasons certain changes have been agreed on other lists, like the resolution with List of countries and List of national anthems
Its like one of those lines in the proposed MOS for use of British Isles, the "Dont compare apples and pears, or put BI in line with countries, clearly doing so would cause confusion and the same does apply with sovereign / non sovereign countries, nations, regions, territories etc. BritishWatcher (talk) 08:57, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
With the current article title its all apples --Snowded TALK 08:58, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
That is why a majority of editors on this page wanted some form of change and were not happy with the status quo. BritishWatcher (talk) 09:03, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
I have no objection to the creation of an article named “List of capitals of sovereign states”, providing it “did what it said on the tin”. i.e. it was a list of capitals of sovereign states. Separate articles would not create a content fork as 'nation' and 'sovereign state' are not synonymous. The guideline states it is possible for different articles to be legitimately created on subjects which themselves represent points of view, as long as the title clearly indicates what its subject is. Articles on distinct but related topics may well contain a significant amount of information in common with one another. Further, in encyclopedias it is perfectly proper to have separate articles for each different definition of a term; unlike dictionaries, a single encyclopedia article covers a topic, not a term. But there is no consensus for amendments to this article. Daicaregos (talk) 08:59, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
I would be prepared to support the creation of separate articles, one for sovereign states, one and for non sovereign countries and territories although i do worry about having 2 or 3 articles when they could remain on this page just split into sections like List of national anthems does. I thought this was a less controversial change and you would prefer that method rather than separate articles. BritishWatcher (talk) 09:05, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
There would only need to be one article created i.e. “List of capitals of sovereign states”. The current article named "List of national capitals" is perfectly fine as it is. Unless you think that some sovereign states are not actually nations. Daicaregos (talk) 09:19, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
Agree that the current one is fine, if someone wants to create a Sovereign States list as well fine, it can be linked in the lede. I don't see the point but I would not object--Snowded TALK 09:27, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
Sorry but the majority of editors who have responded in the debate are not happy with the present situation. Just creating a sovereign state article and leaving this one will not solve the problem at all. BritishWatcher (talk) 09:54, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
This is an article on National Capitals that's backed up by reliable sources. What exactly is it that needs to be solved? Perhaps some people want to solve the problem that capitals like Edinburgh and Cardiff are included here with reliable sources and they just don't like it. As the guys say, if you want an article on sovereign state capitals it can be created. There really isn't anything to solve here. Jack 1314 (talk) 10:27, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
Welcome Jack, i was expecting you to join this conversation after Dai mentioned it to you earlier. The problem is most editors here have concerns about the list for a number of reasons. There is no clear criteria about what is or is not a nation, there for we are leaving things like Cornwall or Quebec off despite some viewing that as a nation. At present the only way we show a difference between sovereign states and territories / non sovereign countries is by italics, which on many people is basically non existent difference depending on the size of the text. A clear majority of editors above have expressed concerns. This exact same problem has come up on other articles, which have been resolved by some of the solutions i have mentioned. What we need to do is decide what the best option for this page is, at present it is very clear the status quo is not the best option because many editors have issues with it. If there is justification for showing a difference within the list with italics, why is it wrong to split the article into sections so they help the reader know the status of the nation to avoid confusion? BritishWatcher (talk) 11:00, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
This is quite simple. It shouldn't matter if a majority of editors have concerns with it. This article is called List of national capitals and it should do what it says on the tin, list all those that have been reliably sourced as national capitals. Here's an idea, forget the italics and just explain that it is not a list of sovereign state capitals. See, it's easy! Jack 1314 (talk) 11:41, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
If a majority are concerned about it we can not just leave it be, action must be taken. Surely it is more helpful to the reader to see the status of the nation, rather than just having a very long list with no information. What is wrong with providing more information, breaking it down a bit so its easier for people to search through and find the thing they are after? BritishWatcher (talk) 11:45, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
If the majority are shown to be wrong with reliable sources then it doesn't matter what action they want to take. Like I said, let's give the reader what it says on the tin and if need be explain that it's not a list of sovereign states. People tend to find problems where none exist. Jack 1314 (talk) 11:56, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

If the the majority wants an alteration to the page structure it should be implemented, this is not about reliable sources it is about there being different types of "nations" and there for it would be helpful to the reader to either split the list into categories (as other articles have done) or to set a strict criteria for what should be listed on this page (as other articles have done). When we took this matter to a central debate involving people from many articles it was agreed by most that just because something may say nation or country it does not have to list every single entity which is known by the term. You seem to think this is not a problem, yet there has been huge debate (not just started or involving myself) about these issues across a large number of articles and even at a central location. BritishWatcher (talk) 13:14, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I had actually typed out quite a long reply to you but decided not to save it. The reason being, I believe my previous posts says everything that needs to be said. It's not rocket science to know that a list of national capitals should include every national capital. If there is a need for a list on capitals of sovereign state it can be created. We're not running out of paper you know. Jack 1314 (talk) 13:42, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
But you have not explained what harm dividing the list into sections does so that people understand the status of the different nations and do not get confused when they see sovereign states in line with territories, non sovereign states, disputed states etc. This has been done on other articles and seems to have made things more stable. It seems a fairer compromise than some of the other options which would exclude certain nations. BritishWatcher (talk) 13:50, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
What has "status" got to do with this list. If the article were called List and status of national capitals I might go along with you, but it isn't. I've said already, let it be known that this is not a list of sovereign state capitals only. There will be no confusion and those listed are linked to their articles. Jack 1314 (talk) 14:08, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
People do not come to this page to see what is and isn't a sovereign state. Capitals of non-sovereign states are already displayed in italics. Welshleprechaun 15:28, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
The fact they are displayed in Italics highlights that there has been recognition of a need to display sovereign states differently to territories and non sovereign countries. The trouble is Italics makes very little difference to many people, i can not see any difference unless i zoom in on the page.
People do not come here to see what is or isnt a sovereign state, but that is no reason not to provide readers with more information and avoid confusion thanks to the very widely interpreted term "Nation". BritishWatcher (talk) 16:25, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
BW, you are just plain on the "majority" argument, there is no consensus for your change. The article notes which are not sovereign states and its called "national" --Snowded TALK 16:48, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
I have never claimed there was majority support for the specific change i made, which is why i waited days before making the change. But it is very clear from the above debate that there was consensus that something needs to change with the present article. Its flawed like some of the other lists have been, those were successfully dealt with and remain stable. I simply want this one to follow the same process. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:53, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

