Talk:Czech Republic

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 16 August 2024

Change {{Redirect-distinguish-for|Czechia|Chechnya|other uses}} to {{Redirect-distinguish|Czechia|Chechnya}}{{Other uses|Czechia (disambiguation)|Czech Republic (disambiguation)}}

Reasoning: Changing the orders of such notices can make it more understandable, and there is less complexity in the template coding/parameters for the matter. ѕιη¢єяєℓу ƒяσм, ᗰOᗪ ᑕᖇEᗩTOᖇ 🏡 🗨 📝 23:10, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

 Done Bunnypranav (talk) 09:31, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)#Ngrams_updated

For the interested. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 05:47, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

As you might expect, the new data doesn't show that much of a difference from the previous... still a massive lead for Czech Republic in usage: [1][2][3] I can't imagine there being a case for moving this any time soon, at least based on this evidence. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 18:48, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Ouch... Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:35, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Do I sense a malicious joy in that message? Well, firstly, it's clearly up to 2022, even though we know that in many sports (the main driver of usage) it started being used much later. And secondly, I followed the case of renaming Cote d'Ivoire, and there the dominance on Ngram for the renaming wasn't enough, they even mocked Ngram saying it only contains books, which is insignificant. Ngram is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition. The decreasing trend of the republic and the increasing trend of the non-republic can still be seen there, although at a linear pace it would take a long time. It's enough for the BBC and CNN to step up and it's done... Which might be tomorrow, maybe never, nevertheless, the case can be built on other foundations besides Ngram or two news sources. Chrz (talk) 22:10, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

I like to think I'm not malicious on this issue, but I did find it ironically humorous. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:43, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

You need to know what kind of ngram sources are being combined. If these are 2+ year old books (and not online news), it's unlikely that they will contain a name that has only been used regularly since around 2022+. Especially in sports, you can expect phrases like 'Czechia wins' or even just 'Czechia'. Chrz (talk) 08:38, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

Just Google, last year, English

"Czechia wins" 776x, "Czech Republic wins" 1040x

"Czechia won" 911x, "Czech Republic won" 2730x

"Czechia has won" 340x, "Czech Republic has won" 691x

The sources would still need to be weighted, but the results are better, if you absolutely must use that phrase. Chrz (talk) 08:44, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

Another angle:[4] Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:30, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

"maybe never". Remember that. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 16:47, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

BBC and CNN would be helpful, but I suspect it wouldn't satisfy you anyway. The argument can be made even without their involvement. I'm not sure why they would continue to stubbornly decline indefinitely. Unless, of course, the Czech Republic were to reconsider and no longer pursue it. Chrz (talk) 20:20, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Does the Czech Republic pursue it? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:51, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Given that the state registered it in as ~ many places as possible, I'd say it's true. A couple of years ago, you (not you you) mentioned here how 'Visit Czech Republic' hadn't been renamed yet, and how you still saw 'Czech Republic' on jerseys. So, the situation is different now. As an example. The transition to the new name is gradual, which was one of the complaints back then - that people don't like sudden changes. And they don't. It's not like other renamings because, as you know, this isn't a complete name change for the country and the 'old' name is still valid. Chrz (talk) 18:29, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

odd use of english

It is a welfare state with a should be

It has a welfare state with a 

or even

It has an advanced welfare state with a abelljms (talk) 10:44, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

You're mistaken. It is a welfare state. Largoplazo (talk) 12:45, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 1 October 2024

Czech Republic → Czechia – So, this is a perennial topic, but we said we would return to it in October to re-evaluate in the light of the Olympics, which is the latest in a long string of contexts in which we have recently seen a rapid change in usage.

Before we get into arguments on the details, can we perhaps first have clarity on the criteria? These are laid down at Wikipedia:Article titles. May I suggest that everybody read that before they comment here? I think we can save ourselves a lot of time if we all agree to follow policy. Past discussions have suffered a lot from misinformation about this.

Assuming that a subject has more than one title in reliable sources, the choice should be made primarily on five key criteria (shortcut WP:CRITERIA): recognizability (defined to mean that someone familiar with the topic will know what is meant), naturalness (meaning people will find it in a search), precision (what is most correct), concision (fewer words are better than more) and consistency (the article title follows a similar pattern to other articles on parallel topics).

