Talk:Kosovo

According to CIA Factbook, Population

Ethnic groups: Albanians 92%, other (Serb, Bosniak, Gorani, Roma, Turk, Ashkali, Egyptian) 8% (2008) [3] --12:45, 27 November 2011

This "article probation" was superseded a long time ago

The ArbCom-imposed "article probation" on Kosovo-related articles was superseded in 2011 by the "standard discretionary sanctions" in the Macedonia case (sanctions which, as everyone hopefully remembers, are applicable to "topics related to the Balkans, broadly interpreted"). The header subpage for Kosovo-related talk pages should be updated accordingly. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 17:37, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Would anyone care to explain what exactly are these infamous "standard discretionary sanctions"? At least compared to the strictest 1RR parole and the "banning clause" to which this article is subjected, are those standard discretionary sanctions any heavier than the ones already in place? And if so, how exactly should they apply to the infamous Kosovo article and other "Kosovo-related" pages? I mean, I find the whole Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Macedonia a way too long and intertwined to interpret for even an attentive editor and not just a lazy ass such as me. Also this Macedonia case section doesn't explicitly mention some newer 2011 Kosovo decision anywhere - at least AFAICT. I cannot escape the feeling that this is as if someone stepped in front of a crowd and informed it of some highly important message but in a language that is an open secret. And this someone being one of the few most trusted people to this crowd. Anyway, I think some further clarification would surely come in handy. --biblbroks (talk) 21:41, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 December 2013, Culture of Kosovo

Culture of Kosovo

For centuries, the social system known as extensive families, containing 70 to 100 members into the so-called “Fis”, was the way of living for ethnic Albanians. Nowadays, these extensive families are still present in the rural areas and trying to keep the loyalty and devotion towards tradition, which is different from major cities. They had started advancements headed for modernization since the end of World War II. Some traditional rules which somehow are considered as laws, such as personal honor and the word honor called “Besa” leading to unbreakable trust, and equality for every person. At this modern time, the Kosovar traditions are vanishing, as a result of the western world influence. People are more educated, therefore they are adopting to the westernized lifestyle. Nevertheless, the older generation is still trying to keep the traditions of Kosovo alive. Clothes Traditional clothes in Kosovo change, depending on the village, and they also have a similarity with the Albanian traditional clothes. The common clothes for every rural area was first, the “Plis” for men, and the headdress for women. Second, woolen pants for men and the skirts for men. And third, “Opengat” the shoes for men and wooden clogs for women. Nowadays, Kosovo fashion is same as any Westernized country. Art l Music l Theater The Music in Kosovo is intensely westernized and combined with many music genres of the western countries, but traditional Albanian music is still very popular in the Kosovo region. Kosovo has many music artists. One of the traditional instruments used in both Albanian countries Albania and Kosovo, is the “Ciftelia” and the mandolin. The traditional music of the Kosovar culture is folk music which is represented by the folk group Shota. Shota as well is a traditional dance style of the Kosovar and Albanian culture named after the remarkable figure, Shote Galica. The dance requires a high tempo with quick steps and it is danced and played in many traditional Kosovar ceremonies.

Kosovar film-making is not as frequent as it is in other countries, the problem is the very high needed budget to have success in this industry. There are only a few movies that have been produced and the most of them deal with the concerns of the war.” Kukumi” for example by Isa Qosja is, to this date, the most famous film made in Kosovo in 1999. The film won a jury prize at the Sarajevo Film Festival. None the less, Kosovo shows interest in film-making and have proved it through their hosting of film festivals. For example “The Doku Film Festival” which is held in Prizren every year at the end of summer, and has grown slowly to become well-known in Europe. As for theaters, there are many all-around Kosovo: some for children, others for the use of jazz music or any type of live bands in general. The main theater is the Kosovo National Theater located in the heart of Prishtina where you can enjoy theater pieces performed regularly. There are also held the special theater weeks which usually have visitors coming from outside of Kosovo to watch. In Kosovo’s National Theater you can among other artistic shows, enjoy also ballet pieces, created by Kosovo’s National Ballet Group. The first troupe of the Kosovo Ballet was formed in 1972. Ballet dancers from this generation were educated in the Secondary School of Ballet in Skopje, under the leadership of director Tatjana Petkovska. Today’s Ballet Troupe of Kosovo is one of the youngest in the Balkan region with talented and dedicated dancers and is ranked alongside European troupes for their quality. The Kosovo Ballet has participated in many International Festivals such as: Festival of Ohrid - "I do not hear Gong" (07/08/2005), twice in the International Festival of Modern Dance and Theatre in Durres - "I do not hear Gong" (09/04/2006) and "Performance" (14/04/2000), Apollonia International Festival in Apollonia-Fier - "Contrast" (29/08/2006), International Festival "Dance Fest" in Skopje – “Performance (10/04/2009), "Scampa Dance Competition, Creativity and Interpretation" in Elbasan – “Performance” (10/09/2009) won first prize as best choreography, "Kosova International Theatre Festival" in Pristina - "Performance" (05/11/2009)

