Talk:Macedonia (country)/Archive

Do we really need all this "Former Yugoslav" stuff? --(WT-en) Jiang

No. --(WT-en) Evan 20:05, 4 Dec 2003 (PST)

Actually, I take that back. I'm not sufficiently versed in the topic to say one way or the other, so I'm gonna back out. --(WT-en) Evan 20:07, 4 Dec 2003 (PST)

It's not absolutely necessary, but then we are going to have to disambiguate it from the Greek and Bulgarian regions of the same name. Maybe Macedonia (country), Macedonia (Greek region), Macedonia (Bulgarian region)? (WT-en) DhDh 22:40, 4 Dec 2003 (PST)

There was an extended debate on this at en:Talk:Republic of Macedonia. I think most people visiting the FYROM would refer to it as just "Macedonia" (like how the western media does it). Problem is, the Greeks find this offensive. Some travel guides also leave out FYRO [1], some don't [2][3]. Maybe Dhum Dhum's proposal will do...but I think Macedonia (Greece) and Macedonia (Bulgaria) will be better. --(WT-en) Jiang 01:19, 5 Dec 2003 (PST)

I think we should include FYRO - it's the right name of the country, it's the one most people use, and it sounds a lot better than having Macedonia (country). Macedonia by itself just sounds ambiguous, especially since people do travel to the Greek region Macedonia (and perhaps the Bulgarian one). -- (WT-en) Ronline, 5 Dec 2003

It's right only to "please" Greece. Most people, the media included, use "Macedonia" by itself. FYROM is just used by governments for political reasons. It can be made clear in the article that there are other regions of Macedonia. --(WT-en) Jiang 22:40, 10 Jun 2004 (EDT)

I'd like to bring this back up and propose moving this to "Macedonia", or at least "Republic of Macedonia" (as in Wikipedia). (WT-en) Jpatokal 01:57, 7 Mar 2005 (EST)

For what it's worth, since this was last discussed some 20 countries including the US have switched their official recognition to "Rep of Mac", without the FY bit. (WT-en) Jpatokal 02:01, 7 Mar 2005 (EST)

106 countries now call a spade a spade, so I think it's time for Wikivoyage to follow. Macedonia still redirects straight into Rep of Mac, but I'd be fine with turning it into a disamb page once somebody gets around to writing Macedonia (Greece). (WT-en) Jpatokal 10:25, 15 Jan 2006 (EST)

The Getty Thesaurus of Geographical Names gives "Macedonia" as the English-preferred name. Google news gives about 1800 hits for "Macedonia", 80-odd for FYROM. The most common English name for this place is Macedonia. --(WT-en) Evan 10:36, 1 Feb 2006 (EST)

Setting aside the politics of it (which really aren't particularly relevant), the current set-up doesn't match Wikivoyage disambiguation standards. We have two places with the same name, and neither is so "much much more famous" than the other to get dibs on that name. Macedonia should be a disambig page (not a redirect), with Republic of Macedonia and Macedonia (Greece) listed as two Places Known As Macedonia. - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 23:55, 20 July 2006 (EDT)

Administrative districts

It would appear that each and every village of a certain size is listed in the 130 or so administrative districts. Wouldn't it make sense to just list 7 or so major destinations like we do for every other country? -- (WT-en) Mark 09:41, 22 Sep 2004 (EDT)

Yes (especially since the FYROM isn't exactly a top destination anyway). The districts are just copied from the CIA World Factbook. (WT-en) Jpatokal 09:55, 22 Sep 2004 (EDT)

Clean up

Looking at this article it appears it needs a lot of clean up and there is information here that belongs in the city aritcles. I am going to take a shot at it. If I remove anything that someone wants back, please put it back. -- (WT-en) Xltel 10:15, 1 Feb 2006 (EST)

--

Having a quick glance at it do we really need that many names under cities? Around half of the names look like villages. Could we just stick to a list of about 15 max? And give each a brief description two or three sentences per should be enough.

