Talk:Greece/Archive 13

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Semi-protected edit request on 6 April 2016

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The translation of the motto is wrong. It should be "Freedom or Death", not "Liberty or Death". Jenmoz93 (talk) 03:24, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Done Gra phi um 17:45, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Is the introduction still correct?

With all Greece's recent travails, does this statement (from paragraph four of the introduction), still hold good? "Greece is a democratic and developed country with an advanced high-income economy, a high quality of life and a very high standard of living."

RASAM (talk) 10:24, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 June 2016

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The following sentence is repeated twice in a row: "The Greek struggle and victory against the Italians received exuberant praise at the time."; one of the repetitions should be removed.

Thiagohirai (talk) 08:12, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Done thanks for pointing that out - Arjayay (talk) 08:16, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 June 2016

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Greece was founded 8 December 1974 third Hellenic Republic

Mrclever2248 (talk) 13:04, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

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. @Mrclever2248: st170e^talk 13:22, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Thessaloniki and "co-capital"

There's been a bit of reverting [1][2] over the presentation in the lede stating that Thessaloniki is "commonly referred to as the co-capital". I've removed this statement again for the following reasons:

It's factually wrong. Thessaloniki may well be commonly referred to as "συμπρωτεύουσα" in Greek, but it is indeed only very rarely referred to as "co-capital" in English. If you google for "co-capital", most entries that use the term are Wikipedia mirrors; others mention it as the translation of the Greek usage, but don't really use it in English themselves.
The source that's used for the statement further down in the text [3], as referred to by TU-nor, actually doesn't support the claim that it is "commonly" referred to in this way at all.
In any case, I don't really see any good reason why this trivial factoid needs to be right up at the top, in the very first paragraph of the intro section, of this high-level article. I'd say it's quite unnecessary undue weight. I have no objections against keeping it further down, if clarified in the sense that this is a common usage in Greek only. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:54, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected status

Few years ago i asked why this article about Greece is not semi-protected, like other countries are. Few days after article became semi-protected. Now its not! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Georgioos (talk • contribs) 12:38, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

"longest history" verbiage

I've just reverted this [4] edit, which had (re?)introduced a sentence in the lead about the history of ancient Greece that was downright idiotic.

First, the sentence was ungrammatical. "The history of Greece [was] continuously inhabited", really? If you don't realize what was wrong about the grammar there, look up dangling modifier).
The suggestion that the "length of history" of a country has something to do with the age of early paleolithic hominid inhabitation is preposterous. History means recorded history, by definition; everthing before that is prehistory. Yes, Greece has a rather long period of recorded history, and it's okay to mention that in the lead, but the paleolithic has nothing to do with that.
Plus, as far as the paleolithic is concerned, there isn't really anything special about Greece. East Africa has been "continuously inhabited" by human ancestors for much, much longer, and paleolithic inhabitation of Europe spread across much of the continent without distinction (see Paleolithic Europe), with many finds considerably older than the date given here.
The specific date claimed, "270,000 BC", is bogus too. It's an alleged dating of the Petralona skull, but that specific find has been given a range of hugely divergent datings – it might be much younger than that, or much older, and it's not even well understood what species of hominid it represents. The specifc figure is cited here to a non-specialist book from an entirely unrelated discipline (Borza's work on the history of Macedonia, of all things), which is quite useless for this issue. In any case, whatever the age of the Petralona skull may be, hominid presence across Europe and across most other parts of the world is much older anyway.

I don't know who first inserted this nonsense. We have to be grateful to Zurkhardo for fixing it back in October [5], but then unfortunately SilentResident reverted it back in. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:39, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

I don't know either. The reason for revert was the removal of more information besides just the "7th millenium". Who added the Paleolithic sentence? It will need very strong sources to back such a bogus claim. -- SILENTRESIDENT 10:20, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

The 270,000 claim was introduced in this edit by none other than Zurkhardo. They must have reconsidered, since they removed it in the edit linked to by FPaS and instead introduced the seventh millennium. The phrase "one of the longest histories" is somewhat older, introduced back in October 2015 in this edit by (surprice, surprice) Zurkhardo. --T*U (talk) 15:00, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Ah, curious indeed. Thanks for digging those edits out. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:08, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

I reverted it for the reasons listed at the start of this topic. I examined the claim further and found that both the 270,000 and seventh millennium claims were spurious. Otherwise, I see nothing wrong with asserting that Greece has one of the longest histories of any nation state, insofar as Greeks can trace their language, culture and identity to civilizations centuries past, whereas most nations have newer identities and/or occupy territory that previously housed a different culture. It's a distinction of Greece worth pointing out at least in passing, but nothing I am attached to.Zurkhardo (talk) 22:49, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

GDP (PPP)

The quoted source doesn't contain 2017 estimates.Xx236 (talk) 12:54, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Greece border...?