References Beinkosovo. "Kosovo Culture." Be In Kosovo. Ed. Beinkosovo. beepromarketing,

    n.d. Web. 15 Dec. 2013. <http://beinkosovo.com/en/kosovo-culture>. 

Ditamorina (talk) 19:27, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

• Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. Due to the possibly controversial nature of this change and and topic, please acquire a consensus before requesting an edit here. Thank you. Technical 13 (talk) 04:02, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved as proposed.

I'm closing this per a WP:ANRFC request.

Numerically, a few more editors oppose the proposal than support it. That would amount to no consensus. After, however, discounting the opinions that appear to be motivated by personal opinions about the underlying political situation rather than by Wikipedia policy (my favorite is the "only ignorant foreigners" one), as well as the one in which everything is underlined because it is visually painful to read, I must conclude that consensus as informed by Wikipedia policy and practice is in support of the proposal.

Quite a number of the opinions opposed to the move do not or only superficially address the "most common name" or "consistency" arguments advanced in favor of the move, but instead focus on comparisons with other difficult cases like "Macedonia", or on the political history and recognition status of the country, which isn't very on point. Some opinions are also barely comprehensible to me. Finally, there are credible and not seriously contested allegations of canvassing among people that can be expected to be mostly opposed to the proposal, which also cause me to give the "oppose" side less weight.

Consequently, the articles are moved as proposed.  Sandstein  20:32, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

---

• Kosovo → Kosovo (region)
• Republic of Kosovo → Kosovo

– As per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and WP:CONSISTENCY. The term "Kosovo" in our language generally refers to the country located roughly in the region of Kosovo, just as the word "Cuba" usually refers to the country that occupies the island of Cuba, which is why Cuba gets you the country and if you want to find out about the region it covers, you need to go to Geography of Cuba (where Cuba (island) redirects to). There are definite historic usages of the term to refer to the region, and even some current usages, just as a marine biologist might really not care about Castro but care deeply about a rare fish found near Cuba, the island; clearly Geography of Cuba should exist, but the country has clear primary topic. In truth, Kosovo is no different. This is not a situation like at Ireland, where one fixed region with a long history is now currently divided into two countries, each very notable even though the southern one is significantly more important. This is not Georgia, where two completely different states (and several other entities) share a name by historical accidents and neither one has gained primary topic. This is not even Macedonia, where a historic region only vaguely corresponds to the country that claims its name. There is no reason whatsoever to give primary topic to an area of land while excluding the only government that actually runs it. Again, look at Google News. Most of the results I got dealt specifically with the Republic and not the region; this is the totality of the first page of results I got. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] They all deal with the independent republic that governs Kosovo. Point of clarification; most of the information here should be merged back into the Republic of Kosovo article. Just like at Canada or even Serbia, the article containing the information on the government of the country needs to be at the main article for the country, and barring a profoundly good reason to ignore our strong desire for consistency in article titles, that should be at the base title, which is "Kosovo" in this case. We follow English-language use in reliable sources, and the country--not some abstract idea of a region apart from its government--is what people typically refer to when they use the word "Kosovo" in English. Red Slash 05:50, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

• Support Makes sense; although my only knowledge about the Balkans is that it's too complicated ethnically/politically for me to understand... Timmyshin (talk) 06:23, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
• Comment. It seems misleading to compare Kosovo to Cuba. Cuba controls all of its claimed territory, and there is no dispute about the sovereign status of Cuba. OTOH, the Republic of Kosovo has little control in North Kosovo, and crucially it is recognised by only 108 out of 193 (56%) United Nations (UN) member states. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:42, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Many countries have refused to recognize the Republic of Kosovo, but I have yet to see a single reliable source that disputes its actual sovereign control over (almost) all the territory it claims. North Kosovo is a bit different. Then again, Morocco (is this a better comparison?) claims all of Western Sahara, and we pretty clearly and impartially point out A) exactly what Morocco claims; B) exactly what its opponents (for lack of a better term) claim; C) what outsiders like the EU, China, or the USA think; and D) what the real-life situation is like on the ground according to reliable sources. I think we can do that here. Red Slash 02:36, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

• Comment The autonomous self governing ethnic-Serb intuitions in Northern Kosovo are coming under the jurisdiction of the Republic of Kosovo per the Brussels Agreement (2013).

