Ireland, East Timor
I would question the validity of Ireland as an example ("These can be fears of an outright take-over as has happened historically to such states as East Timor and Ireland"). It's certainly true that England took over Ireland progressively from the 1100s, but England and Ireland aren't contiguous, and nor were the UK and Ireland as separate political entities until 1921. If anything, these days the most lively fear held by anyone in that respect is Unionists' worry that the part currently within the United Kingdom will become part of the Irish State.
- Does today's expansion of that sentence help cover things? If not the general rule here at wikipedia is that if it's incorrect you can always fix it yourself. -- Francs2000 | Talk [[]] 14:45, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Isthmuses and peninsulas
Hong Kong is definitely a peninsula (check the map on that page). Also, there are no isthmuses in the list, by definition. And I've removed the anomalies, as I can't see a reason why they're particularly interesting. sjorford:// 17:13, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Anomalies
Norway is listed here as having 2 borders (Finland and Sweden) - but did we forget their Russian border, or is it not relevant? Ojw 02:11, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- But why list them at all? As odd as this page is, it's titled "List of countries that only border one other country" yet lists things which border two countries as "anomolies", and even includes Norway with 3 borders. Ojw 12:28, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- Very few countries with two or three neighbours are listed. Some of them are listed because part of their borders are relatively very short, that people might confuse that they share border with only one country, but not the others. Cyprus would perhaps be the best example. — Instantnood 13:25, Feb 15 2005 (UTC)
- But why list them at all? As odd as this page is, it's titled "List of countries that only border one other country" yet lists things which border two countries as "anomolies", and even includes Norway with 3 borders. Ojw 12:28, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
It seems bizarre to list countries that border several countries in an article about countries that only border one other. They are not anomalies: they just don't fit the criteria for being in the article. Therefore I've been bold and removed that section. Worldtraveller 17:38, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- Is there any better word than anomalies? — Instantnood 19:53, Feb 15 2005 (UTC)
- Why are they here? They are not "countries that only border one other country." Why is Djibouti an "anomaly" but the United States is not? - SimonP 20:05, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)
- Would anybody be confused that the United States borders only one other country? — Instantnood 20:30, Feb 15 2005 (UTC)
- None of the countries listed could be mistaken for one that only borders one country. I'm in favour of removing them again because it makes no sense for them to be in this article. Worldtraveller 20:40, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- Would anybody be confused that the United States borders only one other country? — Instantnood 20:30, Feb 15 2005 (UTC)
- Why are they here? They are not "countries that only border one other country." Why is Djibouti an "anomaly" but the United States is not? - SimonP 20:05, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)
Biafra
Biafra was only shortly bordering Cameroon (for a few months). See this map for details. — Instantnood 19:55, Feb 15 2005 (UTC)
- OK, I've clarified the text in relation to Biafra. Worldtraveller 20:40, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Protecting the page: Dispute RE: Non-Countries on the List
Statement by ExplorerCDT
I have removed mentions of dependant territories. Up until now, the enumerations regarding Gibraltar and Macao have been reverted by User:Instantnood who has persisted in being a pedantic annoyance, while my deletion of Hong Kong has been ignored.
Netherlands Antilles, Guantanamo, Macao and Gibraltar are not countries. Two are navy bases (Gibraltar and Gitmo), Netherlands Antilles are the Caribbean colonial possessions of the Netherlands formerly under control of the Dutch West India Company (whose assets reverted to the Dutch crown), Macao and Hong Kong are Special Autonomous Regions but have NEVER been countries. Also, to title this as a list of countries bordering only one country is misleading, as several examples are of territory that only borders one other country while the rest of the country's possessions in fact border several independent states. The use of US and Cuba bordering at Gitmo ignores the fact that the US also borders Canada, Mexico, etc. which constitutes more than one bordering country, or that France (which borders Spain, Andorra, Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium, and Italy on the map of Europe) some how only borders the Netherlands (which borders Belgium and Germany on the map of Europe) at St. Martin in the Caribbean. Utterly misleading and completely inaccurate.
