Talk:Western Europe

Let us get rid of the whole thing

Once again we see the start of an edit war over the table of "Population". That table has been a bone of contention ever since it was introduced back in 2009. This time the question is the inclusion or non-inclusion of Greece. On earlier occations most of the countries currently included have been in and out. Also there have been attempts to include other countries, like the Czech Republic, Poland and Turkey. Even Cyprus has been mentioned. In the beginning there were some attempts to explain the inclusion criteria, such as "as defined by UNESCO" or "as defined by the National Geographic Society" etc., but the current "that are commonly referred to as Western Europe" is absolutely useless. Given the many different definitions of Western Europe, it is, of course, possible to find any number of sources that mention a given country as Western European. The problem is that we need sources to say that the given country is commonly referred to as Western European. Without such source it has no place in the table, and such sources are hard to find, if they exist at all.

In the "Languages" section we face similar problems. I see it is argued that this list is only about the "geographical" Western Europe (which actually also is ill-defined), but there is nothing in the text to support this distinction. The "Climate" section and the "Economy" section have the same inherent disambiguity. It is not possible to say anything interesting about the climate in Western Europe unless we base it on a definition of what Western Europe is.

One solution is to specify inclusion criteria for each and all of those four articles, but I am afraid that will turn into new edit wars. The simple Columbi egg solution is to remove all these four sections altogether. Then tha article will be an analysis of different definitions of Western Europe. The above discussion (and earlier discussions) seem to prove that such an article is needed. --T*U (talk) 19:15, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Well said, TU-nor. I am really tired of this selective appliance of different criteria for different countries on different sections that merely reflect personal views of the editors in a selective and not catholic way. You have my full support on your suggestions. Btw, your case here also relates to my case above. --❤ SILENTRESIDENT ❤ 19:32, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

• I would prefer to keep it, but I recognise the problems. Either it finds some independent definition (and a simple geographic definition is simple), or it ought to go. If there's an AfD, please ping me. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:38, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Andy Dingley: You may have misunderstood me. I do not suggest to remove the whole article (and I do not support such removal), just to remove the four sections mentioned. --T*U (talk) 19:41, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Andy Dingley, thank you for recognizing the problem. If there is consensus on removing sections (not the article, that could be too extreme), I am fine with it although I could prefer TU-nor's suggestions for re-writing it based on geographical criteria (that make more sense) --❤ SILENTRESIDENT ❤ 19:45, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

So the article stays as it is until then, just because Thomas.W "does not support it" without providing any sources? I found 5 sources including Greece and someone had them removed too, I do not understand why that is happening. Especially considering Greece has been on that list for years, so until consensus is gained, it's irrational for Greece not to be included. If wikipedia means biased people removing the sources added by other people and writing their own false information, it should definitely close down. 79.103.208.197 (talk) 15:17, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Clearly the article needs the attention of administrators, as it isn't merely a content dispute as I originally thought. Certain editors here are not contributing positively to the resolution of the dispute. User:Thomas.W's behavior on the article shows signs of WP:OWNERSHIP. Despite my warnings to him, Thomas is trying to maintain his POV on the article, not to protect it or to restore it back to its last stable version prior to Future Perfect's biased edits. Thomas' first revision: [1], had Greece selectively removed from the list, (only Greece, not any of the other non-WE countries), using the excuse of geographic criteria. And when 79.103.208.197 tried to expand Thomas's reasoning to apply geographic criteria to all the other countries in the list (the ones Thomas has "forgotten" to apply), [2], Thomas reverts the IP [3] on the grounds that geography wasn't agreed as a criteria in the first place. if this isn't WP:OWNERSHIP, then what is it? The disputed changes were applied without consensus and now Thomas asks for Consensus to return back to the revision prior to these disputed changes. A clear case of WP:GAMING. Something needs to be done because the current situation is unacceptable. --❤ SILENTRESIDENT ❤ 15:55, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

My thoughts exactly. The case has to be reported, if not Thomas W. as an editor 79.103.208.197 (talk) 16:15, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Allow me to update my position. After a short discussion with TU-nor, and partly due to the ongoing edit war, I am realizing that deciding and agreeing on criteria (which more or less could be geographical ones) could take possibly a very long time due to no clear geographical definition existing about WE boundaries and it is very likely that no consensus will be reached on that matter, at least not in the foreseen future. Due to this, I will rather support the removal of the whole sections instead of discussing about the criteria.

