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Template:Outline of knowledge coverage

Racist name

The current name of this article is racist and inaccurate. The moderators who are upholding this are themselves engaging in systemic racism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.140.192.45 (talk) 04:29, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's racist but Timor-Leste > East Timor ngl Judeinator9001 (talk) 16:12, 16 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Edit: I see that this article is written in British English. Timor Leste is not and will never be a British (or Australian) colony, but this article is being written for the benefit of those people, not the world. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.140.192.45 (talk) 04:33, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless of any issues with the title (which have been discussed about 1 trillion times already - go and peruse the Talk page archives), the fact this article uses British English has no significance regarding colonisation. The variety of English used on an article is almost always just the native variant used by its original author, with subsequent edits being required to maintain consistency per sitewide policy. Timor Leste, being a Tetum- and Portuguese-speaking country and having no distinct variety of English of its own (as far as I'm aware), has no strong national ties that would give reason to favour it over AmE or any other. LetterC (talk) 15:20, 20 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This accusation of racism is ridiculous. We don't have to follow what the government of a country decides. OTherwise we should call Italy "Italia" and Greece "Hellas", oh and Croatia "Hrvtska". But besides this, what kind of craziness makes you think this is racist??????--190.80.244.132 (talk) 23:24, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This is English Wikipedia. So articles are written in English. Germany isn't written in German, for example, and its title isn't "Deutschland". Is that racist? As for the variety of English, well, Germany isn't written in the German variety of English because there is no German variety of English. Is it racist, therefore, that that article isn't written in a non-existent variety? What language and what variety of it, exactly, are the non-racist ones you think this article should be written in? Largoplazo (talk) 17:45, 16 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Is it racist that the title of the article about the United States on Tetum Wikipedia is tet:Estadu Naklibur Sira Amérika Nian and not tet:United States or tet:United States of America? Largoplazo (talk) 17:52, 16 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

name of article

Just came here. Am shocked. The country calls itself Timor-Leste in English, the article provides a whole list. East Timor in English would be the eastern part of the island of Timor where today the country of Timor-Leste is. Naming this article 'East Timor' is as arrogant as the article about the USA called 'United States', while Mexico, which is also called "United States" doesn't get to use its own title. --142.163.195.187 (talk) 17:28, 23 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If you look near the top of this page, you will see that this issue has been discussed multiple times, most recently in December 2020. None of them have resulted in a consensus to move the article to a new title. There are links to the past discussions up there, you can review the arguments that people made there. Ultimately, the article's name will only be changed if there is consensus amongst editors to change it. GirthSummit (blether) 17:38, 23 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The "eastern part of the island of Timor" would be "eastern Timor". Just like the difference between "West Virginia" and "western Virginia".--Khajidha (talk) 19:29, 23 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You're contradicting yourself when you say East Timor in English would be the eastern part of the island of Timor where today the country of Timor-Leste is. It makes as much sense as saying that Timor-Leste is wrong because Timor-Leste em português seria a parte oriental da ilha de Timor onde fica hoje o país de Timor-Leste ("Timor-Leste in Portuguese would be the eastern part of the island of Timor where today the country of Timor-Leste is"). Because, in case you didn't know, "leste" is Portuguese for "east".
Also, "United States" is not the full name of the United States of America. But, on the other hand, the short form "United States" was in use for some time before there was a United States of Mexico. Largoplazo (talk) 23:53, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The best English translation of the long-form name of Mexico is "United Mexican States" not "United States of Mexico". Regardless, should we go over to the Spanish Wikipedia and demand that they move their article from "Estados Unidos" to "United States"? Rreagan007 (talk) 02:53, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Article Name

I know this discussion has had before, but I want to open a new option Considering its official English name as stated in the article, and seen here http://timor-leste.gov.tl/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Constitution_RDTL_ENG.pdf

