Talk:Northern Ireland

Wikipedia being political

On a purely factual basis, there was no such thing as "the troubles". It was an urban warfare situation. If someone from Wikipedia can point out how "the troubles" didn't amount to an urban warfare situation, please do tell. Otherwise it's Wikipedia engaging in politics, which I thought was the very thing that Wikipedia was supposed to steer clear of? The term 'troubles' was simply used to trivialize the situation by a lazy media / biased parties and was also an attempt to make a war situation look like a fight after a night in the pub among a few people. It's propaganda, basically. Wikipedia should not be engaged in it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.125.57.247 (talk) 20:10, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

- I would like to see your evidence for this being true, and the proof that this is political AND shouldn't be worth a mention on Wikipedia. Whether or not the article or parts of it needs to be rewritten is another matter. If you have concrete proposals for what's to be added, removed or changed, please propose or change those things as well, after having thought it through. Sincerely, Bjørnar Munkerud; the 18. of January 2013 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.247.145.184 (talk) 20:26, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Key Ethnic Groups Left Out of the Article

The two largest ethnic groups in Northern Ireland, Irish Catholics and Ulster Scots are completely left out of the infobox "Ethnic Group" listing and are erroneously just referred to as merely "White". These are far from just being religions, they are two distinct ethnicities.

The former armed conflict was never merely about religion either, it was always far more of an ethnic conflict than a religious one, the national sovereignty issue was always in line with deep ethnic divisions as well. Even the peace is deeply ethnic in nature, few have given up their identities to make peace, instead Ulstermen are still Ulstermen and Catholics are still Catholics, it's just that most members of each ethnic group have agreed to get along. There has been no loss of ethnicity, but there has been a large gain in peace.184.183.173.20 (talk) 15:45, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Who the hell cares it's a flag — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.25.3.96 (talk) 12:27, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

It is just a summary of the census figures, that's what the census say and we can't say better. I don't know exactly what the figures are for but for instance separating out Irish Travellers might be to see if councils are providing facilities sufficiently. The national identity figures rather than the ethnicity ones might be what you're looking for. Dmcq (talk) 14:20, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

.ie is assigned to the State named Ireland

I would like to try to put what appears to be a bit of a myth to bed. Some places in Wikipedia suggest that the “.ie” domain name is somehow assigned to the island of Ireland or to the UK and Ireland. Unsurprisingly, that is not in fact the position.

(1) “.ie” is a country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) – so it is a 2 letter domain established for a country (the Irish State) based on ISO 3166, the standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Similarly, Irish legislation describes the .ie domain name as the "global domain name system assigned to Ireland"; and

(2) registration of a “.ie” is governed by the laws of the Irish State (and no other State) – See section 31 of the Electronic Commerce Act 2000 [1] as originally enacted. Amending legislation is also on the statute book but apparently has not been commenced yet.

It is therefore pretty plain that “.ie” is assigned to the State named Ireland (and not the island!). The fact that it is Ireland’s policy to permit registration of “.ie” by persons with a connection to Ireland and/or Northern Ireland does not change the fact that the “.ie” is the domain name of the Irish State. It is not somehow assigned to “the island of Ireland” or to the UK and Ireland.

I appreciate some Irish compatriots may feel excluded by the fact that the ".ie" is in not formally assigned to Northern Ireland. Alas, Wikipedia should be about facts, whether we like them or not.

I have amended the article to better reflect this. Frenchmalawi (talk) 13:26, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

For completeness, I should add that all country domain names like .uk, .ie, .fr etc. have an agency handling them with whom IANA deals with. UCD is the agency handling the .ie domain name which is designated to represent Ireland. Frenchmalawi (talk) 13:38, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

https://www.iedr.ie/registrations-policy/ clearly implies that .ie is for northern Ireland too. There is no country called Antarctica, yet somehow there is a .aq that is for all of Antarctica, not just the non-existent "State of Antarctica". Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 23:06, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

The iedr policy merely says that people and organisations in NI are included in the set of those 'permitted to submit registration requests' (whereas people in Great Britain, Russia, Antartica etc. are not). It is not making any big territorial claims. --Red King (talk) 00:09, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Suggested compromise

How about "footnote4 = .ie is assigned to the Republic of Ireland but is used by some people and organizations resident in Northern Ireland who decline to use .uk for political reasons."? --Red King (talk) 00:09, 27 December 2012 (UTC) Deleted because is was based on a misunderstanding. For correct understanding, see #Show nothing. --Red King (talk) 17:29, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Why have a "compromise" at all....I mean, the article should just report the facts. In the usual space where Wiki articles list ".uk" or whatever code is relevant ".ir" for Iran etc., ".ie" does not belong....and really, what more is there to say? No doubt there must be a few German people who live in Northern Ireland and have .de websites...Should that get reported too? Maybe in the .ie article you could report on the politics of use of ".ie" in NI (if there are sources around this). Well, that's what I think. Ultimately, as long as your edit is honest and not misleading, I don't feel very strongly about it. I just think it will look like another silly "Wiki-style" edit, the sort no objective, academic publication would ever include. That's my instinct on it, given before any specific wording is suggested. Frenchmalawi (talk) 02:39, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

That may be what they meant but there is the business that the crowd who assigned all those is not a UN body but a straight civilian organisation. Hopefully the UN will never get their hands on it either. I don't think we can say the domain actually belongs to the Irish government rather than that it is currently being administered by them. The only thing one can really say unless someone can find something more definite is that University College Dublin is the sponsoring organisation for the .ie domain. Dmcq (talk) 02:53, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

From what I can gather, IANA is basically under the control of the U.S. Government in fact (have a read of the IANA article). Either way, I entirely agree with you that its not a UN body.

But that does not change the fact that IANA has assigned ".ie" to represent "Ireland" and here Ireland means the State (in line with ISO code).

I never actually said it "belongs" to Ireland. I said it was assigned to Ireland. In reality, I don't think there is much difference between the two. After all, the Internet is international.

If you want to see how IANA operates, you could check out their report on an application received from Taiwan - IANA Report - Delegation of the .台灣 and .台湾 (“Taiwan”) domains representing Taiwan, Province of China in Chinese to Taiwan Network Information Center - It's just an example of how IANA operate (I am sure there are many others). you can see how the report states (i) "The “TW” ISO 3166-1 code, from which this application’s eligibility derives, is designated for use to represent Taiwan, Province of China." - IANA would of course say the equivalent in respect of .ie; (ii) Note how they address the issue of "Public Interest", in particular how they say "The application is consistent with known applicable local laws in Taiwan, Province of China." - IANA would of course say the equivalent if an application was made in respect of .ie - That is to say, they recognise that what is done (or not done) with .ie is something that Irish law determines (no other country's).

IANA is quite an interesting topic....But the notion that country domain names are not assigned to countries is without a sound basis, when you start looking at the detail. If you don't agree with this - then your point really goes to all top level domain names assigned to countries...and you would need to make equivalent amends to all Wiki country articles. It would not be fair to give some special treatment to .ie (which is no different to .ir or .uk or .fr etc.).

Frenchmalawi (talk) 02:19, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

It does say there that the interests of the government of the country should be considered very highly which does associate it with a government. I think the real point though is that the domain is actually operated more in the mode of a domain like .cat and always has been. That does not make it 'cover' Northern Ireland but in effect it isn't actually the Irish governments either to any greater extent than one could say .com or .org was the Americans. Dmcq (talk) 09:20, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

I've reverted the changes as per WP:BRD, and also because this topic was discussed briefly very recently. Lets discuss first before making changes. I've personally no doubt that the .ie domain is assigned to the Irish state:

• The Domain Name System Structure and Delegation document, RFC1591, states under "Country Codes" The IANA is not in the business of deciding what is and what is not a country. The selection of the ISO 3166 list as a basis for country code top-level domain names was made with the knowledge that ISO has a procedure for determining which entities should be and should not be on that list. So that seems to clearly indicate that the country codes are for entities defined by ISO 3166.
• The ISO standard for Country Codes - ISO 3166 says ISO 3166 is the International Standard for country codes and codes for their subdivisions. The purpose of ISO 3166 is to establish internationally recognised codes for the representation of names of countries, territories or areas of geographical interest, and their subdivisions. However, ISO 3166 does not establish the names of countries, only the codes that represent them. This is less clear since it seems it includes not only countries, but also "territories or areas of geographical interest". But
• The decoding table for ISO 3166 simply states "ie - Ireland". Personally, I believe that the "country" is therefore the Irish state. But it's actually not 100% clear since we've also got "IM - ISLE OF MAN" and that's not a "country" per se. But I also believe this is splitting hairs. It's reasonable to assume the ".ie" domain is assigned to the Ireland (as in the Republic of Ireland).

But that isn't what the article states. It's not about what domain has been assigned to Norther Ireland - because in that case, there shouldn't be any domain listed since none has been assigned specifically for NI. The domain listing are simply listing the Top Level Domains (TLDs) that are relevant for Northern Ireland. The inclusion of ".ie" is because the designated manager responsible for the domain has deemed the entire island to be eligible, including NI. --HighKing (talk) 18:27, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi HighKing -

(1)Your fairly lengthy quotes on the ISO etc did not teach me anything I didn't already know or hadn't read already. The ISO code "IE" stands for Ireland proper (i.e. the Irish State). There is absolutely no doubt about this. Do you want to construct some argument that "IE" stands for the geographic island of Ireland. If you do, please adduce sources. In my opinion, such an agrument would be so silly, that I will assume here that you don't want to argue that the ISO code "IE" stands for an island.

(2)So .IE is the domain name assigned to represent the Irish State (not Northern Ireland) by IANA. But you want .IE to be represented in the Article as if .IE was equally relevant to Northern Ireland as .UK.

(3).UK is assigned to represent the UK not just Northern Ireland - obviously, that is correct. But you ignore that Northern Ireland is part of the UK (not Ireland) and so .UK is the domain name that covers Northern Ireland. ".IE" does not do so because Northern Ireland is not part of Ireland.

(3) I think your argument that ".ie" should be listed is devoid of proper reasoning/sources - it smacks to me of ignoring reality on the basis of politics. As others have already pointed out, the fact that Ireland allows (as a matter of policy) persons in NI to register .ie websites is irrelevant. Afterall, Tuvalu (as a matter of policy) also allows persons in NI to register .tv websites - Does that mean .tv should be listed too? Of course not!

