Wikipedia:WikiProject Ireland Collaboration/Poll on Ireland article names/Ballot paper

Poll on Ireland article names

The name "Ireland" is considered to be ambiguous between a number of meanings, but primarily between two entities: the island named "Ireland", and the state that occupies about 83% of it and comprising 26 counties, also named "Ireland". (Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom, occupies the remaining 17% of the island and comprises 6 counties.) Both uses are considered equally valid and neither can be selected as the most common per standard naming convention rules, which has led to long debates (and edit wars) about the issues. Other naming conflicts that involve countries do not provide consistent advice for resolution of this issue (compare, for example, Luxembourg, Georgia (country), and People's Republic of China). Imprecision in naming may lead to equivocal statements (compare "Belfast is the second-largest city in Ireland" and "Cork is the second-largest city in Ireland", either of which may be true or not depending on how the word "Ireland" is taken). Since this also affects where the disambiguation page for the term "Ireland" will fall, that too is considered part of the naming conflict resolution issue. As there is a stalemate in achieving consensus on the issue, the parties have agreed to use the results of a poll to all Wikipedia editors to resolve the matter.

What to call these articles has been a source of controversy for seven years. The six most likely options from the Ireland Collaboration Project are listed below. All involve what content will be at the article titled Ireland, in addition to other articles that may be affected by it. This impacts what the name of the article on the 26-county state "Ireland" will be, should it not be listed at the article titled Ireland. In that case, there are two choices for the title of that article:

Ireland (state), a disambiguation name, based on the fact that the country is a sovereign state and that the 1937 Constitution of Ireland sets forth that "The name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland."
Republic of Ireland, the current location of information relating to the country, as "Republic of Ireland" is an official description (but not name) for the country, as per the 1948 Republic of Ireland Act: "It is hereby declared that the description of the State shall be the Republic of Ireland." It is also a legal name for the country per the UK's Ireland Act 1949, legislation still in force in the UK. (This, the current location, has long been a source of contention.)

Another option considers a solution like that used for China, in which the article at Ireland would discuss the geographical and political aspects; still another option would further have separate articles to give more detail about the island and the country.

Regardless of the solution, appropriate hatnotes will be used to guide readers to the appropriate articles. Further discussion at the Ireland Collaboration Project will also take place before renaming to resolve other issues such as how the 26-county state named "Ireland" will be referred to in the text of other articles.

Ballot

A: Merge Ireland and Republic of Ireland into one article at Ireland.

(Ireland + Republic of Ireland) → Ireland
Ireland (disambiguation) → no change

Name of page	Initial text (the first sentence in the article)
Ireland	Ireland is a European island and an independent state of the same name. (The text here was based on the article on Tasmania.)
Ireland (disambiguation)	Ireland commonly refers to: ...

B: The state at Ireland. The island at Ireland (island).

Name of page	Initial text (the first sentence in the article)
Ireland (island)	Ireland is the third-largest island in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world.
Ireland	Ireland is an independent state in north-western Europe. The modern sovereign state occupies about five-sixths of the island of Ireland, which was partitioned on 3 May 1921.
Ireland (disambiguation)	Ireland commonly refers to: ...

C: A general "all-Ireland" topic at Ireland. The island at Ireland (island). The state at Ireland (state).

Name of page	Initial text (the first sentence in the article)
Ireland (island)	Ireland is the third-largest island in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world.
Ireland (state)	Ireland is an independent state in north-western Europe. The modern sovereign state occupies about five-sixths of the island of Ireland, which was partitioned on 3 May 1921.
Ireland (disambiguation)	Ireland commonly refers to: ...
Ireland	Ireland is a modern independent state, a geographic entity, an historic nation, and a cultural identity, all based on the island of Ireland. (The text here was based loosely on the article on China.)

D: The island at Ireland. The state at Ireland (state).

Name of page	Initial text (the first sentence in the article)
Ireland	Ireland is the third-largest island in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world.
Ireland (state)	Ireland is an independent state in north-western Europe. The modern sovereign state occupies about five-sixths of the island of Ireland, which was partitioned on 3 May 1921.
Ireland (disambiguation)	Ireland commonly refers to: ...

E: A disambiguation page at Ireland. The island at Ireland (island). The state at Ireland (state).

Name of Page	Initial text (the first sentence in the article)
Ireland (island)	Ireland is the third-largest island in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world.
Ireland (state)	Ireland is an independent state in north-western Europe. The modern sovereign state occupies about five-sixths of the island of Ireland, which was partitioned on 3 May 1921.
Ireland	Ireland commonly refers to: ...

F: The island at Ireland. The state at Republic of Ireland.

Ireland → no change
Republic of Ireland → no change
Ireland (disambiguation) → no change

Name of page	Initial text (the first sentence in the article)
Ireland	Ireland is the third-largest island in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world.
Republic of Ireland	Ireland is an independent state in north-western Europe. The modern sovereign state occupies about five-sixths of the island of Ireland, which was partitioned on 3 May 1921.
Ireland (disambiguation)	Ireland commonly refers to: ...

Procedure for voting

Please vote using PRSTV (i.e. rank your preferences in order e.g. "A, B, C, D, E, F")
To do this you may use the template * {{stv-ballot|A=0|B=0|C=0|D=0|E=0|F=0|~~~~}} — Select it from the asterisk * to the last curly bracket } and Copy, then Paste when you go down to the Balloting Area below. To make your vote, simply put the number with the appropriate letter (X=1 is your most favourite, Y=6 is your least favourite, Z=0 gives no support at all to an option).
You are not obliged to express a preference for any of the options that you do not wish to support (or have no preference about); it is easiest to leave the number as zero, i.e. Z=0, rather than deleting the letter.
Sign and date your vote but do not append any comments to your vote; they will be removed.

Notes:

Before voting please familiarise yourself with policy on naming convention and guidelines for disambiguation.
Closing date/adjudication:

Voting will end at 21:00 (UTC) of the evening of ~~31 July 2009 (that is 22:00 IST and BST).~~
A member of the ArbCom committee will adjudicate the result of the vote
Results of the vote are final and binding for a period of two years

Procedures for dealing with fraud:

Unregistered users may not vote (to prevent fraud) but may contribute comments on the Talk page
Users who registered after 1 June 2009 may not vote (per Project consensus) but may contribute comments on the Talk page
Non-trivial sanctions will be imposed for canvassing, forum shopping, ballot stuffing, sock puppetry, meat puppetry or otherwise manipulating the ballot (or attempting to do so)
Votes by sock puppets or meat puppets (and their masters) or similar will be removed from the balloting area

Balloting area

(No comments in this area)

A B C D E F -- Evertype·✆ 12:05, 3 July 2009 (UTC) TESTING, TESTING. THIS IS NOT A VOTE.[reply]

Poll on Ireland article names

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