The 'Republic of Kosovo' is the full constitutional name of the country. Of course, people are going to shorten in to just "Kosovo" for the sake of convenience. Just like people shorten the 'People's Republic of China' to just China or PR China and people shorten the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland' to a million and one different names. We have the article the 'Republic of Macedonia' which is the constitutional name of the country and we have the article the 'Republic of Ireland' which isn't the constitutional name of the country.

I think the article 'Kosovo' should be moved to 'Kosovo (region)', however I'm not entirely convinced that the article 'Republic of Kosovo' should be moved to the article 'Kosovo'.

To be honest, I think the article 'Kosovo' should be a disambiguation page. IJA (talk) 14:54, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

• Obviously, the country is the primary topic, so I would support a move like this. However, it would be even better if we could go one step further and merge the two articles - there was never a consensus to split them despite various sockpuppetry and votestacking. This would get rid of the thoroughly synthetic implication that kosovo-the-country is a completely different thing to kosovo-the-area-of-land. bobrayner (talk) 19:03, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

+1 --BDD (talk) 19:39, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

• Support Nations, even those with partial recognition or those involved in territorial disputes, should almost always occupy their base title. China is a good title. Republic of Ireland and Republic of Macedonia should be moved to Ireland and Macedonia, respectively. The Palestinian territories are, as always, their own can of worms, which I've Talk:State of Palestine#Proposed merge with Palestinian territories. But this one really isn't so difficult. --BDD (talk) 19:39, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

  I agree wholeheartedly about Macedonia, even filing a request for Arbcom to explicitly say that an RM is permissible there. I've been building up my wiki-courage for a couple of months to propose it. Ireland is a bit trickier, but as I was writing this lead I found myself wondering whether or not I'd support it. I mean, I have my own personal biases on the Ireland naming dispute, but if I put those aside and went with what our policies would dictate... I think I'd have to support. What's Palestine? I assume it's the region... yep, that's it. I see that the situation there is very complicated. This one isn't, as you well said. Red Slash 02:40, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Ireland is never going to work, though I suspect Macedonia could. Frankly, many British editors still get really sensitive about the former, whereas not many English speakers have very strong opinions about the latter. I'm of Greek descent and I really don't care. If someone told me they went to Macedonia, I'd assume they meant the country unless otherwise specified. --BDD (talk) 17:19, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Why should nations occupy the 'base title'? This isn't a popularity contest. — Lfdder (talk) 16:22, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC actually "Kosovo" in English even refers more to the region that the self-proclaimed country in it, and per WP:CONSISTENCY is also wrong, other users already gave exemples of complex situations where it doesn´t aply (Republic of Macedonia for exemple). This move is highly controversial. FkpCascais (talk) 02:45, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

  "'Kosovo' in English even refers more to the region that the self-proclaimed country in it" - really? Please, do you have any sources for that, because that would really be helpful in determining the primary topic here!

"other users already gave exemples of complex situations where it doesn´t aply (Republic of Macedonia for exemple" Actually, the nominator himself gave those examples. Ooh, counter-examples: North Korea (refers to land claimed by both the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, but since it's actually run by the latter, the article is about the latter); South Korea (exactly the opposite situation); Taiwan (same exact situation as before, just with the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China bickering over it) and China; Northern Cyprus... I mean, I think we could go on for a while on this. So the move proposed here would be WP:CONSISTENT with those disputed titles, though (admittedly!) inconsistent with Ireland. (It's already inconsistent with Macedonia, a disambiguation page.)