(4) You have reverted my edit (which removed .ie) and inserted .ie back into the article. To my mind (given your lack of reasoning), that is vandalism (though I doubt you understand it as such). However, I don't want to get kicked off Wikipedia by reverting it. I don't expect you are going to change your mind as the position here is pretty plain (and has been since my first post). More voices will need to be heard and a consensus built. I will try to get a few more editors to get involved. Maybe a posting at .ie talk page, .uk talk page, the UK talk page, the Ireland talk page - any other ideas for where we could post this matter to get more editors involved ?

Frenchmalawi (talk) 22:57, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

As to point (1) - I've quoted the relevant pieces - not to disagree with you in the slightest, but to provide all the information that backs up that ".ie" is assigned to the Irish state. And I say this several times. And I've certainly not tried to construct any arguments against this. For me, it's is reasonable clear and straight forward. As to your point (2), nobody has argued against ".uk", although your reasoning is flawed. It isn't because N.I. is part of the UK, but rather that the ".uk" domain registrar has published rules governing the registration of domains that request a ".uk" domain. Each domain registrar makes the rules governing their domain. These are the rules for the UK, and you can see that very few of these domains specify the geographic limits at all.

As to the rest of your argument (and BritishWatchers below), this is where we (perhaps) disagree. Both of you seem to maintain that the TLD ".ie" is somehow ringfenced by a political boundary that governs which areas it is relevant to, or applies to. That isn't the case at all, and you've produced no references to back up that claim (nor will you find one, because none exists). On the other hand, we know that the ".ie" domain applies to to the entire island because since it is actually up to each domain registrar to make the rules governing the administration of each individual domain, we can look up those rules. And the ".ie" registrar has published those rules, and included the entire island. --HighKing (talk) 01:22, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

You really should not suggest that experienced editors are vandals just because they disagree with you. In the context of NI, where citizens can choose between the Irish State the the UK its more than reasonable to included it. ----Snowded ^TALK 23:07, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

The fact that people in Northern Ireland can choose Irish citizenship is absolutely irrelevant. This article is about Northern Ireland. The republic of Irelands internet domain should not be included in such a misleading way as it is at present. Last time i checked Northern Ireland was still part of the United Kingdom, not a part of the Republic of Ireland. BritishWatcher (talk) 23:19, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

A major feature of the constitution is hardly irrelevant BW ----Snowded ^TALK 23:25, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

This article is about a part of the sovereign state and country called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is not about somewhere in the Republic of Ireland, nor has it ever been in the Republic of Ireland. A republic of Ireland domain being presented on this article in the current way is misleading, factually inaccurate and blatantly POV. BritishWatcher (talk) 23:29, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

BW, whether you like it or not a sizeable portion of the population look to the Irish state not the UK for their identity. .ie is permitted for use in Northern Ireland so there really is no big deal here. ----Snowded ^TALK 23:36, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

No there is a big deal here, it is totally unacceptable for people to attempt to portray something that is clearly a Republic of Ireland domain as a Northern Ireland or United Kingdom domain. Someone in Northern Ireland can register many domain names, they do not appear in the infobox. BritishWatcher (talk) 23:50, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Northern Ireland is quite unique within the UK in that its citizens can choose Irish citizenship as a birthright. Is it too much to point out that individuals and organisations also prefer to use the .ie address for their websites? Please! Fishiehelper2 (talk) 01:13, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree there seems to be a lack of "parity of esteem and of just and equal treatment for the identity, ethos and aspirations of both communities" here. The .ie domain is not government owned, it is owned by the community. If there is to be a compromise might I suggest removing 'Internet TLD' altogether and just putting in ISO country code with no mention of the internet. Dmcq (talk) 01:18, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

I sometimes wonder if BW has a Union Jack painted on the wall of his house to match his wikipedia page. Our job here is not to make a political statement about either the defense or breakup of the Union, but to reflect common use in the real world. So I think it stays. ----Snowded ^TALK 06:36, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

The registration policy of IEDR (the registry for .ie Internet Domain Names) shows applicants for the TLD .ie should be based in either the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland. No compromise is necessary, as the .ie TLD is being shown correctly on this page. Daicaregos (talk) 08:50, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

The Northern Irish can also register a ".tv" domain should they so wish. Can we put that in the infobox, too, please? — Jon C.^ॐ 11:09, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

I assume you accept the IEDR source shows that .ie explicitly includes those in Northern Ireland. .tv does not explicitly include those in Northern Ireland. You are, of course welcome to approach the Reliable Sources/Noticeboard if you doubt the IEDR source is sufficient, or if you wish to promote the case to include .tv. Daicaregos (talk) 12:38, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Allowing and encouraging people and organisations from Northern Ireland to register a .ie domain changes nothing. You have not showed reliable sources stating .ie is the official registered top country domain for Northern Ireland. Only .uk is as NI is part of the UK, it is not part of the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Parliament has legislated to be able to impose regulations regarding .ie domain names, does the UK government / NI government have those same powers over the domain? BritishWatcher (talk) 18:40, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Nor have you shown that ".uk" domain is the official registered domain for Northern Ireland. You probably meant to say "United Kingdom". And the Irish Government legislate for the ".ie" domain, I agree. Who legislates for the ".eu" domain? :-) Who legislates for the ".uk" domain? And since any entitity can register for a ".uk" domain and not operate in the UK, what's your point exactly? You're trying to turn this into a political debate, when what's it's really and actually about is whether the ".ie" domain is relevant to NI. --HighKing (talk) 19:05, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

The UK domain is officially for the country called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which clearly includes NI, i have said yes it does not specifically only apply to Northern Ireland, but the only official domain that represents NI is .uk because it is part of the UK, that is the country.

In a glossary from report in 2010 by Irelands domain registry it says "ccTLD - A Country Code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) is a top level domain used and reserved for a country or dependent territory. Examples of ccTLDs include .ie for Ireland, .uk for the United Kingdom, .de for Germany, .us for the United States of America, and .es for Spain. Each country appoints a manager for its ccTLD and sets the rules for allocating domains. IE Domain Registry Limited (IEDR) manages the .ie ccTLD." So what is the country it is talking about? The republic of Ireland is clearly the country referenced, it is not a domain name assigned "to an island". So the infobox should either state .uk because NI is part of the UK and .uk is the UKs official top country domain, or it should state neither, as there is nothing specifically for Northern Ireland. BritishWatcher (talk) 19:11, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

You're constantly trying to mix up several separate things. Nobody has once argued about what "country" the various domains are assigned to. Everyone agrees on that point. The country gets to "manage" the domain, it doesn't "own" it. Now address the point about how the various registrars set the geographic or political rules for the domains. Because that's how you really decide on whether a domain is relevant for a territory like Northern Ireland. --HighKing (talk) 16:23, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

On the EU one, well i just took a quick look and the registry organisation was appointed by the European Commission, so they have an element of control and have passed regulations in the way national governments do over their own country domains, despite the registry organisations like in Irelands case not being government bodies etc. And of course all the EU member states have or are meant to have control over the EU commission and its organs. Im glad you agree the Irish republic legislates for the .ie domain, heres reference to that. For that reason it seems totally inappropriate to have another country's domain listed in the infobox of Northern Ireland. Either its the UKs own or none at all. BritishWatcher (talk) 19:23, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

No, wrong again. It's nothing to do with legislation to decide what is relevant or not, it is to do with the rules set down by the registrar (and yes, slightly pedantic here esp. in the case of the .ie domain because the rules might reflect appropriate legislation). Hopefully if I repeat this enough it might finally get through.... the rules are set by the registrar, the rules are set by the registrar, the rules are set by the registrar. Nothing inherently political or geographical about the rules until the rules themselves define political or geographical limits. --HighKing (talk) 16:23, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Omit the section

People in Northern Ireland are permitted, indeed persuaded, to register under .ni (Nicaragua). Should we put .ni in the table? It seems eminently clear to me that it is irrelevant which ccTLDs are available to people in NI, but rather which ISO code (and thence IANA ccTLD) is assigned to Northern Ireland. But no such code exists. NI does NOT have and internet domain [nor does Scotland, Wales or Catalonia, though the IoM does). The section therefore MUST be omitted, it does not apply in this case. --Red King (talk) 16:22, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

I would support the removal of the section entirely in the infobox as a compromise. It is certainly a more neutral and accurate way of handling the situation than the present method of stating a domain that belongs to a foreign country and sovereign state. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:44, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

As far as I am aware we work from sources and common use here, not political positions. Its notable that people in NI use both .uk and .ie the fact that they can use register others is just a red king herring, ----Snowded ^TALK 18:08, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

As has been pointed out, people in Northern Ireland can register many different domains, not just .ie. That is a domain for the country known as the republic of Ireland, NOT the United Kingdom or one part of this. The only political position that appears to be taking place is seeking to pretend that northern Ireland is somehow part of the republic of ireland and should have its domain listed. That is misleading, and unacceptable. .ie is not the domain for Northern Ireland, only .uk is as NI is part of the UK. As it is not specifically for Northern Ireland, there is the justified position of removing the listing all together which seems like a fair compromise. But it is factually inaccurate and blatantly biased for this article to pretend ie. is Northern Irelands domain. Provide sources stating that .ie is the top level country domain of Northern Ireland, i think you will find the sources and evidence show that .uk is. As the United Kingdom is a country, and Republic of Ireland (unfortunately and confusingly often just called Ireland) is a country. There is no 32 counties or "island" top level domain. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:27, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

"Unfortunately and confusingly"??? Probably too confusing for some simpletons to comprehend all right. Although there's also some fuckwits that understand it perfectly but try to make it into a big political shitstorm. --HighKing (talk) 18:53, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Lets have less of the personal attacks and name calling shall we? Keep it civil. Canterbury Tail talk 23:09, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Read it again - there's no personal attack in anything I've said (as you probably already know). I'll grant that it is "insulting" perhaps to some who hold a particular viewpoint, but only as insulting as someone insulting and entire countries citizens by saying "unfortunately and confusingly" about the countries actual real name. Or maybe you missed that bit? Or chose to ignore it cos you don't think it's at all insulting? Whatever... --HighKing (talk) 16:37, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh if only it was as simple as you seem to think HighKing. I think this whole matter demonstrates the problem perfectly. Lets look at the infobox note which says ".ie is assigned to Ireland of which Northern Ireland is a part" . Interesting claim, for which i would like to see reliable sources stating specifically that is the case. Allowing / encouraging folks from Northern Ireland to register a .ie domain is ENTIRELY different to where the .ie top level domain has been assigned. There was me thinking country code top-level domains were assigned to... wait for it! Countries? Provide evidence it went to an island in this case please. BritishWatcher (talk) 20:12, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

OK - good point about the text. That should be reworded, I agree. --HighKing (talk) 16:37, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Sure, people in Northern Ireland can register lots of different domains. The same as how anyone can register for a ".co.uk" for example. But the infobox is there to list the domains that are relevant for the territory. Which is what has been done. Trying to politicize a TLD shows ignorance of the entire process, as it's up to each domain registrar to set the rules. And they're all different and there's no standards. As far as I'm concerned, the *only* reason that ".ie" is included is because the registrar of the ".ie" domain has explicitly stated it is *only* for entities in Ireland. And the ".eu" domain is similarly geographically limited to entities within the European Union. In a perverse way, one could argue that ".ie" is even more relevant than ".uk" since the ".uk" registrar does not place state the domain is actually *for* entities in the UK and for the most part, does not place geographic restrictions on entities that can use the domain. --HighKing (talk) 18:53, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

There comes a point where BW's Unionist POV seems to create an allergic reaction to common sense. He seems to be the corollary of some of my relatives who refuse to use any title other than "the six counties'. We have better things to do that provide a platform for extreme political opinions that try and flex reality to match their belief systems. Keep it as it is with .ie ----Snowded ^TALK 19:18, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

The anti British bias on wikipedia is displayed on many fronts by many different people, i do not know the reason why .ie was put in the infobox for Northern Ireland, but it is clearly inappropriate for a foreign country's top country domain to be listed for part of the United Kingdom.