Why does it say that Greece border "Republic of Macedonia"? ΔΙΟ ΝΥΣΙΟΣ (talk) 01:55, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

See WP:NCMAC. Fut.Perf. ☼ 05:53, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

My country is named Hellas, not Greece, please use Hellas and not Greece

Obviously not going to happen. WP:SNOW close. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:39, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Greece → Hellas – Dear Wikipedians: You use the word "Greece" for my country but my country's correct name is "Hellas" (not Greece) and its official name is the "Hellenic Republic" (not Greek Republic), and its citizens are called "Hellenes" (not Greeks). In the Modern Hellenic language (not Modern Greek language) the word "Greek" is actually used as an offensive term against Hellenes who are not patriots or who are not educated about the history of Hellas (google any search engine for "γραικύλος"/"grekylos" and you will see how we use the "Greek" word). The word "Greek" (literally meaning "the ancient people") is an exonym and came from an Illyrian word used to refer to a specific tribe of Hellenes (who called themselves "Σελλοί" / "Selloi" which is a precursor word of Hellenes and means "the people of moonlight"), and later the Romans used the same word and the word stuck in English and other languages that were influenced by Latin. The people of my country want to be internationally known as Hellenes (literally meaning "the people of moonlight") because this is our name, and that's why we have made our country's official international name the "Hellenic Republic" and we insist through our government that all international organisations use the "Hellas" (literally meaning "the land of moonlight") or "Hellenic Republic" name when referring to our country. I hope you respect my country and will consider using "Hellas" instead of "Greece" (and "Hellenic" or "Hellene" instead of "Greek"). I hope that you will rename the article Greece (to Hellas) and the article Greeks (to Hellenes), as well as the article Greek language (to Hellenic language). Thank you very much. Hellenistic Oplite (talk) 10:42, 7 February 2017 (UTC) OP is suspected sock of Sofia Koutsouveli

Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. In English, the common name for that cuntry in Greece. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 14:08, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
Oppose I would say around 20% of the English speaking population actually know that Greece is called the Hellenic Republic. Everyone (if not all) refer to it as Greece. Strong oppose. st 170e 15:12, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
Oppose amusing but no. In ictu oculi (talk) 15:25, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
Oppose. Absolutely no chance of this happening. Snow close. Zarcadia (talk) 19:36, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Athanasios Diakos said "Grekos genithika (I was born Greek)" Itsnot offensive at all. Offensive was the ancient Roman "greculi" 176.92.16.37 (talk) 01:31, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Population number

The updating of the population number to 11.000.000 in 2016 is based on a misunderstanding. It is true that the 2016 Human Development Report gives the population of Greece as 11.0 million. The report is from 2016, however the statistical data are from the Human Development Index (HDI) for 2015, as explained in the report. The population number is taken from World Population Prospects. The 2015 Revision, only rounded from 10.955.000 to 11.0 million. I have reverted to the more accurate number. --T*U (talk) 12:28, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Ah, I see. I didn't knew the agencies are recycling their old information into newer reports. Thanks for finding out. -- SILENTRESIDENT 13:38, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

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Edit-warring over economy figures

Warning both to ΘΕΟΔΩΡΟΣ (talk · contribs) and to the IP user most recently at 2A02:1388:2095:5C70:2846:ED4E:6B7D:40BD (talk · contribs · WHOIS): Stop edit-warring, come to the talkpage and explain what you are doing. Any further reverts not preceded by a serious attempt at consensus-building (i.e. explaining your edit first and waiting for an answer, before any further edits) will be met with immediate blocks. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:00, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

The numbers that the IP user has repeatedly inserted were first introduced by an edit in December 2016 with edit summary "2017 estimates" and no source. Since then the same numbers have been reintroduced again and again, sometimes with edit summarys like "its the imf figures so they are correct the sourcing needs correction, so you can do that instead of deleting the whole thing", "these are 2017 IMF estimates. Just like 2016 estimates, but more accurate since they are for 2017", but never giving a source.

The source that is used for the 2016 numbers is the official IMF estimates. They are regularly updated, and the current version is "World Economic Outlook Database, April 2017". In this source there are also numbers for 2017, but they are marked with shaded cells and the explanation "Shaded cells indicate IMF staff estimates". That means that these estimates are preliminary and not yet officialy finalized. They look nothing like the numbers from the IP. However, doing som detective work, I have managed to find the source for the IP numbers. It turns out that they are from the earlier version "World Economic Outlook Database, October 2016". In this version, both the 2016 and the 2017 numbers were preliminary "IMF staff estimates".