In truth, this article never should've been created. A sovereign version & non-sovereign version should've been, instead. GoodDay (talk) 21:49, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

No, what you should have is both, a list of sovereign state capitals and a list of national capitals. BW, who is going to be confused over what is and isn't a sovereign state capital when it's already been explained to them and every listed capital is linked. Why the non sovereign state capitals should be shown in italics escapes me when it's already been explained. I propose that the italics be scrubbed. As I said above, this article is not about status, it's about capitals of nations. Jack 1314 (talk) 22:57, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure if there's any point in having two separate articles with 80 or 90 per cent of their content in common. Personally I've come to like the approach at List of national anthems, no-one is excluded and it also avoids the apples and oranges problem.--Pondle (talk) 23:11, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
There are no apples and oranges here. A national capital is a national capital. Why on earth should one national capital be treated as inferior to another? Because they are not capitals of sovereign states? Well, this article is not about sovereign state capitals. Someone should go and create one. Jack 1314 (talk) 23:30, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
There are nations with capitals and there are nations with capitals. And then of course there are also dependencies, unrecognised or disputed states and places like Northern Ireland which defy easy classification, all of which also have capitals on the list. I'm not a deletionist - if there are sources saying these cities are national capitals, let's include them. And I understand that a number of editors see having a single list as a matter of national pride. But I also think that failing to distinguish between different sorts of 'national capital' is (a) potentially confusing for the reader and (b) could be seen as a political POV ('equating' the capitals of UN member states with other sorts of entities, some of which are the subject of international disputes).--Pondle (talk) 23:50, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
So, do you think it may be a matter of national pride or national pride. Or, does it really not matter. Whichever, snide comments about the perceived motivation of editors here are unwelcome. Fact is this list is significantly more user-friendly than the POV mess at List of national anthems. General readers (the people for whom this encyclopaedia is designed) can arrive at this list and find either the city they are looking for or, by a simple re-sort, the nation they are looking for, and its corresponding nation or city respectively, all in alphabetical order. This is simply not possible using the approach at List of national anthems. If any editor here considers a city may not be a national capital just add a 'citation needed' template to the entry and if no reliably sourced reference is added, within a reasonable time, the entry can be removed. Daicaregos (talk) 07:54, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
It's that same old argument. Should Edinburgh, Scotland; Cardiff, Wales; Belfast, Northern Ireland & London, England be treated as equals to London, United Kingdom. GoodDay (talk) 14:38, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The argument is whether or not we adhere to the Wikipedia principles of Neutral Point of View and Verifiability. Can you think of any Neutral Point of View reason to exclude the reliably sourced capital cities from a list of capital cities GoodDay? 'Cause I can't. Daicaregos (talk) 14:55, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Exclusion is just 1 option. There are other ways to fix this article. GoodDay (talk) 14:57, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
And the answer is yes they should be treated differently to reflect the fact they Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland are not sovereign nations. Apart from Snowded, Dai and Jack (who Dai invited to join this debate yesterday) i still see based on the past long conversation support for a change. Sadly certain editors refuse to see there is a problem and think most are happy with the present setup, which is not the case. I do not understand why they are so utterly opposed to simply having the list split into categories, Wales, Scotland etc will still be here and have recognition. Why one long single list? I see no real reason to oppose such a modest alteration, in line with how some other lists are handled which provides stability and keeps Wales and Scotland in it. BritishWatcher (talk) 14:47, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Just seen that point, and yes it was a WP:CANVASS violation, in that it was biased in content (campaigning) and in audience (votestacking). Editors that have been canvassed inappropriately must, it seems to me, be discounted when determining consensus. It's not nice, but the canvassing shouldn't have taken place in the first place. Pfainuk talk 14:58, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
@ BritishWatcher & Pfainuk: An accusation of Meatpuppetry is a serious personal attack. I suggest you each withdraw it now. Daicaregos (talk) 15:09, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
All i have said is you invited Jack to join this debate. This is based on the comment you made on his talk page [4] in which you said..
"Hiya Jack, I noticed you referenced List of national capitals at WP:ECCN#Northern Ireland Demonym the other day. Although I'm pleased to see the subject is on your mind, I am curious as to why no Scottish editors have made an appearance at the article Talkpage. I am amazed they dodn't seem to care whether Edinburgh is in a list of national capitals or not. What's your thoughts? "
Shortly after that comment Jack posted on this talk page. I suppose the two things could be unrelated, but it is something worthy of a mention i thought, ive not suggested you broke any rule intentionally so i have nothing i need to withdraw. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:17, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
BW, you are misstated the position on support for change, and more specifically for support for your idea. Its a list of national capitals, as such its fine. Can we just leave this one now please. --Snowded TALK 14:52, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
The current implication that England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are or should be considered equal to sovereign states is POV. Further, the list is apparently limitless, open to any "nation", regardless of status or appropriateness. BW's idea would improve both situations to some extent. Pfainuk talk 14:58, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Its a list of national capitals not a list of sovereign states, its POV to suggest that some national capitals are more equal than others. Any nation included would need a third party source to support that, and in the case of the four you mention that is the case so its not an open book. This is a factual issue - the list name determines what is included - please don't politicize the issue. --Snowded TALK 15:04, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
We're not looking for individual sources to support each inclusion, but a single source that supports the inclusion of Cardiff in a list of national capitals around the world. If not, WP:V has been misrepresented, as clearly stated under WP:SYNTH. Bastin 15:27, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Bastin - if you want to propose a name change for the article please do so. --Snowded TALK 15:31, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
No name would be appropriate, because it would be presenting a set of information that no reliable source does or would present together. As such, no matter how you label the list, it would be original research, and breach one of Wikipedia's core tenets. This was my original objection, before people started arguing the toss about other issues. Bastin 23:31, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
The issue is already inherently political, and to suggest that it isn't is a tad absurd. Yes, some "national capitals" are different from others. I would consider that to be nothing more than a statement of the obvious. Some national capitals are the seats of governments of sovereign states, others are the cultural and historical capitals of regions. Claiming that Edinburgh, Belfast, Cardiff, Barcelona, Québec City or Lhasa is a capital of equivalent stature to Berlin, Paris or Washington - or indeed London - would seem to be distinctly POV. Pfainuk talk 15:10, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