"The IANA is not in the business of deciding what is and what is not a country. The selection of the ISO 3166 list as a basis for country code top-level domain names was made with the knowledge that ISO has a procedure for determining which entities should be and should not be on that list." - What is the country that the ISO "IE" is for? Is it for an island, or for a country officially described as the Republic of Ireland? BritishWatcher (talk) 19:30, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

BW delights as ever - "assume good faith", anyone? .ie is a domain name for "Ireland", assigned at a time when the Constitution of the Republic of Ireland defined the national territory as including the whole island. The statute to which BW points is an enabling measure under which the Minister "may" regulate use "within the state"; it does not limit use to "within the state" and certainly does not diminish the association of the .ie domain with the entire island. Leave as is, it's perfectly fine. Brocach (talk) 19:48, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

I said i do not know why ie was included, that is assuming good faith and not making accusations about the reasons for its inclusion, although i admit it is difficult because it seems needlesly provocative to havea foreign country's top level country domain in its infobox.. There is plenty of evidence of the anti British bias on wikipedia, in numerous articles and methods of handling matters. Many editors may mean well and just be supporting positions they feel is right, it does not change the fact there are decisions that clearly seek to undermine British people and the United Kingdom on wikipedia in ways that no other country on the planet is subjected to, but will spare getting into a wider debate on that at this time. The statute i pointed to showed the Irish Republic can regulate for the .ie domain. Does the Northern Ireland/ UK government have a similar statute relating to .ie? Interesting reference to the Irish constitution, but its defunct claim to Northern Ireland is irrelevant to the ISO country codes, which on maps seem to show NI as part of the UK, not the Republic of Ireland. And does the .ie domain not come from those ISO country codes? BritishWatcher (talk) 20:01, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

BW if I had the energy I think I would raise an RfC on your persistent, never ending political arguments about the Union. Honestly you are OTT when you say that adding something common place and informative (.ie) is seeking to undermine the British people who are singled out for persecution. You are wasting everyone's time with these pointless diatribes. Its OK, nearly everyone involved thinks its OK. Leave it, get a life, find something more important. ----Snowded ^TALK 21:06, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

BW, you don't think it's a teeny bit "provocative" to refer to Ireland as "a foreign country" in relation to Northern Ireland? Or that linking the mention of .ie to "anti British bias" implied a lack of good faith on the part of other editors? As they say in these parts: catch yersel on. The .ie domain was assigned 24 years ago, I'm guessing ten years before you were born, at which time the only legal definition of an entity called "Ireland" was the Constitution defining the territory as the whole island. The Constitution has since been modified, but the version that is most relevant to a code assigned 24 years ago is the version that was in force at that time. The statute that you linked to shows only that the Government of the Republic in principle reserves the right (that in practice it devolves to UCD) to regulate .ie within the present jurisdiction of the Republic. There is nothing wrong with the infobox .ie reference and you could spend your time in better ways than combating supposed anti-British conspiracies that you read into a purely factual statement about how a two-letter code works. The box is accurate and it should stay. Brocach (talk) 21:27, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Well i was not trying to be provocative merely highlight that we are dealing with a situation here where there are two separate countries. The Republic of Ireland is a separate country to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Which means Northern Ireland is not part of the Republic of Ireland, so it is a "foreign country" or at least "foreign state". This is relevant to the debate because we are talking about a COUNTRY Top Level domain code, so it is clearly inappropriate to list another nations code as its own. BritishWatcher (talk) 22:04, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Snowded i never suggested that including .ie on the infobox here is seeking to undermine or persecute British people, that relates to other matters on wikipedia such as the clear crusade to wipe British nationality off of wikipedia, with people who are described in sources as British and consider themselves British not being allowed to be called British on wikipedia. It is absolutely the only nationality/citizenship in the world on wikipedia where there appears to be a presumption of NOT stating the persons legal nationality. The problem in this case of the infobox is not persecution, its purely misleading and factually inaccurate, and it seeks to imply that Northern Ireland is part of the Irish republic, when the irish Republics country code is listed as its own. .ie is not the top level country domain of Northern Ireland. So its only "informative" in the sense that its providing incorrect information. As for commonplace, ive not looked but i doubt we will find many articles where a different sovereign states top level country domain is listed. And we do not list the numerous domains available to people in Northern Ireland such as .org etc. BritishWatcher (talk)

Yes you did, you opined at great length on the subject or were those sentences just ones you cut and past into many a comment you make on these pages? Please try and address the issues raised, or drop it. ----Snowded ^TALK 22:15, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

No the comment you seem to be referring to was about some other things on wikipedia, not this specific issue. This one comes down to factual inaccuracies, and presenting something in a misleading way as well as being clear POV. I have tried addressing the issues raised. This is a Top level country domain. WHAT country is it talking about? The Republic of Ireland.. So why is it appropriate to have the ROI country domain listed on a Northern Ireland page? BritishWatcher (talk) 23:01, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Should .ie be listed even though NI is not in Ireland?

Quotes and Responses

• “The .ie domain is not government owned, it is owned by the community.” Per ISO, “IE” represents Ireland proper – not any other part of the world such as Nothern Ireland!
• “Our job here is not to make a political statement about either the defense or breakup of the Union, but to reflect common use in the real world. So I think it stays.” – The real world is that Northern Ireland is part of the UK and so .uk covers Northern Ireland. .ie does not.
• “.ie explicitly includes those in Northern Ireland. .tv does not explicitly include those in Northern Ireland.” This is not correct. Dot.TV is open to anyone anywhere in the world. Look it up. This is expressly provided for. Tuvalu expressly allows persons outside Tuvalu to register domains! If .ie gets listed, .tv equally deserves to be listed (as do many other domains).

Tuvalu may well allow persons outside Tuvalu to register domains (and that would be implicit, not explicit). So what? Please provide the link to .tv explicitly including (i.e. naming) Northern Ireland. Daicaregos (talk) 22:42, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

That's silly...Why would Tuvalu start listing out every territory in the world ! Of course it doesn't. It expressly allows any one to register a dot.TV ! That includes NI ! Frenchmalawi (talk) 02:28, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Silly? Absolutely. You claim my statement ".ie explicitly includes those in Northern Ireland. .tv does not explicitly include those in Northern Ireland." is not correct, but it is. If you don't understand words used in a sentence (in this case the difference between explicit and implicit), please consult a dictionary, before claiming that statement is wrong, which is quite insulting. Daicaregos (talk) 12:35, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

What on earth is your point ! Would it make any difference if Tuvalu listed every country and territory in the World! Of course not ! Dot.TV is just as open to Northern Ireland persons as Dot.IE !! Frenchmalawi (talk) 17:34, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

My point is that in (what I hope was) your ignorance, you claimed my statement was incorrect, effectively calling me a liar. My statement was entirely correct. What you should have done is to admit you were wrong and apologise, which would have been an end to it. And yes, it would make a difference if Tuvalu listed Northern Ireland explicitly. But it doesn't. Now please stop being a dick. Daicaregos (talk) 20:15, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

• “Nor have you shown that ".uk" domain is the official registered domain for Northern Ireland.” Are you arguing that Northern Ireland is not part of the UK?
• “what's it's really and actually about is whether the ".ie" domain is relevant to NI” No. That is not what it is about. There is a very substantial Albanian minority in FYR Macedonia. Does that mean .al should be listed in its country page? Of course not. Ditto, millions of Mexicans in the USA – should .mx get listed in USA page. Of course not ! It’s the same here guys.
• “The section therefore MUST be omitted, it does not apply in this case.” That’s fine for me but with a Wiki hat on, the same should be applied to other territories like Scotland and Wales and England.
• “I would support the removal of the section entirely in the infobox as a compromise. It is certainly a more neutral and accurate way of handling the situation than the present method of stating a domain that belongs to a foreign country and sovereign state.” I am ok with this suggestion but again think with a Wiki hat on, the same should be applied to other territories like Scotland and Wales and England. Otherwise you are singling out NI for special treatment for no good reason.
• “Fuckwits” – Need I say more.
• “allergic reaction to common sense.... extreme political opinion” This comes from someone who is trying to make an article read (in terms of domain names) as if NI is part of Ireland !!!
• “Leave as is, it's perfectly fine” This was followed by a nonsense suggestion that .ie stands for an island which hardly warrants further response.
• “There is plenty of evidence of the anti British bias on wikipedia, in numerous articles and methods of handling matters.” Britishwatcher – By coincidence, you and I think the same way on this issue. But as for anti-British bias....Wiki (like you) does not even respect the name of Ireland....So I don’t think you have much of a grievance here, relatively speaking !
• [About Britishwatcher] “Honestly you are OTT”...Play the ball, not the man....All of Britishwatcher’s points on this discussion have been reasonable and absolutely fine. Discuss issues on their merits, not personalities please.

