Talk:Myanmar/Archive 9

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Current events

Might we want either a temporary hatnote or a "see also" for the present humanitarian crisis? I came here expecting to find a link to that article, wherever it may be, and couldn't find any. - Jmabel | Talk 19:39, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

 Done. --Regents Park (moult with my mallards) 20:35, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

A lot of this coverage is over at Cyclone Nargis. Sadly, there just isn't a lot of information out there since access to the country is so tightly controlled, and even the assessment teams on the ground probably don't have the information we'd expect to see.Somedumbyankee (talk) 20:06, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Name

In the article, some parts say Burma, and some say Myanmar.

As a Burmese I prefer Burma instead. The name itself has no problem. It is a political factor of who has the legitimate rights to change a country's name; citizens of the country or the regime, who oppresses the citizens and abuse the country! People have their rights. If you want to call it Myanmar in order to support the military regime backed by communist Chinese, it's all up to you.

On behalf of Burmese. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.42.250.131 (talk) 10:53, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I think we should calll it Myanmar, since it may not be recognized by many countries, but that is the official (inter)national name. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Timbomcchoi (talk • contribs) 04:32, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Please read the tag at the top of the page. The name is under dispute.Somedumbyankee (talk) 04:44, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

The Chinese name for China is not China and the German name for Germany is not Germany, so why can the rest of the world call Burma, Burma, even though the Burmese name is different. By the way it should be Mranma, because that's the way it is written correctly and it was certainly the old pronunciation, when Burmese still used /r/ (Arakans still do that) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tocharian (talk • contribs) 04:57, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Again, please read the tag at the top of the page and click through its links. Though your point about the native name being "Mranma" only further illustrates the point that "Myanmar" is an English word. -BaronGrackle (talk) 12:46, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

The internationally recognized name is Myanmar. In english, the recognized name is Myanmar. On wikipedia: Burmese, Name it Burma. Here, Just name it Myanmar and have Burma link. It's not like most people actually care about the name of the article, as much as they care what links to it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.147.214 (talk) 21:47, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

'Official' international name? What does that mean? Who makes an international name 'official'? Part of the merits of the dispute is that there is no 'official' international name; nor can there be. When, e.g., the CIA Factbook and the UN give the country different names, you can hardly say there's an 'official' international name. --patton1138 (talk) 22:47, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

If the US is a more reliable source than the UN, which I think is incorrect, then that would mean that the it should be Burma. But that logic is wrong as the UN is just as good, if not better, than the US as a source. Hence why that logic to keep at Burma per the CIA factbook is wrong. Deamon138 (talk) 17:32, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned, the name should be Burma, as it was renamed Myanmar under the military junta, which has an astounding track record of human rights violations, from mass rape to torture to just plain murder. (Not to mention everything in between.) As far as I'm concerned, anything they want us to do, we need to do the opposite, and that includes listing it as Burma and NOT Myanmar wherever possible. Don't you agree? 63.215.29.113 (talk) 01:29, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd have to agree. I was delighted to type in Myanmar and be redirected to Burma. It's like a punch in the face to the ruling military junta. Which isn't really logical basis for naming a Wikipedia article, but whatever. It made me happy. SchutteGod (talk) 18:14, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for reminding us that the current article title is like a punch in the face to Wikipedia conventions. -BaronGrackle (talk) 18:25, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Dramatic, much? SchutteGod (talk) 01:37, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, neutralitiy is a pillar of Wikipedia. Doing something to "punch someone in the face" is pretty outrageous. -- AvatarMN (talk) 17:59, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

The human rights record of the military junta is irrelevant to the debate. If they are the new government of the country, than they get to choose the country's name, even if they are the most evil organization ever. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.153.11.112 (talk) 22:44, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm sensing that we've lost focus on the discussion. Going back to the original topic, I think the topic-starter was concerned that there's an inconsistency within the article in terms of what we're calling it. I realise that there is a dispute going on over what we should name the article, but when we can reach a consensus, we need to make sure we follow through with the decision and keep consistent naming conventions throughout the article. Until that happens, though, I'm not sure what the appropriate action would be. X-Kal (talk) 06:52, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

This is true. The article is Burma but there are a few instances where, within this essay, the word Myanmar is appropriate. It seems like it would be common sense where those instances would be. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:18, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

To American and other international news channels its known as Myanmar, while the British ones are still sticking to Burma, but then again British also call Beijing as Peking, while rest of the world 95% uses Beijing.116.71.38.74 (talk) 17:57, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Shows how much you know; no one in Britain calls Beijing 'Peking', it is always called Beijing, but then again I wouldn't expect you to know this seeing as you can't even speak English correctly. Fool. (Umbongo91 (talk) 20:00, 16 December 2008 (UTC))

Moved the Page Move Protection tag to talk page

There isn't really a need for the tag to be on the article itself. As was successfully argued regarding the "dispute tag" previously, the tag itself doesn't help the article, and it being on the talk page achieves the same end. Beam 14:47, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Having a warning on the front page shows that the article is in a state of flux. Anyone who isn't particularly wiki-savvy wouldn't realize that there is an ongoing dispute and that the current version may well change in the near future. The "non-endorsement" of the current name of the article is a reasonable point to make. I don't particularly care for either name, but making it look stable when it's unclear is kind of misleading to the reader.Somedumbyankee (talk) 15:57, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

You're not making a lot of sense. The first sentence of the article notes the naming of the country. I believe you were involved with the discussion regarding the "Dispute" tag, and it came to the point where the only sensible solution was to have it on the talk page. The same applies with this tag. It has nothing to do with honesty and I'd be insulted if I didn't assume good faith. Please reconsider your reversion, the last thing I want is an edit war of any sort. Beam 16:50, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Look at the discussion on this page regarding the name dispute tag. I wouldn't say that there was a consensus that removing the tag was the only "sensible solution".

• The statement is true and not misleading. Neither staying nor moving are WP:SNOWBALL.
• Protection tags are usually on the front page of the article. See WP:PROTECT#Other_notes for talk page templates.
• The tag deflects mastodons: Having the tag on the article itself sends a clear message to people who might just assume that the name is wrong and move it.
• The tag shows that the current name of the article is not a consensus statement: Not having the tag implies to a casual reader that the current name is appropriate (not the current consensus because there is no consensus).

It seems kind of redundant to you or me since we've been staring at it for the last couple of weeks, but to someone who is not already involved it shows that the article is not stable. I mean, I really don't care that much, but why is it so critical to take it off? Somedumbyankee (talk) 17:24, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Because disputes regarding page moves aren't what the user should be reading. Beam 01:51, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

No it's exactly what the user should be reading. How can a reader make up there mind up about the name of the country if they don't know there's a dispute and aren't (as above) "wiki-savvy" to find out elsewhere? Every other page I've come across under dispute has the tag on the article page. Your reasoning resembles those who would go against WP:SANTA. Thus, "Let's protect our users from the big bad world of wiki-disputes." Well no, we don't do that, we let them know that the information they are about to receive might be wrong and is being challenged. Deamon138 (talk) 22:46, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

The first line of the article states the dispute and we have a whole section in the article talking about the dispute. We're not hiding it. Beam 23:00, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

And yet you stated, "Because disputes regarding page moves aren't what the user should be reading," which shows your desire that such information was hidden. Anyway the first line of the article you mean is either, "Burma, officially the Union of Myanmar (Burmese: , pronounced [pjìdàunzṵ mjəmà nàinŋàndɔ̀]), is the largest country by geographical area in mainland Southeast Asia," or, "The name "Myanmar" is derived from the local short-form name Myanma Naingngandaw,[1] the name used by the regime currently in power in the country," neither of which "state the dispute" as you say. As for a whole section on the dispute, actually no, there is three paragraphs talking about the dispute, and not an entire first section. It is not even the lead of that section, it seems a little hidden. Besides, I was not talking about the dispute on the political and media stage about the name, I was talking about the Wikipedia dispute that has been going on. Even if a user read those paragraphs about the name dispute, they wouldn't necessarily know that there was a dispute about the article itself. We could (in fact are: I advocate Myanmar as the new name but that's beside the point) be providing them with misleading information, and they wouldn't even know it! The tag needs to be on the article page. Deamon138 (talk) 23:17, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Rename

In the interest of trying to knock out systematic bias, we should rename the article Union of Myanmar with Burma redirecting to that, not the other way around as it is now. Hooper (talk) 18:05, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

There is a dedicated page for discussions of the name of the article. Somedumbyankee (talk) 18:14, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, let's bury it so no one can see it. Great. ☆ CieloEstrellado 10:55, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Good point. We should make sure that nothing else about this article improves before the debate about its title is over unless the involved contributors read at least five pages of bickering each. BigBlueFish (talk) 10:54, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

There is a red box at the top that should, in theory, make it easier to find the talk page. However, I do agree - the five or more pages of discussion is a bit much to read. X-Kal (talk) 18:48, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Citation Lost

I'm not sure what needs done about this, but I thought I'd bring it to someone's attention, citation 54 http://www.nola.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/international-27/1210422249176120.xml&storylist=mcyclone&thispage=3 is no longer pointing to a news article. - Nfriedly (talk) 15:59, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

It was an AP story, so I'm guessing it's still floating out there on the internets somewhere. The comment is probably more important for the Cyclone Nargis article anyway, so removing it outright is probably reasonable. SDY (talk) 16:29, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Well fortunately the Cyclone Nargis article also referenced that article, but managed to get labelled with a title, so being the AP was pretty easy to find an alternative host. If it's not relevant enough for summary style here though, that's fine. BigBlueFish (talk) 09:29, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Undefined acronyms

I have noticed a few acronyms that go entirely undefined in this article, and there's not even a link to the group's wikipedia entry or other quick ways to say what it is. Could these be expanded to the full title? E.g. USA becomes United States of America. That kind of revision. As it is, some parts of the article are unclear. X-Kal (talk) 06:49, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Well I improved a few of the most apparent problems, but if you spot more, be bold! Your concern is quite reasonable; what this article really needs when it is more stable and complete is a thorough proof-read and copy-edit, one of the general rites of passage for featured articles. BigBlueFish (talk) 18:00, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I think if we want to get this article up to FA standard, then it would almost certainly need splitting in some form, regardless of the outcome of any discussions on the name of the article. 125KB I think would be too long to pass FA standards. Deamon138 (talk) 20:33, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Also BBF, I think changing that section heading to "Military rule" is unnecessary, as there are two/three types of Military Government, Military occupation (which Burma/Myanmar isn't), Military dictatorship and Military junta, which can overlap with dictatorship (as is probably the case here. So I think the heading currently is unnecessarily vague, as there are different types of military rule, so changing it back to mention "junta", or adding "dictatorship" would suffice. Also, the "sidebar" says it's government is "Military Junta". Surely the heading ought to keep in line with that? Deamon138 (talk) 20:55, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Not necessarily, because these headings are short distinct descriptions of a certain time frame to divide up a part of the country's history, not specifically describing the political system in that period of time. Similarly, the section on the period 1752-1885 is currently headed "Konbaung" not "Konbaung Dynasty". I guess I felt that the longer heading unnecessarily conveys the POV that this particular political structure is especially important to the country's history compared to others. It doesn't bother me that much though. Indeed, in the long term, these headings are unlikely to keep their current form if you look at the History sections of featured countries like Israel and Japan which are much briefer.

This comes nicely back to your point about splitting the article, which is a completely unjustified reason to split the article. We should be looking at this option exclusively based on third-party historical treatment. The length of the article is very much a secondary issue which stems from the more pressing long-term need for the content of this article to be reconciled with Names of Burma, History of Burma and Politics of Burma, and for the corresponding sections to be reformed in line with WP:SS. BigBlueFish (talk) 23:38, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I think if an article didn't follow WP:SS, then it wouldn't get FA status anyway. The fact that an article wouldn't get through an FAC process is surely a very good reason to split it, since the standard demanded by FA articles is one we want all articles to be in. Deamon138 (talk) 22:47, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

There is no challenge at all for an article that meets WP:SS to pass FAC based on length. In that sense, this article has already been split; into sub-articles such as History of Burma. There is no reason that this main article about the country cannot effectively summarise the content of such articles; Egypt has a history about 3000 years older and far more documented, but its History section has no subsections at all. The article is 40 KB shorter. Incidentally, Israel is almost as long as this article; Japan is about the same as Egypt. So I'd recommend focusing on quality of writing, not on page inches. BigBlueFish (talk) 00:12, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely, quality is the most important thing. But article size is a part of WP:SS. I would say some sections (especially the section on the cyclone) could be better summarized to a shorter length, with any info removed and then added to the appropriate page (history, names, politics etc). For instance, there's certainly enough pages in the "History of Burma series" to add new info from this page to. (Incidentally, I prefer that sections such as "History" have subsections like in this article and Israel, rather than lumped together like in the Egypt or Japan articles). Deamon138 (talk) 00:33, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Crime sentencing

Burma currently has the second longest average prison sentence length in the world at 16,616 years. This is pretty signifigant and I think it should be mentioned.