You and BW are making it political. Maybe we should rank national capitals based on population? Sovereignty is is one aspect of a national capital. If you want to rename the article propose it. With the current title the list as it stands is valid. --Snowded TALK 15:16, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

You accept that sovereignty is an aspect of a national capital. It is. Which is why this list should be split. Because Edinburgh, unlike Paris, unlike Berlin, unlike London, is not the capital of a sovereign state. A significant proportion of our readers are going to come to an article flagged up as being a list of "national capitals" and expect that to mean sovereignty.
You seem to argue that the word "nation" means the same thing to everyone. It does not. To many, "nation" and "sovereign state" are synonymous. Hence the United Nations. To others, a nation is far wider. If we accept that first definition, then Edinburgh is not a national capital. That alone should be enough for us to split the list into two. Our readers should not have to trawl through the capitals of every entity that chooses to call itself a "nation", or every city that chooses to call itself a "national capital" (be it London or Trantor, based on your inclusion criteria) to find what they're looking for. Focussed lists are better for readers.
Rename the article? The article name does not determine its contents. It merely describes the article's contents, an entirely different kettle of fish. It is the inclusion criteria in the article that determine an article's contents, and the criteria in this article aren't up to the job, as I've noted before. Pfainuk talk 15:39, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
The meaning of words is frequently confused, but that does not require us to perpetuate confusion. The lede makes the use very clear so there is no confusion. Your suggestion that we include anything "that chooses to call itself" is pejorative, no one is suggesting that. --Snowded TALK 15:44, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Sometimes words have more than one meaning. We need to account for this fact. The lede is about is most distinctly unclear about what it means, and most distinctly unclear about what should be included. This is why I want it tightened up.
You're suggesting that anything that can be reliably sourced as a "national capital" has to be listed - which would seem to encompass any city that chooses to call itself a national capital. My point stands. Pfainuk talk 15:50, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
You have been around long enough to know that a reliable source is not that trivial. Very happy to look at tightening up the lede to make things clear if that would help. --Snowded TALK 15:54, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Tightening up the introduction will solve nothing unless we introduce a strict criteria which would limit the types of nations that can be listed. That seems like one way forward and it has happened before on other articles. Splitting the list into sections based on the type of nation to avoid confusion is a solution that would atleast keep Wales and Scotland listed. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:05, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Snowded i did not say there was clear majority support for my specific proposal which is why i waited 4 days before making the change i announced i would incase people objected. However what i did say was there is clear overwhelming support for some form of change. It is not as you suggested yesterday: "At least as many people were happy with the existing position as wanted a change" , we can go through the numbers if you want. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:09, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

It's good to see that the italics are on Puerto Rico, England, Northern Ireland etc etc. GoodDay (talk) 15:12, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Sadly for me on my screen i can not see the difference with italics unless i zoom in on the page. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:05, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Unfortunately much of this debate has centred on the UK countries and seems to have turned into a bunfight between Celtic nationalists and British unionists. But there are much wider issues and I'm surprised that they've only featured at the margins. For example, how should we treat Abkhazia, Kosovo, South Ossetia or Somaliland? Including their capitals in the list would be one form of POV - essentially a tacit Wikipedia endorsement of their national aspirations. Excluding them would be the inverse POV. Including them and offering some context seems to be a reasonable compromise - and one that would work for the UK countries and other non-sovereign states too. As Pfainuk has said, of course some 'national capitals' are different to others. It's a nonsense to pretend otherwise. This isn't about inferiority, as Jack argued[5] (the reason I made the allegedly "snide remark" (!) about 'national pride') but about 'difference' and the recognition of that difference.--Pondle (talk) 16:13, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Splitting the list into sections so that the disputed sovereign states appear on their own certainly seems like the best solution for dealing with that problem. There are so few they do not justify an entire separate article to mention, and clearly keeping them in line with recognised sovereign states is problematic and in some places has led to edit wars with people disagreeing if they should be mentioned or not. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:19, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
This is acceptable, a sovereign section & non-sovereign section. GoodDay (talk) 16:21, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Its never that simple, you then get into distinctions between national capitals that are acknowledged as such and those which are making claims that have limited or no support. A list needs to be a list, if the solution to all of these is to make them lists of Sovereign States and indicate constituent countries as a note then I would happily accept that as the name would be consistent with the content. Its the attempt to restrict the definition of nation which is causing POV issues here. --Snowded TALK 16:28, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Its the lack of defining what nation is which is causing the problem. That is why some of us want a strict criteria or to split the list into sections based on their status. Throughout the list there are things like ( (administrative) and (officially) and (Legislative) next to capitals that have specific issues and there is always the ability to add a note to deal with that, but it should be mentioned.. just as the status of the "nation" should be clearly mentioned. Split sections seems easier than having a 3rd column which would in most cases repeat sovereign state. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:03, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Split sections create different classes of nation which is what is causing the problem BW. A list of nations is a list of nations, a list of sovereign countries/nations is a different thing. --Snowded TALK 17:07, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
But there are different classes of "nation". People have different interpretations of the word nation and country. That is why it is useful to the readers to split them to avoid confusion or misleading people by having Sovereign nations in line with non sovereign nations and regions. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:22, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
To state the obvious once more, there are indeed many different kinds of nations. It's not something we're trying to create: it's something that is already inherent in the word. US Native American nations and Canadian First Nations are different from UK countries, which are different from Belgian linguistic communities, which are different from fully sovereign states. All are different kinds of nations and there are plenty more besides. For this reason, the word "nation" is a poor choice of words when exactness is desired. Pfainuk talk 17:21, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
So rename the article then the issue goes away. --Snowded TALK 17:24, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
A name change is a potential option. I would support such a change on the condition this remains a redirect to that page and no new list is created that would be a content folk simply to include some "nations" that wont make it onto the main newly named list. BritishWatcher (talk) 19:42, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Why the "" around nations, BW? Jack 1314 (talk) 19:57, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Because people define a nation in different ways. BritishWatcher (talk) 20:01, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Ah, that's what it was. The way it read it suggested you didn't think some nations were actually nations. If this article is renamed (and it would have to be if some nations were removed) then we wouldn't actually have an article on a list of national capitals. Rather remiss of an encyclopedia, don't you think? Jack 1314 (talk) 20:19, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
It would not have to be renamed to remove some things from the list. We do not have to include every nation because of the title, this has been gone over extensively before. Besides i simply want to split the list, it keeps everything on the page whilst dealing with our concerns about mixing sovereign states with non sovereign states. I do not understand why you, Snowded and Dai are so opposed to such a change. It is clear others are prepared to support
AGain this debate has started to go quite. I do not think Dai had enough support to revert my alterations to this article. Unless there is more debate here.. i will be restoring that version because i see no other option. You 3 can not just block alterations when a majority do not support the status quo. BritishWatcher (talk) 22:45, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