Frenchmalawi (talk) 22:24, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Good points, although i must just briefly mention that Republic of Ireland is the official description of the country as decided by the republics parliament, and it is used to disambiguate seen as the official name for the country is also a name of the island, which happened to have the name long before the state. So its hardly unreasonable for wikipedia to use that description (which the country also uses for football). Funnily enough this .IE issue goes back to the whole "two Irelands" issues really. Those arguing in favour of the status quo seem to think the domain was given to an island, when it is clearly a country code of "Ireland" (Republic of Ireland). BritishWatcher (talk) 23:01, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

No point getting side tracked on the Ireland issue...You know full well that the name of the state is Ireland under its own constitution and that's how it is referred to by its own Government and by the UK Government for that matter! You also know that there are lots of ways disambiguation can be handled (in the limited circumstances where it is needed). Wiki insistence of ROI this and ROI that is off-putting and politics based..Back to the ".ie" issue....This is a remarkable discussion. I think BW and I are in a minority here and this political steamroller is going to roll over us and ".ie" will be staying! It's a funny world BW. Maybe it will bring you closer to understanding how others feel about the whole ROI political steam roller - but I wont be holding my breath! Frenchmalawi (talk) 02:28, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Agreed best to leave the ROI issues here, i do accept the country is officially called Ireland, i just think it makes matters more complicated. As people can say ".ie was assigned to Ireland" and make out like it was to the island, rather than to the country. Anyway I do not think that .ie will stay in the infobox, those arguing against the change have so far completely failed to provide justification for their position. The only reasoning provided so far is that the irish registry encourage people from Northern Ireland to take up domains too.. well considering they are selling a product/service, i can understand their motives. It does not change the fact a country domain is assigned to a country not an island. And no sources have been provided to show that is not the case. If there is not agreement to remove the .ie from the infobox i will certainly be adding the inline disputed tag to that section so that the debate can continue if necessary. We can also consider raising this matter on a wikiproject to get some uninvolved input from people, like a technology wikiproject for example to avoid potential politics. If people provide sources that clearly state .ie was assigned to the island of Ireland and that this is not a "country top level domain" based on the Republic of Irelands ISO code then i would see less of a problem. But so far no evidence to even try to back that up has been shown. BritishWatcher (talk) 04:51, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Lots and lots of specious examples that ignore the constitutional position that people in NI can choose Irish Citizenship. Neither of you are making new points, just repeating and extending what is a political position on a remarkably minor issue.----Snowded ^TALK 05:05, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Im sorry but people being entitled Irish citizenship has absolutely nothing to do with this matter. This is about if .ie is the internet domain of Northern Ireland. it isnt, its the top level country domain of the Republic of Ireland. NIs only official one is .uk, as it like Wales, Scotland and England are all part of one country known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which uses the country domain .uk, and also reserves .GB which is its ISO. IE is Republic of Irelands ISO code.. not the islands. BritishWatcher (talk) 05:17, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Well the IE code is definitely the ISO code for The Republic, and from a governmental position the UK government controls Northern Ireland and they are subjects of the Queen whether or not they choose Irish citizenship. The North/South Ministerial Council and things like InterTradeIreland are I guess just parts of agreements that could be torn up as the governments decide. My point is you are seeing Northern Ireland as belonging to Westminster whereas it belongs to its own people and you are seeing a code which was handed out nearly a quarter of a century ago by some informal group in the US to University College Dublin as definitive about its use. There is a clash of viewpoints rather like Republicans versus Democrats in the US where there is very little recognition of or empathy with the views of the other side. Dmcq (talk) 11:54, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi Dmcq! I have no idea what things like North/South councils have to do with anything. But the notion that there is nothing"definitive about" the use of dot.IE is wrong. IANA provides that .ie is assigned to represent the Republic. No ifs, buts or whatevers...Do you disagree with that? Frenchmalawi (talk) 12:49, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I disagree completely with that. You're twisting the actual meanings and definitions to suit a political agenda where none exists. The .ie domain is assigned to the country (the Republic). The Irish Government has legislated for the domain. But, and here's the part you guys keep glossing over - the rules are set by the country registrar. And the rules for the ".ie" domain specifically include Northern Ireland. Now, on the other hand, if the country infobox is there to simply list the ISO country code, fine. But it's not - it's there to list the country domains that are relevant to Northern Ireland. --HighKing (talk) 16:32, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi Snowded! What on earth does Irish citizenship law have to do with domain names! What an imaginative idea! All jews around the world have the legal right (under Israel law) to migrate to and take up Israeli citizenship....Does that mean coutnries with large Jewish populations like USA should start getting ".il" listed in their country pages too? Of course not, and your "argument" (if you can call it that) is equally nonsensical ! Frenchmalawi (talk) 12:53, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

You're obviously unfamiliar with things like .cat then. Dmcq (talk) 14:11, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi Dmcq ! If you have a reasoned argument to make, please do make it. Cryptic references to things like .cat don't really shed much light on anything (well, that's how I read it)

Hi High King ! Northern Ireland is not in Ireland. Northern Ireland is not in Tuvalu. Both Ireland and Tuvalu allow their domain names to be used by people in Northern Ireland. In that sense, both ".tv" and ".ie" are relevant to Northern Ireland. Please can you explain exactly why you think ".ie" should be listed but not ".tw" (as well as a host of other domain names). You are saying these is a big politica agenda here. Yes there is. It's this - Wiki should reflect basic facts like ".ie" is not assigned to cover Northern Ireland any more than ".tw" is! In a sense that is political. Nothing wrong with that. Frenchmalawi (talk) 17:05, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

.cat is the internet domain for Catalan. It was linked to above. Did you get that or is there some other problem about what I was saying you didn't understand? You said that such a thing was nonsensical, I showed you it wasn't. Dmcq (talk) 17:24, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

You will need to explain how that in any way relates to why ".ie" should be listed as a domain name for Northern Ireland. I can't see your point (if you have one). Frenchmalawi (talk) 17:36, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

As Wikipedia says ".cat is a sponsored top-level domain intended to be used to highlight the Catalan language and culture". It is not one for a particular region or subdivision of a country. Such a construct was not thought of when .ie was assigned but it is what .ie has been used for. As the Belfast Agreement says "the power of the sovereign government with jurisdiction there shall be exercised with rigorous impartiality on behalf of all the people in the diversity of their identities and traditions and shall be founded on the principles of full respect for, and equality of, civil, political, social and cultural rights". Now that really is a political agreement as opposed to anything IANA does. Dmcq (talk) 17:54, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

If you want to make the argument that .ie (per ISO 366-1) does not represent the Irish state...but rather represents something else (maybe the island of Ireland), come out and say so. If that is your argument, it is a nonsense argument that has already been disposed of (by reference to sources). Otherwise, what on earth is the relevance of your remarks here. Belfast Agreement no less this time around. Frenchmalawi (talk) 17:58, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

I have said IE in the ISO standard stands for the Republic, however IANA is not part of ISO or the UN or anything else like that. They assigned those codes to places like University College Dublin who used it as it is now used. As a first cut way of giving out domains it worked very well and people were able to do most things they wanted to with them though more are now being assigned. Yes the Dublin government would be able to start controlling it closely instead of leaving it alone just like Westminster could dissolve Stormont or anything else it wanted to practically but as it stands the .ie and .cat domains are similar in use. Dmcq (talk) 18:17, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion, this is all very wordy to say so little. Yes - "IANA is not part of ISO or the UN or anything else" but it follows the ISO code and has assigned .ie for the Irish state. Period. Are you arguing .ie should appear on the Northern Ireland page? If so, on what basis and if yes, why not .tv and other similar domains? Frenchmalawi (talk) 19:06, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

No consensus for change - close and move on

Clearly there's no consensus to remove the ".ie" domain from the country infobox. Unless any new points are raised, this discussion is tiresomely being pulled by the same-ol' same-ol' editors into political territory on an issue that is clearly non-political, and therefore this discussion should be closed.

There isn't any consensus to keep it in either. I think the simplest is simply to list the ISO codes as we shouldn't be sticking in stuff that isn't well cited and yet you have things like .tv which definitely are associated with television now even if it was assigned to Tuvalu. People are giving IANA a political or official status it never has had. Dmcq (talk) 16:43, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

The reasons to exclude it are based on made-up political reasons that have nothing to do with IANA or the management and administration of domains. We don't need a consensus to keep - otherwise the "Republic of Ireland" article would also have failed at that particular title. As for the ".tv" domain - some domains are geographically restricted, others are open. The ones that are open are not *specifically* relevant to NI, which is not the case for domain that are *specifically* restricted to include a territory. --HighKing (talk) 12:13, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

If .ie is to be listed, why not others like .tw?

(1) Northern Ireland is not in Ireland. Northern Ireland is not in Tuvalu. Both Ireland and Tuvalu allow their domain names to be used by people in Northern Ireland. In that sense, both ".tv" and ".ie" are relevant to Northern Ireland. Please can you explain exactly why you think ".ie" should be listed but not ".tw" (as well as a host of other domain names).

(2) As for closing the discussion, that seems a tad hasty to me ! Britishwatcher/all others - any ideas where this discussion should be listed to try to get more editors involved and more perspectives ? I had suggested the .uk, UK, .ie, Ireland and perhaps IANA as wiki pages ? Frenchmalawi (talk) 17:11, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

I have listed the issue at the Wiki Project UK, Ireland talk pages and the .ie and .uk talk pages and the IANA talk page...This is a balanced selection of talk pages....but if others think this should be listed elsewhere, go ahead! Let's get more editors involved and together we should be able to resolve the issues in hand. Frenchmalawi (talk) 17:29, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

.tw is for Taiwan, .tv is Tuvulu or television. And as to why exclude it then for the same reason as you exclude Italian recipe books when talking about books for doctors or plumbers. Dmcq (talk) 17:34, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Oops, of course ".tv". Correct. Dmcq - why would you include .ie but exclude .tv ? I don't think either should be included. Frenchmalawi (talk) 17:37, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

The reason to exclude "open" domains (or domains where the registrar has decided to not geographically restrict entities registering domains is because those domains have no rules *specifically* relevant to Northern Ireland. --HighKing (talk) 12:13, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Why is any ccTLD being listed?