I think that the most reasonable option is to change the name of the article to East Timor (Timor-Leste), such has been done similarly to Myanmar where the article is named Burma (Myanmar) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:EmilePersaud 21:42, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's named Myanmar. (CC) Tbhotch™ 21:44, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There is no such thing as an "official English name", as there is no regulatory body with the power to set standards for the English language. If you mean the "English form preferred by the government of the country", we don't give a shit. Never have. Never will. The only reasonable option is what we are already doing, using the form most commonly used in English. If you can show that East Timor is not the most commonly used form in English, do so. Unless and until this is shown, the article stays where it is. --Khajidha (talk) 19:05, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Usage counts, nothing else. Based on what we have found in Ngram ("East Timor" still dominating as of 2019) and the "News on the web"-corpus ("Timor(-)Leste" dominating since 2016), it will be worth digging into this again in 2023 or 2024. For this year and 2022, it's a waste of time and energy. @Khajidha: Talking about so-called official names, have you been aware of this one? –Austronesier (talk) 19:56, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note that this also affects the Wikidata part, to which on their d:Talk:Q574, @UWashPrincipalCataloger: told us a lot of sources say "Timor Leste". --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 10:17, 30 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I am not sure article names here have much affect there. Wikidata is a separate project, it may have different naming criteria. CMD (talk) 12:03, 30 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I came here from a separate page (ISO codes) but admit my surprise, having not heard of this country being called anything except "Timor-Leste" for many years. I would suggest that it is being held back because some fear that agreeing to change now would imply they were wrong to argue against the name change in the past (they probably had a point in 2005, but now?). We have changed a number of country titles since Timor-Leste became the official title - North Macedonia, Eswatini, maybe Myanmar (don't know when that was switched) - so why is this particular one being held back? Who still calls it by its old name? 110.33.28.251 (talk) 10:22, 26 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In one of the yellow boxes at the top (you have to click "About the page" in mobile view), there is a pointer to the last discussion in Dec 2020. Who still calls it by its old name? Answer: many[1] (although this search might contain some false positives which actually refer to the province during Indonesian occupation). While I'm absolutely in favor of renaming the page, corpus evidence is only slowly building up to get a stronger point than in 2020 (the elephant in the room is Google Ngram which only includes sources until 2019). And as you can see from the many non-arguments in the move discussion, even corpus evidence will quickly be dismissed unless it is overwhelmingly in favor of the new target. –Austronesier (talk) 11:33, 26 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation of Timor Leste

The article seems to insist the English pronunciation of 'Leste' in 'Timor Leste' is "Lesh-tay," but I've never heard it that way? It's always been pronounced "Lest" or rarely "Les-tay." To clarify, this is from an Australian pronunciation perspective. I've never heard 'Leste' with a 'sh' sound. KesshouRyuu (talk) 03:04, 15 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you. The English pronunciation would be "les-tay". It definitely shouldn't be anything like "lesh". Rreagan007 (talk) 19:50, 24 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Pronunciation should be like “lest”, this is the most proximate to the Portuguese pronunciation (not to mention the most used pronunciation by Angolophone people who actually have gone to Timor). Cristiano Tomás (talk) 21:09, 24 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
English speakers generally treat Portuguese vowel letters as they do the same vowels in Spanish. For example, English speakers pronounce Portuguese names ending in -o with /oʊ/ rather than /uː/ on the end. We'd pronounce your first name the same whether we thought you were from a Spanish- or Portuguese-speaking country. Largoplazo (talk) 23:42, 24 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

GA toolbox
Reviewing
This review is transcluded from Talk:East Timor/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Ovinus (talk · contribs) 05:54, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'll review this one; excited to learn something new! Given the exceptionally high readership and importance, I want to be careful, so this may take a while to review. I'll make copy edits as I go through; I won't feel strongly about them, so revert as you please. Ovinus (talk) 05:54, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your comments and edits, a slower review is not a problem. Will think about the comments already given and reply when I have fuller time. CMD (talk) 07:26, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Ovinus, this has actually caught me at a busy time, so I haven't had as much time yet as I need. I have had some time though to look into some of your history questions, and I am having difficulty finding answers. There is very little information about the early History of the island, even during the early Portuguese era. Even where information does exist, I have found on occasion contradictory dates in different reliable sources. I suspect this is why many sources keep their information quite general for this period. CMD (talk) 18:16, 11 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Do take your time; I actually have finals next week, so I'll be busy too. That's interesting that information is scant; I think the more important part is defining terms like "sacred house", "dyadic", etc. or using simpler terms. That shouldn't be too hard. Ovinus (talk) 19:10, 11 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Those will certainly be done. Frankly, in the long term Sacred house needs its own article. CMD (talk) 01:32, 12 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Content

Nominator has written the vast majority of the prose, which is good to see. I'll be referencing Canada, a well-maintained FA about an admittedly bigger country, but with good ideas on organization.

I shifted them into Etymology, as well as the references, let me know if that looks cleaner. CMD (talk) 11:55, 16 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Me likey, thanks

Etymology

History

  • Added; a sad topic.
  • Moved it right to the start.