you are not in charge of determining what is the way forward BW, You do not have agreement to that change. Improving the lede to remove any ambiguity or renaming the article are also alternatives. I've been on the other side of this type of debate and I know it can be frustrating but sometimes stalemates happen--Snowded TALK 03:13, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I do not know how we should proceed then, its clear from above a majority wanted some form of change, the question is to what. Would a RFC be suitable? or a vote? or a talk page message on everyone who has been involved in the debate above asking for further input on what option should be implemented. There is no rush, but we need an outcome, even if that is clear support for the status quo. BritishWatcher (talk) 09:41, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
Well you could just leave it alone. The current version is accurate, improve the lede and leave it at that. There isn't a clear majority either way so normally the status quo would stand, and its not a matter of voting anyway. However about that - improve the lede and if you want make the italics bold italics?--Snowded TALK 09:51, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Snowded. There is no consensus, and IMHO no need, for change. All we need is a bit of common sense. Perhaps all sovereign, recognised, independent etc. etc. states could be in bold. Just because you want a change BW, it doesn't mean that it's for the best. Welshleprechaun 11:23, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
As I've said previously, I don't see the need for italics (bold or otherwise), but if it will settle this matter I'll go along with it. Jack 1314 (talk) 14:04, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
I'd be happy with a compromise around setting sovereign states in bold type, though I'd like to see a 'notes' column added to clarify the status of any states with limited recognition and dependencies that may feature on this list (there are bound to be neutrality arguments over the former). If we still can't reach an agreement I suggest that we request mediation.--Pondle (talk) 17:38, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
Be bold (BW) & go with the bold solution. GoodDay (talk) 20:10, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
Go for it, a sensible solution --Snowded TALK 20:12, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
I've carefully checked the indentations above and I'm still not sure. Which bold solution are we talking about here? Jack 1314 (talk) 20:22, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
Pondle --Snowded TALK 20:26, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
On the face of it that looks good. If the list is not going to be split in any way I would be happy with that. Jack 1314 (talk) 20:31, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
Split ups are generally stressful. GoodDay (talk) 20:36, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
Ok i have bolded sovereign states so there is now a clearer distinction between sovereign and non sovereign nations/territories. I am prepared to leave it at that as a compromise. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:31, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Well i would rather the sovereign states were bolded and non sovereign states remain in italics than no change, but i still do not think that is a good enough solution when many editors above have questioned the status quo. Also bolding will not resolve the issue of something like Palestine saying Jerusalem is its capital in line with all other national capitals as if its not a disputed issue, so edits like the IP did today will still take place. Having that in a seperate section for disputed sovereign states, highlights it is not the "accepted norm", as most national capitals are. BritishWatcher (talk) 19:58, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Pondle has now started adding the notes as agreed above. There is though one thing I'd like ask. Is there any need for the italics to remain? I personally find the italics in the table a little hard to read and believe that it is still distinctive enough from the bolded text without them. I'll add part of the list below where I've removed the italics from Pitcairn Island and left niue italicized to highlight the difference. Any opinions? Jack 1314 (talk) 11:23, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