I still say, and nobody has challenged the point, that Northern Ireland does not have its own ISO 3166 code or its own ccTLD so this section should not be shown. The whole issue is an artefact of using the 'country' template for a region. --Red King (talk) 17:23, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

I would have no problem with it being removed....but then you would need to do the same for the Scotland, Wales and England pages. Otherwise, we would be engaging in inconsistent practices, and discriminating in the case of NI. Frenchmalawi (talk) 17:28, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Endorse and agree. I can't quite see the point of including any ccTLD/country code unless one is assigned specifically to the region being discussed (as, for example, the proposed .scot may be come 2013). Andrew Gray (talk) 17:37, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

100% agree with an across the board change to each of the England, Wales, Scotland and NI pages. Frenchmalawi (talk) 17:39, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Consistency is not any sort of strong requirement on Wikipedia. WP:Consistency did not gain any wide support. Pages are supposed to stand on their own so I wouldn't see that as any great objections. Dmcq (talk) 17:40, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

I disagree - unless there is good reason, we should be consistent. There is no good reason here. We should be applying the same objective standards. Frenchmalawi (talk) 17:45, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

There is no problem with editors applying their own standards consistently. I was just pointing out that it isn't even a guideline in Wikipedia, I certainly agree though that it is preferable if things can be made consistent. Dmcq (talk) 18:01, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Andrew is, as usual, being sensible. There is definitely going to be an issue in the future, with .scot, and the current bother around .wales/.cymru (which seems to be going the usual awful way as DNS politics tends to) and with things like the proposal for city-based TLDs (.london, .berlin etc.). If there isn't an assigned ccTLD for the country, we shouldn't list one. —Tom Morris (talk) 18:21, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

I can see there being loads of trouble like this over the proposed new Kurdish top level domains! If IANA was under the UN I could see things like Turkey and Iraq and Syria all fighting to stop anything like that. I'm surprised the Palestinians managed to get one for themselves. Dmcq (talk) 18:30, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

I think a consensus is emerging to delete the domain names from NI, England, Wales and Scotland. Any of you willing to go ahead and do it ? I don't want to be the one to do it in case persons could argue I was breaching some supposed rule. Frenchmalawi (talk) 19:07, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

By the way, I think the Palestinians got one because thye have been represented in the UN (in some manner) for decades. They've similarly been on the ISO list for decades...Frenchmalawi (talk) 19:09, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Im prepared to support the removal of the Top Level Domains from this article as a compromise, but i do not think they need removing from all four nations of the UK articles. I also would also oppose inclusion of a domain like .scot onto the Scotland article infobox if the domain was granted. There is a big difference between the official top level domain for a country and one created for all cultural reasons relating to Scotland and Scottish people, not just Scotland itself now they have massively relaxed the rules regarding domains. If it was included, it would certainly be inappropriate not to include the official .uk which absolutely does apply to Scotland and all other parts of the United Kingdom. There is also the similar issue with regards the calling codes. There are other problems of course too, All of these things stem from the fact we are using country infoboxes for a very unique situation as these are countries of another country. Ideally there would be a specific infobox for the UKs four countries that actually reflected the situation properly and more clearly. BritishWatcher (talk) 19:46, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, England, Wales and Scotland should not show this field either, because (at least now), they don't qualify for ccTLDs, like NI they are just regions of the UK. Right now, .scot would be a 'Vanity' TLD like .google, .ibm, etc. If/when Scotland achieves independence, it will qualify for an ISO 3166 code and thence its own ccTLD.

Perhaps someone who cares about the consistency aspect would take it to the talk:UK discussion? --Red King (talk) 20:38, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

I'd support something like this replacing the Internet TLD line

ISO code: GB-NIR

Note GB is the ISO 3166-2 code for the United Kingdom but UK has been reserved and is used as an internet TLD.

I think everything there is official and citable rather than trying to list internet TLDs as referring to Northern Ireland or implying or saying .ie does or does not applying to Northern Ireland. Dmcq (talk) 15:29, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Chipping in

Originally, .ie referred only to the Republic of Ireland. It was expanded to include Northern Ireland in 2002 after a consultation process. (cf. Information Technology Law: Professional Practice Guide, Law Society of Ireland, 2004). This new context for the domain is underlined by WIPO, which follows suit and resolves disputes over .ie domains name in the context of the "island of Ireland".

I can understand that this may be irksome to editors who may desire the Irish border to be less porous that it actually is. However, we are in the business of recording reality. Reality is that the .ie domain applies to Northern Ireland as much as it applies to the Republic of Ireland. (The note in the info box could do a better job of explaining the situation, though.) --RA (talk) 21:31, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Please provide the official sources explaining this is the case, because that is not explained in this article at all and the current wording in the infobox is clearly in need of correction. BritishWatcher (talk) 22:43, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

I have a feeling RA "chipped in" without bothering to read the foregoing detailed discussion....That ".ie" is open to people in Northern Ireland is not in doubt. So is ".tv" for that matter....But, I agree with BW...if you want to say something of substance, you will have to get into the detail and give sources etc. Frenchmalawi (talk) 23:38, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

I read the whole discussion. I didn't mention comparisons with .tv, etc. because it's silly. The geographic region covered by .ie domain is the island of Ireland, and explicitly includes both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. I cited a publication of the Law Society of Ireland above as reference, which gives background to the policy change in 2002. Other have directed you to the IEDR website. --RA (talk) 01:31, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Please provide a source that states the domain .ie is a top level domain that has been assigned to an island and not a country. We are aware of IEDR encouraging people from Northern Ireland to use the domain, they are selling a product, that makes no difference to this debate. We are talking about a Top level country domain... by the very term its about a country, not an island. A consultation and the Law Society of Ireland is not enough.. where is the official documentation from the global body (IANA) clearly stating that .ie is for the island since 2002? If such sources exist then i accept that radically changes this situation, but as of yet i see no evidence of that at all, nor is it made clear on articles here on wikipedia. BritishWatcher (talk) 03:07, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

RA ha provided both a reference and a reason. This is now time wasting and for the record I don't see any 'emerging consensus' ----Snowded ^TALK 04:16, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

He has provided a reference to the fact the organisation that runs the Irish top level country domain changed its criteria on who can and cannot own a domain. The fact it allows people from Northern Ireland to register a domain does not mean it is Northern Ireland's top level country domain, and this has already been discussed before. The fact people based on the Northern Ireland connection could not even register prior to 2002 reinforces the fact this domain was given to a country, the Republic of Ireland. Different nations domains have differing criteria for who can and cant use their domains. .ie relaxing its rules does not mean it suddenly becomes a separate sovereign state (or a part of a states) top level country domain. We need sources showing that IANA has assigned this domain to an island not as a top level country domain. If it aint a top level country domain then it dont belong there anyway does it? BritishWatcher (talk) 04:39, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

All the law society source appears to say is.. "The ccTLD '.ie' used to be administered by a department within the UCD and is now run by IE Domaind Registry Ltd. In January 2002 it introduced a set of rule changes which relaxed the rules for obtaining a .ie registration, including the following: (a) generic names are now allowed; (b) domains of two characters are allowed (cannot be only two letters); (c) you must still have a real and substantial connection with Ireland, but now this is referable to the 32 counties, therefore Northern Ireland clients can now register .ie in addition to .co.uk which was not possible before; ". So it is not even about being based within Northern Ireland just having a connection to it, well im sure there are many in Canada or the USA who can successfully claim they have a significant connection with a part of the republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland.. it does not make .ie a country code top level domain for the United States or for Canada. BritishWatcher (talk) 04:44, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Exactly its a minor and interesting piece of information not a major political statement. Please stop making mountains out of imaginary mole hills ----Snowded ^TALK 04:49, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Well the terribly worded footnote does not help, because that does in fact make a statement that a country code has been assigned to the entire island. That is simply not true, so far all the sources mentioned above would only justify saying people from NI or with a connection to NI are since 2002 able to apply to use the .ie domain. But we have not seen anything to justify saying .ie is the country code top level domain for Northern Ireland.

" Country-code Top-level Domain specific-information

Country-code Top-level Domains (ccTLDs) are two-letter top-level domains especially designated for a particular country or autonomous territory to use to service their community.

Establishment of new ccTLDs

IANA follows the ISO 3166-1 standard to determine which countries are eligible for country-code top-level domains, as published by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency. If the proposed new ccTLD does not reflect a country currently listed in the ISO 3166-1 standard, please read IANA's Procedures for Establishing ccTLDsfor more information.

Countries listed in the ISO 3166-1 standard are eligible for their "alpha-2" code represented in that standard. Certain countries may also be eligible for non-Latin IDN country-code top-level domains through the ICANN IDN Fast Track process."[2]

Simple question... does the ISO 3166-1 code "IE" apply to the Republic of Ireland, or the island of Ireland? Where is the documentation from IANA that it assigned the IE code to the island, rather than following their standard procedure of assigning it to a country based on the ISO codes? BritishWatcher (talk) 05:10, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

From the ISO website [3] ...

"ISO 3166 is the International Standard for country codes and codes for their subdivisions. The purpose of ISO 3166 is to establish internationally recognised codes for the representation of names of countries, territories or areas of geographical interest, and their subdivisions. However, ISO 3166 does not establish the names of countries, only the codes that represent them."

Interestingly it makes clear reference to the fact their codes are used to assign internet names..

"The country codes found in ISO 3166-1 are used by many organizations, businesses and governments. For example all national postal organizations throughout the world exchange international mail in containers bearing its country code for identification. In machine readable passports, the codes from ISO 3166-1 are used to determine the nationality of the user. In addition, internet domain name systems use the codes to define top level domain names such as 'fr' for France, 'au' for Australia and 'br' for Brazil."

The ISO 3166 code IE clearly is for the country Republic of Ireland, not an island. And the domain name has clearly been assigned based on the ISO code. Would anyone here seriously try to argue that the northern ireland infobox should like the ROI one state the ISO code IE? If no.. then how can there be a justification for stating .IE? Also i do note that the ROI page only puts the .eu domain in a footnote rather than in the full box. leaving aside the whole issue of .ie a second, that is probably the better approach if .eu needs to be stated anywhere, rather than inline with .uk BritishWatcher (talk) 05:26, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

It appears to me that BritishWatcher and I are on a loosing battle here. Most editors are choosing to ignore the very basic facts stated so clearly. One editor even said it was "silly" to compare ".ie" to ".tv"....and gave no proper reason (people in NI are just as able to register a ".tv" as a ".ie", and neither domain name is assigned to represent that part of the world that NI is in - Tuvalu expressly allows registration to any one in the World incuding NI; just as Irealnd expressly allows registrations to persons on the island of Ireland, including NI).

BritishWatcher, I think this is 100% politics, just as your insistence on "Republic of Ireland" is politics. We even have ridiculous situations like "Foreign relations of the Republic of Ireland" (as if an island ever has a foreign policy....). Things like this (and ".ie" on the NI page) distort reality. BritishWatcher - Sometimes, you reep what you sow. Enjoy it. ".ie", it appears will, ridiculous and all as the reasons (if you could call them reasons) are...be staying !!!