"This move is highly controversial" - yeah, perhaps. That's not a reason against it. Red Slash 02:54, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

When you read BBC news about "incidents in Kosovo" you suggest they are talking about the Republic of Kosovo? Or is is perhaps as earthquakes in Siberia? I think you went too far sugesting that all mentions of Kosovo are about the country. Some are of course, like local elections, but others not necessarily. FkpCascais (talk) 18:12, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence for that claim? bobrayner (talk) 00:06, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Well the BBC does refer to Kosovo as a territory, not a country, in its country profiles page, so there is that ;). Buttons (talk) 03:43, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

That's not what FkpCascais said, and that page contradicts FkpCascais' position. Still, thanks for discrediting one of the Oppose voters on my behalf bobrayner (talk) 13:56, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Who discredited me? Your puppet? Buttons only cemented further BBC stance on the subject. FkpCascais (talk) 03:21, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Have you read the BBC article we're talking about? If you had, you'd note that the BBC uses Kosovo to refer to the country. CMD (talk) 04:37, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Actualy, that news speack about territory, and not republic. Just read everything, its about territory history, look "Kosovo, an impoverished land" --Ąnαșταη (ταlκ) 14:01, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, we should "Just read everything", or we could perhaps read even just another few words. "Kosovo, an impoverished land with a mainly Albanian population, unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in February 2008". Quite clearly the Republic. CMD (talk) 22:15, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

• Support - I've decided to support this move because I can't see a compelling reason to not refer to the country by it's short name. There is no truth in FkpCascais's argument that Kosovo in English even refers more to the region that the self-proclaimed country in it. In fact, in the English language "Kosovo" is almost exclusively used to refer to the country when not talking about it in a historical context. Also there was no agreement for the current status quo, it was achieved by edit warring. I also support this move per the Precedent set by Abkhazia. When our audiences/ readers search for Kosovo, they should be directed to the government/ country profile of Kosovo. There isn't a need for it to be at the "Republic of Kosovo" like there is with Ireland and Macedonia. They're at their respective articles to disambiguate them from regions/ areas they're in with the same name. This isn't the case for Kosovo. IJA (talk) 10:23, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
• Support, per primary usage argument (and reserve later decision on possibly actually merging the two articles back into each other, which would be my preferred outcome. Unlike in the Macedonia case, the two articles refer to physically the same thing and can easily be treated together.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:29, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose, per Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. Associating Kosovo, a disputed territory, exclusively with the unilaterally declared Republic of Kosovo gives undue weight to only one side of the dispute. Should we move the Republic of Macedonia to Macedonia given the naming dispute with Greece? Of course not. The status quo works just fine. Buttons (talk) 03:43, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Kosovo and Metohija

• Oppose - Macedonia has ambiguous meaning, yet article on modern state is Republic of Macedonia. Only ignorant foreigners (no hard feeling) can tell that Kosovo rregion coresponds to Modern state. In fact ROK encopases two regions Kosovo and Metohija (Duqadjin). See the map.-- Bojan  Talk  03:53, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
• Strong oppose per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NPOV. Wikipedia mustn't show only one side of the story and portray it as one and only. Kosovo is a disputed region and this self-proclaimed "state" doesn't have enough international recognition. Alex ^{discussion ★} 11:18, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
• @ Bojan Metohija is a region inside Kosovo. You're the ignorant foreigner.
• @ Aleksa Lukic Please tell us what WP:COMMONNAME has to with your opposition. If anything, WP:NPOV goes in favour of the RM because the current situation gives WP:UNDUE to the minority Serbian Point of View. IJA (talk) 11:34, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Wrong, if the current situation treated Kosovo as the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija, then you could argue that it gives undue weight to the "minority" Serbian view. Buttons (talk) 04:14, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

IJA, are you trying to teach me geography of my country? Why don't you check this article -- Bojan  Talk  03:06, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Bojan, the Geography of your country? I didn't realise you were from Kosovo, anyway just because you're from a place doesn't make you an expert. Anyway, as to that article, the first sentence says "There are two main plains in Kosovo."; so thank you for disproving your own argument. IJA (talk) 16:10, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