The policy page then goes on to talk about the rule of thumb that it is helpful to find the most commonly recognizable name (shortcut WP:COMMONNAME), not as an end in itself, but because this will often shed light on what best meets the five criteria. The logic is that if experts in the field have come to a consensus on terminology, they will usually have alighted on something that is recognizable, natural, precise, concise and consistent. So for present purposes, common name means what is commonly used by relevant authoritative voices. It specifically does not mean we should follow whatever is statistically most commonly used by people on the street who may have limited familiarity with the topic, and the policy page warns against giving too much weight to Google hits and the likes. Rather, "[i]n determining which of several alternative names is most frequently used, it is useful to observe the usage of major international organizations, major English-language media outlets, quality encyclopedias, geographic name servers, major scientific bodies, and notable scientific journals."

I hope we can agree on those principles. So how do they apply to this case? Here’s my take. Czechia seems to me to fit all the five criteria, and on three of the five, it fits better than Czech Republic.

1. recognizability – both options are equally recognizable; we’re way beyond the point where anyone might not know what is meant by Czechia.
2. naturalness – this is subjective, but I think people will find us, so again I don’t think there is anything here to speak against the move.
3. precision – this one matters. The most correct name for a country or a people is the name it chooses for itself. The Czech government has asked the English-speaking world to use Czechia. That fact trumps all others on the question of correctness.
4. concision – one word rather than two is not a massive difference, but Czechia wins there too.
5. consistency with other articles – this is the biggie. I can’t think of any other country for which Wikipedia uses the long, official-sounding name as the article title when there is also a short, colloquial one. Actually, the policy page on article names specifically gives the example that we should use North Korea, not Democratic People's Republic of Korea. So our article title Czech Republic is a total outlier.

So on precision and consistency there are strong arguments for a move, and the other three criteria certainly don’t speak against one.

I think those arguments have been made and won long ago. The reason we have not had a consensus to change is because of judgments about what is the common name. In my opinion these have been problematic for two reasons. First, it has been repeated here like a mantra that common name is all that matters – in fact the policy page is quite clear that common name is subsidiary to the five naming criteria. And secondly, it has been treated as though common name means what is statistically most frequently used – sorry, but if we based this on a vox pop on the streets of Birmingham or Chicago, we would end up moving back to Czechoslovakia! Google hit counts can be part of our thinking, but not a big part of it. Rather, common name means: what is used by people professionally involved with the topic. Here we have to be careful to look at recent sources, because usage is changing fast. The policy page gives us suggestions for how to decide this, and if we follow these, the argument for Czechia now being the common name is beginning to look strong:

1. The usage of international organizations – it is significant that this is the policy page’s number-one pointer to common name, and here we have observed a landslide in the direction of Czechia in the last couple of years. It is now used by the diplomatic arm of the Czech government, the EU, the UN, NATO, the Council of Europe, the British Foreign Office, the American State Department, the CIA, the Olympics, UEFA, the Eurovision Song Contest, and many, many others.
2. Media – I don’t have an overview here, so I’ll let someone else discuss that, but I’m certainly seeing it in the newspapers.
3. Quality encyclopedias – I’m not sure there are any recent enough to reflect current changes.
4. Geographic name servers – A cursory survey suggests these usually recognize Czechia. I think the likes of Google Maps would be highly relevant here, and it now uses Czechia.
5. Scientific bodies and journals – My impressions are probably anecdotal, but the university people I know in Czech studies have been using Czechia for years. We see it prescribed in style-sheets for academic publishing.

I’m sure there is a lot of evidence in both directions that other people can add here, but please concentrate on these kinds of authorities. Common name is NOT about hit-counts.

Obviously even authorities who now prefer Czechia will still use Czech Republic wherever they would use French Republic or Republic of France. The point is not that the long form has gone, but that the short form is used when the short form of any other country would be used. I submit that for the most part, the relevant authorities have now reached that point. Doric Loon (talk) 04:32, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

