Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Western Asia/Archive 1

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Peer review for Israel

I have put forth a peer review for the Israel article at Wikipedia:Peer review/Israel/archive1. Comments are welcome there (and on Talk:Israel, if you prefer). -- tariqabjotu 19:59, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguating UAE emirates and capitals

At several of the talk pages for the individual Emirates of the UAE, queries or proposals have been put forth for having separate articles for the emirates and their eponymous capitals (e.g. here and here. As of now, two of the emirates have been disambiguated from their capitals: Abu Dhabi (emirate) / Abu Dhabi and Ajmān / Ajmān (city). Please discuss possible comprehensive approaches to the issue below and add options as needed. — AjaxSmack 19:01, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Options for action include:

Do nothing

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Arguments can be made that there is no need for disambiguation except for Abu Dhabi and Ajman. Some emirates are too small to require separate pages. In others such as Dubai, the city is nearly half of the emirate's area. In Sharjah, almost all of the inhabitants live in Sharjah city. Such action could even be considered content forking (WP:CFORK) in some cases.

• Support, at least for the time being. The above argument makes big sense. This move may leave the articles short and lacking. However, these articles may become very long in the future, and disambiguation may become the right thing to do. I don't even think that Ajmān (city) should be a separate article (for now), as it's only two lines long! This will only spread the info over stubs. The result will be that people may not notice the other article. Moreover, both articles may contain much identical information. I think this move is premature. Orionist 14:02, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

• Support. Ajman (city) should be merged back to the Ajman article. Only if an article becomes too large then separating is useful. Abu Dhabi is an exceptional since it is the largest emirate and has two major cities (AD city and Al Ain) and lot of desert in between. Splitting all emirates into "city" and "emirate" will create unnessary stubs. -Toshi 14:40, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

• ... and a short Comment, the best comparison here would be with Washington, D.C. and District of Columbia, as the latter redirects to the former. The Emirates issue is strikingly similar. Orionist 12:36, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

• I think that the city-states of Germany are a closer parallel to DC. I think because of the issue of uniformity, we should really consider doing it like what we have for U.S. counties. Most counties are insignificant, but we list each and every one for demographics and for the cities contained in them.--Greyduk 13:53, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

The DC/Washington example is not a good example as DC and Washington are currently coterminus (Washington does not seem to even legally exist -- although not historically, a situation addressed by Washington County, D.C. for example). A better parallel might be Yogyakarta Special Region and Yogyakarta (city) in Indonesia where the city dominates the region and the distinction is not always acknowledged. The Yogyakarta (city) article started out as a pitiful stub but has grown into a decent article that overlaps little with the original Yogyakarta article. Each deals with the administrative aspects of the respective unit and allows for more precise infoboxes and category placement. (Cf. UAE emirates which are listed in both Category:Cities in the United Arab Emirates and Category:Emirates of the United Arab Emirates.) — AjaxSmack 04:14, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguate

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Arguments can be made that disambigation allows for the political and administrative aspects of the state, i.e. the emirate, to be separated from the information only on the capital city. Also allows for better categorization of articles and coverage of hinterland regions and towns.

For those interested in a comprehensive approach to disambiguating emirates from capitals there are several options:

Disambiguate all emirates and cities with primary topic being contingent

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For example, emirates where a major city is located (e.g. Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah), the primary topic would be the city while in others (e.g. Ajman) the primary would be the emirate. An advantage is that it allows important cities (e.g. Abu Dhabi) to be the primary topic in some cases while others (e.g. Fujairah) could direct to the relatively more important emirate. A disadvantage is that it is not systematic and would require vigilance in maintaining correct wikilinking.

• I support this option as it allows for Dubai to be about the very important city and Fujairah about the emirate. I would tentatively say that the city should be the primary topic for Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Sharjah and the emirate should be primary or the other four. — AjaxSmack 19:01, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• I Support the disambiguate of all emirates from their capitals. or at least it should be linking each others Ammar (^Talk - ^{Don't Talk}) 15:07, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguate all emirates and cities systematically

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For example, all 7 emirates would be the primary topic, all 7 cities would be the primary topic, or emirates and cities would both carry bracketed disambiguators (e.g. Abu Dhabi (emirate) / Abu Dhabi (city)) accessed by a disambiguation page. The advantage is it is more systematic and precise (WP:PRECISION) but a disadvantage is that the articles would violate the principle of least astonishment and require extra linking to get to primary topics.

I agree. It would be much like other provincial or state pages we have. For the U.S., every county has a page, at least showing demographics even if there is nothing of note about the county itself. I think it's only fair to establish this structure in other countries as well. It will keep things more uniform, and allow for discussion of emirate vs. city political explanations in every emirate, not just in the notable ones.--Greyduk 22:17, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

image history

Can anyone pick out what these two images are: Special:Contributions/Q8aaa ? John Vandenberg 09:09, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Request for Comments on Arabia/Arabian Peninsula Article.

There has been a request for comments on a dispute regarding the Arabia/Arabian Peninsula article. harlan (talk) 13:52, 6 February 2009 (UTC)