Alternative names in first line of the lede

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At 6% of the population, the Albanian population of Bar is not significant enough for the Albanian name to be added in the first line of the lede. The inclusion of Italian is even more puzzling, since there are no Italians in town. The claim that "Albanian is official in Bar" is entirely unsourced, and there is also no policy that states that anything "official" belongs in the first line of the lede. The existence of a name section makes inclusion of alternate names in the lede unecessary, and this whole things smacks of WP:NATIONALIST "flag-planting". Khirurg (talk) 16:50, 31 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

The name itself is of Italian origin and the place had for a long time an Italian-speaking population. Albanian is official [1], and Albanians have always been an important element, especially in the south of the municipality. Is not Sarande with its Italian and Greek names in the lede the same thing? Ktrimi991 (talk) 16:58, 31 May 2021 (UTC)Reply
You will need an official Montenegrin source for the claim that Albanian is official in Bar. 6% is not significant enough for the first line of the lede (Greeks in Saranda are much more than 6%). If it was 20-25% I'd agree, but 6% is just not going to cut it. As for Italian, it is even more WP:UNDUE in the very first line of the lede. The name section exists for this reason, and the (hopefully sourced) claim that the name is Italian in origin can be added there. Khirurg (talk) 17:07, 31 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

Official languages

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Until 2017, in Montenegro a language had official status if it was used by at least 15% of the population. In 2017, the law changed and languages spoken by 5% of the population of a municipality acquired official status. The changes affected Albanian in Bar and Rožaje [2] and Croatian in Kotor Municipality. --Maleschreiber (talk) 17:16, 31 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

You will need an official Montenegrin source to back that claim, not some snippet from some Albanian newspaper that claims this to be the case. Khirurg (talk) 17:21, 31 May 2021 (UTC)Reply
I cited Koha Ditore, a newspaper which has received many journalism awards. The same news piece was published by Televizioni Klan and many other media [3]. The announcement of the law change in the state sponsored Albanian newspaper in Montenegro: [4] in 2016. Interview with Minister for Minorities Leon Gjokaj about the law changes in 2016 [5] (0:55 "in all municipalities which Albanian is 5% or more.." If Montenegro had a functional & digitalized official government gazette, I would have cited that too.--Maleschreiber (talk) 17:30, 31 May 2021 (UTC)Reply
So you're basically admitting that you have not a single official (or even non-official) Montenegrin source to confirm this, only Albanian newspapers. You also have failed to cite any policy that states that a name used by ~5% of the population belongs in the first line of the lede, despite the existence of a name section. Khirurg (talk) 17:36, 31 May 2021 (UTC)Reply
Khirurg, why did you delete a part of Maleschreiber's post where they mentioned an Montenegrin official [6]? Ktrimi991 (talk) 17:42, 31 May 2021 (UTC)Reply
@Khirurg What's the point of such changes? You know very well that such changes require consensus and consequently such a consensus here will have to be made on other similar articles on the region. Do not forget that you are using double standards for the cities in the south of Albania with what you are suggesting here. Anyway, here you have the official law that you can read, while in many articles that you and others protect which are similar to this type of format there are neither laws nor the minimum standard used in this article. So enough with such changes.Bes-ARTTalk 17:47, 31 May 2021 (UTC)Reply
That's still WP:SYNTH. If Albanian was indeed official in Bar (since 2017 as it is claimed), you should be able to produce a source that confirms official use of Albanian in Bar. Khirurg (talk) 17:56, 31 May 2021 (UTC)Reply
There is a link to the official gazette there and a PDF in English. If you have a problem with it in English you can use the official in Cyrillic or whatever. Bes-ARTTalk 18:02, 31 May 2021 (UTC)Reply
There are many reports from Koha Ditore and other media which discuss which municipalities are affected by the changes. --Maleschreiber (talk) 18:05, 31 May 2021 (UTC)Reply
  • (edit conflict) The Albanian name was part of the lede for a long time[7]. I cited the Minister for Minorities of Montenegro who announced the law changes which made Albanian an official language in municipalities where it is spoken by at least 5% of the population. It is on the lede because it is official. If it was spoken by 10% but it wasn't official, there would be no reason to mention it at the lede. If Montenegro changes its language law, it should be removed. If you consider a legitimate concern the possibility that the Minister for Minorities of Montenegro may have announced something which never happened or that all major Albanian media reported false news a year later, you should file a discussion at WP:RSN. @Ktrimi991: Thanks for restoring my comment Ktrimi. I didn't notice that it was altered.--Maleschreiber (talk) 17:49, 31 May 2021 (UTC)Reply
"WP:Long time" is not a valid argument or Wikipedia policy. 6% is just not going to cut it. Anyway, we're just going around in the usual circles here. As for your comment, it was an edit conflict. WP:AGF and all that. Khirurg (talk) 17:55, 31 May 2021 (UTC)Reply
For the institutions of Montenegro, 5% is enough. Side comment: Such legislation is truly progressive whether it involves Albanians or Croats or any other people. Everybody should have the right to use their mother tongue in their relations with state authorities.--Maleschreiber (talk) 18:01, 31 May 2021 (UTC)Reply
The purposes of the institutions in Montenegro and the purposes of wikipedia are different things. Name sections exist for a reason. I presume you would be ok with adding Greek and Serbian names in the first line of the lede for places where these are 6% or more of the local population? Khirurg (talk) 18:06, 31 May 2021 (UTC)Reply
I'd be ok for adding them if they are official names even if they constitute 1% of the total population or if they constitute a substantial part of the population. Every society has the right to choose its own rules.--Maleschreiber (talk) 18:25, 31 May 2021 (UTC)Reply
And wikipedia has its own rules and policies. ~5% is not a substantial enough for the first line of the lede. Khirurg (talk) 18:48, 31 May 2021 (UTC)Reply
Khirurg, if "Name sections exist for a reason", why did you add the Greek name to the first sentence of the Alexandria article, for instance? Ktrimi991 (talk) 18:33, 31 May 2021 (UTC)Reply
In addition to time zone, see whataboutism. Khirurg (talk) 18:53, 31 May 2021 (UTC)Reply
Since the Albanian name is not going to be removed no matter how much you insist, read WP:RFC and then either seek dispute resolution or stop wasting your time here. I am sure your concept of a time zone does not prevent your from proposing your changes through other paths to consensus building. Bye again, Ktrimi991 (talk) 19:09, 31 May 2021 (UTC)Reply
Excellent idea, I was thinking the same thing myself. Especially based on past experience. Khirurg (talk) 04:16, 1 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
Bravo, Khirurg. I knew you would do the right thing. You are very intelligent. Ktrimi991 (talk) 11:48, 3 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