I propose we keep the following on the list;

Skopje, Ohrid, Bitola, Prilep, Krushevo, Kumanovo, Tetovo, Strumica, Kocani, Radovis, Gostivar, Stip, Struga

I think thats a good draft to start with.

- Al Damjo

I could not agree more, but it is our policy to subdivide into subregions when cities lists become too long, rather than to remove links to cities/towns altogether (doing so would leave these articles orphaned). And the number of cities that should ultimately remain on this page is no more than nine. I've proposed a regional breakdown for Macedonia below—would you please comment on whether you think it is a good one, or if it needs improvements. Thanks! --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 22:37, 28 July 2008 (EDT)

Currency table

Ok, I did this maybe sometime last year or the year before, god knows, iunno. But looking at it, it still looks like, as my old boss use to say, poo. Im not a wikiedit expert so i dont know how to draw a proper table. If someone could help me fix that up and possibly throw in the euro in there too? Or do you think we should leave the euro out? (WT-en) Al Damjo 10:47, 31 March 2009 (EDT)

How pretty is Macedonia? Iunno, I dont see pictures!

Surely we can throw in some sveti naum pics in there... right? Or the stone bridge in Skopje? Anything? Anyone? (WT-en) Al Damjo 10:47, 31 March 2009 (EDT)

I've uploaded a few pictures and I'll be uploading more, mostly from Wikimedia Commons. I don't see any good ones of the Stone Bridge there, though. (WT-en) Local hero 16:23, 16 April 2009 (EDT)

Name Macedonia (Republic)

I changed this article's name to Macedonia (Republic), and moved to merged edits from Macedonia and Republic of Macedonia. I believe the (Republic) portion better follows the Project:Article naming conventions. Macedonia can now become a disambiguation page. -- (WT-en) Huttite 08:08, 27 July 2006 (EDT)

Creating a disambig page at Macedonia was definitely the right approach. The two closest precedents for how to rename this are Republic of Ireland and Georgia (country), using either the common semiformal name or a generic disambiguator indicating its level on our hierarchy (not form of government). Due to "The Former Yugoslav..." nomenclature, I suspect that "Republic of Macedonia" is common enough usage to work as the article name, but I don't have a strong preference; whichever version we don't use should be a redirect to the other. -(WT-en) Todd VerBeek 08:53, 27 July 2006 (EDT)

Regions?

We could do with sorting out some regions for Macedonia. If anyone has any ideas how to split the country into a handful of geographical areas, please suggest them below. Or if east and west (as described in the article) is suitable then let's go with that, although might they be too big to be effective? -- (WT-en) Tim (writeme!) 05:58, 8 July 2007 (EDT)

This was recently added, but I moved it out here so people familiar with Macedonia can discuss first before we create all of them – (WT-en) cacahuate ^talk 01:32, 24 August 2007 (EDT)

The Republic of Macedonia is divided into eight regions:

• Eastern
• Northeastern Macedonia
• Pelagonia
• Polog
• Skopje (region)
• Southeastern
• Southwestern
• Vardar

One can not really divide Macedonia in the suggested 8 regions. For example: Pelagonia is part of Southwestern region. Ohrid region is quite different from Mariovo region in culture, way of life, dialects, interests etc. You can not just include them both in Southwestern region. Either go in detail and iclude all the regions (which would be too many), or stick to general division to east and west and add "along Vardar river" region as it is hard to decide to which part it belongs. Bojan

Regions map draft

Well can someone else suggest something before I arbitrarily divide itper the above ones suggested by Cacahuate?? I'm getting sick of de-orphaning the Strumica article and having the link removed. (Ah well, that link there should do it.) Still, there are several other articles created that are not properly linked due to the lack of regions. The eight regions above are shown as distinct legal and statistical regions without overlap (a map accompanies the article) at Wikipedia here. (WT-en) OldPine 14:38, 19 September 2007 (EDT)

