Talk:Burma edit
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The title of this article is the subject of continued dispute and is currently protected at "Burma", following a Mediation Cabal case which found no consensus to move to "Myanmar". An effort at finding a consensus through structured discussion has been initiated at Talk:Burma/Myanmar/Structured mediation and your participation is welcomed.

Please keep discussion of the title at Talk:Burma/Myanmar and Talk:Burma/Myanmar/Structured mediation/Discussion. Mediation history:
This article is a frequent source of heated debate. Please try to keep a cool head when responding to comments on this talk page.
How about a nice cup of tea?

Burma is part of WikiProject Myanmar (Burma), a project to improve all Burma related articles on Wikipedia. The WikiProject is also a part of the Counteracting systemic bias group on Wikipedia aiming to provide a wider and more detailed coverage on countries and areas of the encyclopedia which are notably less developed than the rest. If you would like to help improve this and other Burmese-related articles, please join the project. All interested editors are welcome.
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Burma is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination failed. For older candidates, please check the archive.
Archive
Archives
  1. March 2003 – August 2007
  2. September 2007
  3. October 2007:RM "Burma"
  4. October 2007:RM "Myanmar"
  5. December 2007:RM#2 "Myanmar"
  6. January 2008:RM#3 "Myanmar"
  7. June 2008


Contents


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)

Y 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)

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".
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)

Please remember to keep all discussion of naming conventions at Talk:Burma/Myanmar .
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)