Source: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_sen_len-crime-sentence-length —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.99.238.70 (talk) 21:24, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Nationmaster sourced the info from The Eighth United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (2002) (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Centre for International Crime Prevention). I have not rechecked this, but I did check that source once previously and saw that it contains the same figures reported by Nationmaster. My belief is that the figures with (apparently) over 1,000 years as average prison sentence were probably reported to the U.N. using the european convention of using a comma where U.S. english usage would be to use use a decimal point. Burma, then, would have a believable average prison sentence length of 16.616 years. See the bottom of Talk:Finland#Sentence Length for my earlier discussion about this. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 07:25, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

It also says nothing about YEARS. The US number is only close to being correct if you use MONTHS. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:56, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Maybe. Maybe not. I dunno. Do you have a supporting source for that assertion? -- Boracay Bill (talk) 10:13, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

There are supporting sources for the U.S. numbers, I'll have to look for one tonight when I have a bit more time. But before someone adds a sentence they should at least look for a time-frame... this report has none. It's very strange. Fyunck(click) (talk) 17:40, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

The UN Report cited by Nationmaster gives data for the years 2001 and 2002. The figure of interest here (16,616 - should be 16.616) comes from the 2002 column of Table 17 on page 241 of 266 of that report, described as "Adult prisoners. Average length of time actually served in prison, after conviction, by offenses". -- Boracay Bill (talk) 03:19, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Here is one I found... Bureau of Justice Stats. Now this does not include life sentences but it also only includes felonies. 1.1 million felonies and the average was 37 MONTHS in the US. If you add in life sentences it will go up slightly but if you add in misdemeanor criminal sentences (which there are millions of) it will go down. But lets just take 37 months as a close number. The chart above lists the US with 29 something-or-others in 2001. Comparing to the BOJ stats it ain't 29 years and it ain't 29 days. It is closest to 29 months so maybe the UN includes misdemeanors in their figures? But I think it is safe to say the numbers are supposed to be in months. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:06, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the sentence length is in days. Either way, I think that the statement should be removed until it makes sense. --Regents Park (count the magpies) 02:55, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) I took the statement out. An average of 1384 years is ridiculous and boggles the mind and goes totally against common sense - even for Burma. Please provide a clear and reliable source for this data before re-inclusion. --Regents Park (count the magpies) 18:03, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I concur. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:56, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Sex crimes

(moved from User talk:Bigbluefish)

I don't disagree with your removal of 'State Sanctioned' but wonder if there is a better way to put this. Clearly, the state (in the form of the military) is the perpetrator of the crimes (as per the write-up). Do you know if there is an official 'war crime' name for this sort of thing? --Regents Park (bail out your boat) 00:33, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not an expert on war crimes or the acts committed in Burma but "state sanctioned" isn't a term that I'd use unless leaders of the state explicitly say so. The article on Abu Ghraib suggests that the US could effectively try their own soldiers for war crimes, if that helps highlight the difference. It is a little concerning that your primary agenda seems to be finding an acceptable way to describe the situation negatively rather than accurately, but I can't stop you from finding sources which describe this issue in more detail, and no doubt some appropriate WP:ASF would be illuminating on the subject. Bigbluefish (talk) 02:42, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

That is a bit uncalled for (the NPOV allegation). All I asked was if there is a war crime name for the sort of thing described in the article - which clearly says that members of the military are responsible for rape, etc. If there isn't, so be it. But if there is, that would be a more accurate way of describing what is written in the article. Sex crimes is rather general because it includes such things as prostitution, traveling to SE Asia for sex with minors, that sort of thing. In fact, when I saw your edit summary, I first assumed that it related to the trafficking of Burmese girls to Thailand for prostitution. --Regents Park (bail out your boat) 14:33, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Well yes, the section needs to be better sourced and reflect third-party coverage of the issue better in general. The apportionment of blame (which you effectively said should lie with the state or its military) is one of the lower priorities of such a section and depends entirely on the existence of relevant sources. My remarks are simply aimed at encouraging you to rethink the direction from which you approach improving it. No attack intended; just the section already states the facts that it is well-enough sourced to state fairly well, so this kind of discussion on interpretation is not really that useful. Bigbluefish (talk) 15:53, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

In a collaborative work task, it is not a good idea to question the motives of other participants (as in the 'direction from which you approach improving it'). I encourage you to consider taking opinions, suggestions, and questions of others as representing genuine attempts to build a better encyclopedia rather than as being representative of an agenda. (That was only because we are apparently encouraging each other to think better.) About the sex crimes section. My point is that, as written, it is about war crimes of a sexual nature and the current title 'sex crimes' does not adequately or accurately capture that. --Regents Park (bail out your boat) 20:16, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Look, I simply believed you were asking the wrong question, and your good faith is why I presumed you might be interested if I thought you weren't taking the most direct route towards NPOV. Take what you will from it and I will take care to continue to assume the good faith of your content contributions. Upon reflection I don't think "war crimes" is a suitable term for a state which is not at war. But again, and please, if you're interested in explaining this issue better please have a look for what other parties are saying about it. Bigbluefish (talk) 22:12, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) It's not worth arguing about who meant what ... so let's assume we just misunderstood each other. Meanwhile, I'm going to change the title of the section to 'Sexual violence' because Sex crimes is definitely not accurate. (UNHCR uses 'Sexual violence'.) --Regents Park (bail out your boat) 16:54, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Venerable text from theravada of Burma

"Once upon time, when the Bodhisattva was a monkey king, he encountered a brahman ho had fallen into a deep gorge. Having decided to rescue the poor fellow, the Bodhisattva threw the brahman on his back and carried him out of the crevasse. The Bodhisattva became very tired under this heavy load, so reaching a safe place, he promptly fell asleep in the brahman's lap. Now, all along the brahman had been thinking how pleased his family would be if he were to give them some monkey flesh for dinner. So grabbing a big rock he struck the sleeping monkey on the head. The monkey king, covered in blood gushing from his head, crawled a short distance and cried out, "Oh... there are still people like this in the world!" But still, being a bodhisattva, he remained determined to lead the brahman safely to his village, even though the forest was filled with lions and other dangerous animals. "Even if you see a tiger, don't worry," said the monkey, "I'll take you to your village. Just follow the path of blood dripping from my head." And so saying, the monkey king led the brahman to his village."

— The Tale of the Bodhisattva Monkey King and the Brahman, Ledi Sayadaw's Uttamapurisa Dipani

books.google.it/books?id=Y5jaJ7Sei9EC&q=monkey+flesh#search--Aryadeva (talk) 15:48, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

External links

I added the links generally considered to be major sources of information. I have no interest in getting into a long discussion about the current extensive list of links, but they really should be looked at. Flatterworld (talk) 00:20, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Move-protection template

The template previously used was {{pp-move}} which stated "protected from page moves until disputes have been resolved on the discussion page." It has been recently updated to become generic, and now only states "protected from page moves." The previous use of pp-move has been transferred to {{pp-move-dispute}}. I changed the lock from {{pp-move}} to {{pp-move-dispute}} just after the update of {{pp-move}}, so my edit made no visible change. Using {{pp-move}}, {{pp-move-vandalism}} or {{pp-move-indef}} would neglect to acknowledge that there is currently a dispute over the name of the article. Even though no consensus has been found to move the article and it may not be under debate right now, the name is still largely disputed. Cenarium (Talk) 17:11, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

pp-move-dispute states that "This page is currently protected from page moves until disputes have been resolved on the discussion page." This has been resolved on the discussion page. It was resolved by cabal... the protection has nothing to do with consensus. To be honest the protection could be removed to see how it holds up now imho and if not the protection from moving it should be set to either vandalism or indefinite, or possible even a generic pp-move which simply states "This page is currently protected from page moves." It is not being protected because there is an ongoing dispute that has to be settled on the discussion page. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:03, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

I would have to disagree. The naming is clearly disputed by many. It is unlikely there is going to be consensus any time soon. The fact is, there is a specific page to discuss the name and there is continouing discussion all the time. The cabal only decided there is no consensus for a move. They didn't decide which name was appropriate. In fact, as someone pointed out, their response aptly summed up the situation, one saying Burma, one saying Myanmar and one saying no consensus. Indeed the header says "However, strong arguments exist for the use of both names and the most recent discussion has not found agreeing on which one is best to be a high priority for this article". Really the only resonable argument why this page should be Burma as opposed to something else is because it started of as Burma and per Engvar that's usually where we default to. The fact that it was moved around a bit before settling on Burma again just indicates how highly disputed it. Unlike say color, gasoline or aluminium where these is clear consensus that those pages should stay where they are, there is little consensus here, even among those who understand policy. So yes, pp-move-dispute is appropriate. Nil Einne (talk) 08:39, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Hey that's fine, I disagree but I'm flexible on the issue. However using that logic this article will NEVER have that tag removed since there will always be some dispute on where it's located. The cabal is as good as we're gonna get for the foreseeable future and this article will probably remain locked in place for years. And reasonable is in the eye of the beholder as has been argued over and over and over here. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:46, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

The reason discussion has gone on so long and so lengthy is precisely because each stage has just found no consensus and trying to assert anything as definitive until something does is not going to calm things. Timrollpickering (talk) 12:30, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

"until" is the key word. There is no "until" in a way that would satisfy everyone so "until" means forever. The cabal is pretty much as good as we're going to get here. pp-move-indef would fit it better but if most here want it kept at -dispute then so be it. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:33, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

"it started of as Burma" - no, it appears to have started as Myanmar, but a page merge confuses the early history and page moves pre 2006 do not appear to be recorded well. Timrollpickering (talk) 12:30, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

For what it's worth, archive.org's first archive of these articles is Dec 9 2003, and the article was Myanmar. The first archive of the "Burma" article was Feb 27, 2004, and it was a redirect to Myanmar. As an interesting look back, here's the very first paragraph of the Myanmar article that was archived:

Myanmar is a country in Southeast Asia, formerly known as Burma. The name of the country was changed in 1989, and this change of name has been officially recognized by the United Nations. However, some states, such as the United States, do not recognize this change of name, since they do not recognize the military government which instituted it. Today, many people use Myanmar, which is a derivative of the Burmese short-form name Myanma Naingngandaw, regardless of their opinion of the military government. Tempshill (talk) 23:08, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Tourism

The Tourism part seems to be actively discouraging tourists from going to Myanmar. I believe it infringes Wikipedia's NPOV policy, but well, what the heck - the whole article is dominant of one point of view.

I do not say it is right or wrong to advocate for democracy - I do it myself, but the Wikipedia article on Myanmar looks like an advertisment board rather than an encyclopedia entry. Every detail is stuffed onto this page - which makes the page extremely bulky and un-scholarly.

Quote - Any tourist visit will provide some income to the military junta - unquote. This is true for any country, and is not a unique thing limited to Myanmar. Please refrain from using such manipulative writing, as it distorts the situation: it presents a common fact in a tilted manner.

And the "majorty opinion" only represents those of the activist groups. The opinion of the people of the country, whom the activists and everybody else supposedly represents, is completely ignored. The number of activist groups supporting one notion does not necessarily reflect the popular opinion of the Burmese people on the topic. Uthantofburma (talk) 07:58, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

The example you choose: "Quote - Any tourist visit will provide some income to the military junta - unquote. This is true for any country..." is of course in accurate. Most countries are not ruled by military juntas. If there are legitimate examples of biased content please present them so they can be addressed. ChildofMidnight (talk) 22:49, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

perhaps he meant any tourist visit will provide income to that country's "government?" That would be true for any country. Maybe it was just a poor choice of wording on Uthanto's part. Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:32, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Of course that statement would also be misleading. Whereas authoritarian government officials profit directly from trade and businesses such as tourism (government officials directly own and control these businesses), in other countries there is no such profit to be had by public officials.

I didn't say public officials...I said government. Tourists provide tax money for most governments so I don't think my statement is misleading however I might add it was only conjecture. I have no idea if that is what was meant in the original statement. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:59, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I admit I did not use pinpoint meaning to state what I meant. So, to clarify what apparently is a loophole in my statement - every government - note GOVERNMENT - not public officials - ultimately draw money from taxation - of which, as far as I know, hotels and tourism businesses are not exempted. The military junta, even if it consists of a raving bunch of babboons, is still a government - however illegal it is. True, those rich businessmen and all the cronies get income from lucrative business deals, but the original statement - that of profitting the junta - it presents the entire Burmese tourism industry in a black and white manner.

If you believe you have the intellect to edit wikipedia, and still see the world in a black and white concept, well, I suggest you redo your education. If ever things were so clear cut, then the world would probably be a better place. Not all tourist operations in Myanmar are government owned. The major hotels have links to the ruling military (well, more of Army, rather than the other branches of the Tatmadaw) elite. But, there are small guest houses and other establishments which, small they maybe, are clear of the junta's pockets. Ofcourse, if you count taxes as "profiting the junta" then, please do tell of a modern economic system where the government does not collect taxes (apart from the gulf states which practically sit on oil barrels). I think even Bhutan collects taxes one way or another. There are many independent institutions which operate in the tourism market. And it is through these that tourists can visit the country and still help the people. But this arguement is clearly pushed aside in the article. The definition of "benefiting the junta" itself is extremely wide. And please do not give me a lecture on how much the junta manipulates the economy and the tourism market. I come from that poor country. I have seen things from myself, not through secondary sources like those who sit comfortably abroad and think by reading a few blogs, that they know how the system works. I might be inaccurate, but I sure damn have seen the stuff on the ground.

Uthantofburma (talk) 13:57, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

To give some examples - Yangon has many hotels. The arguement that the economy is in shambles does not mean or include the point that only large hotels exist. Luxury hotels exist, and it is the free choice of anybody to use their money freely on what they wish - so, I will not be saying anything about these luxury hotels. There also exists many other small and medium size hotels. I can list them out, but a) they do not have websites, b) I do not want to be a salesman for them. Believe me if you want to - denounce me if you feel I don't conform to a certain tone. In downtown Yangon, there are many small guesthouses, some are really unhygenic, but some are rather good too. Also in the outlying areas, independent companies, which do have to pay taxes but are not run by state officials, still exist, though may not be as confortable as those with "links".