It was still undisputed part of my country. Kosovo is name of one plane, Metohija is another. -- Bojan  Talk  01:24, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose - Territory of Kosovo does not mean onlz republic. Current situation is much more better. Who want to know more about diefferent subject, can go to that article. If you merge everzthing in one article, that will be wrong, as people may be misleaded. Also, that republic doe not control entire territory, so one more reason to leave current situation. --Ąnαșταη (ταlκ) 13:59, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
• Comment The Republic does control the entire country per Brussels Agreement (2013). IJA (talk) 14:10, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
• Strongly Oppose - Republic of Kosovo is independent a "country", not region of Serbia. Currently, 108 sovereign and UN members regognized Kosovo's independence, per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NPOV — Maurice07 (talk) 18:56, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose as proposed. In my opinion, it was a bad idea that the articles were split in the first place some 3-4 years ago, leaving history and geography at one, and politics and economy on the other. You cannot fix that by simply swapping their places. We need a more stable consensus, with more information in the base article, but that cannot be achieved via a simple RM. No such user (talk) 19:03, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose (conditional). I'd say that it worsens consistency to do this move, considering the current status of Macedonia, Ireland, and Palestine articles on Wikipedia. Also, nearly half of the world's countries reject Kosovo independence (among them populous countries such as China, India, Indonesia and Brazil), which makes this move quite questionable today. - Anonimski (talk) 20:08, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
• Support the move. Given that the artificial article divide exists, we should give readers who search for Kosovo, which they'll know as the state given that's what the word is used for in modern English media, the article on what they're looking for. The state is the primary topic. It's use to not mean the state in articles discussing history is irrelevant to the modern topic. Everywhere has history. The control argument is also irrelevant: sources discussing Kosovo the state discuss it regardless of its specific territorial holdings. Indeed, as one of the above opposers noted, under some definitions the Kosovo "region" is half of what's covered here, so there's little basis for Kosovo going to a "region" article devoid of and ignoring the politics, when the region is entirely defined by politics. CMD (talk) 20:32, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose English language is not spoken only in UK. What about English speakers in India for example? Or, why not, in Serbia? If they are speaking about Kosovo, they think about them like conflict region. Not like independent country "Republic Kosovo". --Јованвб (talk) 17:55, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

• Hello User:Јованвб Thank you for making your first edit since 20 December 2013. You're an administrator and Bureaucrat on Serbian Wikipedia. Any chance you saw the advertisement for this talk page on Serbian Wikipedia? Have you ever read WP:CANVASSING? IJA (talk) 18:29, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose I propose "Kosova" redirect to Republic of Kosovo, not "Kosovo" to Republic of Kosovo. Kosovo should link to Kosovo (region). 23 editor (talk) 23:50, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

• Support both. Excellent analysis by the proposer, which should be incorporated into naming guidelines for territories subject to current ethnic disputes. Andrewa (talk) 06:56, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose. Associating the term Kosovo primarily with the semi-recognized "state" named Republic of Kosovo, means discarding WP:NPOV and taking a side in the political dispute over the region of Kosovo. Of course, it should neither be primarily associated with the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija, which would be POV of Serbia and other countries that didn't recognize Kosovo's independence. It's true that all English-speaking countries recognized it, and that most of books and media from these countries implicitly or explicitly refer to Kosovo as an independent state. However, I think that WP:NPOV weighs much more than, so to say, counting Google books. I suppose that this wikipedia is not a project of only native English speakers, and that it has a somewhat broader perspective. Vladimir (talk) 22:25, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose I oppose this move. Without going into what is what, the whole disscusion above is to tiresome. The main point here is Kosovo as region and Kosova a country. Well it is clearly not thesame. Kosova is a country no matter what I think of it but the region is still called Kosovo not Kosova. Kosovo is the eastern part of the republic called Kosova. The western part geographicly is called Metohija, I apologyze I dont remmember the albanian spelling. Lets take Sweden for example. Götaland is one out of three regions in Sweden. Each has their own page. Why? Becouse the are different from the country of Sweden. So are Metohija. Religiously its very important not only for serbs but also for several other folk groups it should have its own page. There is a differance between a region and a country no matter if wrongly the english translation names it thesame. PS. Before everyone start questioning me I must say I only edit en.wp with over 1000 edits only this month and noone sr.wp Stepojevac (talk) 10:06, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
• Support. The proposer's evidence makes it pretty clear that when people are looking for "Kosovo" they're looking for the country. Minus the canvassing and vote-stacking, I think the consensus here is in agreement. I'd also be amenable to a (re)merge of the content.--Cúchullain ^t/c 16:11, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

• As previous discussions, I support this move. We have Spain and France, not Kingdom of Spain and French Republic. I find "Kosovo" to be perfectly consistent with WP:COMMONNAME. In my opinion, the current name is the result of persistent edit-warring and POV-pushing. Also, lots of canvassing. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:13, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

