Talk:Kosovo

Transportation section update

The current description of the highways refers to the Macedonian border, but that country is now called Northern Macedonia. 98.51.241.186 (talk) 05:58, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Fixed, thank you! Typical Albanian (talk) 18:49, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 28 May 2024

Please remove this sentence:

The official conventional long name of the state is Republic of Kosovo, as defined by the Constitution of Kosovo, and is used to represent Kosovo internationally.

and replace it with this one:

The Constitution of Kosovo defines the state's official conventional long name to be Republic of Kosovo.  It is used to represent Kosovo internationally.

The active voice is probably better, and the "and is" element sounds a little ungrammatical. 123.51.107.94 (talk) 01:46, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

 Question: why not The official conventional long name, as defined by the Constitution, is Republic of Kosovo? The part about being used to represent Kosovo internationally seems self-evident. M.Bitton (talk) 13:41, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I like your wording better than mine, and I agree with your reasoning. 123.51.107.94 (talk) 04:33, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

 Done M.Bitton (talk) 16:27, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Ethnic cleansing as part of "Operation Horseshoe"

@Typical Albanian: You're engaging in WP:OR & personal opinion rather than following the encyclopedia's guideline of neutrality with your edit here. The Operation Horseshoe article itself states that there is doubt as to whether the plan existed and whether that specific plan was carried out when Albanians were expelled during the Kosovo War.

Besides the German minister Loquai who stated that it was not authentic, I'll add Wolfgram from the European Journal of Communication here:

As to the actual existence of such a plan or its contents, no credible evidence has yet surfaced, although the German Defense Ministry claimed on 19 April 1999 to have delivered such evidence to chief prosecutor Louise Arbour in the Hague. None of this material has seen the light of day at the trial, and the entire Operation Horseshoe story failed to materialize in the prosecution’s case against Milošević, although such evidence, if it existed, should have been critical to their case.

And there are other RS/scholars who doubt it. For example, Professor Raju G. C. Thomas of Marquette University who writes in Yugoslavia Unraveled: Sovereignty, Self-determination, Intervention that: "[the political scientist] Kelly Greenhill points out in her chapter in this book, there is no evidence that such a "Horseshoe Plan" existed." (p.17); "Daalder and O'Hanlon claim that Milosevic set out to put Operation Horseshoe into effect in November 1998 and that the coordinated attack (was to) involve a broad swath of territory, in the shape of a horseshoe, moving from the northeast down to the west and back to the southeast of Kosovo... However this depiction of Serb intentions is wholly at odds with the actual pattern of outflows during the crisis.." (p.228)

Therefore, at best we can say the fleeing and expulsion was an alleged ethnic cleansing plan codenamed "Operation Horseshoe" but that this has been questioned. However, attributing the expulsions to Operation Horseshoe is unnecessary altogether when it is sufficient to simply describe the events plainly as they were. --Griboski (talk) 19:06, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Lead sentence

@Horse Eye's Back: The lead sentence was established as a result of a March 2023 RFC: Talk:Kosovo/Archive_33#RFC.

You state the RFC's scope only extended to the use of the word country. But this is not true.

As can be seen from the discussion, the initiator proposed: "Kosovo, officially the Republic of Kosovo, is a country in Southeast Europe with partial diplomatic recognition."

The closer stated: "Based on all of this, the consensus seems to be that the opening sentence of the article should read as laid out in the proposal "Kosovo, officially the Republic of Kosovo, is a country in Southeast Europe with partial diplomatic recognition."