RfC

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Should the Albanian name be included in the first line of the lede? Khirurg (talk) 04:19, 1 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

  • Oppose as WP:UNDUE. As the 2011 census shows [8] (Table N1 and Table N2), Albanians constitute less than 1% percent of Bar town. Note that there is a name section where alternate names, including Albanian, are given. The question is whether the Albanian name belongs in the first line of the lede, and this about as clear a case of WP:UNDUE as it gets. Quoting WP:NCGN Alternatively, all alternative names can be listed and explained in a "Names" or "Etymology" section immediately following the lead, or a special paragraph of the lead; it is recommended to have such a section if there are at least three alternate names, or there is something notable about the names themselves. Where there is such a section, the article's first line should have only a link to the section, phrased, for example: "(known also by several alternative names)". When there are several significant alternate names, the case for mentioning the names prominently is at least as strong as with two. Here, in addition to Serbian/Montenegrin, Albanian and Italian, there is Latin, Greek, and Turkish. Furthermore, while Albanians make up 5-6% of the municipality, there is a separate article for Bar Municipality. Even for the municipality, the figure for 5-6% is far too low, and the claims that it is official are very poorly sourced (only to some Albanian newspapers), but no official documents that Albanian is official have been produced, despite the claim that this occurred in 2017. Khirurg (talk) 04:27, 1 June 2021 (UTC) Going on past experience, I expect a fair amount of "ethnic piling" to occur here, and this should be taken account by the closer.Reply
  • Support not removing the Albanian name Albanians make up more than 5% of Bar municipality. That makes Albanian an official language in bar, not just the Albanian speaking areas in Bar but in the entire municipality and the cities and towns within. The question of RfC is confusing to me. the Albanian name has been in the first line of the lede. If anyone wants to remove it, shouldn't the question be "should Albanian be removed from the lede?" Durraz0 (talk) 11:42, 1 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
  • Strongly Support as per what I said in the discussion above, and based on the law on minorities in Montenegro. I do not even see the need to have two separate articles (Municipality and Town) for the same subject considering the fact that it is a small municipality in number. We at Wikipedia usually do not separate the city into urban and non-urban parts, rather this can be explained quite simply in a dedicated section. We have the example of Rome where the city is not separated from the villages or whatever is the administrative subdivision. Bar by law is a multi-ethnic city, there are Montenegrins, Serbs, Albanians, Bosniaks, and Muslims (which is also strange that it is considered an ethnicity?) And as such the article should be clear from the beginning.Bes-ARTTalk 17:06, 1 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
There are literally hundreds of places that have separate articles for municipalities and towns (if you feel the article for the municipality shouldn't exist, you should nominate it for deletion). Bar municipality is quite large, covering 600 square kilometers, a much larger area than the town. Because it is so large, it contains several Albanian villages in the south, hence the figure of 5%. But the town itself is literally less than 1% Albanian. That is very, very low. It is not hard to imagine how you and the others would react if someone tried to add the Greek or Serbian name in the first line of the of the lede to a town that was less than 1% Greek or Serbian. Khirurg (talk) 21:36, 1 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
A short history of Bar: Before 1880, a plurality of the citizens of Bar/Tivar and the surrounding area were Albanians. Gjon Buzuku, the author of the first Albanian book to have been found was born less than 20km from the present-day city centre. The Albanian population in the city and the countryside has been decreasing gradually. As of 2011, Albanians are 6% in the municipality (concentrated in Kraja). The law changes made Albanian official in municipalities where Albanians constitute more than 5%. It includes Bar - as a municipality and as a town. The law change didn't attract any negative protests against Albanians - except for few Neo-Chetnik groups. Montenegrin society is slowly progressing and nobody considers it a controversy that some signs may bear the name Tivar. Bar has such a special place that even though not many Catholic Albanians are left in the city center, mass is also held in Albanian as a sign of cultural respect for the old traditional community which lived there. Albanian is part of this city's history and area and it is administratively recognized as such. Something which is not a controversy for local society and the Montenegrin state, becomes a subject of controversy on wikipedia - for whatever reason.--Maleschreiber (talk) 23:32, 1 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
That's all wonderful (though totally unsourced), and can be added provided sources are provided. And that's why there is a "Name" section for alternate names. But Albanians are less than 1% of the city's population, and thus having the Albanian name in the very first line of the lede is grossly undue. Unless, of course, the motivation is not informing reader, but rather making a statement of "ownership" and irredentism. Khirurg (talk) 02:54, 2 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose as WP:UNDUE - yes, with Albanians as a mere 1% minority, putting the Albanian name right next to the Montenegran name seems to indicate more importance than is supported by the real presence of Albanians. It is present in the article elsewhere Deathlibrarian (talk) 09:08, 2 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