Tourist destinations in Myanmar charge fees - this is the same in neighbouring Thailand, where i remember they charged me 500 baht to enter Wat Phra Kaew - thats about USD16 at that time - which is higher than what the Burmese sites charge (around $5-$10) as far as I know. These tourist sites are not hovering in the air, which means they are accessible by car and river ferry, not just the airlines. Even amongst the airlines, there are a few which do not really get that much support, compared to a certain airline set up by a certain businessman. So, tourists, if they can endure it, can take the 6h plus bus or train ride to the north from Yangon. Or take the ferries - there is a foreign owned cruising company, and also other ones. But I saw on youtube tourists' accounts of travelling on these boats being attacked. It seems people must conform to supposed rules, or be condemned. There are many private tour operators and tour guides - the tour guides are not like North Korean minders, or those portrayed by "Emma Larkin" in her (or his?) book, Finding George Orwell in Burma's Teashops. I know a few tourguides myself, and they are not brain washed to "say only the nice bits".

Smart spending is possible. Unfortunately, such information is not represented on the internet or popular media, as it goes against the views of certain interest groups. I am not being a tour guide of the country, nor a salesman. But, I won't put my hands around your eyes and tell you what I want to tell - what ever side it may be. The only single way to find out about things is to go there by yourself, and see the things - and spend smartly.

Last of all, I do encourage cautioned approach to any topic concerning Myanmar. Credible research is rare, and is always contested. Acadamia is heavily influenced by political situations, and is molded to fit the demand / view. So, please be careful of every piece of information related to Myanmar. Emotions run high, and these emotions spill over into many areas. Until one sees things on the ground, do not believe anything. This is based on personal experience.Uthantofburma (talk) 16:10, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I am troubled to see a mass of content being removed including an awful lot of cited and notable content. It also looked like discussion of the Karen people was removed. What is going on? ChildofMidnight (talk) 01:39, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Coat of arms

Currently there is no image for the coat of arms of Myanmar. I removed the coat of arms from the infobox, and just undid a replacement of it. One editor wanted to retain the giant "?" at the top of the infobox in order to preserve the link to the Coat of arms of Burma article in the infobox.

The "?" doesn't add any information to the article and is very ugly—to me, it looks like an error—and I removed it because it has no value. I believe if a Wikipedian goes ahead and draws the coat of arms, that is the proper time to re-add the coat of arms to the infobox. Tempshill (talk) 22:24, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree with Tempshill on this. Sure it's nice to have a link to the Coats of Arms wiki but only if it also enhances the entry it's placed into. That "?" is ugly and detracts from this article. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:31, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

It also reminds editors that the image needs to be made. It's like the same thing as a WP:Red link, it will ultimately help Wikipedia in the long run creating articles or images that need to be made. I think red links look pretty ugly too, but most people think the good ones are helpful, and this coat of arms obviously needs to be made or uploaded at some point. LonelyMarble (talk) 02:58, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Fine. I looked and there weren't any in the public domain, so I drew one that's kind of sloppy but it's better than a question mark. I saw a couple in another encyclopedia but they looked like the same one that could be copyrighted elsewhere so I didn't want to add those for fear of infringement. I hope someone will look at and improve upon my version. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:58, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your effort, it's nice to at least have a free image of the coat of arms available now. Did you notice this image of the coat of arms on Commons: [1]. It was just marked for deletion on March 8 for not having any licensing information. A little coincidental too because I have noticed that on March 8 a good number of other countries' coat of arms have been marked for deletion too. So it looks like a lot of countries may be losing this image unless someone that is good with copyrights can fix this problem. At least this article will still have a coat of arms image, but it would be nice if the copyrights of coats of arms could be looked into by someone knowledgeable. LonelyMarble (talk) 05:22, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I did and it's the same image I've seen hundreds of times around the internet. Some guy even sells it on t-shirts but Coat of Arms seem to be a tricky deal with copyright infringement so I was really worried. After doing some research I think most of these so-called "public domain" coats of arms are really dicey and could easily be infringement. Descriptions of them are fine but the actual picture is not. I looked at that one and 3 others to make mine. We need someone to go to Burma and take a snapshot of one. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:32, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Military dictatorship or stratocracy?

Looking at the stratocracy page, wouldn't that be a more accurate description of the state of government than military dictatorship? Specifically, I'm looking at this explanation:

A stratocracy is a form of government headed by military chiefs. It is not the same as a military dictatorship where the military's political power is not enforced or even supported by other laws. (italics added)

Seems to me to be a more accurate description of the current situation in Burma/Myanmar. Also, the stratocracy page specifically mentions Burma/Myanmar as an example:

The closest contemporary government to a stratocracy is the SPDC of Myanmar, which is arguably different from most other military dictatorships in that it completely abolished the civilian constitution and legislature. A new constitution due to come into effect in 2010 cements the military's hold on power through mechanisms such as reserving 25% of the seats in the legislature for military personnel.

Thoughts? Baeksu (talk) 00:05, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

A stratocracy IS a military dictatorship as per all dictionaries I could find. Both Websters and Bouvier's Law Dictionary say the same thing too: STRATOCRACY-A military government; government by military chiefs of an army. I think that fine a detail of a rarely used word is not needed in an article that frankly has too many fine details already. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:17, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Burma (Myanmar)

Moved to Talk:Burma/Myanmar#Burma (Myanmar). 199.125.109.126 (talk) 13:03, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

or Myanmar

"officially the Union of Myanmar," who says? The British Foreign Office say "Britain's policy is to refer to Burma rather than 'Myanmar'. The current regime changed the name to Myanmar in 1989. Burma's democracy movement prefers the form ‘Burma’ because they do not accept the legitimacy of the unelected military regime and thus their right to change the official name of the country."[2] The phrase "officially the Union of Myanmar" with the more neutral phrase "or Myanmar" --PBS (talk) 09:36, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

""officially the Union of Myanmar," who says?" To the right of the article is an infobox that details specifics about this country. It lists the nation's capital as Naypyidaw, its government as a military dictatorship, and its leader as Than Shwe. This is the government that says it is officially the Union of Myanmar. -BaronGrackle (talk) 18:32, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

In other words it really shouldn't say "officially" it should simply say "or", which is less pov. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:06, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand how "officially" is at all pov. It's a fact, unrelated to the observer, that the government of this country calls it "Union of Myanmar". Wiktionary defines "official" as:

2. Derived from the proper office or officer, or from the proper authority; made or communicated by virtue of authority; as, an official statement or report.

We may feel that the government of Burma is not legitimate, but most countries recognize it as the legal authority.

I would say that ignoring the "official" stance in this case would be pov, because that would be consciously trying to push a specific view point, i.e. the government does not have an "official" status. Baeksu (talk) 00:21, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

And that's just it...some countries do not look at it as a proper office or authority. It's not a question of "feeling" as some countries recognize the junta dictatorship and some do not. "Official" works for those who recognize and is POV for those who don't. "Or" seems like a much better choice to me but as I said it's not important enough to change it. Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:51, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm fine with just using "or Myanmar" in the lede. The problem now is that the infobox calls it "Union of Burma", while the lede has "officially the Union of Myanmar". Let's pick one option:

1. "or Myanmar" + "Union of Burma" in the infobox
2. "officially the Union of Myanmar" + "Union of Myanmar" in the infobox

And then let's stick with that. Personally, I'm fine with either option.Baeksu (talk) 05:47, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, if we want to go that way, then (I've said it before), change the infobox's leader to Prime Minister Sein Win, and change the government's capital to Baltimore, Maryland. -BaronGrackle (talk) 19:41, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Just because of "or?" I never liked the "officially" word in there but it's a minor dysfunction so I wasn't going to change it. However I do trust Downing Street and Penn. Ave much more than the UN. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:23, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I’m just saying, look at all the facts listed that are disputed by the democratic government-in-exile. The government in Baltimore, Maryland doesn’t recognize the existing regime’s capital at Naypyidaw, the regime as a military dictatorship, Than Shwe as chairman, Maung Aye as vice chairman, Thein Sein as prime minister, its May 2008 constitution, or the name "Union of Myanmar". So, why is it less point-of-view to say that Naypyidaw is the official capital? (The CIA world factbook still lists “Rangoon” as the nation’s capital) The unelected, illegitimate government is the entity that makes those claims, so should we avoid POV by citing the CIA World Factbook and saying that Rangoon is still the nation's capital? -BaronGrackle (talk) 17:26, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I didn't say it was easy because consistency in government matters is like lumpy gravy. Some officially call it Burma and some call it Myanmar and all I'm saying is that it would be less pov to use "Burma or Myanmar" than to use "Burma (officially the Union of Myanmar)." Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:28, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

The word "officially" actually means "because I said so". In other words, if someone has the authority to say something, it becomes "officially" whatever they say. In this case the dispute is over the government of Myanmar having legitimacy, and if they have no legitimacy, they have no authority to rename the country, and Burma is not "officially" called Myanmar. 199.125.109.126 (talk) 13:09, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

What's your definition of "legitimacy"? The SPDC executes all the other functions of a government including international relations. Making unpopular name changes is as much within the scope of their power as it has been in other more politically stable countries where the same thing has happened. Bigbluefish (talk) 09:29, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

BBC pronunciation

At present, the article contains the following passage:

Confusion among English speakers on how to pronounce 'Myanmar' gives rise to pronunciations such as /ˈmjɑːnmɑr/, /maɪənˈmɑr/, /ˈmiːənmɑr/ and /miːˈænmɑr/. The BBC recommends /mjænˈmɑr/ (followed by source).

Not that I doubt it but is it not a hypocricy on the part of the BBC to make another one of its recommendations on language usage, particularly when it is one of the leading organisations to stand defiant on the naming issue. Unless I am mistaken, had the constitutional name not changed, then Myanmar wouldn't have entered the English language. The article explains that /Myanmar/ is a shortened form of Myanma Naingngandaw, so any references to cognates of /Myanmar/ will have been a part of the English language since well before the name change. Is it necessary to give the BBC variation when the BBC reject the same name? It would be like Serbia's RTS recommending a Serbianised intonation and stress pattern of Kosova (the Albanian name for Kosovo) for anyone speaking Serbian wishing to use the Albanian form. Evlekis (talk) 22:44, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

That's not really much of a big deal. We mention the American spelling of meter, even though the U.S. rejects metric. -BaronGrackle (talk) 15:54, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not saying it's a "big deal" as such, it just seems odd. The BBC will tell you how to pronounce /Myanmar/ when they insist you use /Burma/. Nothing you can add to that statement, except a note that BBC recognises Burma in which case people will be able to see for themselves the hypocricy. Evlekis (talk) 22:49, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I see no hypocrisy at all. They acknowledge the word exists even if it's usage they consider incorrect so there's no story here at all. Fyunck(click) (talk) 01:44, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

There are two different things here anyway. The BBC pronounciation guide is a very influential resource even beyond the BBC for standardising pronounciation. The BBC's use of "Burma" is an internal editorial choice. Bigbluefish (talk) 09:44, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Infobox header

this is ridiculous. The term "Union of Burma" was created and used only by the same government who then decided it should be called "Myanmar". Nobody but nobody refers to the "Union of Burma" except in an historical sense, because regardless of your political agenda, perception of trends in the English language or views on geography versus politics, it's a descriptor of a particular political entity that no longer exists under that name. The edit summary given is like saying "Hawaii still exists. The infobox should read Republic of Hawaii.". The space in this infobox is for the full, official name, regardless of vernacular usage, and should read "Union of Myanmar". At a worst case solution, simply "Burma" is an alternative. Oh, and by the way the current Burmese script immediately below in the infobox reads "Myanmar". Hope that makes things clearer. Bigbluefish (talk) 10:29, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. I was under the impression that the actual name was Union of Burma before the juntanization. You seem pretty confident in the fact that it was simply Burma and nothing else (i.e. official letterheads), and on a quick check through the internet I didn't see anything to the contrary, so we'll go with the US/UK official name. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:21, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Hold on, guys. I don't know what the country's official long name was before the junta, but no one currently says the long name is just Burma. The government controlling the nation says it is currently "Union of Myanmar". The government in Rockville, Maryland says it is currently "Union of Burma" (so does the CIA World Factbook, right before it tells us that the capital is still at Rangoon). I'd rather have the long name as "Union of Burma" than just "Burma", since the latter isn't a long name at all. Of course, I think it's silly to let Maryland tell us the name of a Southeast Asian nation... -BaronGrackle (talk) 18:43, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I didn't have the cia book at my disposal nor did I know the exiled gov'ts full title. I assumed it was Union of Burma but I knew it was not Union of Myanmar. Sorry I caved so quickly I just assumed a compromise of "Burma" was better than me continuing to revert it back. So to be consistent with this article should it be "National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma" or (what is probably better) the slightly shortened version we had before, "Union of Burma?" I'll put it back to what it was but if more people want the longer title so be it.Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:56, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Again, if we change the infobox to something like the "National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma", then we should change the rest of the information to describe the democratic Burmese government of Maryland. For which we already have an article. Which is why my first sentence should be understood as sarcastic. :-) But more seriously, why can we not use the official name that the ruling government gives itself? -BaronGrackle (talk) 21:32, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Because the junta govt is not recognized by the US/UK... Union of Myanmar is not official. However as with the opening line of "officially the Union of Myanmar" being wrong and out of place with this article, this infobox item "Union of Myanmar" is a small potato thing. I will say here that it makes the article un-uniform, and is not the official name. I think it adds confusion to a pretty good wiki entry that people have worked hard on. That said, if you'd rather the infobox long name change to Union of Myanmar I won't change it back. I will set it to say both Union of Myanmar and Union of Burma as it's infobox long name as a compromise but I'll leave it to others to decide if that works for consistency. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:16, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I find it intellectually dishonest that you try to imply:

1. that before the "edit warring" the infobox read "Union of Burma" when in fact it has been "Union of Myanmar" until 3 weeks ago when an anon tried changing it to "Burma" and you prompty "fixed" it
2. that the consensus is that "Burma" is an official name, when it is not

Yes it is an official English name. The consensus is split.