• Comment: I did some research on this. This whole conversation is going on now, because in January 25, 2011, user:Alinor decided to use two articles when only one is needed without consulting anybody (and edit warring on top of it). In addition, in preparation of this activity, 16 days earlier, he had "fixed the infobox" of Kosovo by designating it "geographical region". It's good that this conversation is taking place, but I wanted to put some context, because some people may be unaware of the history of the article (I, on the other hand, like to go to the root of the problems). --KazanElia (talk) 20:39, 28 February 2014 (UTC)— KazanElia (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 23:12, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. We generally don't talk about the "Canada region" or the "Serbia region" — I, at least, have never heard of regions by those names; the names only ever refer to the areas within the boundaries of those countries. "Kosovo", on the other hand, is used in reference to a region distinct from the jurisdiction governed by Priština, regardless of what you call that jurisdiction. Note that I came here in response to a noticeboard message, but it was the one at WP:AN that Guy Macon mentions, not something partisan. Nyttend (talk) 13:16, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
  • The purported region this page currently covers has borders that are identical to the jurisdiction governed by Pristina, which are also borders identical to the former autonomous region. It's not distinct from the government, as it's boundaries are the boundaries of the government's jurisdiction. CMD (talk) 15:53, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose - Republic of Kosovo created a couple of years ago for the first time in history is not primary topic.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 14:23, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

• Good point. See a comparable situation at Talk:John Paul Jones, in which people have repeatedly attempted to move it because a pop culture figure supposedly deserves equal-or-more weight than someone who's been encyclopedic since the 18th century. Nyttend (talk) 14:57, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

• Support per primary topic argument. Will also probably support merge. --T*U (talk) 17:20, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose given that most of Asia and South America and half of Africa have not recognized Kosovo, particularly the BRICS nations, it is not really consistent with a neutral POV to treat the Republic of Kosovo as synonymous with Kosovo. I saw this on AN, in case anyone is wondering.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 18:07, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose: "Kosovo" is the "region" in general context and the common name of the region (for THOUSANDS years!). When the context is the context of countries, "Republic of Kosovo" may be shorthened/abbreviated as "Kosovo". As long as the context mentioned and covered is clear to make a separation between the "region (Kosovo)" and "Republic of Kosovo"; for the things related with "Republic of Kosovo", "Kosovar/Kosovo" may be used to refer the country.
  

"General" context is much bigger than the "countries" context. Outside of the context of "countries", "Kosovo" is not the common name of the state ("Republic of Kosovo"), but the common name of the "region" in "general" context. In universal naming standards, the "GENERAL" context is much bigger than and far overrides the "COUNTRIES" context. In universal naming standards, the bigger entity always takes the name. The entity "region of Kosovo" (with thousands of years of history) is much bigger than the entity "Republic of Kosovo" (with in the baby-hood years).Alexyflemming (talk) 13:21, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

"Ireland" is the "island" in general context and the common name of the island (for THOUSANDS years!). When the context is the context of countries, "Republic of Ireland" may be shorthened/abbreviated as "Ireland". As long as the context mentioned and covered is clear to make a separation between the "island" and the "country(Ireland)"; for the things related with "Republic of Ireland", "Irish/Ireland" may be used to refer the country.
"General" context is much bigger than the "countries" context. Outside of the context of "countries", "Ireland" is not the common name of the state ("Republic of Ireland"), but the common name of the "island" in "general" context. In universal naming standards, the "GENERAL" context is much bigger than and far overrides the "COUNTRIES" context. In universal naming standards, the bigger entity always takes the name. The entity "island of Ireland" (with thousands of years of history) is much bigger than the entity "Republic of Ireland" (with (1922-2014)years old). Look and see the beauty of the coverage of Ireland, and take it as a sample model for "Kosovo"!!!

"Kosovo" is the common name of the "region" (the "region" and the "country (Republic of Kosovo)" are not coterminous): "Kosovo" is NOT the common name of the "country (Republic of Kosovo)" in "general" context:

A. History: 1. Colarodo State University; "A Short History of Kosovo" 2. "Kosovo's Conflict" 3. "History, bloody history" 4. Lonely Planet, "History" B. Art: 1. Art of Living, "Prison Kosovo" C. Culture: 1. "Kosovo: History and Culture" D. Geography: 1. Florida State University, "International Boundary Study:Bulgaria – Yugoslavia Boundary" 2.Marxists; "The national Question in Yugoslavia" 3. SoftSchools; "Kosovo Geography" E. People: 1. NATO; "Kosovo Refugee Problem".