  • Support I'm going to leave a comment here, the article itself is in really bad shape and it has only 14 citations in total. If someone is willing to expand the article with sources it would be great, especially the "Name" section (because of this RfC). I recommend reinstating the version with the Albanian and Italian name beside the Serbian one, per WP:STATUSQUO. This RfC can obviously continue but sources are needed for making such claims, such as Maleschreiber's comment above, since as I've said, the article is in a bad shape and their comment above isn't mentioned in the article itself. This discussion itself can serve now for expanding the "Name" section with paragraphs and sources, I'll join the discussion if it's really needed. --Vacant0 (talk) 19:54, 2 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
  • Support retention of name. The town is important to Albanian history. Such is often the case elsewhere in the Balkans. For example, for Moscopole, we have Aromanian, Greek and Turkish in the lede, which would be prone to disappear were we to apply the same standard as the pro-deletion argument here. I'm not sure why the Italian name isn't also in the lede; it should probably be added. --Calthinus (talk) 22:33, 2 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
And that's why there is a Name section (Moscopole should have one, too). The unsubstantiated claim that it is "important to Albanian history" (of which there is precious little in the article itself), does not address why the name used by less 1% of the population should be in the first line of the lede, when it is already in the Name section. Khirurg (talk) 22:37, 2 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
Sourcing? Easy. The first known book in Albanian is the Missal by Gjon Buzuku,Bishop of Tivar, published in 1555 in Latin characters.[[9]]. Tivar as a center of learning for Albanians, historically [10]. Etc. --Calthinus (talk) 22:54, 2 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
It is one of the two official languages of the Bar municipality. What percent speaks it in the municipality's center doesn't make it less official. Side comment: You started the RfC because you couldn't gain a consensus to remove it. If you gain consensus, remove it and it won't be reverted because it'll be via community discussion. But don't try to force changes via edit-warring.--Maleschreiber (talk) 22:57, 2 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
There is a separate article for Bar Municipality. But you already knew that. I'm guessing the reason for the lack of interest in that article is that this article gets many more page views, hence having it in the first line of the lede here increases visibility. As for the "historical" argument, that's what the Name section and History section is for. But no one seems interested in those, unfortunately. Anyway, I will solicit as much community input as possible, and hopefully that will hopefully resolve it. Khirurg (talk) 23:13, 2 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
Most municipalities in the Balkans aren't composed of metropolitian cities + suburban/rural areas. The city of Bar is the town centre of the Bar region. The distance from a rural settlement of Bar to Bar centre is much smaller than the distance between neighbourhoods in most medium-sized cities of the world. There are two articles (Bar - Bar Municipality) on wikipedia but - to a large degree - they're overlapping.--Maleschreiber (talk) 23:19, 2 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
The municipality is actually much larger (600 square kilometers) than the town, which is actually quite small. The municipality contains over 80 villages, and is mostly rural, hence the wildly varying demographics (Albanians making 5% of the municipality, but less than one percent of the town). If you feel having two articles is redundant, you should propose a merger. Until then, it's best to not confuse our readers by presenting irrelevant information. Khirurg (talk) 23:26, 2 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
The average distance between a village of Bar to the centre of Bar is about ~20 km. The maximum distance is ~40 km.--Maleschreiber (talk) 23:59, 2 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
Not sure what you're trying to show with this math, but if you want math, given 80 villages and 30,000 people in the rural part of the municipality, that's about ~400 people per village on average, so about 5-6 Albanian villages max. Khirurg (talk) 05:36, 3 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
If you want more sources for the community and the importance of the city then you need to search in Italian. For example [[11][12]]. Tivari or Antivari (both names removed by you) is considered one of the centers of Albanian catholic community because the archidiocesis of Bar/Antivari/Tivar is in it. Bes-ARTTalk 07:14, 3 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
In addition, this is a [reliable source] by Ermanno Armao published in 1933 that mentioned the city of Anitivar and that can also be used for the Name section. The same book is also quoted on [page 37] of Oliver Jens Schmitt's Religion und Kultur im albanischsprachigen Südosteuropa Bes-ARTTalk 08:16, 3 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
  • Support retention of name (Oppose should be marked as Oppose retention because the name was already part of the article a year ago). To recap, for historical reasons, many sources discuss the Albanian name next to the Montenegrin one: [13]. Albanian is the only other official language of the municipality (5%) - regardless of its use in the town centre.--Maleschreiber (talk) 23:59, 2 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
One source is not "many sources". In fact I went looking for "Bar (Tivari)", and didn't find "many" sources in English, in fact I found very few. Maybe 10-12 sources on Google Books, and I'm being generous [14]. On Google Scholar there is a grand total of four sources [15]. Khirurg (talk) 05:36, 3 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