1. that the usage of "Burma" in this article is based on formality, when it is not

Did you forget that people can still read the Mediation Cabal discussion that the current naming convention bases itself on? Back then you seemed perfectly happy to base a defence of "Burma" solely on common English usage, when the overwhelming consensus that this is the only acceptable rationale in favour of that name was still apparent. If I have got you wrong, then I apologise. But the fact that you really ought to remember that the above arguments have already been rejected makes it appear like you said whatever you had to at the time in order to push a moral-political agenda, and that discredits what else you have to say.

There were many reasons given by many people at the time. I was one of many. I always let it be known that I was in the Burma camp but I also took a middle ground. I mentioned split articles and Burma/Myanmar and they were shot down. Did you offer any middle ground back then or did you just attack as you are doing now? Fyunck(click) (talk) 17:01, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

The modern usage of "Union of Burma" is by and large a politically charged invention. It's hard work trying to find serious uses of the term in Google searches, where most are historical accounts or talking about the exile government. Compare with "Union of Myanmar" which plenty of those who use "Burma" like the BBC declare to be the official name and there's no contest.

I think the above is sound enough reasoning that the infobox should be put back how it was, and unless BaronGrackle has changed his mind, I'm not alone; but I'm not going to add to the pile of edits without knowing that it's going to be accepted, so please somebody else weigh in. Bigbluefish (talk) 09:02, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) In my opinion, Union of Myanmar is the better entry for the 'conventional long name' parameter of the infobox. Though 'Union of Burma' is also acceptable, putting both names is not a good idea. --RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 13:05, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Because? Goodness it goes by both, this is an encyclopedia, can't we show both? Fyunck(click) (talk) 17:01, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

We can. But it is unnecessarily confusing to use both names. (Plus, the parameter is expressed in the singular form.) --RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 17:07, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I find it hard to believe that someone could be bewildered by seeing two formal names in the infobox, and the parameter is not visible to the casual viewer so they don't look at it as singular. It seemed a fair compromise to show both but I realize that compromise hasn't exactly been the rule of thumb around here. Fyunck(click) (talk) 17:20, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

That's not the issue. The Union of Burma is just as much a current regime as the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma, the Republic of Hawaii, the Third Reich and so on. Most if not all of the sources I've seen using "Union of Burma" in reference to the current nation are doing so as an implication that the junta is not the current government of that country. That is not something this article tries to pretend and if that's what you're proposing then do make that clear. You might get more "compromise" if you left the agenda over legitimacy at the door, since contrary to your continued insistence, not one participant brought up the political position of Western nations as an argument in favour of the name "Burma" in the MEDCAB case and was taken into account. To keep pushing that point that long ago lost consensus makes it difficult to find merit in the rest of the argument.

You would also do well to take a less belligerent approach to a content discussion. "Compromise" is not about two "camps" digging their heels in and settling with some middle ground between them. If one aspect of the article doesn't contain "both names" it does not mean that democracy has won or lost, and no moral wrongs have been committed. A Wikipedia compromise requires people to understand and accept the position of others, play devil's advocate with one's own position, and not just push harder in the scrum. Bigbluefish (talk) 20:51, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Belligerent? I plop in something that was middle ground and you attack me? You pick on and apologize to me in the same sentence and then lecture on high about My approach? Wow lol. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Is it too much to ask for a response that differentiates between content and user conduct? A content decision isn't immune from criticism just because it's "middle ground". I'm at a loss what else to say if you have no challenge to the fact that neither "Burma" nor "Union of Burma" are "official" names and nor has the consensus when this was a high-traffic topic ever held it to be. Bigbluefish (talk) 22:07, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Of course it isn't immune from criticism. I guess a lot depends on what one means by "official." The hoodlums in control of Burma now are nothing "official" by a lot of people's standards, and if they are not then what was the official name of the country before they grabbed power? I said back when that I wasn't sure of that "official" name except it wasn't Union of Myanmar. I was told the gov't that some recognize use Union of Burma and their website confirmed it. The CIA source only has Burma and does not go into detail on what is it's official name. So I've seen Union of Burma, Burma and also Union of Myanmar. It seemed fair to me to have it Union of Myanmar/Union of Burma to satisfy the politics involved. I'm going to assume that we come at this thing from a different perspective....I don't call the country Burma because that name is popular, I call it Burma because from my standpoint that is the legitimate name today. I know that Myanmar is used by a lot of people so that name should be there also (heck I even put it first), but I don't recognize it as legal. Neither do three acquaintances of mine who are recently removed from the country. They used Burma (actually it sounds more like B'uma) but said they did use Myanma (sounds more like M'unma) when they were close by anyone official looking, for their own safety. I'm only writing this so you see my point of view. As I alread said, I'm not going to change it back so we really needn't argue the point anymore but I'm guessing that's why we don't see eye to eye on this issue. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:53, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

"Because the junta govt is not recognized by the US/UK... Union of Myanmar is not official." The the various international groups that govern over international law and handle international issues, including treaties, pacts, and agreements, as well as SOVEREIGNTY issues can just be ignored? The US/UK rule the world and everyone else doesn't matter? As an american, I am appalled that such ignorance is rampant. The UNITED NATIONS and the current government call it Union Of Myanmar. That makes it official. If I invaded the UK or Hawaii or any other named country above, took control, and renamed it Land Of Wankers, and the UN accepted that name in official documentation, then that's the new name. No amount of crying or chest thumping, or biteless barking, or any other such nonsense conducted by said non-related governments will change the fact that they have no control over another country's choice of name. One's government, {or even one's self} can delude themselves all they want, ignoring reality, revising history; but over in the real world, the name has been changed by the ruling power, and accepted as the official body of international law, The International Court of Justice, and the international body of political governing, The United Nations. It's official. Lostinlodos (talk) 01:30, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Heck, This is an English wiki and you can put all the faith you want into the UN. I have little. And that's the difference... if some nuts took over Your country and named it wankers it wouldn't surprise me that the UN would verify it. It does make me sad that you would cower and readily accept it though. To each his own I guess. Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:50, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Opinions like this have no place in Wikipedia editorial decision-making. I've lost all faith that you're seeking to write this article under any guise of objectivity. Long may you understand that something can be official and yet unjust. Bigbluefish (talk) 07:48, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

My choice to go along or become a rebel and fight back isn't the issue. What is "official" is. This being an English Language Wikipedia doesn't make any difference at all; English is the second most spoken language in the world, and one of three international languages of business. This site has visitors from all over the globe, many, if not most, of whom DO accept the UN's decisions. The UN's choice to recognize the current government has nothing to do with being fair. LIFE is not fair. In the end, no one disagrees that there is a new government in power, that that government chose Myanmar as the name, and that that government is conducting international relations. And since that controlling government is THE controlling government, that's who is currently official; like them or not.

My personal feeling have nothing to do with it (I didn't like the last government and I don't like the new one), as an editor on an Encyclopaedia, my DUTY to the commons is to point out the facts, free from opinion, personal belief, and bias. Lostinlodos (talk) 20:10, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Where did the Coat of Arms of Burma go?

Why was this deleted. Coat of arms of countries are public domain anyway. Azalea pomp (talk) 18:53, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually in looking up the legalities a case can be made that they are not public domain. I didn't remove it but I see the warning was up for quite awhile that it needed an official source, so I guess the bot finally swept the image into the trash. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:21, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Can't we just use the Russian or Chinese wikipedia's version of the coat of arms? Azalea pomp (talk) 23:45, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure those are just as iffy in the legal dept but I have no problem with trying it. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:45, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Usage across Wikipedia

Just wondering, is there any prescription about the usage of the name Burma and/or Myanmar throughout the project? Can editors freely choose between the two in other articles? --Avg (talk) 00:35, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

That's a good question. In the tennis articles (100's of them) there is no consistency with items that many dispute, but I have no idea what the actual protocol is. With tennis, people don't have time to make (rewrite/argue) 100s of corrections so each entry just sort of stands on it's own merit and with Burma/Myanmar I guess I just assumed it was the same way. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:43, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I think it is important to note that there is a lack of consensus on what to name the article for Burma/Myanmar which does not mean that there is some sort of official wikipedia decision on the name of the country. My interpretation of this is that it is up to individual editors to choose (and defend) whatever name they consider more appropriate in other parts of the project. In a sense, wikipedia reflects the ambiguity that exists on the name of that country and that's a good thing. --RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 14:39, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks both for your answers, do you think we could try to formalise this and mention somewhere (perhaps at the top of this article?) that irrespective of the country article title, Burma and Myanmar can be used interchangeably throughout Wikipedia?--Avg (talk) 22:37, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I assume you mean at the top of the talk page? I think it would simply open up a can of worms at each burma/myanmar page where every non wiki member and his brother would look at that as a green light to start little fires. Maybe I'm wrong on this but that would be my first thought. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:16, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

My intention was the exact opposite (to relax the rules and hence the edit wars since there wouldn't be a prescription from Wikipedia), but if you think this will raise more tensions then of course I withdraw my proposal immediately.--Avg (talk) 23:29, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

As I said, I could be very wrong with my thoughts on this issue. It does sound reasonable, but my gut tells me that a few nuts would see the notice and look at it as a green light to replace the terms (both ways) across the board with reckless abandon. Like a device in a Star Trek episode that can be a boon to man or a horrific weapon in the wrong hands, and I always see a Romulan right around the corner :-). Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:28, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

South Asia template

Academics often include Burma in South Asia. Burma is clearly mentioned as being sometimes included in South Asia via Template:Countries and Territories of South Asia. Another user has started an edit war and has began to remove this template. The template is auto-collapsed, so the idea that it takes up room at the bottom of the page is nonsense. This template fits and should remain on this page Thegreyanomaly (talk) 21:17, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Mispronunciations? IPA? Why not "myan-MAR"?

Is it a good idea to list incorrect pronunciations at the end of the first section? Compounding the problem, I know that Wikipedia house style is to assume that everyone can read IPA, but that isn't true. Less than 2% of all native English speakers can read the IPA.

The BBC article cited as the source of the correct pronunciation uses "myan-MAR" to explain the pronunciation. Wouldn't this article be a whole lot better with that instead of the wrong IPA transcriptions, which so few understand anyway? 75.36.154.125 (talk) 08:24, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

The German version has the IPA pronunciation /pjìdàunzṵ mjəmà nàinŋàn/. I think Template:Pronounced or Template:IPA might work. Although, like most people, I have no idea how to read IPA. 130.39.188.56 (talk) 21:01, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Please be sure to note I am not an expert in pronunciation or linguistics. I think it is misleading to put the mispronounced IPA transcriptions of Myanmar. I am not saying BBC's presentation was a bad idea. I'm just not sure if that would be applicable in an encyclopedia article or not. Thoughts, anyone, or am I just talking to myself on a dead discussion? (LOL) 98.202.38.225 (talk) 23:41, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Arms Trade With North Korea

NY Times 22 June 2009 has an article about a U.S. naval destroyer shadowing a North Korean freighter bound for Myanmar. Should this or how might this be folded into the section on Myanmar's foreign policy/military including mention of an arms embargo within the first paragraph?

Note: my original post of this discussion point included this link encased in http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/world/asia/22korea.html?partner=rss&emc=rss but does not show up (perhaps my naivete on wiki editing)

QueueNut (talk) 19:12, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

External "government" link

The external link under "government" [3] in fact leads to a commercial site with no government information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.172.186.229 (talk) 22:56, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Fighting and refugees

• "'Thousands Flee Burma Violence'". BBC News. 26 August 2009. Retrieved 28 August 2009.
• Fuller, Thomas (28 August 2009). "Refugees Flee to China as Fighting Breaks Out in Myanmar". The New York Times. Retrieved 28 August 2009.

Apparently some of the biggest fighting (between ethnic groups and government troops) in 20 years has broken out, and as many as 10,000 (some claim as high as 30,000) people have fled to Yunnan. This seems like a big enough event to deserve a mention in the article—would it be appropriate in the recent history section, or is there a sub-article somewhere that would work?

I think it would also qualify for ITN once the article is updated. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 15:38, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I've added a paragraph. Also, I should note that this seems to be big news in China; there's a lot of web coverage on Xinhua, etc., and on zh-wiki it even has its own article (zh:果敢八八事件, "Kokang 8/8 Incident") and the article on Kokang County is tagged with {{current event}}. The zh-wiki article also has some earlier and non-western sources such as [4] [5] (the rest, for the most part, are in Chinese). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 18:32, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

History of the Colonial era, 1942-1945

This section appears to be a history of the British war effort, rather than a history of Burma during this period. It is very weak. Cripipper (talk) 12:33, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Redirect categories

There are no Rcats on the Myanmar redirect page. I've placed two Rcats, {{R from alternative name}} and {{R with possibilities}}, on the Talk:Myanmar redirect, and these same Rcats should go on the Myanmar redirect, as well, don't you think? If there is agreement, then please insert these Rcats on the same line the #REDIRECT [[Burma]] is on with no spaces between the link and the first Rcat, and no spaces between the Rcats. Thank you very much! (If necessary, I can do an {{editprotect}} in a few days, if this is a non-controversial improvement.)  —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  08:59, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

{{editprotect}} Please place the following Redirect categories on the Myanmar redirect page. This appears to be an uncontroversial improvement. The Redirect categories should go on the same line as the Redirect link (to Burma), and there should be no spaces between the link and the first category, nor between the two categories. It will be easiest to just copy the following code and paste it over the entire code on the Redirect page. Thank you very much!