City Country Notes
Abu Dhabi  United Arab Emirates
Abuja  Nigeria
Accra  Ghana
Adamstown  Pitcairn Islands
Addis Ababa  Ethiopia
Algiers  Algeria
Alofi  Niue
I oppose the removal of italics from non sovereign states, territories and disputed states. Considering support for a more radical change above like renaming, splitting the list or a strict criteria, the present compromise seems reasonable with out further alterations which would lead to reopening the whole debate again. BritishWatcher (talk) 11:31, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
That's fine, BW. I did ask for opinions. I just think there is no reason for italics for the reason I gave above and that there is still very obviously a difference between the bolded and non bolded text. Jack 1314 (talk) 11:48, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
I agree the bold makes the italics less important, but a lot of lists do use italics for non sovereign entities and not all bother to bold, is helpful to try and keep that sort pattern across wikipedia lists. BritishWatcher (talk) 11:55, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
I can't see any reason for the italics now. It certainly doesn't make the list any easier to read. Also, would someone please clarify the purpose of the notes section, now that we have agreed to bolded text for sovereign nations. If we have, indeed, all agreed to it that is. Daicaregos (talk) 13:45, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
I couldnt see why this had to remain a single list mixing sovereign and non sovereign states when it could have been far clearer to the readers if split into sections. Sadly change was blocked, and i have had to accept this compromise. Straight away after accepting compromise, you both seek more concessions. I oppose the removal of italics, it is in line with most lists to show non sovereign states in italics, the fact we have bolded the sovereign states does not change this fact. Im not sure about the notes column, considering there is a full notes section under the list for special cases it may not be needed unless thers a lot of text to be included. I did think it would be pretty good if we listed when they each became national capitals. But that would take a lot of work. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:03, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
There's no need to make a song & dance about it. We have also compromised. I see no reason to differentiate between one nation and another, but am prepared to accept sovereign countries being in bold text, even though they are still nations. So we are all heroes. Now please take a look at the article and see what it looks like to the casual reader. This isn't 'more concessions', I'm trying to be realistic here, it is not very easy to read in italics. Daicaregos (talk) 15:40, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Well they have been in italics for a very long time and many other list articles include entries in italics. I do not see any reason for a change on this matter, plus it was not mentioned before when people were suggesting to go with the bolding option. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:53, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
BW, I agree to the bolding, but have a look at the table. You said yourself above that the bolding makes the italics less important. If it's less important and enables the general reader to actually read it better without the italics then why is there a problem? Jack 1314 (talk) 15:59, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Jack. The italics are out of place and redundant. BW, we are no longer in line with most lists because of the bolding anyway. Welshleprechaun 16:20, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
They are not out of place, most lists on wikipedia use italics for non sovereign states. Just because we bold the sovereign states does not mean we must remove italics for the non sovereign states. That was not part of the suggestion that i agreed to and it is not something i can support. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:19, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
With the sovereign states bolded, the italics around non-sovereign states become irrelevant. Ya don't need to scratch your head with you left hand, to show people you're not scratching your head with your right hand. GoodDay (talk) 19:26, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Italics are used on many list articles, nobody mentioned us having to remove italics from non sovereign states when i agreed to support the bolding as a compromise. Whilst it may not be written in law somewhere, it is standard practice to show non sovereign states and territories in italics, i do not see why we should change that now. BritishWatcher (talk) 09:35, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

I reckon it's not overly important. With or without the italics, we can easily tell which are sovereign & non sovereign nations. GoodDay (talk) 14:50, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree, GoodDay. As you say, we can easily tell which are non-sovereign and sovereign without the italics. We should now think of the reader and remove those italics. There is a consensus here to do that but I will leave it a day before changing it. Jack 1314 (talk) 15:19, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
Well I think it's only BW against the removal. I'd go ahead with the removal. As said before, they serve no purpose and make it difficult to read. Welshleprechaun 15:55, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
As you say, only BW is against the removal, so there's no need to wait. I've removed the italics. Jack 1314 (talk) 16:56, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
I do not support that change and there is no real need for it when other lists across wikipedia use italics for non sovereign states we should not change it here. Looking at the list it is far harder to see the difference when looking at bold/regular rather than when looking at Bold/italics. Let us not forget Jack is only here because Dai broke wikipedia rules by encouraging him to join this debate, he knew exactly what his views would be on this. It was a classic case of WP:Sock_puppetry#Meatpuppetry. 3 editors here managed to block a change saying the status quo should stand, despite more than 6 people saying there should be some form of change. I love how i am just "overruled" after acccepting a compromise. BritishWatcher (talk) 08:17, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm very dissapointed in you, BW. You know fine well I made a comment on this discussion before Dai brought it up at my talk page. It's quite obvious I was going to contribute to this discussion even if Dai had not brought it up. As for your revert of my edit, I'm not sure why you would do that when you are the only one who thinks that using italics is necessary. I won't be getting into a revert war with you so will wait for further comments from other editors. Jack 1314 (talk) 11:14, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
One more thing. I know your above link is to the section on Meatpuppetry but it appears at first glance as though you are accusing Dai of both meatpuppetry and Sock puppetry. A change in the way you have linked it would be appreciated. Jack 1314 (talk) 11:26, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
I've reverted BW's edit per consensus. Welshleprechaun 11:22, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
Jack, the fact remains Dai raised it on your talk page straight after reverting my edit. He asked for your thoughts and a few hours later you had posted on this talk page agreeing with Dais position and played a key role in bringing us to this point, i suppose it could be a complete coincidence, i do not accept that it is. I am disappointed with certain editors here too after i accepted this compromise about bolding only to then find a change is made which weakens the whole thing again, because there is not as clear a distinction between bold/regular as there is with bold/italics. Waiting for other editors to comment would have been nice, i waited weeks before making the change i did, mine still got reverted by 1 editor. Your changes have been implemented within 48 hours and considered "consensus". BritishWatcher (talk) 11:37, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
And no i will not change my link, i linked to the section on the relevant issue. The fact it is included on the same article as Sockpuppets is not my fault. BritishWatcher (talk) 11:42, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
I've told you that I would have contributed to this discussion no matter what. It's now up to you whether you assume good faith or not. Isn't it a little childish not to change the way you linked it after I asked you nicely? I'll say it again, you dissapoint me, BW. Jack 1314 (talk) 11:47, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
Sadly i can not ignore the facts. I made a change which had been under discussion for weeks, Dai reverted, he asked for your opinions on his talk page, you arrived a few hours later backing up his position and playing a key role in the outcome of this debate. You chose not to join in the debate prior to Dais comments on your talk page, only you know why that is the case but based on the evidence i think my view on this is fair and justified.
As for the link, you made clear in your previous post you knew what i meant and the section it was directing to. Just to ensure everyone is clear, I do not think you or Dai are involved in any form of sock puppetry. The only reason that term is in my post is because it is the page wikipedia chooses to keep the relevant section on. I see no reason to change something just because you asked nicely. I am sorry we are both disappointed with each other, i can not help that. BritishWatcher (talk) 12:02, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
BritishWatcher, in case you either haven't read it or haven't understood it, the article to which you have linked (Meatpuppetry) says “The term meatpuppet is derogatory and should be used with care.” I insist that you either make your complaint official, or you withdraw your accusation and apologise. Daicaregos (talk) 12:24, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
I have not used the term meatpuppet, i simply pointed to the rules in that section which i believe cover what has taken place. If you want we can take this to ANI and if they say you and Jack did absolutely nothing wrong i will withdraw my comment and apologise but i do not intend to withdraw something when i think you are both in the wrong. BritishWatcher (talk) 12:32, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
So, you think two editors are in the wrong. But you are not actually accusing them of anything. Is that correct? Daicaregos (talk) 12:38, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Guys can we calm this one down? We all know that all of us talk with each other all the time - in fact I am beginning to think we should all get together sometime. Jack is not one of the extremists on either side in this and I think everyone would be made a fool of if it went to ANI at the moment as there is zero tolerance for these issues. It was in the open not via a back door and given that most of us watch each others pages that is more or less in the open anyway. How about just dropping this one? --Snowded TALK 12:47, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