Instantnood's attempts to revert edits by myself and SimonP made with the intent for accuracy resulted in this protection of the page until a proper, accurate and sensible resolution is made. —ExplorerCDT 21:21, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Statement by Instantnood
ExplorerCDT cited wrong evidence to back his arguments. The setting of this list to include non-sovereign states is described and illustrated by the notice on the top of the page. It is a practice of several lists of countries across Wikipedia. The same treatment should applied regarding all these lists, and this list shall be no exception.
Only the entities listed next to the bullets are bordering one entity. The one listed on the right hand side is the entity with which it shares its border.
ExplorerCDT's attempts to modify the page with wrong evidence shall be reverted, and the original state of the article should be restored. This page is now added the {{protected}} with the state prior to his modifications. — Instantnood 22:31 Feb 20 2005 (UTC)
Discussions
They aren't countries. Unless they declared independence within the last time I watched the news (three hours ago), they are not countries. You even admit that fact. Either change the title, or leave them out. Your second paragraph just shows that the page is inaccurate and misleading. Finally, I put up the protected tag, with my version of the page, your reversions will be reverted until someone comes around and makes that protection work. —ExplorerCDT 22:51, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- It seems not to make sense for territories to be included, when the article title is at 'list of countries...'. I agree with ExplorerCDT that Gibraltar (much more than just a naval base by the way), Macao etc should not be included. Incidentally, the page claims to be protected but isn't - I see it's been listed at requests for protection though, so presumably it will be protected shortly. Worldtraveller 22:50, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- They aren't sovereign states, but the same treatment should applies to all lists of countries with the same setting. The notice at the top of the page already tells this list includes not only sovereign states, without any confusions. — Instantnood 22:56 Feb 20 2005 (UTC)
- I'd agree that all the lists should be treated as such, but then again, Rome wasn't built in a day. Notice or not, the article is misleading and inaccurate, and is only one of a myriad of articles needing correction. Thus, if you feel this is a battle that should start here, let's start here and rush the barricades with me, or you can just shut up, let my changes stand, and stop being an ass. —ExplorerCDT 04:39, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- They aren't sovereign states, but the same treatment should applies to all lists of countries with the same setting. The notice at the top of the page already tells this list includes not only sovereign states, without any confusions. — Instantnood 22:56 Feb 20 2005 (UTC)
Edits by SchmuckyTheCat
Hong Kong and Macao, but not Gibraltar and the Netherlands Antilles, were removed from the list by SchmuckyTheCat. — Instantnood 22:48 Mar 1 2005 (UTC)
- I make no claim to knowledge about the nation-status of Gibraltar or Netherlands Antillies. If you say they are not countries then yes, they should be removed. SchmuckyTheCat 22:58, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- They're dependent territories of the UK and Netherlands respectively, not independent nations, and so if Macao and Hong Kong are removed they should also be removed. As discussed above, I think that as the article title uses the word country, it does not make sense to mention sub-national entities. Worldtraveller 00:23, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- then do it. I'm not defending them. SchmuckyTheCat 00:47, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- They're dependent territories of the UK and Netherlands respectively, not independent nations, and so if Macao and Hong Kong are removed they should also be removed. As discussed above, I think that as the article title uses the word country, it does not make sense to mention sub-national entities. Worldtraveller 00:23, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- ok, go do that then. It's not my responsibility to correct every single article when I fix a mistake in one. SchmuckyTheCat 01:31, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Dispute over meaning of "countries"
This is the version that I preferred. (see also the differences with the current version) — Instantnood 02:20 Mar 2 2005 (UTC)
Delete?
Listing the USA because of Guantanamo? Not listing the UK because of the channel tunnel? Instantnood and his Chinese politics. Constant "country/not a country" debates. This isn't encyclopaedic. Are there any plans to delete this article? Ojw 19:08, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- What constitutes a "country" can be a difficult question, and any sufficiently large listing will probably have some controversy. Perhaps even the term "border" can be fuzzy in some cases. But a debate over a few entries does not make the whole list unencyclopaedic. I would oppose deleting this after so many editors have worked to improve it. Jonathunder 20:31, 2005 Mar 13 (UTC)
An interesting chain of events
The following lists the chain of events which led to the inclusion of entities which are not countries to the list. I suppose it takes some detective work to come up with this, although it isnt really that difficult. I leave it up to you guys to interpret the intentions behind this sequence of events:
The old version
As seen in the version timestamped 07:25, 7 Jan 2005 in this page's edit history, the page listed only countries (as commonly accepted to refer to fully independent entities as recognised by the UN), with an opening line which reads:
"This is a list of countries that only have a land border with one other country."