*Support, as important historically. Someone might be looking up Tivar if looking at old texts.VikingDrummer (talk) 06:11, 3 June 2021 (UTC) sock puppet of banned user - GizzyCatBella🍁 02:01, 12 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

Mersin mentions the Greek name on the lede, but no Greeks live in Mersin. Gdańsk mentions the German name but very few Germans live in Gdansk. Until WWI, the mayor of Bar was usually a Catholic Albanian. Tivar is used by 5%+ of the municipality and has official status. Bar is a town centre, it's not a metropolitan city in a larger administrative area. In most countries, the distance between Bar (town) and the rural settlements would count as similar to the distance between urban neighbourhoods.--Maleschreiber (talk) 01:16, 5 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
  • Support retention of name. Its one of Bar's official languages regardless of the percentage that speaks the language and Albanians are important part of its history. BristolTreeHouse (talk) 08:49, 5 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose Albanian is not as important as Serbian/Montenegrin/Croatian/Bosnian even for the lead and the history of the city. It would be completely misleading to add Albanian, which stinks of subtle nationalistic editing and POV pushing, not to mention that it ignores the official Montenegrin law. Soundwaweserb (talk) 12:03, 5 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
  • Support per historical value. Here happened the Bar massacre of Albanians and removing the Albanian name might look like an attempt at whitewashing it. It is as if we removed the Armenian names from former important Armenian cities from cities in Eastern Anatolia (I am not saying this is the intention of those who oppose the proposal). Also, considering Bar's population has been considerably growing for some time and that it was only of 6,742 in 1981 (897 in 1948!), I wouldn't be surprised if at the start of the last century Albanians formed a bigger minority (or maybe even majority). Super Ψ Dro 13:47, 5 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
  • Support retention of name It's official in the municipality, it has a long history in Bar. Bar is the home of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bar, an important Catholic Archdiocese in the Balkans. Many of its archbishops have historically been Catholic Albanians. The current one is Rrok Gjonlleshaj. Why is it a problem if an official and culturally significant name is on the lede? Do some of the oppose which are wondering about Albanian presence in Bar know that little over a century just 1/10 people there were Serbian Orthodox? In many places around the world, people were expelled and populations changed. In Bar that is recognized and the just 5% of Albanians there are given the right to use the local name officially.--Excine (talk) 15:23, 5 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose The importance of the city of Bar for Albanian history is debatable and far-fetched, therefore including it would be misleading for readers. We can add it somewhere in the History paragraph, why not. Another thing comes to mind, I can't see Serbo-Croatian or Serbian included in the lead of Shkodër. --Ранко Николић (talk) 21:30, 9 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
Not even comparable in scale of importance. The first book in Serbo-Croatian was not published in Shkoder.--Calthinus (talk) 03:49, 11 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
That's wonderful, but it's not a reason to include the name in the first line of the lede when a "Name"section exists in the body. I don't see anything remotely supporting that in WP:NCGN. Khirurg (talk) 04:40, 16 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