I've already received one or two personalised messages here and I think if I continue with this disucssion, I will get kicked off Wikipedia. All it will take is for some one to make up some spurious ground to do so. If it happens, no one else will bother to read the reason. So, I will try to step back from this discussion now and leave BritishWatcher to do the running....I wish you luck, even if I don't really like your approach to editing on the whole. Too much politics. I like politics but I like objectivity on a website like this even more. This discussion illustrates how low Wiki rates. Regrettably. Happy New Year every one !! Frenchmalawi (talk) 18:39, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

You have done nothing wrong so do not think you will get kicked off, you have raised a legitimate issue and just because a number of editors are digging their heels in does not mean a discussion on this matter cannot and will not continue. I will raise this matter on a wikiproject such as the technology one tomorrow to ask if anyone there has views on if the top level country domain IE was assigned for the country, or if it was to the island. And if necessary we can start a request for comment on this matter. Unless there is a significant bit of information that neither side has mentioned on here yet.. ive not seen any reliable source that justifies what is stated in the article. I have no intention of sitting back an ignoring such blatantly factually inaccurate and misleading information remaining in this article. Happy new year too. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:49, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Compromise - Discriminate against Northern Ireland

I've already stated I don't like this so called "compromise" (listing .uk for the other UK articles but not NI). However, I get tired of being a minority soif British Watcher is ok with it and others want to take that route...it's better than what exists presently. Agreed, the other UK articles should have this issue raised too. I will raise it on each of the other UK articles and see where discussion goes. Frenchmalawi (talk) 23:38, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Why don't we just leave them all as they are and stop wasting time on this nonsene? FAD you don't have an emerging consensus. ----Snowded ^TALK 04:50, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree that there is no "emerging consensus" - the amount of energy and number of words expended on this crusade by, in essence, two editors does not outweigh the views in favour of retention. IANA does not assign codes either to islands or to states, but to entities such as, in the case of .ie, UCD and then IE Domain Registry Ltd. The registrar is entitled to make its own rules and in this case IEDR Ltd has clearly made .ie equally available to Northern customers.

As for the attempts by BW to bring in ISO codes as ifd they settled the matter, the ISO does not assign internet domains and the fact that it assigns IE to the Republic does not prevent anyone else from using the same two letters in the same order for a different purpose, i.e. domain registration (see what I did there?) Brocach (talk) 11:38, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Ditto. The IEDR is the entity responsible for .ie. Since 2002, they say it applies to the entire island. That's verifable through secondary sources. The appropriate venue to express dissatisfaction with that is an angrily worded letter to a public representative. --RA (talk) 15:20, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

(1) I think there appeared to be an emerging consensus but it looks like there is no consensus again.

(2) People who are arguing that ".ie" should remain as is appear not to be addressing some basic questions: (x) Northern Ireland is not in Ireland. Northern Ireland is not in Tuvalu. Both Ireland and Tuvalu allow their domain names to be used by people in Northern Ireland. In that sense, both ".tv" and ".ie" are relevant to Northern Ireland. Please can you explain exactly why you think ".ie" should be listed but not ".tw" (as well as a host of other domain names).

(3) This is a discussion. There wont be any change to the article except if it is permissible under Wiki rules. There is nothing wrong with having a discussion. To those who would, please don't make personalised attacks.

Thanks ! and Happy New Year ! Frenchmalawi (talk) 18:40, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

As to point (2), I've answered this at least 3 times already. There's a difference between an "open" domain such as ".tv" that doesn't geographically limit registration, and the ".ie" domain which specifically does. So you could argue to include all "open" domains I suppose, but the counter-argument is that those domains do not specifically include or exclude an territory, and are therefore not specifically relevant to Northern Ireland. The ".ie" domain is therefore different in that it is geographically inclusive (and exclusive) and includes NI, therefore it is specifically relevant to NI. In a way, it's actually more relevant than ".uk" since ".uk" is also an "open" domain for most entities (some small exceptions). --HighKing (talk) 20:05, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

So am I right in thinking that according to one of the points of view advanced above that the .ie domain is an international domain available to residents and organisations of two countries (RoI and UK), unlike nearly all other domains? The Roman Candle (talk) 19:57, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

No, but you're nearly correct. The .ie domain is a ccTLD available only to entities within the island of Ireland. So that's RoI and NI (excluding most of the UK). It is geographically limited, unlike other domains such as .tv and .com (and even .uk). --HighKing (talk) 20:05, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Not quite. The .ie domain is not available to residents and organisation in all of the UK, only Northern Ireland.

Since this appears to be surprising, here's two refs:

• "Domain chaos spikes e-business ambitions". Silicon Republic. 17 December 2002. Retrieved 30 December 2012.
• Information Technology Law: Professional Practice Guide, Dublin: Law Society of Ireland, 2004, p. 23

--RA (talk) 20:15, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. Well the facts are as follows, but facts don't seem to count for much when it comes to many NI/RoI issues, regrettably; but here goes. The .ie domain is de facto RoI. Management of it has been delegated to IEDRL by UCD and an important point is that IEDRL is a company (non profit) registered in the Republic of Ireland. They and UCD have decided to make the domain available to people and organisations in NI; fine they are entitled to do so (compare with .tv but in a much narrower sense). However, .uk (.gb is not now available) is the domain of NI and .ie is very much an addon for want of a better word. Come on! This can be explained in a note in the info box. It is an important point that it's available in NI, but please let's get away from the misleading suggestion that .ie carries equal weight with .uk. It is, after all, as some have said above, a domain administered by a "foreign country", although I wouldn't have used those two words myself. The Roman Candle (talk) 20:37, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

To a large part, the answer to that question depends on whether one believes Northern Ireland's position in the UK is of more significance than NI relationship with the rest of Ireland. That's question is complex and goes to the heart of communal divisions in NI. For this reason, both .uk and .ie are frequently eschewed in Northern Ireland. (Compare, for example, dup.org.uk, sdlp.ie and allianceparty.org.)

I wrote above that the note in the infobox at present is in need of improvement. How about something like:

• .uk is the the top-level domain of the United Kingdom (of which Northern Ireland is part). .ie is open to registrants from across the island of Ireland. .eu is available for organisations in and residents of EU member states (of which the United Kingdom is part).

--RA (talk) 22:31, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I think so. However, the TLD (or top level country domain, if you like) should only have .uk for Northern Ireland. .ie definitely isn't a TLD for N.Ireland, and neither is .eu. I'd just have .uk, with your suggested footnote on the next level of the info box to mention the use of .ie and .eu. I've just been looking at many equivalent info boxes for countries and territories and this seems to be how it's done. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! The Roman Candle (talk) 23:03, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

.uk isn't the TLD for Northern Ireland. It's the TLD for the UK. There are, however, three geographical TLDs that are applicable to Northern Ireland: .uk, .ie and .eu. --RA (talk) 23:07, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

I was going to crack open the champagne (the fireworks are already going off!) but I'll come back just once more this evening to answer that point. .uk is the TLD for Northern Ireland, as it is for all other parts of the UK (see the other articles; Scotland, Wales, England). I'm thinking you're trying to use semantics to make a point here. One thing's for sure, .ie is not the (or a) TLD for Northern Ireland (nor is .eu, .tv or anything else). Yes, another TLD, specifically .ie, is available to NI, but it is not THE TLD of Northern Ireland and shouldn't be listed on that line in the info box. The Roman Candle (talk) 23:23, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

"The .ie domain is not available to residents and organisation in all of the UK, only Northern Ireland." - Is that the case though? The IEDR website says "IMPORTANT NOTE: All applicants applying for a .ie domain name who are not situated in the 32 counties of Ireland, must demonstrate a Real and Substantive Connection with Ireland." So for example someone in the middle of England or in the middle of Antarctica could apply for a .ie domain if they are able to demonstrate some connection with part of the island, perhaps a website for a tour of one of Irelands counties or about the history of one of the counties. The clear point being, this domain is not just for NI / Republic of Ireland residents. This is a top level country domain. The island is not a country, it is very clear from the actual website of IANA as well as the ISO which IANA use to determine the code... that .IE was assigned to the Republic of Ireland. .UK is the only official top level country domain in Northern Ireland, because NI is part of the UK which has a top level country domain. Besides from putting .ie in line with .UK which is totally misleading, the biggest concern i have is the footnote wording. ".ie is assigned to Ireland of which Northern Ireland is a part"," , that is a flat out lie. It was not assigned to the island, it was assigned to the Republic of Ireland but anyone may use it if they can demonstrate a connection to any part of the island. That is two entirely different things. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:19, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Why are we still discussing this?

Northern Ireland does not have an internet domain so the field should not be shown. Not .ie, not .uk, not .ni, not .tv or anything else. Not shown. This field is only used for locations that have an ISO 3166 code. For example, the UK, Ireland (state), The Isle of Man (not part of tge UK), Guernsey (ditto), Tuvalu etc. Conversely, England, Wales, Scotland, Norn Iron, Catalunya, Sicily etc do not have their own internet domains and we should not display one. Not the one of the state of which it is a part, not one of any other state. The field does not apply to parts of a state. Leave it out! --Red King (talk) 23:39, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Again: ISO codes are not the same as internet domains. Internet domains are supplied via organisations such as IEDR Ltd which specifically states that .ie is applicable to Northern Ireland. Leave the text, it is correct, move on. Brocach (talk) 00:50, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

The reality of the web on the island of Ireland is more complex than a simple .uk or .ie question. On Irish web hosters, the number of .co.uk domains hosted is higher than the number of hosted .net domains. The web hosting market is actually quite integrated in that hosters in Northern Ireland will have clients in ROI and vice versa. Some of the ISPs (U.TV and BT) operate on both sides of the border. The .eu ccTLD does not seem to be quite as popular as .uk either in NI or ROI. The most popular TLDs in NI are .uk, .com and .ie. Jmccormac (talk) 03:51, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

.ie is applicable to County Cork and County Down as well, but we don't put the internet domains on those, despite that being correct as well. Red King is right that the field should not apply for areas that aren't given their own codes. CMD (talk) 07:53, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Neither County Cork nor County Down are explicitly included on IEDR's .ie registrations policy, Northern Ireland is. Daicaregos (talk) 10:25, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

It's discussed due to the legal differences between it and the Republic of Ireland. On the other hand, the very first sentence of that page associates the domain with "the 32 counties of Ireland", so it would appear the counties are very relevant. CMD (talk) 11:00, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