I have not described anyone as meatpuppet on this talk page which i presume the advice about using the term with care is talking about. I do not think i have anything to withdraw or apologise for, the sequence of events is very clear. Dai undid my edit, asked for Jacks thoughts on his talk page and then within hours was on here defending Dais position. I thought i had been pretty reasonable about this, accepting such a compromise. Shortly after accepting the compromise, several editors seek to remove italics from the non sovereign states, which was not mentioned previously. People did not say "Lets add bold and remove italics". The non sovereign entities were stable in italics on this article for some time, italics are used on many list articles. I do not see why such a change was needed. BritishWatcher (talk) 12:52, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
I think that was just a style issue BW - italics are very difficult to read on some browsers, the original compromise was to use bold. I really don't think its anything to fall out over. I don't think you should withdraw or apologise for anything, and I don't think people should ask you do. Lets just draw a line under it otherwise the trout comes out --Snowded TALK 12:58, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
It really depends on whether accusations have been made, whether or not an apology should be forthcoming. Please provide a straight answer BritishWatcher. Are you actually accusing anyone of doing something wrong? And if you are, what exactly is it? Daicaregos (talk) 13:06, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
I do not believe that you should have raised this active issue on Jacks talk page and asked for his thoughts on it shortly after reverting my edit, a couple of hours later Jack joined the debate on this talk page and helped influence the outcome. BritishWatcher (talk) 13:15, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
Jack was canvassed a way that broke the rules. Specifically, the message broke WP:CANVASS rules on votestacking (only canvassing people who are likely to agree with you) and campaigning (canvassing using non-neutral messages). It's not Jack's fault that he was canvassed inappropriately, but that doesn't change the fact that he was. And what it means is that Jack's position should not be taken into account when determining consensus. Pfainuk talk 13:20, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
See you've resurfaced. Specifically, Pfainuk, I asked for Jack's opinion on why no Scottish editors had commented on an article he had already discussed on another page. I did not ask him to join the discussion on this page. The answer to my question is appropriate for a user Talkpage, but would be inappropriate here. If you don't like it then best you make a formal complaint. Daicaregos (talk) 14:02, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
I can only ask this, not insist on it. Please assume good faith in that I was going to get involved in this discussion whether or not anyone posted to my talk page or not. As you can see from my link I had already commented on this discussion and BW knew that. I do think that BW is being a little mischievous here. Jack 1314 (talk) 13:31, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
You had made a comment about certain nations being included on the article itself over on the adminboard but you did not join in the debate here until a couple of hours after Dai posted on your talk page asking for your thoughts on it. The post Dai made on your talk page mentioned about ur post on the noticeboard, and the full post was copied and pasted above so i am not being mischievous or trying to hide that fact. It simply remains the case, dai posted on your talk page and hours later you joined this current debate for the first time. BritishWatcher (talk) 13:41, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
What can I say. You may find that I'll be struggling with WP:Assume good faith with you in future. Jack 1314 (talk) 13:48, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
I am going to be struggling to do the same with certain editors. I accept a very reasonable compromise (for those who opposed any change) in good faith and then within 48 hours another change was made which takes this article out of sync with many other lists when dealing with non sovereign entities and territories and makes the differences between the two types of entities less clearer than keeping bold / italics would have. BritishWatcher (talk) 13:50, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
I will drop the issue of the italics but i am disappointed the way this has happened. I was told to accept the bolding compromise, i accepted it despite thinking a much wider change was justified and several people supporting a much wider change. Then right after accepting it a further change with the removal of italics is requested and implemented within 48 hours, something that was not part of the compromise on the bolding issue. BritishWatcher (talk) 13:10, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Please, its over, stop .... --Snowded TALK 14:13, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Tongue in Cheek

Maybe we should ask for a variation on the ruling that editors who persistently attempt to add or remove British Isles from articles. Namely to say it should also apply to editors (BW beware) who move across multiple articles seeking to reduce the status of constituent countries of the UK? --Snowded TALK 16:33, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Yikes. GoodDay (talk) 16:37, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
This has absolutely nothing to do with the British Isles issue. However if you are suggesting something along those lines then in this case, we would have to remove England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland because they got added to this list in 2009 when such an addition was not needed. There has been an extensive debate on inclusion for lists, there was a long debate at a centralised location. Just because the article title says Country/Nation does not mean Scotland and Wales must be listed.
We are in a rather strange situation though. Everyone here knows my views on this issue, and we also know 3 people presently demanding no change which may alter the inclusion or position of UK nations in this list support independence for Wales and/or Scotland. Whilst i am sure we all have good valid reasons for the positions we take and its not based on our political views, it is rather strange. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:44, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
I think your above comment really belongs in the previous section BW - but I am afraid it is a variant of the BI issue. --Snowded TALK 16:48, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
That's funny, BW. "Just because the article title says Country/Nation does not mean Scotland and Wales must be listed." I won't state the obvious but you must know why I find that sentence funny/laughable. Jack 1314 (talk) 16:51, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
I found it needlessly provocative, but indicative of a long standing POV position which harks back to a bygone era. --Snowded TALK 16:53, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Well i do not know why you find it funny, that seemed to be the consensus that came out of the centralised debate on this matter. We can ofcourse also point to major reliable sources that have "Lists of countries" that fail to mention England and Scotland because they do not put UK nations in line with sovereign states for obvious reasons. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:57, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
I found your comment provocative too :). BritishWatcher (talk) 16:57, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Let's not forget, the UK home nations aren't the only places to consider. There's also San Juan, Puerto Rico, etc etc. GoodDay (talk) 16:56, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Snowded, I know your heading said it was tongue in cheek, but I'm seriously thinking it would be a good idea. Jack 1314 (talk) 17:00, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I would be happy for us to debate if England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland belong in any list of nations/countries across wikipedia. There has been a wikipedia wide debate on this sort of issue before, where notices were placed on dozens or over 100 "country list" pages, there was certainly not consensus for inclusion of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland on all such lists. From what i can remember it was a case by case thing, and should follow the sources. On an issue like crime, where England and Wales form a single jurisdiction separate from Northern Ireland and Scotland it makes sense to list them but in most cases England etc should not be in line with other sovereign states unless sources include em (like the EU is included on the GDP lists because sources include them).
But as i said before this is nothing like the British Isles situation. For a start it does not lead to edit wars which was the serious problem with BI, because in this sort of situation it usually always remains a talk page debate until consensus or compromise is found. Also this is restricted to a limited number of ambiguous lists. The campaign to remove British Isles from wikipedia takes place throughout the thousands of articles across wikipedia. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:17, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
BW, just try to think before you write. --Snowded TALK 17:22, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Notes