That is the consensus and stable version that's been there ever since. If you want to change it, you should seek consensus and/or file an RFC. Unilaterally removing it is unproductive.--Griboski (talk) 21:18, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

That is a blatant misrepresentation... In context it is clearly only provided as an example "Should the lead sentence of this article on Kosovo describe Kosovo using the specific word "country"? For example: Kosovo, officially the Republic of Kosovo, is a country in Southeast Europe with partial diplomatic recognition. ?" The RfC is about a specific word and nothing else. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:26, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

The results of the RFC are plainly obvious, regardless of how you want to twist it. I'm just letting you know that you need a new consensus to override the existing one. --Griboski (talk) 21:44, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Are you are denying the existance of the words "For example" or are you disputing their meaning? To most the meaning of "For example" is obvious, but if you think it isn't then explain. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:06, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Why are you ignoring the closer's conclusion and the consensus/stable version stemming from the RFC result that's been there for the past 14 months?

Kosovo's recognition has been an important aspect since its declaration of independence. Major countries like Brazil, China, Greece, India and Russia do not recognize it. It is reasonable to note this status in the lead, as it always has been in some form. Perhaps it should be tweaked, but this should be done via consensus building.

This article is a controversial topic with divergent views. Outright removal without consensus won't get you what you want. --Griboski (talk) 23:40, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm not ignoring anything, a consenus/conclusion only exists in its given context... It can't be disconnected from that context. Unless I'm missing something nobody is proposing that we don't cover it in the lead, what has been challenged is covering it in the very first sentence. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:49, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

The RfC close literally states Based on all of this, the consensus seems to be that the opening sentence of the article should read as laid out in the proposal "Kosovo, officially the Republic of Kosovo, is a country in Southeast Europe with partial diplomatic recognition." Khirurg (talk) 01:00, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

What is laid out in the proposal is an example... The only part of the sentence in question was the word "country" so there is no way to interpret the close as being a consensus on the entire sentence. The close literally could not be what you say it is, the closer did not have that power in this context (they can't make a supervote and only three editors of thirty eight editors even mentioned the "partial diplomatic recognition" part). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:08, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

That's a great point. The way the RfC was formulated did not state explicitly that the opening sentence should include "partial diplomatic recognition". Botushali (talk) 02:56, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Prior to the RFC, the opening sentence was "Kosovo... is a landlocked partially recognised state in Southeast Europe".[3] The RFC replaced the word "state" with "country" and the part about partial diplomatic recognition was shifted, according to the initiator's example. A part that by default had been there for some time. So even if you are right, there's no agreement to remove that part completely as you did. --Griboski (talk) 03:07, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Thats not how it works... Its those who want to keep it who need to get consensus to do so. Again I did not remove it completely, it is still noted in the lead of the post-edit version. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:15, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

I think it suffices to add a footnote at the end of the sentence to mention that some states do not formally/diplomatically recognize kosovo. recognition is fleshed out in more detail further below Aferditaa (talk) 04:28, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Footnotes are clunky and the RfC close was quite explicit. Khirurg (talk) 18:50, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

i'm not sure that your opinion about footnotes being 'clunky' - despite the fact that it is literally a letter as opposed to a number (in the case of a citation) - should be a determining factor here. i think this seems like a perfect place to put a footnote, following wikipedia guidelines Aferditaa (talk) 22:40, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

We've already been over the RfC close, in context it explicitly does not do that... The close can not exceed the discussion in scope, opinion, or detail and this one does not do that barring an assumption of bad faith on the part of the closer (if they did what you say then they supervoted, which they're not allowed to do... So either you're wrong or you're wrong...). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:47, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

RfC in Terminology to Reflect the Albanian Language

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

I'm taking the step as a bot-summoned respondent to procedurally close this discussion temporarily, pending necessary first steps in discussion and necessary changes in approach that will need to take place for the discussion to proceed. Unfortunately, I think to leave the discussion up in it's current format would only pull more and more volunteers into a confusing procedural loggerhead, and a lot of non-productive corss-talk arising out of issues with how the RfC has been initially approached. Since this I am temporary shutting down the RfC with this action, I will provide a fulsome account of my reasoning:

• To begin with, there is an WP:RFCBEFORE issue here. I think that element of the RFC procedure gets tossed around very arbitrarily and problematically in recent years, bureaucratically stalling useful RfCs for little practical reason. The issue has gotten to the point where literally almost every RfC will have someone invoke RFCBEFORE to try to shut down the discussion, whether it is a valid objection or not. Nevertheless, in this case, I think it is justified. There's no previous talk page discussion on this issue as far as I can tell, and while linguistic disputes on articles which touch upon ethnically controversial issues can generally be expected to need broader community involvement to resolve eventually, in this case (since there are other reasons to pause and/or restart the RfC), it makes sense to take a pause to have some initial discussion.