• Support move - I agree with everything that has been said. It should have been moved a long time ago. I find it strange that for other countries the transfer was automatic regardless of the WP:COMMONNAME rule (for example Eswatini or North Macedonia), which is not the only rule regarding names, but we have to come back to these debates every year regarding Czechia. The country is appearing more and more internationally under its geographical name, but due to pressure from a few select Wikipedians (still the same ones), Wikipedia continues to resist this. It's about time to finally take that step here on Wikipedia. Unloose ^(talk) 08:51, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
  • North Macedonia's previous name was Republic of Macedonia, which already wasn't the WP:COMMONNAME because of a well-known dispute with Greece. In Eswatini's case, the change was made in April 2018 and the article wasn't moved until October - on the third RM - precisely because we waited for evidence that the WP:COMMONNAME had changed. In that case it helped that Eswatini is a small English-speaking country. Kahastok talk 17:26, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
• Support move - it makes sense. Nuvolet (talk) 10:14, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
• Support move other sources like the United Nations and various international organizations have increasingly adopted "Czechia," and a Wikipedia article name change could align the page with this broader shift. Helveticus96 (talk) 11:53, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
• [Comment] It's absurd that this debate has gone on for so long. The distinction between Czechia and the Czech Republic should be clear by now. Wikipedia should consistently use the short form, Czechia. 78.80.80.192 (talk) 12:29, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

What's absurd is that people have raised this issue so many times for years while the prescribed conditions for making the change had clearly remained unmet. And all that mostly because they disagreed with the prescribed conditions and refused to be persuaded that if they don't like those conditions, the place to take that up is on the relevant guideline talk page, not here over and over and over. Largoplazo (talk) 13:26, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

• Support per nom, and move Türkiye while we're at it. The nanosecond a person changes their name the article gets moved (correctly) because of NAMECHANGES, but when a country does so we always drag our feet. And it's not like it's a snap decision made by the country, it's an intentioned move by people with much more at stake than we do.--Ortizesp (talk) 13:20, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

That's because the nanosecond a person changes their name, the world picks up on the new name and uses it everywhere. If you're unhappy that the world doesn't similarly pick up on countries' new names, then go pick a fight with the world, not with Wikipedia for going by worldwide usage. Largoplazo (talk) 13:31, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't necessarily agree, there's been many cases where someone has changed their name and it doesn't become their COMMONNAME (even for years), and we tend to move the page anyways. Ortizesp (talk) 18:31, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

• Support move per nom. I don't think we need to wait another year or two for the editors at CNN or BBC to finally switch to Czechia. Qertis (talk) 13:53, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
• Support Awareness and use of Czechia as a common name has reached the point that this move makes sense now. Cashew.wheel (talk) 14:44, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
• Support meets all WP:CRITERIA and is better than the current title in terms of concision---obviously more concise---and consistency---we use short forms of country names not official long versions eg. French Republic and United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are both redirected—blindlynx 15:33, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
• Support - In my opinion, the previous attempt was promising. The name 'Czechia' wasn't denied its positive characteristics, but the objection was that the state itself didn't use it enough. Since then, many things have changed. The government has registered the 'new' name wherever possible, it's used in sports, so it has completed all (most of?) these "homework" assignments. So the only thing that can probably be pointed out as a disadvantage is whether it has actually caught on. Although Google Trends or Ngram are aware of 'Czechia', usage rates have not yet exceeded 50%. While these tools provide valuable insights, I don't believe we should rely solely on them to determine the success of the name. Ngram data only goes up to 2022 and is primarily based on books, which may not reflect current usage. Moreover, major news outlets like CNN and BBC often have limited coverage of smaller countries, making it difficult for them to consistently promote the name (I won't even mention the conspiracy theories that some correspondents simply decide they don't like the name and that they should ruin it for everyone else).

Overall, the new name is being used more frequently than during the last attempt. Has it surpassed the vague threshold of a 'common name,' where supporters often overestimate the sources using the new name, while opponents place greater emphasis on sources that are lagging behind? Let's see what the discussion brings. Certainly, adopting the name 'Czechia' on Wikipedia would not lead to any denial or deep distortion of sources.

Chrz (talk) 15:36, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

A few more notes. 1) I hope the evaluation and the potential move won't be rushed. Otherwise, we can expect a 'move review' and possibly unnecessary back-and-forth moves, which would leave a veeery bad impression, especially among supporters. 2) Although I support the move, it doesn't mean I agree with all the arguments made by all supporters. Or that all have an effect (such as an appeal for all states to have a non-political name). 3) As I mentioned, I would base this on the outcome of the last attempt, what shortcomings mentioned in the conclusion have been addressed since then, and what shortcomings were not actually counted among the shortcomings in the conclusion last time, even though opponents thought so. 4) If we discard Ngram, Trends, CNN, and BBC, other indicators will be required. Although I don't reject them; I can see progress in them, but I don't wait for 50% -- We have better metrics than just counting 'hits', the weigth of sources matter. Who is to say whether one chapter in a world-renowned encyclopedia is worth more than 100 fleeting mentions on the BBC? Chrz (talk) 19:22, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