Macedonia is a small enough country where 8 regions might be jumping the gun—I'm not sure that we will generate enough content to justify that. And if there are doubts that the regions even make much sense then I think we should try something else. Give me a second and I'll whip something up. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 17:01, 19 September 2007 (EDT)

OK, I think this map displays what Bojan was suggesting, and I think it would be a perfectly acceptable breakdown, although I don't know very much about the country. I'll clean up the map once we've agreed on the regions breakdown. Any comments, objections, suggestions, etc? --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 17:43, 19 September 2007 (EDT)

Works for me. Hopefullly the contributors will soon weigh in. (WT-en) OldPine 11:46, 20 September 2007 (EDT)

Hi :) It is a little bit complicated question (like almost everything here :) I would go with the general division between east, west and along Vardar river. There are many regions in Macedonia with certain differences but I don't see the point in naming all of them. This general division separates the country (I agree it is quite a rough division) not just geographically but also in terms of dialects, customs, culture of living, etc... Along Vardar river region (or Povardarie) is a strange mixture of both the east and the west (it is much more eastern in culture but more western in geography) and it is the main wine growing region. Skopje is hard to include in any of the regions, it is artificially overgrown city, melting pot with little bit of everything 9but ofcourse a distinctive charm of its own :). Bojan

So I take it you mean that the map to the right would be a good way to divide the country into regions? --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 23:33, 4 September 2008 (EDT)

Yes. Bojan

Jabbalzar please stop copy-pasteing

Jabbalzar please stop copy paseing articles from exploringmacedonia. You are not doing the Macedonia pages a favor. Also please stop rearanging my articles, if you don't like them feel free to erase them and write new ones, but be careful with the atributes (for example: Bitola has just one park and it is nothing special, or none of the Skopje mosques has tiled interiors) (WT-en) Bojan 11:26, 26 August 2007 (EDT)

Official name

I believe the edit done is the best way for the article to represent all opionions, Greek and Macedonians. I am Greek and Love Macedonians, and I like this to end. Using the terms the way they were edited, renders subconsciously the name usage approved by both countries and utilises the name under the conutry was granded in UN.

It works either way, so why change it?

I cannot still get the point.

Hello, the official name of the country, recognized by the U.N {the highest authority} is Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Thank you.

The official name of the country according to their own constitution is, you guessed it, The Republic of Macedonia. The same name is used in talks with; USA, UK, Russia, China (four of the big five). FYROM is a provisional name, anyway. (WT-en) Al Damjo 10:52, 31 March 2009 (EDT)

THERE IS still a problem with the term Macedonia. I live in Salonica, Greece's second big harbour in Macedonia. I am both greek and macedonian, the same way someone from Sheffield is both english and british, or someone from Sicily is both sicilian and italian. The same problem exists for the other 2.420.000 greek macedonians that live in Macedonia Greece. It causes confusion to use the term as nation-indicating for the people of Fyrom, without a geographical specification. What about the rest? (who are, besides, arithmetically much more.)Would should these people abandon the term?

They didn't abandon the term. The article for Greek Macedonia is Macedonia (Greece). The confusion you speak of is avoided because when one searches "Macedonia", it takes them to a disambiguation page which specifies what Macedonia could mean. --(WT-en) Local hero 15:11, 18 December 2008 (EDT)

I don't think we should buy into this nationalistic debacle, Wikipedia has settled on this name too, and we even explicitly aim for catering to travellers, not users searching for encyclopaedic content - and hence we should use the most common name used by English speakers, which indisputably is Republic of Macedonia.

No, it is not indisputably Republic of Macedonia, it is Macedonia. This page should be moved to Macedonia (country), similar to Georgia (country). --(WT-en) globe-trotter 14:06, 21 September 2011 (EDT)

Camping

There is no mention of camping in FYROM. Are campgrounds plentiful and is free/wild camping legal or tolerated? — (WT-en) Hippietrail 06:00, 31 August 2011 (EDT)