• Secondly, the RfC prompt is in no way neutral, rather arguing very strongly for the OP's interpretation of the editorial issue, in flagrant violation of WP:RFCNEUTRAL. The reality is that IJA is correct that neither the Serbian nor Albanian terms are per se the terms we would use in an encyclopedic context / in Wikivoice. What matters is what the most commonly utilized (and thus most easy to identify) common nouns would be, for an English-speaking readership. The purpose of an en.Wikipedia article is to educate an English-speaking reader on the articles subject, using the most accessible language and terminology possible--not to validate the linguistic preferences of one group over another, whatever the numbers involved. Numerous policies converge on this principle of neutrality--see, for example, WP:ENGLISH, WP:CRITERIA, and WP:COMMONNAME-- and the OP may wish not to proceed with this discussion once aware of those policies. However, even if the OP is not convinced after discussing those policies and still wants to have an RfC involving community third parties, the RFCNEUTRAL issue remains, and the opening prompt will need to be reworked into very different wording. No minor tweaks to keep the RfC open would suffice in this case. Arguments for one approach over another should be saved for individual !votes.

• Lastly, meaning no disrespect to the two respondents who suggested this matter needs to be handled through an RM request, but that is not in fact the correct course of action to resolve the OP's inquiry. Even if there were agreement to relocate the two relevant articles for the mountain ranges themselves, as well as any other landmarks that might get referenced in this article, that doesn't really directly impact the WP:LOCALCONSENSUS issue that the OP is raising, concerning this article. The articles for those landmarks could be located at namespaces that reflect the common Serbian toponyms, the Albanian variants, or a third option altogether, and none of those options would directly mandate that we use the same term in the context of this article, and the OP's inquiry would still stand as needing addressing.

TLDR: Discussion paused and RfC tag removed, pending a determination that an RfC is necessary; if the OP wishes to proceed with a second go at the RfC after said discussion, a new and more neutral prompt must be developed for the second listing. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 23:09, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

---

---

This RfC proposes to change references in the article from Serbian terms such as "Metohija" and "Šar Mountains" to their Albanian equivalents, "Dukagjin" and "Sharr Mountains", respectively. The article currently utilizes Serbian terminology that may not reflect the linguistic preferences of the majority of Kosovo's citizens, who predominantly speak Albanian. Over 90% of the population in Kosovo identifies as Albanian, making it imperative that the language used in the article accurately represents the voices and perspectives of the majority of its people.

Using terms that resonate with the local population aligns with Wikipedia's neutral point of view (NPOV) policy. The NPOV guideline emphasizes that articles should represent significant viewpoints fairly and proportionately. Since the Albanian language is the primary language spoken by the majority in Kosovo, adopting Albanian terminology helps to present an accurate portrayal of the region’s cultural and linguistic identity.

In conclusion, I propose to change the following terms in the article:

• Metohija → Dukagjin
• Šar Mountains → Sharr Mountains. Iaof2017 (talk) 12:49, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

• English Wikipedia uses the common name in the English language, not what the local population call something. Neither of them terms are the common name in the English language. IJA (talk) 16:10, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

• Wrong venue, this needs to be taken up as WP:RMs on the specific pages. CMD (talk) 16:29, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

• It looks like this RfC may have jumped the gun a little. An RfC is appropriate after discussion with involved parties on the talk page WP:RFCBEFORE. You might be able to achieve consensus without requesting additional input. Pathawi (talk) 06:05, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

• (Summoned by bot) Procedural close , Start an RM and publicise accordingly. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 16:55, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.