@ Andy Dingley, could you consent to the TU-nor's proposed solution of removing the whole sections? That could help in building a quick consensus. --❤ SILENTRESIDENT ❤ 05:34, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

I'm just going to pretend that this article doesn't exist and not waste any more time on it (but the more of it that is deleted, the better, IMHO). Andy Dingley (talk) 08:36, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

• Support removing both tables currently in the article. There's no single definition of Western Europe; anybody who wants this information can look at a Europe-wide table. Power~enwiki (talk) 05:43, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
  • I'm unsure whether or not I support the full "remove 4 sections" proposal. Power~enwiki (talk) 05:45, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
    • Removal of just the tables isn't a bad idea either. --❤ SILENTRESIDENT ❤ 07:34, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
      • Removing the tables will surely help, since that is where most of the edit warring has happened. But even if we remove the tables, the sections will still need to have inclusion criteria: Should (as has been proposed) Greek language be mentioned in the text about languages? Should Basque be mentioned (like it is now)? What about Finnish? Should Germany be mentioned under Economy? Should Spain be included in the Climate section? It all depends on the definition of Western Europe for each and all of the sections. --T*U (talk) 07:14, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
        • Support removing tables as everyone seems to agree this will solve some conflicts that have occurred.
        • TU-nor I think each should be done in a critical fashion that does justice to a country's topical specifics. Important to talk about why questionable countries are classified one way for by domain experts, not Wikipedia editors. Greek for languages? I'd say no, because linguistically afaik the modern Greek language has little to do with what most linguists would discuss regarding "Western European" areal linguistic phenomena, and Ancient Greek influences are not specific to Western Europe at all and largely due to use for neologisms especially in science. Its interactions with its Balkan neighbors in contrast get a lot of discussion, see Balkan sprachbund, etc. Basque, on the other hand, is obviously very different from its neighbors, but it also interacted with them significantly, and in onomastics there are theories that see it as influential in an explicitly in an area explicitly called W Europe (see Vasconic substratum theory, tho note this has critics). Finnish, idk as much, but similar factors should be considered based on what linguists say, not Wikipedia users . Economy I know less about, but it's likely a hairball because of Cold War factors historically dividing Germany, tho today I'd be shocked to hear anyone describe Germany as anything but "Western" (Greece & Finland are more controversial generally speaking, but economy is one area where both might have be more "W European" due to Cold War stuff, notwithstanding certain issues that could be called more North/South than East/West). --Yalens (talk) 21:25, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

• The first sentence in the article is "Western Europe is the region comprising the western part of Europe". What is so difficult to understand about the geographic terms 'region', 'East', 'West', 'North' or 'South'? This article is clearly about geography, not culture. Hmains (talk) 22:39, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
  • One section which is tiny covers "climate" which could be called geography. No clear geographic bounds are given and the other sections-- history (almost exclusively human history), language, economy, etc, all discuss phenomena deriving from human society. So it's clearly not mostly about geography. If you'd like to remake it to be mostly about geography that's another discussion. --Yalens (talk) 22:58, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
    • For other articles, see Western world and Western culture. This article should not duplicate those articles. Hmains (talk) 23:05, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
      • Related, but not identical concepts. Western Europe is a similar sociopolitical region especially within intra-EU politics. Also relevant tho not identical "areas" are discussed in areal linguistics, economics, etc. This article barely mentions geography. You should really start a new thread if you're arguing here we should make it primarily about geography. I'm willing to move this discussion there. That would be such a makeover that it might as well be a new page, as only 3 lines of the present page discuss that topic. Also-- is there any agreed upon, reliably sourced, and unambiguous geographical boundaries for Western Europe? I've never heard of any. --Yalens (talk) 23:12, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
        • @ Hmains, you said: The first sentence in the article is "Western Europe is the region comprising the western part of Europe". What is so difficult to understand about the geographic terms 'region', 'East', 'West', 'North' or 'South'? This article is clearly about geography, not culture. and this is exactly my point too: [4]. --❤ SILENTRESIDENT ❤ 07:30, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
        • @ Yalens, you said: Also-- is there any agreed upon, reliably sourced, and unambiguous geographical boundaries for Western Europe? I've never heard of any. it isn't easy to find a reliably sourced geographical definition of WE, and this is the biggest problem we are having at this moment. --❤ SILENTRESIDENT ❤ 07:23, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
          • imo the issue is that Western Europe actually doesn't have any clear boundary, its meaning varies with contexts and in some it's contested. The page should be acknowledging these issues (and referencing in-domain RS for things like languages and economy), rather than asserting one definition as objective fact. In my view at least. --Yalens (talk) 08:09, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 29 July 2017

