[WikiEN-l] The (ab)use of disclaimers

Sun Jul 24 04:15:42 UTC 2005

>From: <disclist at dapyx-soft.com>
>There is a consensus (claimed by [[User:Theathenae]] in [[Talk:Macedonian
>denar]]) that every article where the name of the [[Republic of
>Macedonia]] is used, should include this disclaimer in a "note" section:
>
><<
>==Note==
>
>* The use of the terms Republic of Macedonia and Macedonian(s) throughout
>this article is not meant to imply an official position on the naming
>dispute between Athens and Skopje. See Foreign relations of the Republic
>of Macedonia#Naming_dispute_with_Greece,
>Republic_of_Macedonia#Naming_Dispute and United Nations Resolution 817
>(1993)
>
> >>
>(see it at [[Macedonian denar]])
>
>I think this is a bad precedent. I wonder how long it would be until other
>disputed names would get the same kind of disclaimer.
>

This is indeed an extremely bad precedent.  Not only does it mean 
boilerplate text in dozens of articles referring to this topic alone, all of 
which will have to be kept in synch in some way, but it will inevitably be 
extended to every territorial dispute.  Thus any reference to [[Northern 
Ireland]] will need to have a disclaimer indicating that by using the name 
"Northern Ireland" as opposed to "The Six Counties", Wikipedia is not taking 
any position in the Republican/Loyalist dispute, any reference to the 
[[Republic of China]] will need a disclaimer indicating that Wikipedia is 
not taking a position on which is the legitimate government of China or 
Taiwan, etc.  This kind of edit is an attempt to introduce POV masquerading 
as NPOV.

Jay.