Alexyflemming (talk) 14:56, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

• Support. Most people won't know of the distinction, and will be looking for the political entity. Rothorpe (talk) 14:05, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

• Support. Per nom. I've read the discussion. There is obviously a lot of emotion behind the opposition (much of which is alleged below to have been canvassed), but nothing that refutes the basis for the move. The term in English is used in reliable sources most commonly to refer to the country today. The fact that the country is relatively new is irrelevant. This is not a fleeting aspect of popular culture. Like it or not, WP:COMMONNAME, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and WP:AT in general is how we select our titles on Wikipedia, not WP:JDLI. --B2C 16:21, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Offsite canvassing

I would point out that the sudden influx of Oppose voters was recruited by a sockpuppet here. It's not the first time that Serbian Wikipedia editors have been canvassed in order to maintain a serb-nationalist position on other wikipedias. bobrayner (talk) 12:41, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

I can't say I'm surprised by this canvassing. If you look at all the users who are opposed, the vast majority are Serbs/ speak Serbian/ have Serbian names. Not to mention that a lot of them are only semi-active judging by their contributions. This isn't the first time we've had Serbs canvass before either. User:BokicaK aka Bojan is only here through canvassing. It is a shame that we can't exclude all Balkan people from such things because they are blatantly emotionally and politically involved and want to push their own POV on Wikipedia. IJA (talk) 14:10, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Excluding Balkan people won't stop POV editing, bobrayner is a good example of that. I don't know what he is, he may or may not be from the Balkans, but I can see as clear as day through his edits and tone of language that he has a vested interest in attempting to discredit everything Serbian related to Kosovo and blatantly promote only the Albanian/pro-independence view. If I am a "Serb nationalist" editor for not supporting the move, then bobrayner is an anti-Serb editor for supporting it. See how that works? It cuts both ways. Buttons (talk) 04:00, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Comment. I want to protest against that remark in the end of your post (even if I agree that canvassing is problematic for the debate). Opposition to the POV-pushing for giving the Republic of Kosovo undue weight, and a "serb-nationalist position" is not the same thing. Sometimes they come together, and sometimes not. Further, if we use associative arguments, there are some things to say about your conduct as well. In a recent move debate for Anti-Serb riots/pogrom in Sarajevo, your only input was this:

• It's not a pogrom. Antidiskriminator, why did you write an article with pogrom in the title, when you knew it wasn't a pogrom? bobrayner (talk) 23:17, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

This ill-mannered loaded question, you wrote, despite that User:Antidiskriminator (creator of the article) had multiple and diverse sources which described the 1914 persecutions as pogroms, and it was your only input to the debate. Then you came with a variant of the same loaded question against me, when I critisized your conduct. (Try to CTRL-F and write "bobrayner" in that talk page and see the approach to the debate, there's only provocational conduct, where are the debates about the source material?)

With all this being said, I want to make the participants in this move debate aware about that there are two "bad" forces that may influence the debate: Serbian nationalism and Anti-Serb sentiment (I'm taking myself the freedom to interpret the "pogrom" example as an indicator of possible bias against Serbs) - Anonimski (talk) 20:46, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

A great deal has been written about "Anti-serb sentiment" by Antidiskriminator etc. However, there is no reason to believe that it's an actual problem in this discussion. Unlike, for instance, the blatant canvassing of editors on sr.wikipedia to block this requested move. That is a real problem. bobrayner (talk) 21:57, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

It should though be stated clearly that there often are coordinated actions from the other side, too. For example, in the recent issue that you and IJA had with the sockpuppet, the outcome on the Edit War noticeboard became the following:

• Bobrayner and IJA are strongly warned for tag-team edit warring. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 12:51, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Both problems should be brought to public scrutiny. Whitewashing selected parts of these kinds of conflicts brings nothing good to Wikipedia's NPOV. What keeps you going on like this? Anonimski (talk) 22:42, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

IJA and I both reverted a sock that was stalking us. You know that. The account was blocked as a sock of Evlekis: Who had been topic-banned and then permablocked. Reverting a sock is a Good Thing, not a Bad Thing (although I note that you haven't reverted any Evlekis socks). Coincidentally, Evlekis has a habit of canvassing people to discussions like this one... Now, can we move on from the irrelevant mudslinging, and deal with the very real canvassing problem? bobrayner (talk) 04:45, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

I think that both you and Evlekis are part of the Balkan mudslinging problem... Anonimski (talk) 14:17, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

And now I found that you were the one who put back the Coatrack tag on Anti-Serb sentiment, despite that the similar Albanophobia has been left alone without any tagging. Anonimski (talk) 14:29, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

You're presenting me as biased because I didn't apply a tag to an article which has different problems and which I never edited before? Please, stop inventing problems.