Politics

has been established, it is difficult for the legislature to later assert its independent powers." I have not read anything on changes to this balance, but I have added that this imbalance reflects the dominance of individuals leaders (tying in to later text on political parties).

  • The first sentence refers specifically to politicians, whereas the last is for the public. I have tweaked the first and added context from the source.
  • Not in the existing sources, so I added a range from [2].


Administrative divisions

Foreign relations and military

Spotchecks

Relative to Special:Diff/1130484202

Just noting I haven't forgot about this; sorry for the delay. I'll have more comments soon. Ovinus (talk) 23:46, 13 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No issue on my end, hope 2023 is working out so far. CMD (talk) 01:41, 14 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I won't be able to complete the review so I will mark this for a second opinion. Ovinus (talk) 09:33, 3 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Second opinion

I'm starting where Ovinus left. Not going to double-check the above review.

Geography

Economy

Demographics

Culture

Images

Requested move 6 January 2023

East Timor → Timor-Leste – Firstly, it's the official name used by the country as a short English form in pretty much every context. There were a handful of past discussions that got relatively strong support for a move. Secondly, it anecdotally seems to be used a lot by sources from outside the country with close connections to the country, such as https://www.oxfam.org/en/what-we-do/countries/timor-leste-east-timor. Finally, Google Trends is all over the place but seems to show there to be roughly equivalent amounts of both names, meaning that this isn't some place where an officially correct usage is contradicted by common practice (https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%203-m&geo=US&q=timor-leste,east%20timor,timor%20leste). Also, if it is upheld, all other articles referencing East Timor should be moved. Mcavoybickford (talk) 02:34, 6 January 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. – robertsky (talk) 03:52, 14 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Going by a look at Google News for the past week, [3] [4] (excluding one site, eturbonews.com, that comes up repeatedly, but only because it displays links for all the countries of the world on the right side of the browser, not because the country is mentioned in the text), the two names get forty-something hits each. If other meaningful indicators that people bring here are similarly neck-and-neck, I'm gonna support the move. Largoplazo (talk) 03:24, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'll break the suspense: Once for the French article (in 2009), and never for the German article. In comparison, the French article has had two people (both over ten years ago) request that the country be relocated to Oceania, whereas I've seen that here only once. Largoplazo (talk) 11:38, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oh dear, relocating an entire country? Sounds like a mess Red Slash 23:22, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"- Since this article is supposedly written in British English, I pulled out the UK and Australian numbers from GLOWBE. The UK has 47 hits for Timor-Leste, 20 for Timor Leste, and 228 hits for East Timor. Australia has 412 hits for Timor-Leste, 154 for Timor Leste, and 1174 for East Timor. So for both of these it's a little more slanted towards East Timor, but not enough to justify overruling what the country actually calls itself." So, actual English usage in actual English speaking countries is in favor of East Timor by a factor of 2 or 3 to 1 and you think that is evidence for changing to Timor-Leste? How does that make a lick of sense? --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:07, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
etc. Here's my thought process: if usage is evenly split between the two names, why not go with the official one? Paintspot Infez (talk) 23:12, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: - except as has been shown, usage (ie, common usage) is not evenly split. It clearly favours East Timor. --Merbabu (talk) 23:16, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If these sources didn't suffice before, why would they suffice now? To be clear about it, the criterion isn't the existence of a lot of sources, and certainly not the repetition of previously mentioned sources, but a preponderance of sources. While I did find them neck-and-neck with my search mentioned above from Google News, that's not what others are finding elsewhere, as the discussion shows. Largoplazo (talk) 00:33, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • If consistency were the criterion, then we'd have Thailand under "Siam", Sri Lanka under "Ceylon", and Beijing under "Peking". Titles can be changed to reflect updates in real usage. It's just that real usage doesn't always catch up quickly to official decrees. Largoplazo (talk) 00:36, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    No we wouldn't. Those names are clearly the common name of those locations. Just because other locations have had a change in name doesn't mean this country has. --Spekkios (talk) 08:22, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
East Timor Timor(-)Leste
2010 – 2015 2762 (67%) 1354 (33%) (= 466 "Timor Leste" + 888 "Timor-Leste")
2016 – 2020 5102 (43%) 6685 (57%) (= 1994 "Timor Leste" + 4691 "Timor-Leste")
2018 – 2020 3047 (41%) 4400 (59%) (= 1070 "Timor Leste" + 3330 "Timor-Leste")
This trend has been stable in the following years:
East Timor Timor(-)Leste
2021 714 (41%) 1027 (59%) (= 466 "Timor Leste" + 844 "Timor-Leste")
2022 1187 (46%) 1387 (54%) (= 312 "Timor Leste" + 1075 "Timor-Leste")