Hi, so I think you should add to this page that the Czech Republic can be also described as a western european country (in history it was always associated with Germany and Austria) and thus should be called a western european country Vit.krivan (talk) 17:26, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Note: I'm closing this edit request because further consensus is needed on which countries should be included. See the above discussion. st170e 23:34, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

UN statistical division

Subregions of Europe according to UN statistical division

Since we are listing various definitions of European sub-regions per countries here, we should probably also list the United Nations geoscheme, along with the CIA Factbook one. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:28, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

I agree. It used to be there, but was removed in January, reinstated by an IP user and then again removed by the same user. The fact that the grouping is meant for statistical convenience, does not disqualify it from being a rare case of a well-defined use of the term "Western Europe". On the other hand, I am more doubtful about the inclusion of "European Union" and "EFTA" as subsections. Neither organization define themselves as Western European. They may have been regarded as Western European in a Cold War perspective at the time they were the "Inner Six" and the "Outer Seven", but the later enlargement of the EU has disrupted any logical connection between EU and the term "Western Europe". I mean, Cyprus as a Western European country? --T*U (talk) 14:15, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Hmm, if the UN grouping is "only for statistical purposes", then what is the CIA grouping and why are we giving it pride of place now? Actually, in the World Factbook, I can't see any formal definition or grouping at all – the only thing I can see is this [5] list of geographical descriptors for each individual country, where terms like "Western Europe" are used. While these descriptors are all of course quite plausible (sure, the geographical position of Germany is nicely described by "Central Europe, bordering the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, between the Netherlands and Poland, south of Denmark"), I'm not seeing any attempt at formalizing these descriptors into a coherent set of well-defined groups of countries. For instance, there is at least one such descriptor that is used only for a single country ("south Central Europe", describing Slovenia), so should we conclude from this that in a system of world regions Slovenia forms a unique group of one? Incidentally, our coverage of this framework isn't even accurate, as we are currently describing Switzerland as "Western", while the source lists it as "Central". Can somebody find a more substantial description of what the intention and systematicity of that CIA list is? Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:03, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

• Comment: I have corrected the map for Switzerland (and also Andorra) in accordance with the Factbook. As for Slovenia, I think we can assume, given the small "s" in "south", that the Factbook meant something like "in the southern part of Central Europa". I believe the map is now in line with the descriptions here. If not, please yell. --T*U (talk) 12:40, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

I remain opposed to including any statistical regions. What is the point? So the UN divides Europe into equal size regions "for statistical convenience" and then gives them names which roughly correspond to where they are located, and we are going to list this as a definition? The UN does not specify that their statical regions are definitions of the regions they roughly correspond to, so it is original research to suggest so. T*U, you really have got to be kidding, this article isn't about arbitrary statistical regions, it's about a region called Western Europe. Please do not add OR to the article. Rob984 (talk) 16:15, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Well, I fully understand your concern about not assigning too much significance to that UN grouping. The question is: is there any other grouping that deserves being given more significance than it? All the other definitions I'm currently seeing in the article are, if anything, weaker than this one. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:35, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Support inclusion -- it's a notable and well-defined use of the term Western Europe, with boundaries, and can be one of the many (as per the lede different geographic, geopolitical and cultural definitions of the term discussed. Also TU-nor's point that the EU and EFTA never defined themselves as Western European is also notable with regards to how those two should be treated. --Yalens (talk) 17:34, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Rob984, I understand your concerns, but if you look at internet, you will see that we haven't found any strong sources about WE's definition. And I doubt that the UN Statistical Division is better than the others. But at least it is better than nothing. I support inclusion. WP:OR isn't to include how international organizations define Europe, but how certain users here have tried to make changes to the article without citing any sources at all. --❤ SILENTRESIDENT ❤ 19:16, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

How is a source which doesn't claim to in any way define Western Europe, a good source for defining it? The UNSD states:

"the assignment of countries or areas to specific groupings is for statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other affiliation of countries or territories".