Meanwhile, there's a very real problem: Repeated off-wiki canvassing, sockpuppetry, and deception. Canvassing the "Oppose" voters in this debate. What do you think we should do about that? bobrayner (talk) 15:45, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

My criticism against your conduct does not include a denial of the problems that you mentioned. The admins can deal with them by checking the IP of accounts, and making necessary blocks - I don't oppose that. Anonimski (talk) 16:15, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm keeping this page in my watchlist since 200x. -- Bojan  Talk  02:55, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

It is not at all unusual to see Serbian editors involved in what is a Serbian-related article. Also, it is not at all unusual to see Bobrainer winning and making conspiracy theories about "Serb nationalists" when things don´t go his way. FkpCascais (talk) 03:17, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

• Hello BokicaK! You said "I'm keeping this page in my watchlist since 200x". Which is strange, since the last time you edited here was on a very similar proposal two years ago, and you edited hours after WhiteWriter canvassed on sr.wikipedia. Now a sockpuppet makes another attempt to round up "Oppose" voters on sr.wikipedia, you diligently come here and cast your vote with the others - and you pretend that it just popped up on your watchlist. Perhaps cheating, canvassing, and systematic deception are acceptable on Serbian wikipedia; but they are not acceptable here. bobrayner (talk) 05:02, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

And? -- Bojan  Talk  01:24, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

And you were caught cheating, again. bobrayner (talk) 01:41, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Unlike You, I am aware that Wikipedia is not a democracy. And I didn't expect you would like my rationale. -- Bojan  Talk  02:43, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

I've deleted the advertisement on Serbian Wikipedia aka Canvassing, however I don't suppose it'll do any good as this RM discussion has been ruined by the influx of Serbs from Serbian Wikipedia. I don't think they'd be happy if I advertises this discussion on on Albanian Wikipedia. This off site canvassing on Serbian Wikipedia has directly affected the result of this RM. IJA (talk) 18:33, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

That's OK. We can hold another discussion later, when the meatpuppets have gone. The article has been broken for years, thanks to this abuse; a little longer won't hurt. bobrayner (talk) 22:00, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

It's been restored. bobrayner (talk) 01:43, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

• Don't worry; presumably people who don't ever edit en.wp and just come in here and give oppose "rationales" having little to no basis in reality or WP policies will have their !votes discounted (they aren't votes, after all). Not naming names, but there's only a couple of oppose rationales that hold any water at all. Red Slash 03:27, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• I'd like to hope that a closing admin will carefully analyse the background of every !voter and the validity of their comment; but that is very time-consuming and subjective, and we could hardly fault any closing admin who didn't quite dig deep enough when the discussion has been long and tense. This canvassing and meatpuppetry has been very successful in previous discussions. bobrayner (talk) 13:31, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• It goes with the turf. I did a quick review of the eight other supporters in view of the comment at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive260#Closers needed for contentious RM that most of the "support" votes are invited to that page by the offline canvassing. [13] It's a ridiculous claim and easily seen to be so, IMO we're quite an impressive bunch regarding our edit histories and commitment to Wikipedia policies and polity, and I don't think there's any danger of any of our "votes" being discounted on that basis. I haven't bothered to do a similar check on the opposition, there would be no point my even reporting it if I did as I'm now involved, and any pointless attack however mild and well-founded is counterproductive. But the closing admin will do so I'm sure, and there are some valid shortcuts to it... for example ignoring the obvious POV of the poster of that baseless canvassing allegation! That particular IP hasn't voted here (or if they have it's been while signed on... which checkuser will tell us if it's needed) but no point wasting any more time on that one if they had, and I'd guess that at least some of the oppose votes will be far more easily dismissed. But I could be wrong, and that's for the closer to determine. Andrewa (talk) 14:44, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

• I would disagree on one detail. 200.54.92.187 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) is another open proxy; and it's unlikely that checkuser would make a connection to an account in this case. The opposition may include much deception, canvassing, and occasionally outright lies; but they'll get away with it. bobrayner (talk) 17:39, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

• A request for closers has been posted at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive260#Closers needed for contentious RM. It has been my experience that the sort of admin who takes on such a task tends to be very careful and thorough. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:03, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Not for lack of trying if not! Thank you. In hindsight I probably should have closed this myself rather than becoming involved, but I thought one more uninvolved support might be of more help long term. We will see. Andrewa (talk) 14:44, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.