  • 1. Please point us to the consensus agreement to include a notes section.
  • 2. If there is to be a notes section, the need for which I am happy to be persuaded, it should be about the capital rather than the nation. As the capital city is the primary focus of this article, rather than the nation.
  • 3. Perhaps it could be a place for citation references, to confirm the city is the capital of the relevant nation. This could replace a separate 'References' section at the end of the article. Daicaregos (talk) 14:52, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
I think we agreed around here, Dai.[6] The 'notes' section should offset any arguments about the 'national status' of disputed entities that appear on the list. I'm worried that if we present these places such as Kosovo, South Ossetia, Somaliland etc as 'nations' without any comment or qualification, Wikipedia could be accused of tacitly endorsing a particular POV.--Pondle (talk) 15:20, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

::Ps could we align all this to the left, please? It could get difficult to read!

I'm not sure how to fix it, the Trout has caused the mis-aligment. GoodDay (talk) 15:30, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Update: I've thrown out the trout. Posts now aligned. GoodDay (talk) 15:40, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
A notes section could be useful yes. Although it will take some time to go through many of them in the list to include some information. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:35, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict):::The trout seems to have screwed the formatting up. I've no idea how to correct it. I did try.
I numbered the points in the hope they would be easier to answer. Not sure that was consensus Pondle, but there we are. There would be no argument about 'national status', nor would any entities be disputed if any potentially contentious entries have citation references from reliable sources that they are the national capitals of the nation they relate to. There could be no accusations of endorsement if we have RS citations. As I say, the city is the primary focus of this article and that is what we need the reference for. To have to prove that each entry is a nation is beyond our remit, that the entry is a capital city is not. Do you intend that the notes section should replace a separate 'References' section at the end of the article? Daicaregos (talk) 15:41, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

A list of national capitals is always going to be inherently political, and IMO we can't appeal to objective sources here. Various governments, academics and lawyers could be cited for or against (e.g.) the status of Kosovo and the legality of its declaration of independence from Serbia. As the Christian Science Monitor said here, "recognition is a political, not a legal matter".[7] If you think the notes section is too big then I'm happy to talk about slimming it down (so that, for example, we simply include a note such as "see Status of Kosovo" etc etc). But I don't believe we can present a bald list of national capitals without acknowledging that the 'national status' of many of these entities is disputed.--Pondle (talk) 17:39, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
The problem with us deciding whether somewhere is a nation or not, is that it is inherently original research. If we are unable to find a reliable source to say that a city is a national capital, it has no place being on the list. I have no issue with the size of the notes column, but we should ensure the focus of those notes is on the city rather than the nation. Daicaregos (talk) 17:56, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
It's important that Edinburgh (Scotland), Cardiff (Wales), Belfast (Northern Ireland) & London (England), aren't treated as equals to London (United Kingdom). Thank goodness we've got the bolding. GoodDay (talk) 18:12, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Agreed but bolding is still pretty limited in creating a difference considering italics were removed. Separate sections for sovereign / non sovereign entities would have been a far more helpful solution for the reader to avoid confusion. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:16, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
The status of the nation and there for the nations capital is important. This is of course one of the reasons i wanted the list split into sections, so all of the "disputed" national capitals are kept separate from the fully recognised sovereign states and non sovereign nations and territories. I would quite like to see notes on the city status itself though, like When it became the capital, if its the administrative capital etc BritishWatcher (talk) 18:16, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
For example, Cardiff may say something like "Defacto Capital of Wales since 1955. Home to the devolved National Assembly of Wales since 1999" BritishWatcher (talk) 18:29, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
I have no objection to having notes on each city's status. Although, this article is only a "List of ...". Looks like you've given yourself quite a task. That will be several hundred nations, each with at least two statements (going by the example given). Potentially well over a thousand references. Good for you. Long as you know what you're letting yourself in forDaicaregos (talk) 20:01, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
lol Oh i never said i intended to add all these, i think they would add to the list but you are correct it would take an endless amount of time to sort through every one of these national capitals and get the relevant facts. Sadly there are more pressing matters than adding to that section on a list have big concerns about. BritishWatcher (talk) 20:05, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
That's a shame. I thought you had finally decided to help real editors to build this encyclopaedia, rather than continue with your endless disruption. I suppose I should have known better. Daicaregos (talk) 20:09, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Well now that we have the notes section which is explaining the disputed status of some entities like Kosovo, what i am prepared to do is spend some time filling in some of the blank rows to explain the status of others. So things like British Overseas Territory or Dependent territories, which will help inform the reader. May as well provide extra information to clear up the problem with having everything in a single table BritishWatcher (talk) 22:17, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
No probs, I threw it (the trout) out as it was beginning to rot. GoodDay (talk) 15:52, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I still think this article is problematic by having everything in a single table. Its like the debate over at List of European countries and territories, people are arguing there for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to be in a separate section rather than all mixed together like in this list. Especially as the decision to change the italics to regular which was made after the compromise agreement, it now takes this article out of sync with most lists on wikipedia where territories are in italics. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:02, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

