Talk:Metohija

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	Kosovo Portal Metohija is part of the WikiProject Kosovo, an attempt to build a comprehensive guide to Kosovo on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit this article, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. If you are new to editing Wikipedia visit the welcome page so as to become familier with the guidelines. If you would like to participate, please join the project and help with our open tasks.
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[edit] Names in Albanian or Serbian?

This article is a bit messy. Some of the place names are in Albanian (e.g. Peja, Gjakova, Bjeshket e Nemuna etc), and some in Serbian (Kosovo, Mokra Gora and the title of the article itself). We need to decide whether it is best to use the Serbian (because de jure Kosovo is still part of Serbia), the Albanian (because de facto it is part of the overwhelmingly Albanian inhabited province of Kosova from which the Serb state organs are entirely absent), or whether in deference to equal treatment of all parties we go for the messier way of using both names. Of course, even if we chose the last option, we would still have arguments over whose name should appear first. Personally, I think that 'historical' arguments (about who was there first, and who stole land off whom etc) should not have a place in making this kind of decision.Mattwhiteski 13:45, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate that 69.255.94.118 has attempted to introduce some consistency into the naming scheme used here, but wouldn't it have been better to discuss it here before deciding to use Serbian names across the board? Mattwhiteski 13:28, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

In principle, we use Serbian names always, because Kosovo is both de jure and de facto part of Serbia. Nikola 03:22, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

De facto in what sense? As the Serbian state has no presence in Kosovo, it seems that in the strict sense of the terms Kosovo is de jure part of Serbia, but de facto an international protectorate pending the outcome of so called 'final status' talks due to take place this year. Please understand that this is not any attempt to belittle Serbs' historical, cultural religious and emotional attachment to Kosovo. As I mentioned above, I don't see those issues as being particularly relevant when we are discussing what is simply a naming convention. I'm simply aiming at consistency. Mattwhiteski 15:35, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Serbia and Montenegro is a member of the United Nations which is providing this protectorate. The province is a part of Serbia, both de facto and de jure, and a UN protectorate, again both de facto and de jure. Names of places in Serbia should be given in Serbian, as should names of places in France be given in French - that's consistency. Nikola 00:49, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I quote from the Wikipedia article de facto: "The de facto boundaries of a country are defined by the area that its government is actually able to enforce its laws in, and to defend against encroachments by other countries...". Are you saying that Serbia is actually able to enforce its laws in Kosovo, or to defend it against encroachments by other countries? Mattwhiteski 17:58, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes (actually, not Serbia but Serbia and Montenegro but that is not the point). If you take a look at [1], you will see that Yugoslav laws (which include SCG or Serbian laws if no appropriate Yugoslav law exists) apply in entire Kosovo, except if replaced by an UNMIK regulation. For example, contributions made from Wikipedians from Kosovo are copyrighted under the Copyright law of Yugoslavia (to my knowledge, UNMIK didn't make any regulations regarding copyright). So, Serbian laws are enforced in Kosovo, but by the UN, and not by Serbia. If Serbia updates an old law, it could ask the UNMIK to issue a regulation which supports it and if UNMIK agrees, it would be enforced too, and if law is reasonable (f.e. extension of copyright law from life+50 to life+70), UNMIK would certainly support it.

If SCG would be displeased by UN's acts, it could leave the UN, which means that UN troups would have to leave Serbia. If that doesn't happen, the province would be occupied, and then if SCG doesn't remove occupiers by force, it could be said that it is no longer de facto in Serbia. But even in that case I believe that Wikipedia should continue to use Serbian names, or otherwise it would support the occupation. I'm not sure if there were any cases of an occupation which happened during existance of Wikipedia (Iraq, but there were no name changes) and what are the practices. Nikola 09:54, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Metohija

Kosovo has to feeld Metohija (Dugagjini) and Kosovo. The feld of Dugagjini (Metohia) is ony a geographicel region .

What??? Litany 18:53, 8 May 2006 (UTC)