So why on earth is it appropriate to use it for "affiliation of countries or territories"?

I'm not defending any of the other alleged "definitions" on this page. If we have no reliable source, then we cannot list which countries are in western Europe.

Rob984 (talk) 12:03, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

It's also quite obvious to anyone who lives here that Europe isn't divided up into mutually exclusive regions like that, they overlap extensively, particularly southern and western Europe. I mean, Britain, Portugal and Spain aren't in western Europe, but Austria is? Please find me reliable sources that use that definition (and not just for statistical convenience). A reliable factual book, journal or article? Because there are millions of sources which use the term "western Europe". And also, which puts Kuril Islands of the coast of Japan as part of Eastern Europe... Rob984 (talk) 12:33, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

I completely agree that "we cannot list which countries are in western Europe" unless we have reliable sources. Also I am quite sure that we will never find sources that "define Western Europe" once and for all. But what we can do and should do, is to present how the term "Western Europe" is used in different contexts. The presentation should probably have another title than "Modern divisions". It would include the CIA Factbook classification (but not as "groups" and "subgroups" unless the CIA actually does make such groupngs). It could (and imho should) include the Eurovoc classification scheme (perhaps with a note about Eurovoc not using the term "Central Europe" at all). It could (and again I think should) include the UN geoscheme (with a note about the purpose of the grouping). On the other hand, I cannot quite see what EU, EFTA and Intermediate Region has to do here. And of course there may be other groupings that are more useful. We will need to make sure that the text gives a balanced presentation of the various uses of the term "Western Europe". Hopefully we will even be able to find reliable sources that discuss the suitability of the different groupings. --T*U (talk) 13:27, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

So you think this is Western Europe? Nope according to this article.

Coming to this article, I think this qualifies as by far the worst outlined definition of any geographic region on Wikipedia, bordering on the ridiculous. While the article is fairly long and includes a number of maps, a lot of the focus seems to be on artifical political and statistical regions that have little to no value to the entirely cultural-geographic region that is Western Europe. To a reader not familiar with the subject, the maps shown here either limit Western Europe to the Netherlands in the east and France in the south and west, or goes deep into Eastern Europe, one even including Turkey. Western Europe is also presented as synonymous with the European Union, which has explicitly been a project of uniting the west and east. The article is unhelpful and confusing at best. The nearly universal rendition of Western Europe by any common view would be identified by the map on the right (which is used in nearly all other Wikipedia language articles on Western Europe); somehow it isn't even included here. User2534 (talk) 11:03, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

I understand where you are coming from. In day-to-day usage, Western Europe is the western half of Europe, and contrasts with the other half of Europe: Eastern Europe. This idea that Europe is split into 5 distinct regions (north, south, west, east, central) is nonsense. They are all overlapping. But, I have to dispute that map. I mean, including Finland but not Greece? Greece is actually further west of Finland. The map you cited is a globe projection without any lines of longitude or latitude... meaning it doesn't look like a global and instead a flat map. In other words, that map is misleading as hell when it comes to locating countries. Have a look at these two maps:

You can see clearly Greece is further west then Finland. And its certainly culturally more western then Finland. Finland is often associated with Estonia.

I agree with the commenters above, we need actual sources. Taking a (misleading) map used by another Wikipedia isn't going to solve any problems.