The change in usage is also observed in academia. Google Scholar searches will yield similar results. Note also that searches for "East Timor" can also contain false positive referring to the Portuguese colony or the Indonesian province, which inflates figures for "East Timor". It is thus even more significant that "Timor(-)Leste" consistently has outweighed "East Timor" over the last years. –Austronesier (talk) 13:43, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Add. And here's a bit from Google Scholar:
Google Scholar
"of East Timor" "of Timor Leste"
2015 882 (53%) 785 (47%)
2016 836 (51%) 794 (49%)
2017 845 (51%) 813 (49%)
2018 885 (50%) 873 (50%)
2019 857 (46%) 1010 (54%)
2020 779 (45%) 945 (55%)
2021 712 (41%) 1020 (59%)
2022 583 (39%) 921 (61%)
I've used the phrases "of East Timor" and "of Timor Leste" in order to ensure that the text appears in an English text and also to get more handy figures that allow for a quick look at all hits without introducing a bias for either of them (using East Timor" and "Timor Leste" as subject of "is" and "has" is another nice search "method"). Pinging for comments @Merbabu, JarrahTree, Srnec, and Rreagan007: who have explicitly opined that common usage hasn't changed without citing data, plus @Khajidha: who has dissected GLOWBE data in detail, data which unfortunately ends at 2012—the perfect corpus to get "Kiev" and "Swaziland" back :) –Austronesier (talk) 17:32, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Response: The figures for "East Timor" and "Timor Leste" indicate that the trend is currently towards "East Timor", and may also include pages in Portuguese. The figures for "of East Timor" and "of Timor Leste" are not figures for the present and proposed new names, but for phrases that may yield significantly different results, and that are in any event in Google scholar, which focuses on academic rather than general usage. Bahnfrend (talk) 04:49, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The NOW corpus does not include pages in Portuguese. Upward gradients were rejected in previous discussions per WP:CRYSTALBALL, and only absolute figures seen as relevant. The same obviously holds for downward gradients that do no affect the numerical dominance of the proposed page title. Note also that the Google Scholar results for "East Timor" (whether by itself or in a phrase) have a higher potential of false positives, since historical articles actually might discuss the Indonesian province. A cursory glance at the 2022 results[5] immediately shows this. When pruned, the figures will lean even heavier towards "Timor(-)Leste". –Austronesier (talk) 11:30, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Response What, so you're saying that an upward or downward trend should be ignored, but that what you describe as a "stable" trend is somehow important, and supports a change in name, even though such a change was not made only about two years ago? Bahnfrend (talk) 14:57, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I can report that my claim—no change in the underlying facts since last time—is basically correct, since last time was in 2020 and you state that this trend has been stable in the following years, i.e., 2021–2022. So, I reviewed my reasoning in 2020: Current title is of more wide application and thus superior. E.g., will Indonesian occupation of East Timor be moved if this move goes through? Simple nose-counting of online sources will not do for country names. Although I did't spell it out, what I mean is that there is no reason to treat usage as just a snapshot of the present moment. Sources from before 2020 (or 2000, or 1975) aren't going to disappear. They should still get a say, albeit of ever decreasing weighting. I made this same argument in the Kiev discussion at the same time and spelled out my reasoning in greater depth.
I'm not sure I'd regard a reference to the Indonesian province as a "false positive". Surely the Indonesian period is a part of the history of the country, just as much as the Portuguese period? Surely when Noam Chomsky wrote of East Timor he was writing of the country and not of any particular constitution. I have other concerns, as well. What is the correct adjectival form of Timor-Leste? I am genuinely unsure. What happens to articles with "East Timorese" in the title? I have a small personal interest in this, since I thought long and hard about the correct title for East Timorese rebellion of 1911–1912. —Srnec (talk) 00:37, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Response That is the correct title for that article. The government of East Timor uses the expression "Timor-Leste" in English language publications to refer only to the independent republic that has existed since 2002, and not to the Portuguese (or Indonesian-occupied) territory that existed before 2002. But the subtlety of such a distinction would be lost on most readers of English Wikipedia (which is for general readers, and not just academics or State Department officials and their equivalents), and that is a reason not to make the proposed change to the name of the present article. The better and less confusing approach is to use English, as for the article about Ivory Coast, which, like the present article, has been unsuccessfully proposed for a move on many occasions. As indicated by the various move discussions that have taken place over two decades, the arguments for and against moving the two articles are almost identical, and no move proposal in relation to either article has ever succeeded. The most important considerations are WP:USEENGLISH and WP:COMMONNAME - Wikipedia simply does not use foreign languages for the names of articles about individual countries, even if the government of the country in question prefers or insists upon such use. Bahnfrend (talk) 14:57, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support