For God's sake BritishWatcher, let it drop. Daicaregos (talk) 16:05, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
We definitely need an across-the-board solution, on these types of articles. GoodDay (talk) 16:08, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
From British Watcher continually bringing up his grievance that he didn't get his way here, to you GoodDay, posting everywhere that we need an across-the-board solution, this is all getting a little tiring. The decision was made on this article and that should be the end of it. Jack 1314 (talk) 16:14, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree, we need a wider agreement on how to handle these lists. I am prepared to support the inclusion of EWSNI on certain lists, provided they are in correct sections and there is agreement not to add EWSNI to the majority of country lists where they clearly do not belong. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:16, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
The present table is most unsatisfactory since you guys forced through the change to remove italics from territories. The compromise was to add Bold to sovereign states to ensure it was even clearer which was sovereign states. Then sadly italics were removed taking this list out of line with the overwhelming majority of wikipedia lists where territories and non sovereign entities are in italics.
We should reconsider this, in light of the debate going on over on the List of European countries and territories article. If it turns out we are to have EWSNI in a separate section on that page, then i see no reason why this should not be split in sections too. Sovereign states, dependent territories, and disputed sovereign states. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:16, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Nobody forced anything through! It's about time you realised that just because you don't get your own way it doean't mean things are forced through. Like I said, it's getting a little tiring. Jack 1314 (talk) 16:21, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
It seemed like and felt like a stitch up to me. I agree to a very reasonable compromise (for those who opposed any change at all), when several editors including myself had been supporting some wider reforms. Then within 48 hours of agreeing to a compromise, a few editors removed italics which watered down the compromise and took this article out of sync with most country / territory lists. I see a problem with this list, i am not going to ignore that fact and avoid mentioning it just because you are getting tired of hearing it. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:28, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Another little tantrum? Daicaregos (talk) 16:31, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
lol, i am just saying this list is still far from satisfactory, i had hoped other editors would agree there is a need for a more central and wikipedia wide agreement on how we deal with this problem because of the UK nations. Are you against that? BritishWatcher (talk) 16:37, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

There appears to be agreement here for the notes section to be focussed on the city not the nation. This appears to be justifying the entry as a nation. This is not a list of nations. The reference should a reliable source justifying the entry as a national capital. Daicaregos (talk) 07:14, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I didn't think that edit was justifying the entry as a nation, rather contextualising it, if that makes any sense. In a list of national capitals, we can't really get away from the old "what is a nation?" chestnut - which has taken up about 90 per cent of the comment on the talk page so far. IMO if we include the capitals of disputed entities such as Northern Cyprus or Kosovo or Palestine without any context, it could be seen as tantamount to 'endorsing' these entities' claims to 'national status' (and conversely if we exclude them, tantamount to denying those claims). Notes about the cities (e.g. something like a link to Positions on Jerusalem) is a good idea and as I said before, I'm happy to talk about slimming the 'national' text in the notes section. However, I'm very reluctant to lose it completely.--Pondle (talk) 17:15, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
I really think we should reconsider splitting the list. That deals with the potential problem of putting the disputed "nation" in line with proper sovereign states whos status as a nation is not disputed. But if we can not have that then the notes section is helpful. If we can make notes about the disputed states, i do not see the harm in filling in some of the blank rows to mention they are territories and of what entity (UK/France etc). I may get to work on that a little later, but it will take some time, theres a lot of territories in the list. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:24, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
I would not be in favour of splitting the list. If there is some dispute as to whether an entry is a nation or not a citation should be requested. That was my understanding of the reason to include a notes column. Or did I misunderstand its purpose? Daicaregos (talk) 19:26, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
citation can be found stating the capital of Kosovo is its capital, it does not mean its inclusion is not heavily controversial and disputed, that is why i supported from the start the split sections to keep those issues away from the main part of the list which can always remain stable. As for the notes section if we are covering details like the dispute there is no reason not to say things like territory of the UK / France etc. so people know the status of some of these nations. which are not sovereign states. I do not mind putting in the time to add those things. BritishWatcher (talk) 19:35, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Is there any reason to tell us citation can be found stating the capital of Kosovo is its capital? (It's a rhetorical question, btw) The notes section should be for citations confirming that an entry is the national capital it purports to represent and no more. Nothing else is relevant.
For future reference; I don't want to play this game. When the suggestion is brought up again (which it will be on some spurious pretext or other) please accept this as confirmation of my opposition to split the list. If a national capital is a national capital, and can be verified by reliably sourced references, it belongs on the List of national capitals. If a national capital may be a national capital, but can not be verified by reliably sourced references, it does not belong on the List of national capitals. Please accept this. Daicaregos (talk) 20:56, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
I do not accept that this is the best way of dealing with the list. But whilst we have a notes section we may as well make use of it and use it to clarify the status of the disputed states and territories. Giving the reader more information is not a bad thing. I am sure i remember someone supportive of a separate column for more details at some point, rather than the propose list split. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:00, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
The notes section is a red line issue for me. The problem with relying on WP:CITE alone is the lack of academic or diplomatic consensus. Some 'reliable sources' could be cited in support the inclusion of (say) Kosovo, but other 'reliable sources' could be cited in opposition. If we only take the 'inclusionist' perspective then we violate WP:NPOV and WP:WEIGHT. Besides, I don't think a [citation needed] marker alone offers a reader much help in understanding the contentious status of many 'nations'.--Pondle (talk) 10:29, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
The whole basis of the 'inclusionist' argument, that any city that some call a national capital belongs - regardless of the status of the city or Wikipedia policies on due weight and neutrality - is a nationalist POV push. Neutrality doesn't really come into it. Pfainuk talk 11:18, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
I do not share you aversion to Wikipedia's use of verifiability and reliable sources. Daicaregos (talk) 21:40, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
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