#REDIRECT [[Burma]]{{R from alternative name}}{{R with possibilities}}

 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  09:37, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

 Added — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:42, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

It's always a pleasure to thank you, Martin!  —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  01:56, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I've also added {{R printworthy}} which categorizes it as a Printworthy redirect. -- œ^™ 16:54, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Special administrative regions

Some states, especially Shan, seem to have "Special Region X" as subdivisions. (Mentioned at [6] and [7]). I think these are areas which are controlled by a local army instead of the central government? Are these first-order divisions? It would be interesting to have a canonical list and map. -- Beland (talk) 01:54, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I've mentioned that in the section Subdivisions_of_Myanmar#2008_Constitution. According to the 2008 Constitution, certain ethnic regions, will become Self-Administered Zones, administered separately from regions and states.--Hintha (talk) 23:16, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

UN

I am coming at this from a slightly different angle, the need for consistency across Wikipedia for naming conventions on nation-state articles. I have kicked off a discussion about it at the project page and would welcome views. Burma is clearly wrong if we use the official UN english names for nation-state members of the UN. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 12:51, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

That would really be wrong imho as there is no need for cookie cutter articles on wikipedia. The same thing was tried in sports/tennis and it didn't fly either. The UN is not the endall result that is needed in an english oriented wikipedia just as the UN stances on Tibet, Israel, US warcrimes do not necessarily get frontrow seats in articles. Flexibility is needed for each and every issue/article and once brought in that the UN word is what we always go with you get to the slippery slope problem when other items come up that are very unpopular. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:13, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Capital, Please

I thought the capital was Yangon(Rangoon), not Naypyidaw! Am I mistaken? Did it change? What's going on? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.96.65.108 (talk) 22:04, 20 September 2010 (UTC) It used to be Yangon but Naypyidaw was built to be the capital. Thylacinus cynocephalus (talk) 23:29, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

OK, but now, what's with the flag? 97.96.65.108 (talk) 19:15, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

New Flag!

Myanmar unveiled it's new national flag on Thursday 21 October, 2010. The new flag has been added to the Flag of Burma article but not this one. I will add it to the current article. Here is further evidence of the official status of the new flag. Dreammaker182 (talk) 19:47, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

News articles also claim that there was anthem change but there are no details on this one.--Avala (talk) 23:26, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Geography

Size of the coastline, in the first part of the article it is stated to be one third of the border length and under the Geography section it is stated as one quarter of the border. Could someone fix this please? Sorry if this post ends up in the wrong place, new to editing from my phone... 90.233.101.27 (talk) 15:43, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

New Anthem

Does anyone knows the lyrics of the new anthem, the name or its meaning???--Tercerista (talk) 19:39, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

According to this article in Burmese[8], Kaba Ma Kyei still is the anthem. The article specifically states that the anthem is the existing one. The lyrics shown in the article are exactly the same. It appears that the new law has simply reaffirmed the anthem. If the article here is correct, I'm not sure how the reaffirmation of the anthem came to be described as the change. It simply creates confusion. I was surprised at the news because this anthem dates back to the anti-colonialist movement, and is held in high esteem among the populace.Hybernator (talk) 20:08, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

So it is one of those cases in which the media got it all wrong. The flag changed and the name too. According to the media, those changes were proposed in 2008 in the "referendum", if the anthem wasn´t changed in that referendum, or in the new constitution, what we must assume is that the change they were talking about was a lie.--Tercerista (talk) 22:24, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Your guess is as good as mine. I'm not sure why they even brought up the topic if it's not changed. Or they should have clearly stated that the anthem remains the same. Hybernator (talk) 23:45, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Burmese font

I can't see this on Firefox. Where can I get this font from? K. the Surveyor (talk) 23:22, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Try this wiki page Help:Multilingual_support_(Indic). Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:36, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Pronunciation?

The Myanmar pronunciation linked to in commons sound more like the emphasis is on the last syllable instead of on the N or first syllable. I usually hear it like this link to websters... pronounce Myanmar. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:04, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

That doesn't sound Burmese to me at all. I can still hear the "N" in Myan and the final "r" in there, neither of which would be pronounced by a native speaker of Burmese. Using the English IPA notation, it's /mjəmɑː./. With Burmese IPA: [mjəmà]. Cheers. Hybernator (talk) 19:29, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

We need the English pronunciation(s), though the Burmese is of interest, too. Rothorpe (talk) 19:32, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't think there's an established English pronunciation, yet. What you hear on CNN, BBC, etc, are announcers trying to figure it out. Fact is few English speakers have been to Myanmar and/or come across native Burmese speakers even to establish a baseline pronunciation for English. So, your pronunciation is as good as theirs, I'm afraid. Hybernator (talk) 20:00, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

To recapitulate: CNN & AlJazeera: MEEanma(r); BBC, Sky News, France24: Burma. Rothorpe (talk) 20:15, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Did any country or international organization recognize the new name of Burma?

Did any country or international organization recognize the new name of Burma? USA, UK, UN, EU, etc. still use the name Union of Myanmar/Union of Burma, not new one. Aotearoa (talk) 14:35, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

The United Nations? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:39, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

UN still use Union of Myanmar [9], [10], [11],. Aotearoa (talk) 21:03, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

I see, misunderstood the question. I'm not sure they'd have to recognise it, give some time for the effects to filter though. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 00:38, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Still same – former name is used (also in website of Burmese Mission in Geneva – new flag and former name; Burmese embassy in Beijing – new flag and old name; CIA World Factbook – new flag and old name). Aotearoa (talk) 13:33, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

8888 Uprising of 1988

I've noticed that the "8888 Uprising and the SPDC" section has renamed to "1988 Uprising and the SPDC" a few times by new editors, probably in the belief that the 8888 is a typo. I've renamed the section to "8888 Uprising of 1988 and the SPDC" as an experiment to try and reduce this tendency, if there's a problem with this, please just revert it rather than leaving it pending a long discussion. Kiore (talk) 18:53, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Let's see if it sticks. I personally think the new title is a great idea. AgadaUrbanit (talk) 21:41, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Footnote2

Why is is noted here that AIDs is included in estimates? I'm sure it's included for all countries. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 10:28, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

From SPDC to Supreme State Council

Apparently the SPDC has been disbanded, and a new "Supreme State Council" will be set up, headed by Than Shwe and Maung Aye. According to these sources, anyway. [12] [13]. --Tærkast (Communicate) 20:05, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

New constitution / parliament

The current infobox describes the state as a "Military Dictatorship". With the sitting of the new parliament and proposed election of a "President" it is necessary for this description to be changed. I propose "Republic practicing disciplined democracy" with a wikilink to republic and disciplined democracy linking to Roadmap to democracy.Dn9ahx (talk) 16:07, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd hesitate to use disciplined democracy. Have they given an official title to their political status? At any rate, perhaps its best to wait till the issue of who is President etc. to be fully clarified, then the whole infobox can be changed. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 16:22, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree. While one hopes that we're seeing some sort of democracy emerge, I think a wait and see policy is advisable. --rgpk (comment) 17:03, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Would you say that Algeria, Venezuela, Russia, Uzbekistan, Yemen, and Azerbaijan are all democracies or republics? In essentially every other nation-state article on Wikipedia, the de jure government type is used, not what is considered a de facto government type by Western standards. I'd also argue that this article should be renamed to Myanmar, since that is the country's de jure name, but reviving that particular flamewar again seems like a bad idea. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kiralexis (talk • contribs) 18:11, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Though the new form of government seems to be the result of "fair" elections; in effect the military and it's regime created USDP still dominate and control the upper and lower houses and legislatures in the regions, this also results in the military choosing the President. See pages 2 and 4 on the Burma Policy Briefing nr. 4 [14] According to the definition of Military dictatorship Burma still is one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dicul (talk • contribs) 13:08, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Parlimentary republic or just Republic could also be an appropriate description for the new system. The election of three vice-presidents took place today and one of them will be selected as president on friday - some change will be needed in the infobox to refpect this new reality - even if it is just a military dictatorship in disguise - it is not de jure a military dictatorship Dn9ahx (talk) 14:22, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

What about something like Parliamentary Republic/Military Dictatorship? That might better reflect current reality. --rgpk (comment) 14:38, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

If I'm not mistaken, there's no mention of a Prime Minister in the new Constitution, so is it really a Parliamentary republic or a presidential republic with parliamentary features like in South Africa? --Tærkast (Communicate) 17:26, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

It' probably a mixture of presidential and parliamentary republic.--Tærkast (Communicate) 10:27, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

For informational purposes, britannica online still says 'military regime' (could be behind the times because of a lack of volunteers!). --rgpk (comment) 15:22, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

It's probably best to wait a while until we change the system in the infobox.--Tærkast (Communicate) 15:33, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

On a slightly related note, prodded along by a request on my talk, we should keep Than Shwe and his position as leader of the SPDC in the infobox until he no longer holds it when Thein Sein succeeds him as president. Therequiembellishere (talk) 05:16, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

obsolete

All pages about Burma is to old, or pages missing. Haabet 08:10, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

What??? I have no idea what this listing is about. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:23, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I see innumerable. Importantly: The country is near civil war. Mountain tribes have formed a joint army. see 2010-11 Burma border clashes.

Nats are a important part of religion in Burma, but not Buddhism. Haabet 10:56, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

According to the wiki article on Nats that is not true. Many academics consider it different dimensions of the same entity. At least that's how I read it. As for the border clashes, that might be something worth mentioning in the election turmoil section and I have done so. It may get reworded but at least it's in there. Better to ask here than to put up a tag where we have no idea what might need updating. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:51, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Thein Sein's inauguration

[15] A story about the official handover of "power" to the new civilian government.--Tærkast (Communicate) 12:08, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

SPDC dissolved

The SPDC has officially been dissolved with Thein Sein and the new Government being sworn in.--Tærkast (Communicate) 15:09, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Presidential republic?

Sure, the military junta officially dissolved but the de facto ruling party still supports it... and the National League for Democracy is illegal. 216.105.64.144 (talk) 01:04, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

There's no official confirmation that the SPDC still de facto exists. There is no evidence to suggest that the so-called State Supreme Council actually exists, and the NLD being illegal has nothing to do with the government type. The infobox describes its constitutional government type. We're not here for rumours or speculation.--Tærkast (Discuss) 11:49, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Requested move: Burma --> Myanmar

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move article at this time. If we were purely head counting, it's 37 (counting the nominator and one chap who tossed a coin) in favour of moving the article, and 37 in favour of not moving the article (counting one person who just said "Oppose" with no rationale). Of course, we don't purely headcount, we wake into account the weight of arguments, and here both sides do make reasonable arguments, and it is very hard to see a common thread in favour of one name or the other. Which is the more-commonly used name differs by country and by publication. As there is no clear consensus one way or the other, in such instances on Wikipedia the status quo remains, so the article will not be moved right now. I suspect there may be other move requests in the future, depending on what happens politically in the country, and there's no prejudice against such a discussion down the line arriving at a differing verdict. fish&karate 14:39, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

---

Burma → Myanmar – It's been three years since the last discussion on the title of this article and it is time to see if consensus has changed. Per WP:COMMONNAME, I think this article should now be at Myanmar. Three years ago, there was a strong case that the common name of that country was Burma but the world has changed since then and Myanmar has increasingly entered the common lexicon. The New York Times, for example, no longer even bothers mentioning the name Burma in its articles on Myanmar [16]. (Note: I strongly opposed the previous move request - on the grounds of common name but now support it for the same reason.) regentspark (comment) 13:55, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Should the article currently titled Burma be retitled Myanmar? Kauffner (talk) 13:49, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose I strongly oppose any move. We have had this whole debate before and there was never any consensus to change, and I do not see what is suddenly different now. I am from the UK, where the official name of the country in English is 'Burma', the historical name is 'Burma', the Government uses the name 'Burma', the Media use the name 'Burma', and the Burmese people here use the name 'Burma.' Enough Myanmarification please.--Angstriddenyouth (talk) 14:28, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support. RegentsPark is right - Myanmar is the most common name used today in reliable sources. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:34, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

The most respected and listened to News source in the world, the BBC, uses "Burma", as does your government, by the way. Those news organisations which use "Myanmar" do so for political reasons.--93.34.14.12 (talk) 16:47, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support. The rebels have had 22 years to change it. An unbiased encyclopedia shouldn't be taking sides; it should support the facts... Smarkflea (talk) 17:11, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

"The Rebels??" I think you mean the Burmese people. If you checked your facts, I think you would find that the winners of the last democratic elections in Burma, the party of Aung San Su Kyi, use and promote the use of the name "Burma." And to use the term "rebels" to describe the majority of the Burmese people in one sentence, and then to talk about being "unbiased" in the next is so ridiculous it deserves nothing but contempt.--93.34.14.12 (talk) 16:32, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Neither Su Kyi of the common people are in control of the country... Smarkflea (talk) 18:07, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Support. The world has changed indeed. Lynch7 17:16, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

The world has changed indeed, MikeLynch, dictatorships and military governments are falling. And the days when an unelected junta can try and change the name of a country without the support of the people are limited.--93.34.14.12 (talk) 16:51, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose:

• "Burma" About 89,300,000 results
• "Burma 'also known as Myanmar'" About 570,000 results
• "Myanmar 'also known as Burma'" About 575,000 results
• "Burma (Myanmar)" About 7,560,000 results
• "Myanmar (Burma)" About 10,200,000 results
• "Burma Myanmar" About 32,600,000 results
• "Myanmar Burma" About 14,200,000 results

The New York Times use Myanmar, but the BBC, The Guardian, and several British sources use Burma. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:18, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

I'll personally be happy if the article stays at Burma but:

"Myanmar": [17] last one year 577 million results

Burma: [18] last one year 273 million results

Note that Burma is the historical name of the country, so any date unrestricted search is likely to show many more instances of Burma than of Myanmar. Also, English language sources outside the UK (and possible Australia) have predominantly moved to Myanmar. --regentspark (comment) 18:42, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Myanmar seems to consistently come out on top in those searches. How does that cause an oppose? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 22:29, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose - I agree that things are changing but I'm not convinced they've changed enough. English Common name is important but I've found in tennis articles here on wikipedia that even if English common name is used 99% of the time in English sources it will likely be ignored. How I see the Burma/Myanmar dispute right now is as follows:

United States official name: Burma

UK official name: Burma

Canada official name: Burma

Australian official name: Burma

In an English wikipedia those entities carry weight.