Since the "IMF staff estimates" at times seem to differ considerably from the finalized report, it will be best not to use the numbers before the cells are unshaded. The current version with 2016 numbers will then stand for some more time. --T*U (talk) 06:57, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for getting to the bottom of this. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:13, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Precisely my reasoning, T*U. Not only was the IP user reverting to the preliminary 2017 estimates rather than the final 2016 figures (without even bothering to amend the IMF link accordingly), but he was also using the older data from October—despite the fact that the new data have been available for weeks now. But thanks for the warning, Fut.Perf. Do we really have to sit down and negotiate the basics with anonymous newcomers who clearly have no idea what they're doing? •ΘΕΟΔΩΡΟΣ• 13:38, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, sorry for being a bit blunt with my warning, Theodoros, but indeed, from your edits it was simply not obvious to an outside observer why you were doing those reverts. It might have been a legitimate difference of opinion, or the IP editor might have been right; there was no way of telling unless somebody went to the trouble of checking all those sources in detail. In such cases, the minimum thing to do is really to leave clear and informative edit summaries. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:52, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Religion

Someone with the time or inclination might want to un-weaselword the section on religion, which combines the ridiculous "97% Orthodox" figure and selectively quotes only the percentage of believers on the eurostat survey (along with some subjective "wow! most religious people of europe!" crap. how about cyprus?). I'd also like to know when the US State Department made a gallup on religious beliefs in Greece in order for the ridiculous "97%" figure which moreover is described as "people who SELF IDENTIFY as Greek Orthodox". This number is bunk. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.6.63.211 (talk • contribs) 08:06, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Reverting

My edits were reverted despite me giving a source. This is puffery. I can't even talk to the person who reverted changes.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.223.27.63 (talk • contribs)

First, you deleted sourced information about the very high Human Development Index of Greece. This is considered blanking and it is vandalism. Second, unemployment data does not belong at the WP:LEAD of a country article. This article is about the country, not its unemployment rate which can change and is ephemeral compared to the time-scale of the country facts. See also WP:RECENTISM and WP:NOTNEWS. Dr. K. 15:09, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Very well, but from the description in the lead, Greece seems to be an ideal country and it is not. Plus the Greek crisis isnt even mentioned in the history part in the lead and it is an important aspect of 21st century Greece — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.223.27.63 (talk • contribs)

We had this discussion before. It is somewhere in the archives. As far as crisis, other countries in the eurozone had it too. Spain for instance, had the 2008–16 Spanish financial crisis also known as the "Great Spanish Depression", but there is nothing in the lead of Spain. So did Portugal, Italy etc. I hope you get the idea. Dr. K. 15:24, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

I do, I just try to avoid the PUFFERY and actually highlight some limitations in a nation so it is balanced instead of "very high this and very high that". It should be more modest like in Germany article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.223.27.63 (talk • contribs)

After your comment, I checked the lead of Germany and, in the financial details, Germany is portrayed as a global economic powerhouse. It doesn't look too modest to me, although, I have to admit, it is well deserved. Dr. K. 15:56, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Greece has its economic shortcomings and these are on par with the shortcomings in most of the other European countries of the South, (i.e. high unemployment, lack of competitive economy) as well as in many other countries in the world, but it should be noted that the Greek government has, in the last couple of years, adopted many reforms and at a unprecedented scale that is not seen elsewhere in the world (a fact acknowledged by both the OSCE and IFM). However none of them, be it shortcomings or reforms, are permanent and are rather ephemeral due to the situation. This doesn't mean they have to be mentioned on the lead. On the lead, we can however mention non-ephemeral aspects that characterize a country's economy (i.e. despite her debt crisis, the country remains the largest economy in the Balkans and has the largest merchant fleet in the world (with the trends improving). Dr. K. is right on this, and this discussion has already been discussed in the past. --SILENTRESIDENT 16:39, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Dictionary bloat in lead sentence

This article chronically suffers from an extreme form of lead sentence bloat, as people keep cramming more and more name variants and naming annotations in the lead sentence. Currently [6], there are a full thirteen different renderings and glosses of the name at the start of the lead sentence, for the reader to browse through before they even get to the first word of the actual definition of the topic. This is unacceptable. I remember I found the same state of affairs and slimmed it down five years ago [7]. No idea when and how all this clutter has crept back in in the meantime.

I'm going to cut this down again. All of this is covered in the "names" section anyway. Before anybody protests: of course I'm aware that every one of these entries (glosses, phonetic transcriptions, official variants, ancient and modern pronunciations and so on) would have a legitimate reason for being in the lead, on its own. It's just the sheer quantity of them that makes this infeasible. So, if any of you find one particular entry in that list particularly important and want to reinstate it, sure, no problem – but only if some other entry goes out in its stead. We have to prioritize here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:45, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

I agree. This is the English language Wikipedia and the lead sentence should be plain English, written in a simple, accessible style for a general audience. Most of the clutter should be moved to the infobox and/or the body of the article. Andrew D. (talk) 08:53, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

The dictionary doesn't have to be on the lead. I agree with Andrew Davidson, why not move it to more relevant sections such as Infobox or Name section instead of removing it completely? Future Perfect, lately, you have shown a tendency for removal of information and blanking of content from various Greek-related articles, which is worrisome. I suggest that you move it to a more appropriate section like Andrew has suggested instead of removing it completely.

EDIT: I just restored the deleted dictionary info and its sources, and moved them from the lead to the Etymology section. [8] I hope this helps. --❤ SILENTRESIDENT ❤ 22:24, 13 August 2017 (UTC)