The use of the name :Macedonia on DMOZ

Dear members of this forum,

i would like to address an issue here on DMOZ that caught my attention.

I noticed the use of the name "Macedonia" for a country that until recently it's official name was FYROM and some years ago was Skopje and until late 1930s, it's name was Vardarska.

Since the name "Macedonia" is under dispute, how could you possibly force the use of that name as a country's name here on the Open Directory?

Please reply.

Kindest regards.

http://www.dmoz.org/guidelines/regional/taxonomy.html

The Regional: Countries category is a list of @links of all independent nations and their dependent areas as defined by ISO 3166

http://www.dmoz.org/guidelines/regional/country.html#m

Well, we have to use something as the identifying category name. As you can see in our Regional Guidelines, we officiall base our list of names on the international standard ISO 3166. However there are a few changes, typically shortening long names to a more familiar and commonly used version.

It would appear that on the ISO list, the Official name is "Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of" but at some point we decided it makes sense to shorted in simply to "Macedonia".

The official government site appears to use "Republic of Macedonia", but if that was agreed to be the official name, I think we would probably still shorten it to "Macedonia". (You'll see that we typically omit and "republic of" type qualifiers in country names where this leaves an unambiguous and commonly accepted name.)

Do you have a better suggestion for the name we should use?

I just checked Wikipedia: Macedonia and it says

Republic of Macedonia, a current state, also referred to as the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM)

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. When checking the category description in DMOZ I find that this is even mentioned there.

Assuming the Wikipedia is right (if it isn't, you might want to correct it first, using their apropriate channels for those changes) I don't see a massive problem here, since it still is some form of "Macedonia" in both versions. We usually use the basic region names like they are in the ISO instead of the long ones including current stateform. Especially if they are disputed like in this case.

BTW: Another examplee to show you that we do so whenever possible: For Germany, which officially is "Federal Republic of Germany" we use the short name as well. And as a german I do prefer not having such long names everywhere

http://www.iso.org/iso/country_codes/iso_3166_code_lists/english_country_names_and_code_elements.htm

The country is not listed as Macedonia but as
MACEDONIA, THE FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF (FYROM)

Macedonia is a word that describes a territory inside Greece and FYROM cannot use that word because of it's Greek origin. Greece has filed a report in E.U. and there are several issues risen from that dispute.

You must correct the name displayed in that area as shown above [MACEDONIA, THE FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF (FYROM)] otherwise it looks as if the Open Directory has already took a side for a country and against another.

FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA is a totally different thing from just using the word MACEDONIA.

You must correct this issue.

Kindest regards.

With respect.
It is our site.
We must not do anything we do not wish to do.

However I'm sure there will be internal discussion on the issue.

Hello

Nobody forces you to do anything.

It just seems to me you are playing by the rules since you follow iso 3166 and it looks like you are making exceptions for a country that is under political dispute.

The Open Directory is an OPEN place for everybody. It must not get involved in political areas.

Macedonia is not just a name. It has to do with the history of a place and so far this is the reason why FYROM doesn't get accepted as a country member of E.U.

Macedonia is a part of Greece. SlavoMacedonia or FYROM is the southern part of Yugoslavia.

I wanted to clarify this.

Kindest regards.

It just seems to me you are playing by the rules since you follow iso 3166 and it looks like you are making exceptions for a country that is under political dispute.

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Your concerns are appreciated but several people here have already explained the non-political reasons why the name is shortened to Macedonia in the ODP.

This issue still remains

As you most probably know by now, Skopje (or Macedonia as you most want to call FYROM) was denied the entrance to the European Community because of the use of the word MACEDONIA in it's name.

ODP should not continue to use the name MACEDONIA, but FYROM which is shorter and politically correct.

Please see the answer to your previous post, it still applies.