As for the press:

United States press: I would say it's 2/3 to 3/4 in favor of Myanmar now. A big shift from 3 years ago. NY Times, CNN and AP use Myanmar, LA Times uses Myanmar (with Burma mentioned). Washington Post, Time Magazine and Voice of America use Burma.

UK Press: from what I can see it's all Burma

Canadian Press: I could only find 2 or 3 newspapers. They all used Burma. No idea what gets used on the tv news.

Australian press: The newspapers I could find all used Burma. No idea what gets used on the tv news.

3 years ago neighbors I knew from the country itself said in the interior away from areas of importation they called it Bama, while those living in areas of high exportation used Manma. I have no idea if that's changed.

Based on these items I'm not sure a name change is warranted but my oppose is much weaker now. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:52, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Fyunck, to your list of usage by country, I'll add the following (under the assumption that English is a language spoken in non-western countries as well):

Singapore press: Myanmar (Strait Times) [19]

Indian press: Myanmar (Times of India) [20]

Hong Kong press: Myanmar (South China Morning Post) [21]

New Zealand press: Myanmar (New Zealand Herald - not sure if this is a major newspaper or not). [22] --regentspark (comment) 13:22, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

(As an aside - the NZ Herald uses both! See [23] and, from just yesterday, [24]. On other NZ media sites, Burma is significantly more common - eg stuff.co.nz, the Dominion Post, etc.) Orderinchaos 22:10, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't think much weight should be given to countries whose language is not English as it's main language. Just like spelling and grammar they have their own agenda. Heck Thailand seems to use only "Burma" but I didn't list it when I originally was searching because I found it useless info. New Zealand is reasonable since I assume English is their primary language but then what is New Zealand's gov't stance on the matter? Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:10, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Am amazed that Thailand uses Burma rather than Myanmar - shows how little I know! No idea about official stance of NZ but official stances should not really matter. I do think we should include English language speakers everywhere because en.wikipedia caters to all English speakers regardless of what the main language is in their home country. Of course, English is the main language in Singapore and is the main language of many Indians (more, probably than the populations of the UK and Australia combined), so those two countries definitely carry weight. In the US, I think the pendulum has swung toward Myanmar (with the Washington Post the main holdout).--regentspark (comment) 18:30, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

When I started pulling up articles from "The Irrawaddy" I was surprised too. But almost every country uses some English so do we include them all just because the newspapers are translated. I think no, though I didn't say don't include it, I said I give it little weight. That's why we have multiple Wikipedias to cater to the different languages and their cultural differences. An article in Chinese will be written with a completely different point of view than one from Canada. I've been told by many here at wikipedia that when spelling a tennis players name we can't give much weight to how Wimbledon, the WTA (Womens tennis association) or the ATP (Association of tennis professionals) spell the players' name because their forte is not in spelling or academics. Well those other countries forte is not English, it is how their gov'ts perceive Burma/Myanmar, and their language comes first. It gets translated to be sure but not with the same weight as UK, US, Canada and Australia. It also does matter what the policy of these states are. They are primo English sources for the official name and places like the UK and their state dept say that Myanmar does not exist. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:05, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

That explains it. You can't use The Irrawaddy as representative of usage in Thailand. The Irrawaddy is run by Burmese democracy groups and uses Burma exclusively. I'm one of the few remaining subscribers of the now quarterly magazine but wouldn't use it to figure out the common name of Burma. I think it is a mistake on your part to give short shrift to non-Western English speaking countries like India and Singapore. En wikipedia is not primarily for English only speakers but serves an English speaking audience everywhere. I don't believe in counting population numbers but we shouldn't focus on official policy in western countries as a handy rule for decision making and shouldn't overstate commonality by looking solely at common usage in those few nations. That's my take on this anyway, hopefully the Baron will return and sort us all out :)

But I also didn't list Thailand. There were other sources from Thailand (mostly magazines and journals) that used Myanmar/Burma and Burma/Myanmar and others that were run by democratic organizations that also used Burma. What is it with all the democratic publishers in Thailand? I read two South Africa news articles that used Burma. I do not think it a mistake to downplay non-English first nations. Everyone at wikipedia when expressing opinion has sources they find strong and sources they find weak. It's argued about all the time here because no one agrees on anyone elses sources. The same thing here I would guess. I will never give an English version of an Icelandic newspaper the same weight as the Toronto Star, as far as an English sourcing goes. I know others will disagree but that's why we have the ability to support or oppose. And official policy does come into play because as it has been pointed out it's not just about "common name." Its official name, what it's called by the indigenous population, common usage, exonyms, etc... all these things get looked at. Everyone here will give different weight to different categories. I may think you are dead wrong in giving so much weight to a Chinese paper written in English, but it's your opinion, and you will use it to determine whether to say yea or nay here. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:22, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

• OPPOSE - per some of the common name and official name facts stated by Fyunck. Also, what is the language that is spoken in that country? What does one call someone from that country? Answer: Burmese. Not Myanmarese (or something else). Roxi2 (talk) 02:44, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I think that they are called Myanmas. Tbhotch.^™ Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions. 03:18, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

In counter, adjective for Holland or the Netherlands is "Dutch". We also still hear of Peking ducks, and I know a number of folks who would describe their culture as "Persian". -BaronGrackle (talk) 15:25, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose Per Names of Burma. Although "Myanmar" is the official and the common name in the world, this is the English Wikipedia and, as per Fyunck, Burma is the "common name" in English. Tbhotch.^™ Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions. 03:18, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support. I still am stunned when I hear somone say Burma, which I don't hear or read very often. I do hear it on BBC, but that is the exception for me. Although I have read the reasoning for the above votes, I still think the real reason individuals prefer Burma is a political stance against the current government and yes it is still petty. It never ceases to amaze me that if I call myself Mike and everyone else prefers to call me Jerk, do I have to be called Jerk because they prefer it? That makes no sense; my name is Mike; use it. The name of Myanmar is Myanmar; get over your preferences and call the nation by the name it has chosen. -^StormRider 19:11, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

The nation has made chosen it? No. The gang of criminals currently running it has chosen it. I understand the desire to avoid taking political sides in Wikipedia, but to say the nation has chosen the name is just a gross distortion. --Trovatore (talk) 09:52, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

I'll point out again that the "gang of criminals" forms the list of leaders and political information for the infobox we use in this article. We list the leader of this nation as Thein Sein, not Dr. Sein Win. We list its government center as Naypyidaw, not Rockville, Maryland. -BaronGrackle (talk) 15:25, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

As Nippon gets Englishized to Japan, and US gets changed in South America. Happens all the time. Munchen to Munich, Genova to Genoa, Deutschland to Germany, Novak Đoković to Novak Djokovic. So if 90% of the major English speaking countries call you Jerk StormRider, and you become famous, you can pretty well bank on it that you'll be listed as such here:-) Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:22, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Alas, how many decades need to pass before minorities accept the name? If we used your standard would the USA be the USA? Would China be China? We are 30 years into this nation being Myanmar. Wikipedia is not a political judge for the world; the nation's name is Myanmar. Keep your protests to personal blogs or as a nation maintaining a political agenda. Wikipedia is neither.-^StormRider 11:30, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Burma is not an Englishized Myanmar. The English term for Myanmar is Myanmar. That is just pure silliness; and it is a terrible excuse for a red herring. -^StormRider 11:30, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support It's claimed that Burma is a more common name, but the statistics above and the ones gathered post election on one of these talk pages seemed to show that the balance had tilted in the direction of Myanmar being the common name. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 22:55, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support It is a fact that the government of this country officially changed its name from Burma to Myanmar more than 20 years ago. This change was also recognized by the United Nations. So Wikipedia should reflect this. In my opinion, it seems that the persistent usage of the old name "Burma" is due to political reasons. AlexCovarrubias ^{( Talk? )} 07:11, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. "Burma" is certainly more common on Google Books, according to this ngram. It's the more common search term in all the English-speaking countries, including Britain and the U.S.. It is the usage of the CIA,Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Bangkok Post, BBC, Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail. This is an odd time for an RM. The country just got a new president who is likely to change the name again soon, at least according to this article: "Myanmar is Becoming Burma". Kauffner (talk) 07:28, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

  Let's say it wouldn't be as surprising as it would have been a year ago if Myanmar changed to Burma. However, that's something that can be dealt with if and when it happens. Meanwhile, this has been a niggling issue on the talk pages of the article and I think it is always worth revisiting consensus after a reasonable period of time, whatever the outcome. --regentspark (comment) 12:38, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

  I think we do not title article based on "the most common search term". Obviously, shorter search term is more preferable than the longer one. I do search using "Burma". If you compare United Kingdom and UK, number of searches using United Kingdom is almost non-existent. But that doesn't mean we have to title UK rather than United Kingdom. SWH^talk 17:32, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

  You think that readers are typing in "Burma" rather than "Myanmar" because they want to reduce the number of keystrokes from seven to five? Reducing keystrokes is certainly not as obvious a reason here as it is in the case of "UK" for "United Kingdom". "Burma" the most common search term readers in English-language countries use to refer to this subject and it doesn't really matter why. Unlike "UK", "Burma" also works as a formal name. Kauffner (talk) 04:26, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

  I just wanted to give one example of what might influence on search term usage. And it does matter because search term, unlike webpage, is not a tenable source. For their own reasons, many people, myself included, might use Burma in searching although they prefer Myanmar in writing. WP:AT states that prefers to use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources. I performed English language search, Myanmar without Burma 183,000,000 results. Burma without Myanmar 107,000,000 results. SWH^talk 10:49, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

  You realize that Web pages do not count as RS? Kauffner (talk) 12:09, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

  Sorry. Spelling errors. Excuse my English. I mean Search terms are not tenable sources to title an article. I think English-language reliable sources do not include search term. SWH^talk 14:13, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

You haven't read that article properly. It doesn't say that Myanmar is considering changing its name back to Burma. The title is using the names as a metaphor to allude to democratic reform. Nightw 21:11, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

I just noticed the bug on the top that says, "This article is written in British English". That seems an odd thing to put on an article that has that very little to do with Britain. But if we are taking that seriously, "Burma" is British usage over "Myanmar" by a decisive margin. Search term usage is 11-5, The Times is 2065 to 192, and the BBC is 3,329 to 653. Kauffner (talk) 16:38, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Just an aside on the British English thing — this probably relates to the WP:RETAIN section of WP:ENGVAR. There are no "strong national ties" to Britain, but it's not desirable to have editors fighting back and forth between different linguistic varieties, so articles are supposed to remain in the variety they're written in unless there's a consensus to change it for some reason. Someone put that tag there just to document which variety it was in. I'm not sure why there's not a corresponding template for American English. --Trovatore (talk) 17:54, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support as it's the country's current name. GoodDay (talk) 19:02, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support Per regentspark. I think we shouldn't compare usage of specific news agencies. Country by country comparison can also be misleading since it ignores the fact that Wikipedia titles articles based on English sources rather than sources of English speaking countries. Since general search results are already in favor of Myanmar, I perform searches within each country. Although I can't search for results from specific country, my searches based on country code top-level domain show in favor of Myanmar for all countries.

• Myanmar .ca domains -103,000 results
• Burma .ca domains -33,700 results
• Myanmar .au domains -351,000 results
• Burma .au domains -166,000 results
• Myanmar .uk domains - 1,520,000 results
• Burma .uk domains -797,000 results
• Myanmar .sg domains - 133,000 results
• Burma .sg domains -24,000 resultsSWH^talk 17:32, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

I deghosted the Myanmar site:*.ca number and it went from 103,000 (above) to 304. Deghosting Burma site:*.ca gives you 378 results. There is a limit of about 450 deghosted results, so you can't deghost the larger numbers. But "Myanmar" obviously hasn't really been mentioned on the Internet anything like 577 million times in the last year, pace regentspark. I did the Web numbers for the last month (instead of year) so that the result would be deghostable. I get 37 English-language results for "Myanmar", and 43 for "Burma". Kauffner (talk) 19:23, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Why did you deghost? What function did you use for that? I can't find it in Advanced Search. SWH^talk 10:49, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

How Google arrives at these numbers is a trade secret, but the common assumption is that their software is focused is on producing a page of useful results, so the result numbers they give may be wild guesstimates. It is unlikely that Google counts to 600 million in 0.25 seconds of computing time. Our guidelines recommend using Google Book results, not the Web numbers. Of course, these are ghosted too, but at least that method doesn't yield these multi-million result figures that don't seem to correspond to anything real. (I used the ngram above, which deghosts automatically for you.) As far as how you do deghosting, pull up the result screen and look at the bottom where there are sequential numbers, for example 1 to 10. Then click on the last number. Do this repeatedly until you get to the end of the series. Kauffner (talk) 11:55, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your explanation. But I get somewhat dissimilar results compare to yours. For Canada, Myanmar site:*.ca returns 425 results. Search for Burma returns 424 results. It seems unlikely in that there are only 425 results for Burma in .ca domains. I think the low number of results may be caused by results limit for each query. Google acknowledges that the numbers of results are estimate. But I don't see any reason why Google would make a huge error so that total number of Myanmar results which is about three times larger than that of Burma, can be overtaken by total number of Burma results.