Rob984 (talk) 13:30, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

"Certainly is more culturally Western"? @Rob984: What exactly is defined as "culturally Western" here? Both countries present interesting cases with internal contradictions. Urban areas in Greece are very culturally Westernized, but Greek folk culture even in very basic things like mannerisms on many points (do you smile at strangers, do you nod or shake your head to say yes, etc...) can be quite different from what people from the US or Britain are used to. On the other hand Greece is a pretty economically developed ("Western", if we forget Saudi and Japan) country with "Western" cultural phenomena like recent advances in LGBT rights, although there is still plenty of room for improvement there. It's worth mentioning that there's a debate among Greeks about how "Western" or "Eastern" they are-- I assume you're familiar with the arguments of the former, but here's Patrikarakos arguing the latter [[6]] -- obviously it's pretty complicated. Finland was profoundly influenced by Sweden throughout much of its history despite one intervening period of Russian occupation, and in many ways Finns are a lot like Swedes although they're more conservative, though I'm less familiar with Finland. Indeed in some definitions Sweden itself isn't Western; in others Estonia is. Given the subjectivity of the matter, it's the views of notable sources that matter, whether we like/agree wtih them or not. --Yalens (talk) 03:13, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't realise that it has a source. My thinking was more around the fact that both Finnish and Estonian people are considered Finnic people, while Greeks are rarely grouped with their immediate neighbours (the Balkans). I updated that map with a more accurate projection. I agree, notable sources defining western Europe as a region are ideal. This will allow us move forward from the definition problem and start expanding this article to cover the topic more fully (such as geography, culture, history, etc.). Rob984 (talk) 18:32, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing the map for Malta. In history, there's Misha Glenny's (intro of The Balkans) definition of the Balkans as including north Greece but not the rest of Greece; obviously in politics/economics Greece is typically Western Europe, but in music and food not a bit (indeed it's practically the same as Turkish food, and people stopped calling Turkey West Europe decades ago). Language family as criterion I've never seen except by Romanian nationalists to claim their country is an "outpost" of Western Europe because their language is related to Spanish and French. Of course, if you have seen a source define West Europe by language family, by all means, add it. --Yalens (talk) 02:09, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Section "Population"

Since I got rather heavy-handed response to my last edits to this section, I prefer to explain the reasoning for my edit in detail. Also pinging the other users who have edited the section: RexxiA, 2601:541:4500:1760:E095:1F34:4DFA:4611 and Thomas.W.

I may not be an expert on English grammar (although I know what a sentence fragment is), but I have a very good knowledge about presentation and typography, having worked with oral and written communication and presentation all my professional life.

The text in the section has a rather simple main message which can be condensed to: "Here are the numbers: (table)". Two additions are needed, one about inclusion criteria, one about the source for the numbers. The inclusion criteria is added in an elegant and efficient way by use of the gerund construction (a feature in English sadly missing in many other languages). The source addition is not quite as simple, and I will discuss it in several steps.

1. The simplest way is to add it just as a note with hyperlink to the web source.
2. One may wish to add a description also in the text. I think that is advisable in this case to highlight that the numbers come from a UN source, not a CIA source. The easy way is to add a subordinate clause like "based on source X". This is sufficient, and in my opinion the best solution.
3. The next possibility is to add the info with a full sentence like "Numbers are based...". Then the typographical signals come into work. The meta-message from the full stop + capital letter is "Now we stop this and start with a new message on a similar importance level." That gives the brain a detour before going back to the table. In my opinion it is unnecessary, but not quite unacceptable. I just do not see why.
4. Next step is to add the emphasis "All" like "All numbers...". This is semantics, not typography, but it adds further weight to the source addition at the expense of the main message. Again I do not see why, but the structure is familiar to most people and the semantic difference is small. Some people may not even notice the difference between "Numbers are based" and "All numbers are based". I do not like it, but I will accept it if it seems to get consensus.
5. The final step of adding even more emphasis by bolding the word "All" is, however, overkill and completely unacceptable. Boldface is a very strong typographical signal. It is perceived even before the reader has actually read the word, giving the meta-message "Now we come to something really important." Having read on, the meta-message says something like "You may believe that we have used other sources, but we have not." Since this is so important, the reader may start to wonder if there is something somewhere else that is indicating other sources. The flow of the main message is disrupted.

I support step 2, but can accept anything up to step 4. I will remove the bolding, and I ask anyone who wants to re-add double emphasis to first read carefully MOS:BOLDFACE, particularly MOS:NOBOLD, and at least consider using a milder form of emphasis. I will not go into edit war for this, since I do not participate in edit wars. But I hope we can agree to let the main message talk for itself as much as possible. --T*U (talk) 13:28, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

i want know its meaning

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Renaissance was not an event, it was rather a course like the enlightenment later

Dear Rjensen! Renaissance was not an event, it was rather a course like the enlightenment later. Bye!--Opposition Party (talk) 08:16, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

I disagree! The Renaissance was an historical event in the same way as the Age of Discovery, the Age of Enlightenment and other time periods with certain characteristics. They happened; humaism did not happen. Humanism is an idea that was a main basis of the Renaissance, but it can not logically be listed in parallell to the Viking Age, the Protestant Reformation and World War II. --T*U (talk) 20:04, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Historical events have an exact date, Renaissance had not.--Regtraht (talk) 15:01, 25 November 2019 (UTC)