Hi!
I’d like to get some more opinions on my edit changing Czech Republic to Czechia. We don’t always follow ISO (we use South Korea for KR for example), although we generally do, so it’s more of an opinion thing 
Just vote however you feel!
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More participation is good, but I don’t think vague feelings are a useful advisor. There are two underlying issues that you should consider:
- Should MB base its usage on the officially recommended form of country names, or the form that is actually common in the relevant community (in this case: English speakers)?
- If the latter, is Czechia or Czech Republic more commonly used in English?
(This is absolutely language-dependent. For German, the primary alias is Tschechien, and that is correct IMO as this is actually the established and most commonly used term; but it has no bearing on English.)
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Wikipedia says “The Czech Republic …also known by the short name Czechia” and Wikidata says:
English:
Czech Republic
Also known as: CZR, cz, Czechia
IMHO I would not change it.
From Wikipedia,
Adoption of Czechia
With the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports recommended the use of the name Czechia. Other names proposed in the 1990s included Czechomoravia, Czechovia, Czechistan, and Czechlands. However, a short name has not been fully adopted by Czech authorities. In contrast to this lack of support, the British secretary for press and politics Giles Portman has shown a willingness to accept the name. Portman said: “Czechs still use the name Česká Republika rather than Česko, and the English equivalent, the Czech Republic, rather than Czechia. Were that pattern to change, we would have no problem at all with adapting accordingly. But we feel that the initiative for that change must come from the Czech side and not from us[.]”
In 2013, Czech president Miloš Zeman recommended the wider official use of Czechia, and on 14 April 2016, the country’s political leadership agreed to make Czechia the official short name. The new name was approved by the Czech cabinet on 2 May 2016 and was published in the United Nations UNTERM and UNGEGN country name databases on 5 July 2016. On 23 September 2016, the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names began advising Britons to use the name Czechia. On 26 September 2016, the International Organization for Standardization included the short name Czechia in the official ISO 3166 country codes list.Google replaced the Czech Republic with Czechia on Google Maps on 19th January 2017.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_the_Czech_Republic)
I would change it. If it’s never used, the short name will never catch on 
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Remember to vote on the edit too 
Especially if you disagree with the change, since the vote is going the Yes way right now.
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Since everyone is clearly in favour of using the names mandated by the governments, I made the necessary tickets:
https://tickets.metabrainz.org/browse/AREQ-1378
https://tickets.metabrainz.org/browse/AREQ-1379
https://tickets.metabrainz.org/browse/AREQ-1380
https://tickets.metabrainz.org/browse/AREQ-1381
https://tickets.metabrainz.org/browse/AREQ-1382
https://tickets.metabrainz.org/browse/AREQ-1383
https://tickets.metabrainz.org/browse/AREQ-1384
https://tickets.metabrainz.org/browse/AREQ-1385
As soon as those are resolved, we can look into the cases where the government and ISO disagree (e.g. the country that wants to be known as “Macedonia”, but due to Greek concerns is called “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” by ISO).
[quote=“chirlu, post:6, topic:199906”]
Since everyone is clearly in favour of using the names mandated by the governments, I made the necessary tickets[/quote]
Is consistency really so important in this case?
Some of those tickets seem to represent more nuanced situations than ‘Czech Republic’ > ‘Czechia’.
Honestly though, I can’t say I really care, we can always change them back without data loss, the only thing I really care about is being able to easily find things in the country drop down list (which some of those tickets might make tricky unless I’m mistaken?)
ps loving this discussion, interesting situation! and probably one with no ‘correct’ answer
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I live in Slovakia (right next to Czech Republic) and I have never seen “Czechia” used anywhere in any context. It’s the first time I see the word. I think that changing the name would confuse most people.
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I think The only two that may require a comment would be:
- Korea (North)
- Republic of Korea (South)
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Not true anymore, at least @InvisibleMan78, @lukz and me are not.
Most of these tickets propose to use official full name, whereas the current topic is about using official short name. See both names for some countries (according to the Publications Office of the European Union): Publications Office – Interinstitutional Style Guide – 7.1. Countries – 7.1.1. Designations and abbreviations to use
I would prefer to avoid untranslatable comment if possible and “stick with the most common/recognizable name” as @SURIV wrote.
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One argument that came to mind in my semi-sleep deprived state on my journey from the airport and to the office this morning:
Artist Intent
“But @Freso, Czech{ia, Republic} isn’t an artist!”
Indeed, you are right. But just as we now call Puff Daddy/P. Diddy “Diddy” because that’s what he wants to be called, even if he might still be mostly know by either of his former aliases, the government of “Czechia” has declared that they want people to refer to the landmass that they have declared authority over as “Czechia” in English, so should we not consider this “Area Intent” and follow their request?
I’m not personally convinced, and feel like arguments by @lukz and others weigh more, so for now I’ve changed my vote to “No”.
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Still, most of these short names are longer than names MB currently holds.
P.S. If you can not reach the link I posted, here is an archived version.
I haven’t claimed the opposite?
[quote=“jesus2099, post:9, topic:199906”]aerozol:
the only thing I really care about is being able to easily find things in the country drop down list (which some of those tickets might make tricky unless I’m mistaken?)
I think The only two that may require a comment would be:
Korea (North)
Republic of Korea (South)
[/quote]
I mean because I would search for those countries by typing in “South…” and “North…” and probably “Tanzania” rather than “Republic of…” etc
Putting a comment at the end helps identify it, but still makes it hard to find.
If I’m right in thinking that this will effect the drop down list when setting release country.
Czech Republic > Czechia doesn’t have this practical issue which is why I’m not really bothered 
If we were to use the full country names as given by their governments, then the United States should be renamed as the United States of America, Mexico as the United Mexican States, France as the French Republic, Switzerland as the Swiss Confederation, Iran as the Islamic Republic of Iran and so on. I vote No on all of these renames (and those proposed in AREQ-1378 thru AREQ-1385) because it would make this site much harder to use (the country drop down list that aerozol gave is one example) and it would lead to confusion since those names are generally not used much outside of government documents and functions.
As an alternative, I propose creating a new alias category for areas and call it something like “official name” where most if not all of the proposed names can be added.
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We already have it, it’s called “Formal name”
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If we are to use the full country name as given for the government, then Czech Republic should be “Czech Republic”. “Czechia”, as the proposed change is, is not a new “full country name”, but a short name that the Czech Republic would like people to use instead of the formal name of the country, “Czech Republic”. I’d vote no on all of @chirlu’s edits too (well, at least on this matter ), but your argument does not really apply to both the edit by @reosarevok and the edits by @chirlu.
Correct, my argument was against @chirlu’s edits, not @reosarevok’s. I saw the tickets that @chirlu had opened for those renames and just wanted to voice my opinion about them somewhere where the topic was being discussed.