I also like to use book results. But most books are quite old and therefore, only mention Burma, the previous official name.SWH^talk 15:41, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

For Google Books since 2000, it's 20,700 English-language hits for Myanmar Yangon OR Rangoon compared to 48,700 for Burma Yangon OR Rangoon. Since 2009, it's 1,160 for Myanmar, 2,680 for Burma. Kauffner (talk) 01:30, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Update I searched within each English speaking country. Results are below.

• Canada 8,040,000 results for Myanmar 2,930,000 results for Burma
• United States 136,000,000 results for Myanmar. 63,300,000 results for Burma
• United Kingdom 20,500,000 results for Myanmar 14,000,000 results for Burma
• Singapore 2,570,000 results for Myanmar 686,000 results for Burma
• New Zealand 1,330,000 results for Myanmar 883,000 results for Burma
• Australia 5,000,000 results for Myanmar 3,450,000 results for Burma SWH^talk 11:16, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Update (reliable sources) My searches in English language news, scholar, books, .gov domains, .edu domains and .org domains return the following results. I set time frame from 2009 Jan 1 to 2012.

• News Myanmar - 43,000 results. Burma - 21,800 results
• Scholar Myanmar - 16,100 results Burma - 16,000 results
• Books | Myanmar - 16,200 results | Burma - 24,200 results
• .edu domains Myanmar - 103,000 results Burma - 71,200 results
• .gov domains Myanmar - 143,000 results Burma - 143,000 results
• .org domains Myanmar - 24,100,000 results Burma - 17,200,000 results SWH^talk 07:24, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support and I think everyone knows why. If this doesn't happen, then I'm hoping someone parodies this until it does. Thylacinus cynocephalus (talk) 21:40, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

  Well now there's a nice reasonable approach to things. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:36, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support per commonname and pretty much everything I've posted in these discussions over the years. Timrollpickering (talk) 00:22, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose I think COMMONNAME still favours Burma, at least in the UK. Absconded Northerner (talk) 07:57, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

• Strong oppose. Nothing has changed since previous discussions. This is en-WP, and the name change is not diplomatically recognised by English-speaking governments, eg. [25], [26], [27], [28]. Whatever the limitations of using google hits, it is clear that they do not support a case for Myanmar as the common name (e.g. I get 13.8 million hits for "Burma" in Google Books and only 1.8 million for "Myanmar".) --FormerIP (talk) 01:19, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support Since when does Wikipedia march in lockstep with the diplomatic decisions of governments? Ultimately, the reality of the situation is that the government in control of the state in question changed the English name of the country more than 20 years ago. Whether they're good or bad people, or whether they're supported by this or that government, is irrelevant--Wikipedia should reflect reality. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.229.202.4 (talk) 07:14, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

  Wikipedia does try to reflect reality, which is why we prefer common names over official ones. Your premise that an official name reflects reality is an incorrect one. --regentspark (comment) 09:33, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support – quite simply, the current government of the country call the country “Myanmar” in English, so that name should be preferred over “Burma” on an encyclopedia that should be stating pure facts and nothing else. MTC (talk) 07:24, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

  Note that it is also a 'pure fact' that the country is known as Burma therefore this is a weak argument for supporting the move. Wikipedia has a clear policy on using common names rather than official ones, therefore the discussion should revolve around what the country is commonly known as in English rather than around what the current government calls it. --regentspark (comment) 09:29, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support - My rationale being that either Myanmar is more common a name in English, or that both names are used so commonly that we must refer to other criteria. And if we must use other criteria, I'd go with official self-identification. But while Burma generally wins the Google Books searches (as the historical name in English), it seems that Myanmar shows up more often on any other search engine or online encyclopedia. Even when you look to the United Kingdom (the English-speaking region in which Burma is most often used), consider that Encyclopedia Britannica uses the name Myanmar. (Or I could summarize my thoughts by finding that old quote by Timrollpickering, from years ago.) -BaronGrackle (talk) 15:25, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

strongest possible support WP is not based on how many views a google word search gives, its based on NPOV and the country is officially and by UN STANDARDS (as is the norm) mentioned as Myanmar. Because a couple of western readers and exiles dont see as such doesnt distort the facts on the ground. We dont like in a Rhodesian lala land

"burma" is merely the ANGLOPHONE version of the name!

Fyunck/FormerIP: the english wikipedia is NOT the word of the govts of the uk/usa/aus/can, or any govt for that matter. (if that was the case then the whims of italy and other countries would be followed by WP to CENSOR) thats where your understanding of WP is off.Lihaas (talk) 17:49, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Nor is it the whim of the UN. There are many factors that go into what the country is called by others as has been pointed out in the past. 3 years ago the majority of people living inside the country didn't call it Myanmar. I don't know what the majority there call it today. 3 years ago it was..if thugs took over the state of Kansas and renamed it thugville shall we call it thugville until order is restored? No, we call it what the US calls it...Kansas. Now has the situation changed in Burma/Myanmar... I think it has, but has it changed enough? That I'm not so sure of. If the vast majority here at wikipedia wants to change the name to Myanmar I will abide by that consensus as I do all consensus rulings. That's how things work around here. But your understanding of this issue is the thing that is way off. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:01, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Also, for Lihaas, Burma is not the anglophone version of Myanmar. Burma is derived from the colloquial Bama and not from Myanmar. The region has, for example, been called Barma by Indians for millennia, long before the arrival of the anglo people. Best to read up a little history before making categorical statements in uppercase. --regentspark (comment) 19:12, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support. I've been waiting for this for years. The idea of not calling a country by an official name it has had for over 20 years is an abuse of language and common sense, regardless of a political point of view. And frankly, for those political activists, it hasn't worked very well in any case, has it? I live in Chiang Mai, Thailand and the Myanmar people call it Myanmar and sometimes Burma, but they are not being political when they do that. For them it is the sense of calling the US either US, USA, the United States, the United States of America, or America. But the Wikipedia article should represent some form of current official reality. Jeffmcneill (talk) 15:37, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

  Articles on wikipedia are not titled by official names of entities but rather by their common names (see WP:COMMONNAME). That is one of the strongest policies on wikipedia and is one of its greatest strengths. If you wish to argue that Myanmar is the common name of that country in English, then this is the place to make that argument. If you wish to replace the "common name" policy by an "official name" policy, then the right place for that is Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles. Meanwhile, perhaps it would be better not to suggest that opposers have arguments that have not been explicitly made (such as political ones). --regentspark (comment) 20:45, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

  My argument is regarding common names, and others have indeed made the political argument suggested in my reply. Not all opposers are doing so for political reasons, but some certainly have. This debate is wide ranging and I wanted to lay out a few suggestions. Jeffmcneill (talk) 10:45, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

  I can't really see a single oppose !vote that is for political reasons above but never mind. I'm afraid that your stated reason "not calling a country by an official name ...." is not a WP:COMMONNAME argument. If you believe that Myanmar is the common name of the country, you need to show evidence that supports that. The fact that it is the official name chosen by the government does not make it a common name.--regentspark (comment) 13:05, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose The change of name has not received international recognition and therefore is not in the same league as for example Siam and Persia now being called Thailand and Iran. TFD (talk) 05:39, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

  Yes it has by the UN and many others. See discussions above. Jeffmcneill (talk) 10:45, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose British English is Burma, American seems to be Myanmar. We don't switch without reason.--Kotniski (talk) 08:37, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

  There are reasons to switch, well debated above. This is the English Wikipedia and not British English. Granted this is more complicated and nuanced, but just because the article is using British English does not mean that the title of the article is determined by that version of English. Jeffmcneill (talk) 10:45, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

  Well even if for some bizarre reason the title is allowed to be in a version of English which is different from that used for the rest of the article, there's still no reason to switch, either for the title or for the article.--Kotniski (talk) 11:00, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

  I'm not sure ENGVAR applies here. This isn't like truck/lorry, where words are used differently based on cultural background. It's more political for Burma/Myanmar, and both words are used in both countries. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 11:28, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

  American usage is either split or 2-1 "Burma", depending on how you measure it. The editors claiming that "Myanmar" is the common name are counting non-English Web use. As far as ENGVAR goes, this RM will create a new consensus. Anybody can put an ENGVAR bug in a header. We aren't bound by that. Kauffner (talk) 12:05, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

  ENGVAR is a double edged sword here because the article was originally at Myanmar (first non-stub version is the default according to WP:ENGVAR). FYI. --regentspark (comment) 13:57, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose per common-name, but without prejudice to revisiting in a year or so. Also note that Google counts (although I use them myself) should be taken with a pinch of salt, preferably two - for example I get "About 50,300,000 results" for the M word and "About 83,900,000 results" for the B word, however (if anyone can check) neither of these numbers are likely to be the real number of hits. Similarly the half a billion news hits claimed for the past year (for each name) are likely to be grossly inflated. Rich Farmbrough, 10:50, 20 October 2011 (UTC).
  
• Comment Straight Google hits are entirely irrelevant and any comments based on those should be ignored. What we want to know is what do reliable sources do? What do the top media sources do, lets list 10-15 at least (and seriously you'll waste far more time arguing about it than you will finding those sources), and what do academic sources do. When we have the answer to that we know which title we should pick between the two. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:52, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose—I think if usage is only slightly in favor of Myanmar that it doesn't really justify changing a longstanding title; especially if the current longstanding title is more common in some English-speaking regions. I don't think we want to give to much weight to "official" sources like what nation recognizes the title or whether the UN uses which title. The UN is not the arbiter of our titling, usage in RS should be. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:46, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

  Please don't oppose just for the sake of status quo. This title is not really that longstanding and has never been stable; there's considerable controversy on its title move to Burma in 2007 (just look at the list of archive pages immediately following). Let's decide this as if it were fresh. And Burma might be more common some places, but Myanmar is more common in arguably more. -BaronGrackle (talk) 20:05, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

  There are plenty of good reasons to oppose. I'm just saying that the bar probably ought to be higher than 51% of usage. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:25, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support. This is a close one. So I flipped a coin. I have no problem with it being renamed. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 00:50, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

  lol... some days that's as good a reason as any around here. Fyunck(click) (talk) 03:01, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. I wasn't sure if I was allowed to vote twice in order to neutralise that last vote. So I did. --FormerIP (talk) 01:06, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

  I don't know of any circumstance where a user is allowed to vote twice in order to "neutralize" another user's vote. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 02:28, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

It's when they toss a coin. I'm sure its in the guidelines somewhere... --FormerIP (talk) 13:47, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Not an issue at all. It's not a vote anyway and a clearly visible second !vote should be perfectly fine. Given the situation, this is probably the best solution anyway! --regentspark (comment) 13:53, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

It's in the guidelines that if someone states that they decided by flipping a coin, another user is permitted to vote in the opposite way to "neutralize" the original vote? I'd have to see that one to believe it! It sounds like something that would have showed up on a WP humor page. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 02:03, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support - Per nominator. Adrian (talk) 08:19, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support - Myanmar is the common name. It's important to look at current results, such as Google News, as opposed to old results, as Burma is obviously the historic name of the country. --Globe-trotter (talk) 08:43, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support - Per nominator. Currentusage Agathoclea (talk) 19:38, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose Burma seems best as the common name. Warden (talk) 19:55, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. Wikipedia does not prefer the politically correct version. The claim above that "burma" is merely the ANGLOPHONE version of the name! (made in support of a move, their capitalisation) is actually an argument against it. English usage has not changed. Andrewa (talk) 20:07, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Actually, the politically correct version is "Burma", in the sense that it ignores reality to push an anti-government POV. Both authoritative and colloquial English usage in Anglophone countries has evolved to Myanmar independently of the US and UK governments, as User:Soewinhan demonstrated in his search of reliable sources. Quigley (talk) 20:30, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
    • Disagree, obviously. This seems to be a restatement of the POV already quoted in my rationale. Andrewa (talk) 21:26, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support per WP:COMMONNAME and Soewinhan's data provided above, particularly the recent news sources. (Google scholar and book sources will also include articles discussing the history of Burma/Myanmar, which was formerly--and indisputably--Burma, so there will be false positives.) If double the recent news sources are using Myanmar, we should be using Myanmar too. Calliopejen1 (talk) 20:23, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I did some Google Book searches where I tried to restrict the search to contemporary politics, but that only increases the advantage enjoyed by "Burma." Compare here and here. Kauffner (talk) 04:52, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support. Wikipedia needs to stop playing internet revolutionary and start reflecting reality. Quigley (talk) 20:30, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. To start with, the largest broadcast news organization on the planet (which happens to be in the English language) is the BBC including the BBC World Service (sources: http://news.bbc.co.uk/aboutbbcnews/hi/this_is_bbc_news/default.stm, https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/BBC_World_Service). The BBC uses "Burma" 100% of the time. Aside from the 60-odd million people the domestic BBC broadcasts too, the World Service has an English-speaking audience of 188 million people. This utterly eclipses eg. the New York Times (31mil) and most others. My reason for mentioning this is that proper weight needs to be assigned to the size of each organisation taking a position, and to ignore this aspect is to be misleading. It seems all that has changed in the past 3 years is a few small (relatively speaking) American news organizations switching their position to Myanmar, not anywhere near enough IMHO to warrant a name change. It would have to be a large swing to Myanmar in the past 3 years to overturn the previous result to keep Burma, and the numbers just do not support this when properly weighted as above. C 1 (talk) 20:53, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support, with the exact same reasoning as last time: "the official short English name is Myanmar. At such time as Suu Kyi can take rightful control of the government, then rename it Burma." --Golbez (talk) 20:57, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support. A government chooses upon its name and this particular administration, popular or not, has its governance universally recognised leaving the insult "Burma" confined exclusively to sources whose coverage is wholly unfavourable toward the system. The demonym "Burmese" is fine however. Evlekis (Евлекис) (argue) 21:03, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Strongly Oppose Burma remains roughly twice as common. Furthermore, this is one of the few cases where a reliable source (the BBC) has an assertion on which name is more recognizable; the BBC was using Burma (without Myanmar), within the last 24 hours. Ignore all arguments that we have to use Myanmar "because it's the official name," which remains a demand that WP adopt the POV of the Burmese Government. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:43, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. Burma is the most common and the most correct name. —Nightstallion 21:45, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

