Talk:Q52110228

Rename class from "geopolitical community" to "group of countries" "geopolitical group"

I want to suggest a rename of this item. The reason is that some geopolitical groupings, especially groups of countries, are not self-defined communities, but just groupings, sometimes defined by outsiders. Examples are European colonies in Africa (Q90696277), where the common status was imposed forcefully by foreign powers, or Russian peripheral countries (Q90303093), where the communality is the escape from Tsarist rule. For some existing items too, e.g. Four Asian Tigers (Q190918), the common handle was most probably invented by western journalists, and not the result of any communal spirit.

I was looking for a class for groups of countries or geopolitical entities, and also asked at the project chat. The present class comes very close, in it's description as well as in it's "different from" entries. A more general / neutral name would cover cases as mentioned above, without hurting current uses.

What do you think? Cheers, Jneubert (talk) 20:51, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

@Waldyrious, Carlosmg.dg, Osteologia, Taravyvan Adijene, Luan, Infovarius:, @Jordi_escarre, Liuxinyu970226, Verdy_p, MSClaudiu: Ideas? Objections? Jneubert (talk) 15:51, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Sadly Wikidata don't have a WikiProject Politics, ping enwiki's participants instead: @Thinker78, Adwiii, 7partparadigm, Aeengath, Abelmoschus Esculentus:@Abgilmore91, AlanS, AlexanderLevian, Andrzej Kmicic, AdventurousSquirrel: ^^ --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 15:58, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Using "group of countries" would be obviously wrong, as its members are not necessarily "countries". May be you don't like the term "community" because they are not self-described under this term (and they are not necessarily allied in a community, even if they share some common traits), and because they could be just "common" groupings (used by some organisations to which they belong, or used by some external religious, noble or civil ruler in the past, or used today by some external analysts, like statisticians, historians, geopoliticians, ethnologists, sociologists, or international NGO's). So I would prefer to keep the term "geopolitical", just adopt the term "group", and so I prefer "geopolitical group" (each of their members would be a "geopolitical entity"). Verdy p (talk) 16:05, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

"Group of geopolitical entities" probably would be most precise - and most clumsy. I'm fine with "geopolitical group", as long as we can add "group of countries" and "group of geopolitical entities" aliases to make it more easily discoverable. Jneubert (talk) 17:08, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

To add some context: when I created this item, the motivation was to represent sets of geopolitical entities (countries, states, etc.) that either self-describe or are externally recognized as a collective entity with a given name, but that don't incorporate a formal organization. In particular, I wanted to be able to distinguish formal entities like Community of Portuguese Language Countries (Q182500) from informal ones like Portuguese-speaking African countries (Q1360686).

In this regard, I agree that "community" is an over-specific designation, as it can apply to some of these groups but not all of them. So a more generic term like "group" would be more fitting. For the same reason, and in agreement with Verdy p, "countries" is also overly specific. I would support a renaming to "geopolitical group" as Verdy p suggested. This seems to be compatible with Jneubert's concerns in the OP, and IMO would be a strict improvement over the current name.

My only concern is whether intergovernmental organization (Q245065) should remain connected to this item via different from (P1889) (which puts them somewhat at the same ontological level, i.e. one representing a formal entity, and the other an informal one), or if it should now become a subclass of it (which would leave us with no entity for informal geopolitical groups specifically, and so instances of such would have to be inferred by direct membership in this class rather than to intergovernmental organization (Q245065)). Thoughts? --Waldyrious (talk) 16:54, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I'd leave the class hierarchy as it is, because an organization has more structure than the informal groupings we are dealing with here (so "informal group" is-a "organization" would not be true). -- And when we are at that, we could add supranational union (Q1335818) as another "different from". Jneubert (talk) 17:23, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Agreed on both counts, and I'd also mark supranational union (Q1335818) as "different from" intergovernmental organization (Q245065). From what I understood, both are official entities, but the former represents more of a hierarchical relationship with its comprising members (even if only de jure), while the latter would be for more egalitarian, autonomy-preserving coordination, right? Or am I misinterpreting their meanings? --Waldyrious (talk) 17:58, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Agreed, that's my understanding, too. Jneubert (talk) 21:02, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Who dared to summon me and why. You are playing with forces you don't understand. Thinker78 (talk) 18:46, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

@Thinker78: Why not? You're a member of the enwiki w:Wikipedia:WikiProject Politics/Participants (and huh? the first). --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 23:23, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Instead of renaming the item "Geopolitical countries", rename it "Geopolitical groups", unless you specifically are referring only to countries. Thinker78 (talk) 22:11, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

A consensus seems to be reached, so I made the according changes. Thanks to everybody participating in this discussion. Would be great if people with more language knowledge could change the remaining labels. Cheers, Jneubert (talk) 19:53, 9 May 2020 (UTC)