It would be one thing if I saw you consistently applying this particular interpretation of policy. I do not. Certainly not on a number of cities that are closer to your usual topic area of material related to ancient or modern Greece. Mersin does not have any significant current Greek or Armenian presence currently (it once did -- one can draw a parallel to Bar/Tivar here), yet you edit warred to keep the Greek and Armenian names in the lede [16]. Ditto in Antakya [[17]]. Ditto, Samsun [[18]]. Okay, maybe that was awhile ago, yet you have continued to be active in the topic area of Anatolian towns with Greek histories at some point, and I cannot find you ever having an issue with Greek being in the lede for a number of places with basically no Greek inhabitants, including (non-exhaustively): Aydin, Sivas (which has no less than nine non-Turkish names in its lede despite being an overwhelmingly Turkish city), Tarsus, Çorum, Siirt (has Siirt, deep in Kurdistan, had a significant Greek population in the last millennium? A sincere question here.), Iskenderun, Darica, Amasya, Bandirma, Nizip, Giresun, Antakya, Aksaray... Personally, I appreciate the utility of having different names of significance there, for those who are interested in Greek, Armenian, Hittite etc history. It's a shame you don't assign the same value to Albanian history. --Calthinus (talk) 17:38, 18 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
The real shame is that you are trying to personalize this discussion with ad hominems and mud slinging by digging up diffs from...2011 and 2012 (how long did that take you?). You also omitted that some of these articles don't have a dedicated name section (e.g. Antakya), or were Greek-speaking for most of their history. Was that deliberate or due to negligence? Removing the Greek name from the lede of Antakya would remove it from the article entirely. But here, there is a dedicated name section, and no one is advocating for wholesale removal of the alternate names from the article, it's just that it is wholly WP:UNDUE to have the names used by less than 1% of the population (Albanian) and 0% of the population (Italian) be literally the very first thing readers see. Your framing is thus entirely dishonest. Yes, a real shame. Khirurg (talk) 13:47, 20 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

Demographics

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The article previously listed the demographics for the municipality, and not the town proper. Using the 2011 census, I changed the figures to be about the town proper, and moved the municipality figures to Bar Municipality. Khirurg (talk) 03:36, 2 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

Name/Etymology

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The page in Italian has a lot more information regarding the name and where it can be derived from. The problem is that there are no sources cited. I personally took the initiative to find such sources taking into account the discussion above and found a source that can serve the whole article and not just the name. I tried to use the online Latin translator and as far as I understand from the lukewarm translation the text found on the Italian page for the city is confirmed here. However, I expect someone with knowledge of Latin or understanding much better than me to offer us a better perspective on what is written.

Illyricum sacrum by Volume VII "Ecclesia Diocletana, Antibarensis, Dyrrhachiensis, et Sirmiensis cum earum suffraganeis" (1817) pp.176–177 Bes-ARTTalk 09:39, 3 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

Language problem solved

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The page has been 100 times eidted because of added albanian/serbain language. I fixed it by adding footnotes about albanian, croatian, bosnian, serbian and cyrillic. I did the same thing that is done on the Montenegro wikipedia page. Monahow (talk) 00:20, 29 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

Is there a place we can plop in this Sept. 2024 picture?

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Maybe it could go at the very top but that seems awfully pretentious. Can anyone add this somewhere? https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bar,_Montenegro.jpg

 
Bar, Monte Negro: by Nedi Lufcic

I'm a journalist with awards from the San Diego Press Club and Society of Professional Journalists, San Diego Chaper and can verify the picture is what if says if is although there's a small chance it's August 2024 not September 2024 but most likely Sept. and the image is properly labeled if someone can plop it down in here but I can't really find a spot for it maybe you'll have more luck~ Socalgœtz (talk) 17:59, 24 September 2024 (UTC)Reply