  The "correct" name is what the country says is it's name, the country says it's name is Myanmar and thus that is the correct name. The other countries who disagree do so for political reasons. TJ Spyke 21:50, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support For one, it's the name of the country, there is no disputing that. As a result, it is commonly used by many reliable sources. From what i've seen, most news sourced that use Burma do so because their country considers that the name and they go by what their country says. TJ Spyke 21:50, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose. Most people say 'Burma'---for one thing they all know how to pronounce it; the new one has several pronunciations. Rothorpe (talk) 21:58, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:COMMON. Links such as [29] and [30] from the Australian government are but one example. One doesn't eat Myanma food, one eats Burmese food. One doesn't speak Myanma, one speaks Burmese. Google searches are only useful for certain things, and there's a huge margin of error - if it was 90/10, that would be a reasonable basis, but most of these are only either side of 50/50, so you could just be getting multiplicity of links or Google selectivity getting in the way. For possibly the first time ever, I find myself in agreement with Pmanderson - this is essentially a POV issue (we should stay politically neutral, basically - it's a cornerstone of Wikipedia). Orderinchaos 22:07, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:COMMON and Names of Burma. There is clearly no consensus for the proposed move. Moonraker (talk) 22:17, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Strongly Support, because that's its name! Also, convince me that Myanmar will never ever become more commonly used internationaly, and I'd reconsider. Moriori (talk) 22:24, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

• Very weak support Given that the arguments here are exactly the same as last time, it's not worth another dramatic interlude. Both Burma and Myanmar are transliterations of the same name, so the only difference is which political authority we accept. I'd rather stick with the more modern transliteration. Common usage is split, official usage is split, and while I think Myanmar is where it will end up eventualy, I don't see any value in a sixty megabyte flamewar over which is the redirect and which is the article. We could spell it out in IPA and make both Burma and Myanmar redirects to drive home the point that they're really the same, but that would be silly. SDY (talk) 22:34, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose per [31]. As soon as those two lines cross, I'll vote support. Kaldari (talk) 22:43, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. Both names are used, but it isn't at all clear that 'Myanmar' has overtaken 'Burma'. Leave well enough alone. —WWoods (talk) 22:47, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose Per WP:ENGVAR, we should use the name used by the English-speaking country with the strongest national ties to the subject. That is Great Britain, which has a strong consensus among sources for "Burma". --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 00:08, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. I can't speak on behalf of the whole world and haven't done the research like some people have done above but within Australia the common name is still Burma. The above Google hits and newspaper sites research also seems to suggest Burma is more commonly used. As for bias, I think both names are politically biased. Whether you are from Burma/Myanmar or from another country, if you are pro-government then you will prefer Myanmar and if you are anti-government you will prefer Burma. Neither name is devoid of bias unfortunately. Gizza^{Talk ©} 00:45, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose per COMMONNAME. I basically agree with what people have said above and also think that "Burma" is more common in the US in common parlance. Obviously purely anecdotal but people are slow to change (especially to something so awkward for the Anglophone tongue as "myanmar") even though i agree that media orgs are starting to tilt in that direction. InspectorTiger (talk) 01:30, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

• oppose. "Burma" is the name in the English language. "Myanmar" might be the correct transliteration of what the Burmese call their country in their language, but the article on that big country in central Europe is Germany, not Deutschland. Just because in the past few years, a few more people have decided to be pretentious or politically correct and call Burma by its endonym does not mean that Wikipedia should follow suit. Most material published about the country still refers to it as Burma, and privileging the more recent use over older use, when there's been no significant change in the country to warrant a change, is recentism, and should be avoided. Argyriou (talk) 03:47, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support. Myanmar is the correct name. Everyking (talk) 04:01, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support It's not clear which is more commonly used (Myanmar seems to be more common in the United States, while Burma seems to be more common in the countries currently ruled by Elizabeth Windsor), so in this case, WP should use the country's official name which has been recognized by the United Nations, ASEAN, every other international organization, and the vast majority of national governments around the world. --Tocino 04:56, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support - as with quite a few claims of 'common usage', and as with everytime we discuss the issue on Myanmar/Burma, all the evidence suggests there's no clear cut common usage, it depends how you spin the sources. What is still clear, as it always has been is both are used extensively in English sources. Arguments like we don't call it 'Deutschland' are flawed, no one has every suggested the country should be called Deutschland in English except for those who try to make the argument and definitely the government of Germany does not. I don't believe we should ignore countries just because their English usage is not so common, particularly when they often have far greater involvement in Myanmar then where it's called Burma. Arguments concerning the denonym are moot, we aren't discussing whether to change the denonym. As others have said, both names clearly involve a lot of political issues, although it's clear choosing to use the name Myanmar doesn't necessarily mean the party involved supports the current government, simply that they recognise the current reality. By comparison, it's clear when it comes to governments, most who are choosing to stick with Burma are doing so because of rejection of the government (compare Timor-Leste where most of the government still using Burma have embraced Timor-Leste). Taking all this in to consideration when it comes down to it, there's no clear cut choice. Normally this means we stick with WP:ENGVAR and follow the first contributors choice (which was Burma). However while no guideline explicitly supports this concept, I suggest that when the current government of a self defining entity has expressed a clear preference for a English name of that self defining entity and when many other bodies have chosen to accept that preference then I think we should too, when we can't make a choice by some more logical means then 'first contributors choice'. And yes this applies both ways, if the government makes an about turn and starts to ask to be called Burma in English there's a very good chance we should be moving back within a year or 2, just as most governments will. Some may dislike this chopping and churning but that's one advantage of being an online encylopaedia anyone can edit, we don't have to be fixed for a long period when it isn't necessary. And as I've already said, when there's no clear cut common usage and no other good arguments to stick with one over the other, going with what the government and many other bodies actually call the country makes more sense then whatever name the first contributor happened to use. Also I should mention I would strongly oppose the outcome of this discussion being used as an excuse to change the name in other articles en-masse. Most likely stuff like 'Outline of Burma' should change if this article changes but this would need to be discussed properly first (probably in bulk). If we stick with the status quo, there's even less reason to change an article without discussion since there is obviously some reason why the name is used which probably wasn't changed by this discussion. P.S. I do thank Fyunck for notifying me. Nil Einne (talk) 05:07, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support, and even though it is less obvious then the page for Thailand not being "Siam", or the page for Iran not being "Persia", Wikipedia simply should not keep it at this name. It does not make sense for a usually well-written source. Thylacinus cynocephalus (talk) 06:47, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support - Because all the reliable stats linked above disprove the political-based myth that Burma is more prevalent. Hooper (talk) 10:29, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support - I think we need to use the official names, otherwise there can be no standard of naming and we are open to accusations of political bias. Thanks, ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 13:41, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose, because the area has always been Burma and the name can not be changed with every regime change. The official name of the state is Republic of the Union of Myanmar, but name of the country is Burma. H2ppyme (talk) 13:51, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose - Burma is the common English name. Temporary usage changes by the media do not represent an accurate note on the use of the name. Burma carries historical significance and reference. Such as the Burma Road. Alyeska (talk) 15:55, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose Per all the opposes but more specifically PMAnderson/Septentrionalis. Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 16:09, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose as per all opposes above. Specifically, I'd like to address the second comment in favour for the change by User:Smarkflea, who states that the "rebels have had 22 years to change it. An unbiased encyclopedia shouldn't be taking sides; it should support the facts..." Let's get this straight; the NLD are not rebels. They legitimately won the 1990 election in Burma which were free and fair (confirmed by Western monitors), only to be illegally denied power by the military junta. The fact is that the name change from Burma to Myanmar has not been endorsed by the NLD, which are (legally) the legitimate government in the country chosen by the people. This is not called taking sides; this is called respecting the wishes of the rightful and lawful government in the country, who have been unjustly impeded from taking power since 1990. The only prominent groups to support such a name change in Burma are the military junta and their cronies who "won" the 2010 elections, which were declared fraudulent, demonstrating that their government is de facto and carries no legitimacy whatsoever among Western & English-speaking countries, which have respected the wishes of the NLD in calling the country Burma. Wikipedia should do the same. Bloom6132 (talk) 18:03, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

  The nld is not in charge of the country. The military is, and has been for a long time, and it's time for you to face facts. The NLD is nothing but the opposition, and they have no official say in this... Smarkflea (talk) 17:46, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

  Get off your soapbox. The fact is, if the military had real legitimacy (both from the Burmese people and the English-speaking countries internationally), why can't they overturn the numerous foreign embargoes slapped right on the country, while Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD can? Bloom6132 (talk) 17:11, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

• Wholeheartedly support, per supporters above. I, too, had been waiting for this for a long time. Wikipedia should be documenting things as they really stay. As demonstrated above, which one of the two names is more common depends on how you spin the sources and how you define their weight, and even if "Burma" turns out to actually be more common than "Myanmar", the margin will be a very narrow one and the COMMONNAME rule will have to be applied way too literally. Of course the government of a country can change its name whenever it wishes to do so; all the rest is irrelevant. If "Burma" were a universal English "translation" of "Myanmar", then the bolded official name in the opening sentence would be stating "Republic of the Union of Burma", instead of "Republic of the Union of Myanmar". --Theurgist (talk) 01:26, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. Several users have shown above that quality sources still favour "Burma". This combined with a wider general familiarity of "Burma" over "Myanmar" supports the current title. If this changes, I will reconsider. —  AjaxSmack  02:17, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support. I find myself typing Myanmar far more than Burma these days, and the name is unlikely to change again in the short term. UN recognition is important, though not absolute, as is our common name rule, which resulted in a controversial move of the PRC to "China", even though I could not see any clear consensus for that move. Not a direct comparison to this one, but nonetheless, as I said during that move, which applies here equally, the end result will not satisfy everyone. Will there be consensus for this move? We are likely again to get a mixed consensus, but I now support the official name of Myanmar.--Tærkast (Discuss) 10:32, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose: really, who knows what the "correct" name is? But that's irrelevant. Wikipedia uses the most common name and the name which is most immediately recognisable by the most number of people - Burma. that's all. --Merbabu (talk) 11:26, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support We can argue all day about which name is more commonly used (in my area, it's Myanmar), but the fact is that there is considerable regional variation. What to do? The logical thing would be to call the nation by the name that the nation typically calls itself, or the appropriate anglicized variant thereof. Buddy431 (talk) 01:08, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support The country's name is Myanmar. The fact that the US and UK governments refused to use its new name out of protest is irrelevant.--Guerillero | My Talk 05:16, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

"Burma" is the official name of the country in the UK and the US, and should be used in those countries. If you wish to use the name "Myanmar", I suggest you learn Burmese, and go and live in Burma, where the military Junta will force you to use the name "Myanmar" anyway. Good luck with the freedom of speech.--93.34.14.12 (talk) 17:56, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Do the UK and US get to determine what countries are called? Should we not take into consideration the views of the United Nations, a global body, and other countries who do use the name "Myanmar"?--Tærkast (Discuss) 20:28, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

WP should be basing the country name according to what English-speaking countries call it, since this is English Wikipedia, not French or Chinese Wikipedia. The last time I checked, the UK, US, Canada and Australia (which make up the majority of the world's English-speaking population with more than 369m) all recognize Burma as the official name, so their opinion takes precedence to that of non-English speaking countries or the UN (which has 6 official languages). And just a side note, even French Wikipedia uses the name "La Birmanie," even though the French government utilizes the name Myanmar. Bloom6132 (talk) 17:37, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

The sources in discussion below seem to suggest otherwise. In anycase, I still believe the article should now be at Myanmar.--Tærkast (Discuss) 17:50, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose: I use Burma in everyday conversations, and people (including ones from other countries) understand where I mean. They don't tend to understand Myanmar. I suggest Burma to be the most useful name. (How many English Wikipedia users will not be familiar with Burma when they are familiar with Myanmar and vice-versa? Any data on which name is looked up more often?) Allens (talk) 17:42, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

  Does the most-looked-up name mean it's most commonly used, or does it mean it's least recognizable and therefore must be looked up when seen? Methinks some folks might change their answer, depending on which name it is. :) -BaronGrackle (talk) 17:54, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose: I keep seeing Burma everywhere but Myanmar nowhere. Myanmar, what's that? Furthermore, someone listed a source above telling that several large important English-speaking countries recognise the country as Burma instead of Myanmar. (Stefan2 (talk) 21:27, 24 October 2011 (UTC))

  Willful ignorance is a terrible reason to vote. --Golbez (talk) 22:10, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

  One, this is a poll not a vote. And two, willful ignorance never stops people from voting in UK or US elections. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:21, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

  One, yawn. Two, we have the benefit of whoever closes this having the ability to discard useless votes, unlike in the UK and US. --Golbez (talk) 22:32, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose for reasons already given. The Jade Knight (talk) 21:48, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. —MJCdetroit ^{(tell me)} 01:19, 26 October 2011 (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. No further edits should be made to this section.