for the reasons laid out above and for the fact that both common and official usage both support usage of Timor Leste. Cristiano Tomás (talk) 16:22, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support It's clear that more recent usage favours Timor-Leste and Wikipedia needs to reflect current not historical usage. Andrewdpcotton (talk) 17:28, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • In contrast to "little strings" or "main province", "East Timor" is still heavily used by English speakers when communicating in English. The focus here is on which of the two forms, that or "Timor-Leste", predominates. Largoplazo (talk) 22:51, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I completely agree. My point was more to illustrate that we don't avoid names simply because they derive from a language other than English - the crux of this discussion should be whether Timor-Leste has overtaken East Timor in English usage, not whether Timor-Leste is an English name. Several votes in opposition in this discussion are highlighting WP:USEENGLISH, which is completely irrelevant here. We're not proposing to rename the Germany article as Deutschland, we're proposing to rename this article to a name which, though it derives from another language, has significant usage in English. Turnagra (talk) 03:47, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Unfortunately, raw WP:GOOGLEHITS are not reliable Red Slash 19:49, 13 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Google hits can give a give a general idea of what is going on even if it isn't the most reliable. --Spekkios (talk) 00:18, 14 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Google hits is a good indicator for determining what is the most common English name and is often used in RM discussions for that purpose. Rreagan007 (talk) 15:37, 14 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikipedia:Search_engine_test has more information about how it's definitely not that simple. Red Slash 19:54, 18 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @Spekkios: I have noticed you don't have quotation marks in these searches[11][12]. Adding them changes the ratio significantly (from about even to 3:2 in favor of the proposed move target). –Austronesier (talk) 21:50, 18 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I can't remember why I didn't do that in those searches, but adding the quotation marks doesn't change the resutls signifigantly for me. I think I was trying to filter out non-English papers, and that using the quotations filtered out "East Timorese" which I thought was a relevent term to include. --Spekkios (talk) 22:00, 18 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Mcavoybickford: Per WP:RM: "Nomination already implies that the nominator supports the name change, and nominators should refrain from repeating this recommendation on a separate bulleted line." Rreagan007 (talk) 15:41, 14 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • As far as I'm aware, support from the nominator is implied so no need to vote. Turnagra (talk) 00:08, 14 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Relisting comment: for a clearer consensus. – robertsky (talk) 03:52, 14 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have posted the evidence from the NOW (News on the web) corpus above which for more than 5 years gives more counts for "Timor(-)Leste" than "East Timor". Some of the news reports are indeed from sites more prone to use Officialese than common English (e.g. Human Rights Watch, World Bank). And frankly, I haven't filtered the results for such sources in all detail, but browsing through the search results, I don't get the impression that these diplomatic sites make up 500 counts that are needed to give "East Timor" a majority. –Austronesier (talk) 19:38, 14 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There are also sources, such as The Guardian, which seem to exclusively use Timor-Leste. Turnagra (talk) 19:46, 14 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A swallow does not a page move make...we need a swarm.–Austronesier (talk) 19:56, 14 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I know - I didn't have time for a proper review of media and provided that as an indicative example. Turnagra (talk) 20:23, 14 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'd add that it would hardly be surprising or out of character for the Guardian to be an outlier on this sort of thing. So, if the only concrete example we have (among mainstream media sources as I described) is the Guardian, it doesn't persuade me of a general change across the board. Kahastok talk 22:32, 14 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Others include Forbes or The Straits Times, and many less widely read yet mainstream non-governmental media. –Austronesier (talk) 11:41, 15 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Support. Timor-Leste >>> East Timor. Timor-Leste would be a more appropriate name, because not only do I just hear and see the phrase "Timor-Leste" a lot more often in my experience, but it seems like that is just the more common name for the nation, which would be the ideal article name according to WP:COMMONNAME. As can be seen this link, this isn't just a new/temporary thing either, nor is it just isolated to one area of the world. "Timor-Leste" has consistently been searched more than "East Timor" in all measured regions since at least 2004 and it's not even close; note that the country had only existed for 2 years at the time. Also, the country that searches "East Timor" the most compared "Timor-Leste" is Australia; but even in Australia, only 38% of searches were "East Timor", while 62% were "Timor-Leste". It is clear that the article should be moved East Timor → Timor-Leste, as that is the more common name by far.