Carbon copy created
On 01:21, 4 Feb 2005, a similarly titled page called List of countries bordering only one country was created by a user named Instantnood. In the first version of that page, the opening line reads:
"This is a list of countries and dependent territories having land border with only one country. Notes: This list includes dependent territories and some disputed or occupied areas that are de facto independent."
Interestingly, that first version includes Hong Kong and Macau as the only two non-independent entities, while Singapore was listed under a classification called "Arguable".
Merger?
Within a few hours, the page has evolved to this version at 03:13, 4 Feb 2005. Notably, he copied the introductory text from the first article into his version of the article:
"Nations that only share a land border with one other country often have concerns about domination by the other state if it is larger. These can be fears of an outright take-over as has happened historically to such states as East Timor, which was part of Indonesia until very recently, and Ireland, which was part of the United Kingdom until 1921. Today concerns are often about economic domination as with the Canada/United States relationship or the Denmark/Germany one. Because much trade goes over land these countries are often heavily reliant on their single neighbour."
In addition, he added the "merge" request with the above page within the same edit.
Back in this page, he also added the "merge" request at 03:11, 4 Feb 2005
Merged
By 18:57, 7 Feb 2005, User:Sjorford fulfilled the merger request. This effectively places Instantnood's introductory paragraph concerning non-independent entities, as well as his entries for these, into that list as can be seen in edit version 19:01, 7 Feb 2005, without User:Sjorford probably suspecting anything unusual.
Contestations
Since this merger, debates over the inclusion of entities which are not countries ensued, not surprisingly, as we can see above and in the history of edits. It is interesting that Instantnood made no mention about the merger process which sparked this discourse. In addition, as we can all see from the above discussions, Instantnood was quoted as saying:
"They aren't sovereign states, but the same treatment should applies to all lists of countries with the same setting. The notice at the top of the page already tells this list includes not only sovereign states, without any confusions."
It has to be noted, that again he did not mention who was the one who wrote that paragraph, and nor did he mention how it ends up being introduced to this page.
Deductions and comments?
The chain of events as I noted ends here. Feel free to comment on the above conduct.--Huaiwei 10:02, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Comments
At the time when I created this page titled "List of countries bordering only one country", I did not know this page already existed.
The following words were copied from another list of countries, the list of countries and capitals in native languages.
" Notes: This list includes dependent territories and some disputed or occupied areas that are de facto independent. "
When I discovered there was in fact a list created, I requested for a merger, and I started the work of merging, by copying the following text to the version that I created.
" Nations that only share a land border with one other country often have concerns about domination by the other state if it is larger. These can be fears of an outright take-over as has happened historically to such states as East Timor, which was part of Indonesia until very recently, and Ireland, which was part of the United Kingdom until 1921. Today concerns are often about economic domination as with the Canada/United States relationship or the Denmark/Germany one. Because much trade goes over land these countries are often heavily reliant on their single neighbour. "
Hong Kong and Macao were the only non-sovereign states. Gibraltar and the Netherlands Antilles were also included. Singapore was included as an arguable case, as it is connected to Johore, Malaysia by a causeway, i.e. not above water.
Huaiwei failed to agree with the convention that on many lists of countries non-sovereign states are also listed as countries. SchmuckyTheCat and ExplorerCDT said they did not agree with the convention, but they would not proceed to change the other lists sharing the same problem.
SchmuckyTheCat said " It's not my responsibility to correct every single article when I fix a mistake in one. ". She/he also said " I strive to be correct, not complete. ".
ExplorerCDT said " Rome wasn't built in a day. Notice or not, the article is misleading and inaccurate, and is only one of a myriad of articles needing correction. Thus, if you feel this is a battle that should start here, let's start here and rush the barricades with me, or you can just shut up, let my changes stand, and stop being an ass. "
None of them have proceeded to change the content of other lists of countries with the same probelm.
Huaiwei and SchmuckyTheCat have had a record of removing Hong Kong and Macao to be listed like a country on other pages, such as list of highways, lists of subnational entities. While I am not going to question on their intentions, their previous records have to be noted and taken into account. — Instantnood 14:09, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)