It's associated with the 32 counties by the company that sells it (a company registered in the Republic of Ireland). This issue obviously isn't going to be resolved due to the usual "Irish problem". Therefore I suggest that Red King has the right idea. The domain info should be removed from all of the UK country info boxes (Eng, Wal, Sco and NI) because strictly speaking none of these are countries as far as a TL(C)D is concerned. So .uk goes on United Kingdom and .ie goes on Republic of Ireland, then leave it at that. The Roman Candle (talk) 12:00, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Whatever the reasons you may assume, IEDR's .ie registrations policy explicitly mentions Northern Ireland. Whereas, it does not note County Cork, or County Down, nor any other individual counties. So the analogy is irrelevant. Daicaregos (talk) 12:15, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not assuming, it's blatantly obvious in the link you gave. The ccTLD can be used by those in Northern Ireland, and it can be used by those in Cork. It's a relevant analogy, and this argument to keep the .ie ccTLD (and no-one's provided any evidence it even applies to the others) does not change that. The only reason the ccTLD's are included in this page (and the other UK countries) is that there was an infobox field for it, and so there was a desire to fill this field. CMD (talk) 12:39, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

The page does not say that Northern Ireland is discussed due to the legal differences between it and the Republic of Ireland, so you must be assuming it is the reason. Of course the .ie domain can be used in any of the counties of Ireland, but IEDR's .ie registrations policy explicitly mentions Northern Ireland. It does not explicitly mention County Cork. Do you have any evidence to substantiate your claim that the “only reason the ccTLD's are included in this page (and the other UK countries) is that there was an infobox field for it”, or is that another assumption? Daicaregos (talk) 13:26, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

It's an instruction page, detailing registration policy, and the different proofs/information needed from the RoI and from NI. Instructions are the raison d'être for the page, and it does not need to explicitly say "Northern Ireland is discussed in order to inform you how to register in Northern Ireland, which is different from the Republic of Ireland" for this to be true. CMD (talk) 16:48, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Folk who are bothered about the geographic span of .ie should take it up there. As far as this article is concerned, NI is not a sovereign state so the ccTLD/ISO3166 field should be empty. Ditto England, Scotland, Wales, Catalunya, Bavaria etc. --Red King (talk) 20:47, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

What ieDR actually say

https://www.iedr.ie/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Domain-Name-Industry-Report-2010-published-26-November-2010.pdf page 20 has a map. .ie is map to Ireland which you can see the border on. "The IEDR is an independent not-for-profit organisation that manages the .ie country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) namespace in the public interest of the Irish and global Internet communities.The IE Domain Registry Limited is not a governing or regulatory body, but provides a public service for the .ie namespace on behalf of the Internet community, and is defined as a public company under the Irish Companies Acts", these acts are inabled by the Irish government not anyone else, if the minister for comunication was to change the specifics within these acts removing the use for NI and other bodies outside the state -"applicants applying for a .ie domain name who are not situated in the 32 counties of Ireland", and "If the company is incorporated outside of Ireland, specifically UK or US, the company number must be included in the application. All applicants from any other country must submit a copy of the company’s certificate of incorporation". Note UK, not GB. The only mention of NI on the pdf "especially with the UK as some Northern Irish hosters operating in the Irish market would be hosted on what are nominally UK IP addresses". Maybe I missed some thing. Murry1975 (talk) 13:51, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

You are missing something. There are two references above specifically stating that IEDR operate the .ie domain on an all-island basis.

Reference to the Irish Companies Acts merely explains how the IEDR is incorporated as a legal entity. It doesn't relate to the provision of internet services. This is the danger of original research. --RA (talk) 14:14, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

The refs in full also show its usage based on doing trade. The map they supply clearly indicates .ie belongs to the state, who regulate its usage.http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2007/en/act/pub/0022/index.html. Part 4 Registration of Domain Names;

"In this Part, ‘ “.ie” domain name’ means the top level of the global domain name system assigned to Ireland according to the two-letter code in the International Standard ISO 3166-1 (Codes for Representation of Names of Countries and their Subdivision) of the International Organisation for Standardisation."

"A person shall not use an ‘.ie’ domain name unless the name is registered in accordance with regulations made under this section"

These show that state regulates the usage of .ie and control who use it. If they choose to let NI use it and businesses or persons with trade links its entirely up to them.

Saying that its a NI domain would indicate regulation and usage either from London or Belfast, niether of which in the past few days I have been able to find. Murry1975 (talk) 14:45, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Your analysis is absolutely right, but I fear it will make no difference here. Do you agree that the Internet domain section should be removed from the info boxes of all constituent countries of the UK? The Roman Candle (talk) 14:53, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, delete it. It does not matter a jot who tries to sell domain registration in NI, whether .ie, .ni, .tv or anyone else. The field is for 'domain delegated to this sovereign state to control'. NI is not a sovereign state so the field should not be used. --Red King (talk) 20:53, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

No don't delete it, its not a soverign state issue----Snowded ^TALK 21:25, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

There are two possibilities that could be regarded as correct (the present arrangement is not correct). Either delete these items from the four country info boxes or delete the extraneous stuff from the NI info box leaving just .uk. The Roman Candle (talk) 21:35, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Leave .uk. Murry1975 (talk) 21:40, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Leave as is. .ie is as much the domain for Northern Ireland as .uk is. And as for domains being "delegated to sovereign states to control", the .ie domain is delegated to a company which chooses to apply it to both Irish jurisdictions. Brocach (talk) 22:16, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

The facts, as verifiable by secondary sources, are that Northern Ireland is a part of the UK located in the north-east of the island of Ireland. Two ccTLD are immediately applicable (in alphabetical order): (a) .ie, which is administered by IEDR and allocated on an Ireland-wide basis and (b) .uk, which is administered by Nominet UK and allocated on a UK-wide basis. Northern Ireland itself does not have a ccTLD of its own.

The question is what does these ccTLD boxes refer to?

1. If it refers to a ccTLD referring specifically to Northern Ireland then it should be left blank.
2. If it refers to ccTLD(s) allocated to residents and organisations in Northern Ireland in common with some wider geographic reference then it should contain both .uk and .ie.

That's only being neutral. However, if option #1 is pursued then it should also be the case for England, Scotland and Wales. That's only being neutral too.

Therefore, leave as is (with improvements to the note) unless there is consensus to remove these ccTLD entries from England, Scotland and Wales as well. --RA (talk) 22:21, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

I hope there's an emerging consensus to remove the TLD section from all the info boxes mentioned. It's not my preferred option but it's a compromise. As for the comment above about .ie. being as much a domain for Northern Ireland as .uk is - that's a personal opinion which is factually wrong. The Roman Candle (talk) 23:45, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not part of that alleged consensus. To remove .ie from this infobox means that only one infobox - that for the Republic of Ireland - would list .ie as the applicable domain. This would suggest that .ie is only available within that jurisdiction, which as we know is not the case. It is available to anyone in Northern Ireland on the same basis as in the Republic. In England, Scotland and Wales, .uk is the only applicable domain (apart from .eu, mentioned only in the Wales and Scotland boxes). Both domains that apply to Northern Ireland should be listed, although the footnote could be reworded; e.g. "The UK internet registry, Nominet UK, and the Irish registry, IE Domain Registry Ltd, allocate .uk and .ie domains respectively in Northern Ireland." I would lose the ISO and .eu references. Brocach (talk) 13:12, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

If we're including .ie and .uk on the basis that they're applicable, than why would we lose .eu? Surely that's just as applicable. .com is no doubt applicable as well, in addition to many other domains. CMD (talk) 14:28, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Leave simply as .uk or delete the lot. Mabuska ^(talk) 14:38, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

This. But if we choose the "delete the lot" option, the ".uk" shouldn't stay on England et al either. — Jon C.^ॐ 15:02, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

This is just the talk for the Northern Ireland page. I guess if one was being consistent that would be so but does that really matter? Dmcq (talk) 15:41, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

It would... to me at least. We don't need yet another example of NI being treated differently to the others just because it's "politically sensitive", etc. There's already no demonym, flag, yadda yadda yadda... — Jon C.^ॐ 19:34, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Delete the lot. This non-issue only arises as an artefact of using the full sovereign state template for the parts of the UK, rather than some region template. This field, "what domain has been delegated to this state?' is not applicable for regions of the UK (such as NI, Scotland, Wales, England), for regions of Germany (such as Bavaria), of Spain (such as Catalunya), of Italy (such as Lombardy). No discrimination against NI is intended, other than that NI is not a sovereign state and so does not qualify for delegation of a domain. The ccTLD '.uk' should be used only on the United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) article; likewise .de is only for Germany, .es for Spain and .it for Italy. And .ie for Ireland (state, not island). It doen't matter what IEDR claims, IANA delegated.ie to the state not the island. It is up to the domain registrar to decide policies: .tv for example will accept registrations worldwide. It is not legitimate to put .ie in this field, because IANA did not delegate .ie to Northern Ireland. For exactly the same reason, it is not legitimate put .uk either. --Red King (talk) 16:15, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Exactly right. Should have some sort of vote on this? The Roman Candle (talk) 16:37, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

"This non-issue only arises as an artefact of using the full sovereign state template for the parts of the UK,..." This is the rub of the matter - although I have sympathy for the desire to use that template by folk from England, Scotland and Wales.

The appropriate template is Template:Infobox subdivision. From what I can tell, that template has all of the fields needed, without the fields that do not cause a problem.

For the sake of (not unjustified) sensitivities around the word "country", I've created the template Template:Infobox UK country. What say folk to that template being used on England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? --RA (talk) 18:01, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Hilarious - acknowledge sensitivities around the word "country", then suggest that an infobo9x called "country" can be apoplied to Northern Ireland, which isn't a country.