• Comment I'm already noticing that some of the contributions here have a tone of irritation, exasperation whatever. I know that in the past this topic has raised hackles, but I would ask you all please to remain scrupulously objective and not get into personal conflicts. If we stick to the issues, assume good faith, and keep our eyes on the policy criteria, we can have a mature conversation. So please avoid anything even implicitly ad hominem. Doric Loon (talk) 16:08, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
• Support per above. --Sakakami (talk) 16:23, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. I see lots and lots of rhetoric in the above but there is not a single external source or even a diff giving evidence of anything being claimed.

I note that the request tries to move away from WP:COMMONNAME to the five WP:CRITERIA. But its arguments are mostly little more than assertions that Czechia is better.

It is claimed that both options are equally recognizable. If both options were equally recognisable then mainstream media outlets wouldn't feel the need to write articles about why the Czech Republic is being called Czechia at the Euros, reporting that fans were "confused" by Czechia. It is claimed that Czechia is good enough because people will find us. That article rather implies the opposite that people more naturally think of the Czech Republic and will be surprised by Czechia.

It is claimed on precision that The most correct name for a country or a people is the name it chooses for itself. First, not necessarily, in the general sense. The Czech government does not have the right to dictate points of English language to English-speakers. Second, even if that weren't the case, the Czech government recognises Czech Republic as the name of the state. Third, this argument has nothing to do with precision. Both Czech Republic and Czechia are equally precise.

The other "biggie" is on consistency. We are told I can’t think of any other country for which Wikipedia uses the long, official-sounding name as the article title when there is also a short, colloquial one. Well firstly, Czech Republic is no more long and official-sounding than Dominican Republic or Antigua and Barbuda or Equatorial Guinea. Second, there are actually several countries with short names but where our article uses the long one, for WP:COMMONNAME and other reasons. The fact that you can't think of them doesn't mean that they don't exist.

What I want to see before I support is evidence that mainstream English-language media outlets in English-speaking countries are using Czechia in preference to Czech Republic when not discussing official usage and without clarifying that they mean Czech Republic. My experience is actually that if they use it at all, they feel the need to immediately clarify by referring to the Czech Republic. I look in the above and this is brushed off with I don’t have an overview here, so I’ll let someone else discuss that, but I’m certainly seeing it in the newspapers. Which newspapers? was it this news source? Or perhaps this one? This one?. Except, those three mainstream English-language media outlets in English-speaking countries all just used Czech Republic and didn't mention Czechia once.

And finally, I go to Google Ngrams and Google Trends and find that Czech Republic dominates both metrics in all English speaking countries.

Give me better evidence that the WP:COMMONNAME has changed and I'll reconsider. But the arguments to move here so far are either evidence-free speculation, or boil down to WP:ILIKEIT, or boil down to WP:OFFICIALNAME. That really shouldn't be good enough for us. Kahastok talk 17:26, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

It should be noted that the reason we use WP:COMMONNAMEs is precisely because they typically best fit the five WP:CRITERIA (from WP:COMMONNAME: [wikipedia] generally prefers the name that is most commonly used [...] as such names will usually best fit the five criteria)—blindlynx 18:38, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. As I discuss above, the more recognisable, more natural, equally precise, marginally longer and equally consistent WP:COMMONNAME, Czech Republic, is a better fit to the criteria than the less-recognisable, less-natural, equally precise, marginally shorter and equally consistent Czechia. Kahastok talk 18:54, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Kahastok: A quick search immediately returns innumerable sources calling it Czechia (as the nom notes), so I'm not sure what you mean. See European Union, CIA World Factbook, US Department of State, World Health Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation, the World Bank, UNESCO, CDC, International Energy Agency, World Meteorological Organization, NATO, NHL, US News & World Report, Freedom House, European Environment Agency, Google Arts & Culture, etc. ╠╣uw [talk] 20:12, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

• Support for the reasons described by the nominator. ╠╣uw [talk] 17:51, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose per Kahastok. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:01, 1 October 2024 (UTC)