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I was reading several news reports this morning about Macedonia being a huge originator of "fake news" stories, if not the largest producer of such stuff on the internet. As this is a growing problem, perhaps the article should reflect these reports (in a neutral manner, of course.) 50.111.2.50 (talk) 13:12, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's funny. You read fake news reports on the internet about fake news reports. --Taivo (talk) 15:49, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, my linguistic friend! Actually, no, the major news networks have talked about this issue for a while now. While the Macedonian people are, of course, not responsible, some of the perpetrators who pull these shenanigans are located in the RoM - or at least their servers are . . . 50.111.2.50 (talk) 02:38, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Briefly mention it in the media section, with sources, of course. 23 editor (talk) 02:43, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The climate map ia unacurade. I propose better one! http://www.eea.europa.eu/soer/countries/mk/country-introduction-macedonia-the-former-2/map-2-climate-regions-in-macedonia/image_view_fullscreen — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.237.139.186 (talk) 08:48, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, thanks for pointing this out. You are certainly right in saying that the current map we have (File:Macedonia map of Köppen climate classification.svg) is unsatisfactory. Unfortunately, we cannot simply grap some better file from the web, but must wait until somebody finds or creates one that is freely licensed. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:55, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

2001:630:12:2E23:47D:151F:C948:2EBE (talk) 10:59, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format.

There has been an edit-war regarding the piping of the article link "Macedonians (ethnic group)" in the sentence: "The majority of the residents are ethnic Macedonians,..."

The edit-warred versions are:

The majority of the residents are ethnic [[Macedonians (ethnic group)|Macedonians]],...

which renders as:

The majority of the residents are ethnic Macedonians,...

versus

The majority of the residents are [[Macedonians (ethnic group)|ethnic Macedonians]],...

which renders as:

The majority of the residents are ethnic Macedonians,...

The adjective "ethnic" is outside the wikilink in the first quotation and does not appear blue, while in the second quotation, the same adjective is inside the wikilink and appears blue. I think that the formulation "ethnic [[Macedonians (ethnic group)|Macedonians]],..." is misleading, because the reader sees the wikilink [[Macedonians (ethnic group)|Macedonians]]" as simply "Macedonians" while actually being redirected to the article "Macedonians (ethnic group)". The terms "Macedonians (ethnic group)" and "Macedonians" are not identical and also the reader may be surprised by being redirected to "Macedonians (ethnic group)" instead of simply "Macedonians", a fact which could lead to the misunderstanding that "Macedonians (ethnic group)" is equivalent to simply "Macedonians". In such contested areas, we should operate according to the principle of least surprise when using piped wikilinks.

The second formulation "[[Macedonians (ethnic group)|ethnic Macedonians]]" is better because the blue link appears as "ethnic Macedonians" and indeed it directs to the article "Macedonians (ethnic group)", which is a subgroup of Macedonians. In my opinion, in this highly onomatologically contested area, such discrepancies, even with these piping manoeuvres within wikilinks, should be avoided. Dr. K. 17:15, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I see nothing problematic here. Neither "ethnic" nor "(ethnic group)" are part of the name of the entity being referred to. The name of the group is "Macedonians", pure and simple. Of course the reader won't be directed to the page Macedonians, because that is a dab page. Thus, the standard way of linking to the article on the group is just the normal pipe syntax, [[Macedonians (ethnic group)|Macedonians]].

A different aspect of this is that in this instance we happen to need a disambiguator in the text itself: "ethnic". However, this addition is needed purely in order to disambiguate the ethnic meaning of "Macedonians" from the political meaning of "citizens of the Republic of Macedonia" – not from any of the other meanings listed on the dab page (those are already effectively excluded by the context of this page; it's obviuos that the majority of the population in the Republic can't be "Ancient Macedonians"). This need of textual disambiguation is thus quite orthogonal to the technical need of page disambiguation. This situation is really no different from saying "The majority of the population of Greece are ethnic Greeks", or "the majority of the population of Georgia are ethnic Georgians"; in none of these cases would we want to include that "ethnic" in the link (just because there might also be the inhabitants of the US state of Georgia, for instance). Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:31, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The dispute about the term "Macedonians" is in a different league from that of the two Georgias example. There are no onomatological disputes, cultural issues, or common border between the two Georgias so there is no confusion or need to use the adjective "ethnic" to distinguish between their citizens. To the average reader, the DAB terms, which include Greek Macedonians, may not be clear enough. Aside from any technical explanations for the use of the term "Macedonians", the use of the pipe as simply "Macedonians", while directing to the ethnic group, carries the tacit implication that the ethnic group represents all Macedonians. This is misleading. In this case, using "ethnic Macedonians" in the pipe avoids that particular issue and avoids the element of surprise. Dr. K. 18:21, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

But the "dispute", the cultural issues and all that are completely irrelevant here. The Greek and ancient meanings of "Macedonian" never enter the equation in this article. We are talking about the population of a country; how could any reader be in danger of misconstruing the term as referring to a population group that lives exclusively somewhere else? This is no more likely here than in the Georgia case. And what "surprise"? How could there possibly be an element of surprise in simply calling a people by its name? They are called "Macedonians" (uncontroversially, except in the minds of some extremist Greek hardliners), so who would be surprised by seeing them called thus, in this article? I have the impression you are falling back into the bad old habit of misusing the notion of "disambiguation" for something it is not: using textual additions and formatting flags not simply for guiding the reader to the correct referent in the most efficient way, but for "flagging up" a concept as allegedly problematic, as a sign of acknowledgment to the political sensitivities of those who simply don't like to hear the name used that way. That's so 2009; I really thought you and I were past that stage. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:50, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think you understood anything I told you about the piping and the surprise that a reader would get if clicking on "Macedonians" would get the ethnic group instead. This is indisputable. A reader seeing the wrongly-piped wikilink, could think that "ethnic Macedonians" are the only "Macedonians". Or if a reader already knew that the ethnic Macedonians are not the only Macedonians, would think: "Ha, I thought there were other kinds too." Now, I can understand if you didn't get my point about the piping, despite my clear examples. I can even understand your unwillingness to budge from your rigid position. But I cannot understand your incivility which hides behind a very thin veneer of occasional civility and which erupts at the slightest challenge to your preconceptions. You have a history of that, although I did support you when you were close to losing your tools in the past. Don't make me regret it. I will not make this more unpleasant at this time. However, leave your nonsense "That's so 2009; I really thought you and I were past that stage." to yourself and go write a few articles for a change. Dr. K. 19:18, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Huh? Nothing in what I said was in any way impolite. Anyway: yes, I perfectly understood the points you made. Thing is, I understood them only too well, which is why I don't find any of them convincing. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:36, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I forgot you are all-knowing. Dr. K. 21:53, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The comparison with Georgians is entirely misleading, apples and oranges. There is no Georgia (region) that overlaps with the Republic of Georgia and Georgia (U.S. state). Nor are there Georgians (Americans) that inhabit the Georgia (region) but are not ethnic Georgians. This is a bit of a tempest in a teacup, but since the name of the article in question is Macedonians (ethnic group), it seems to me that ethnic Macedonians is more consistent. Khirurg (talk) 22:12, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Like I said on a friend's talk page, the term ethnic has no place in that article at all, if there is no mention about other namesake groups. But if it has to be in the article, at least let it be part of the link to the page which explains the readers why there is such an adjective. Just common sense. -- SILENTRESIDENT 22:22, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]