Judeinator9001 (talk) 00:50, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Noting that the link you posted is just for the US - but when you change it to worldwide, the gap is even more pronounced in favour of Timor Leste. Turnagra (talk) 01:51, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oh yeah I was talking about worldwide I guess I accidentally copied the link before I even checked worldwide Judeinator9001 (talk) 01:58, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Judeinator9001, your Google Trends results are comparing a search term to the country searches, which includes both East Timor and Timor-Leste. You want to compare one search term to another search term, like this, which clearly shows that East Timor is the prefered search term in English-speaking countries by quite a signifigant margin. In Australia, it's actually 86% of the seaches which are using "East Timor" and only 14% "Timor-Leste". --Spekkios (talk) 02:06, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well in the end you are still searching Timor-Leste (🤩), not East Timor (🤮). Judeinator9001 (talk) 02:58, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's simply not true according to the Google Trends data - only a few countries have "Timor Leste" as their primary search term. Most are extremely favourable to "East Timor". --Spekkios (talk) 03:07, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well I have conducted another search on Google Trends (making sure all of the searches tested were terms and not topics) and Timor-Leste is more common; although this is only the case without the hyphen. While you are right in that "East Timor" is more common of a search term than "Timor-Leste" (with the hyphen), "Timor Leste" (without the hyphen) has clearly been dominating since 2013. This really isn't a surprise either; who is actually going to take the time to put that hyphen in there? This kind of shows how "Timor-Leste" is actually more common - only people aren't typing it in its correct grammatical form. Currently the popularity for each search term sits at:
Timor-Leste: 2
East Timor: 2
Timor Leste: 14
Source: Click Me!
Judeinator9001 (talk) 21:08, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
How are you determining that "Timor Leste" is more common? You can't just count countries, as Brazilian searches are not going to WP:USEENGLISH. Looking at countries which use English it's either clearly "East Timor" or very evenly split. --Spekkios (talk) 21:42, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect searches in Indonesian - for Timor Leste or Timor Timur - will skew that particular search massively. Kahastok talk 22:07, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Doesn't matter, some big English-speaking countries like Nigeria are in red. Also, almost no place name featured as an article title on the English Wikipedia actually originates from English. For example, the largest English-speaking population on the planet: the United States of America.
United comes from the Latin word for 1.
State comes from the Latin status, meaning "manner of standing, condition."
America is named after an Italian explorer.
As you can see, all of these are from Latin. Guess what else comes from Latin? That's right: the word "leste!" It is Portuguese for "east". Being a romance language, Portuguese comes from Latin, ergo, your point does not stand. Judeinator9001 (talk) 22:44, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's a straw man argument. No one was arguing that Wikipedia has to use words and names that originated in the English language. Languages evolve over time and the language a word originated in doesn't matter if it's now part of the language. "United States of America" is the English name for the country, just like "East Timor" is the English name for that country.
And yes, it does matter what countries are searching for what. If English-speaking countries are searching for one term over another, then that gives an indication of what name they use. --Spekkios (talk) 02:13, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
seems to me that in comparing search terms, one has to discount the number of searches for the new name that people make because they've never heard of it before. For example, if half the searches on the new name were occasioned by someone who knows the subject under the old name encountering the new name for the first time, then those are all people who can be assumed to be using the old name, the opposite of your supposition. Largoplazo (talk) 02:25, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Even then, after taking away 50% of Timor-Leste’s searches from most time periods, it is still on top; albeit by a much smaller margin. Judeinator9001 (talk) 02:58, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wikipedia does not spur things. Period. Wikipedia follows. Always. There's no exception here. And what in the world is racist about calling a country in Asia something in one European colonial language that means exactly the same thing as what it's being called in another European colonial language? Let's just throw the word "racist" at anything we don't like, why don't we, even when it's crystal clear that it makes no sense? Is it racist that the title of the article about the United States on Tetum Wikipedia is tet:Estadu Naklibur Sira Amérika Nian and not tet:United States or tet:United States of America? Largoplazo (talk) 02:54, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I completely agree with Largoplazo. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not an advocate for change. It reflects what is, not what some editors or governments would like to be. "In discussing the appropriate title of an article, remember that the choice of title is not dependent on whether a name is "right" in a moral or political sense." (WP:TITLECHANGES) Bahnfrend (talk) 02:11, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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