IANA did not delegate anything to the Republic for use only within the present territory of that state. It has delegated registration rights for the .ie domain to a company that makes it equally available to registrants in both Irish jurisdictions. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that has a right of access to more than one top level country domain. For that reason, reference to .ie and .uk should stay here. I don't think it is necessary to retain .eu but I don't feel strongly about it. Brocach (talk) 20:07, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate the problems with calling NI a country (look at the archives of this page). Never the less, the current template is use is Template:Infoxbox country. If Template:Infoxbox UK country would be so jarring, use [:Template:Infoxbox settlement]] - one redirects to the other. --RA (talk) 13:40, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Brocach please read the pdf from iedr where they have a map indicating .ie to the state, and the legal entry in the statute law from the minister of communication making it clear who .ie was assigned to. If you can show otherwse I would like to see. Murry1975 (talk) 20:17, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Now, now, Brocach, I'd expect someone that takes such joy from correcting others on their spelling to spot infobo9x and apoplied – you're slipping, old boy. Re your "not a country" hypothesis, tell that to the 50 per cent of Northern Irish who identify their national identity "very strongly" as – you guessed it – Northern Irish. They do exist, you know... and in pretty big numbers. — Jon C.^ॐ 20:44, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

It must get very confusing for people in NI what with people claiming to be Irish, Northern Irish, British, European etc. Jmccormac (talk) 21:19, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree the problem is in part down to the template being used. If a different one is to be used on the EWSNI page it would need to address the other current problems. For example, Scotland is not a constitutional monarchy and devolved government. Scotland is part of the UK which is a parliamentary democracy, constitutional monarchy, but has its own devolved government and parliament. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:04, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Less of the patronising "please read", Murry1975 - I read it long ago and actually understood it. You rest your case on the fact that in a publication produced by a small and possibly defunct design company in Donnybrook for another private company, the border is (crudely) represented in a tiny map of the island. The rest of the document makes it clear that it is not the state that operates the registry: "We, the IE Domain Registry Limited (IEDR), operate the registry for all Internet domain names ending in .ie..." and, in a source cited above that you may not have bothered to look at, IEDR accepts any registrants "situated in the 32 counties of Ireland". As for the statute, as has already been noted here, the relevant section merely authorises the Minister to "authorise, prohibit or regulate the registration and use" of .ie for certain specified purposes; it does not "make it clear" that .ie was assigned to the Minister because it was not assigned to the Minister, it is assigned to IEDR Ltd.

Jon C., we have a census here every once in a while; the figure for those choosing "Northern Irish" is 29%, not 50%, but that has nothing to do with this discussion. Unless you can explain how it is relevant. Brocach (talk) 22:00, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

@Brocach. The Irish government pass the laws on who use can it not the assembly or West Minister, if you dont like that maybe you can take it up with your local TD, oppps :O Murry1975 (talk) 22:28, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Could you repeat that in English, or some other language please? Brocach (talk) 22:32, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

"In this Part, ‘ “.ie” domain name’ means the top level of the global domain name system assigned to Ireland according to the two-letter code in the International Standard ISO 3166-1 (Codes for Representation of Names of Countries and their Subdivision) of the International Organisation for Standardisation." from the act, note Ireland, in a legal document in the state this means, well the state. No ifs or buts, the Irish government control who uses .ie. They can let anyone, as Tuvalu do, they can direct iedr to let NI use it, as is the case, and any person or companies with trade ties- or strong ties, use it. Murry1975 (talk) 22:46, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Now for the ifs and buts. Section 31 allows the Minister to make regulations controlling "the registration and use of the ie domain name in the State". The Minister has no power to make regulations that have effect in Northern Ireland, Tuvalu or whatever you're having yourself. Brocach (talk) 23:25, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Can we please stop with the OR about the Electronic Commerce Act? The Irish government can legislate for use of computer systems within the borders of the state, just as the UK government can (including use of .ie, should it so wish) — Stormont cannot, telecommunications is a reserved matter.

That does not mean the Irish state "owns" .ie. Reality is that .ie is an entry in a database in California. The people who ultimately control it are IANA (who operate in turn under the laws of California and the USA) and they entrusted management of it to IEDR, who manage it on an all-island basis — whether we like that or not.

The list of TLDs, and the delegates for each, is here: http://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/ In somes of cases, the delegate is a state, government or government department. That is not so in the case of Ireland. --RA (talk) 13:40, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

RA, can you put an example of the template on this page (in looking at it I could only see the source). Thanks, The Roman Candle (talk) 13:47, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Here's a start: Talk:Northern Ireland/UK country template. --RA (talk) 23:41, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Hahaha Daicaregos (talk) 23:47, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Murry1975 - You are pretty much spot on. Why can't people accept the reality which has been so clearly shown by reference to the sources, i.e. (1) ICAAN assigns domain names to countries/territories; (2) ICAAN don't decide who is a country or territory - they leave that to the ISO; (3)the ISO has ascribed "ie" to the state named Ireland (not an island!, is any one disputing that?!); (4) accordingly, ICAAN have assigned ".ie" as a domain name for the Irish state; (5) as a matter of policy, the Irish state permits its agency handling domain registrations to accept applications for ".ie" domains from persons with connections to Northern Ireland and Ireland proper (but nowhere else). To pretend that things like the fact that IEDR accepts registrants "situated in the 32 counties of Ireland" changes any of this is really silly. The notion that ICAAN has not assigned the domain names to represent countries is silly too. ICAAN accept that it is for the relevant country to decide how its domain is used: Examples - UK decides any one can register a .uk (very generous of them); DPR Korea decides no one but a member of the Kim family can do so (ok I exaggerate a bit); and Ireland decides that persons connected to Ireland and/or Northern Ireland can do so......Phewww, I started this discussion and its progress and conduct has only confirmed, alas, how low WP operates. Get a grip: the reality is that ".ie" is assigned to the Ireland proper (of which NI is not a part) and the NI article should reflect this. Otherwise, we are presenting an "alternate reality" to readers. Frenchmalawi (talk) 00:28, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Not so. The .ie domain applies equally to both jurisdictions on the island of Ireland because the company that assigns .ie domains has so decided. The .ie domain has not been assigned to the 26 counties but to a company, without imposing political conditions. Thus, .ie domains are assigned only by that company and under rules that it decides, and it plainly does not share your perception that there is a place called "the Ireland proper (of which NI is not a part)". This is the only "reality". There may be editors here who would wish it otherwise but .ie applies, and is is one of only two top level country domains that apply, to Northern Ireland. As for your DPRK/Kim stuff, Malawi (may I call you Malawi?), stop talking bollocks. Brocach (talk) 01:39, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Let's apply the same logic of your first sentence above in different contexts:

• The .uk domain applies equally to both jurisdictions on the island of Ireland because the company that assigns .uk domains has so decided;
• The .tv domain applies equally to both jurisdictions on the island of Ireland because the company that assigns .tv domains has so decided;

-if that is the logic, why isn't .tv and many other domains listed ! Moreover, should we not list ".uk" and ".tv" on the ROI article too for good measure. After all, it is the exact same silly notion. Such nonsense. Pretending ".ie" is formally any different vis-a-vis NI than these and many other domains...

Your second sentence reads...:

• The .ie domain has not been assigned to the 26 counties but to a company, without imposing political conditions."

This brazenly ignores that ICAAN assigns domain names to represent countries and territories in line with ISO. Pretending this is not so does not change reality.

Then we have another of your sentences, remarkable again, for its pretence to ignorance of the facts:

...".ie domains are assigned only by that company and under rules that it decides"....I guess you are pretending here that, the fact that Ireland (alone) has passed laws governing ".ie" domains is not a relevant consideration....!

Any way, you are not interested in a serious discussion. You know you have no serious argument so you are just creating clutter around the issues. Frenchmalawi (talk) 03:17, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Please would you assume good faith unless there is very good reasons otherwise and not go on with "Any way, you are not interested in a serious discussion. You know you have no serious argument so you are just creating clutter around the issues". Just because you have a political orientation of ownership does not mean it is the only valid view. Think about the Americans with their division about Republicans and Democrats - do you believe the Republicans were right about the various issues and the Democrats were wrong. Dmcq (talk) 10:04, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

As nobody has still been able to provide evidence showing the domain was assigned to the entire island, i have raised this matter on the wikiprojects for computing and internet in the hope of getting some additional input for this debate with people outside of the whole NI/ROI issues and focused on the specifics of what is or isnt a country domain and if one has been assigned to a state or to a island. [4] and [5] BritishWatcher (talk) 11:44, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Increasingly daft - no-one has ever claimed that internet domains are assigned to land masses; nor are they assigned to states; they are assigned to registries, in this case IEDR Ltd, and it is up to the registry to determine use. Do you really need to recruit a flock of experts to explain this to you? Brocach (talk) 13:21, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi Brocach!! I assumed good faith in the beginning. That's as it should be. After a while, it became very obvious politics was in play here. Like your response above. You (and others) have ignored my comparison, where I made the following comparisons:

• The .uk domain applies equally to both jurisdictions on the island of Ireland because the company that assigns .uk domains has so decided;
• The .tv domain applies equally to both jurisdictions on the island of Ireland because the company that assigns .tv domains has so decided;

-if that is the logic, why isn't .tv and many other domains listed ! Moreover, should we not list ".uk" and ".tv" on the ROI article too for good measure."

How can I assume good faith when editors are not engaging with the discussion? I'd love to hear thoughtful responses from you and others to the points I have made! But not more silliness - as that's all the discussion has got to at this point.

Also you know very well that the domain names have been assigned by ICAAN to represent states and territories in line with ISO. IE is for Ireland proper. That agencies/companies administer them doesn't change this.... Frenchmalawi (talk) 21:51, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I see no bad faith on the part of Brocach. However administrators are pretty strict about blocking people who can't interact civilly on Ireland related pages. Could you just leave that sort of stuff out of here please. Dmcq (talk) 23:59, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm all for civility. Would you be kind enough to address the points I have raised? I don't want the discussion to veer off into personalities and the like. Frenchmalawi (talk) 00:01, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi RA !! I’d like you to consider some of the points you have made and come back to me on these queries. You seem like a serious editor so, I would be happy to continue with a serious discussion with you!

• You said “The Irish government can legislate for use of computer systems within the borders of the state, just as the UK government can (including use of .ie, should it so wish)” [My comment: Obviously I agree with you, I certainly have never disputed this]
• That does not mean the Irish state "owns" .ie. Reality is that .ie is an entry in a database in California. The people who ultimately control it are IANA (who operate in turn under the laws of California and the USA) and they entrusted management of it to IEDR, who manage it on an all-island basis — whether we like that or not. [My comment: Obviously I agree with you, I certainly have never disputed this]
• The list of TLDs, and the delegates for each, is here: http://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/ In somes of cases, the delegate is a state, government or government department. That is not so in the case of Ireland. [My comment: Obviously I agree with you, I certainly have never disputed this]

But what about all the points you are not addressing at all!!!! I’d like you to address these too, including:

• Pt. 1 - That “.ie” is assigned by IANNA to represent Ireland proper, not the island.
• Pt. 2 - That the status of “.ie” vis-a-vis Northern Ireland is exactly the same as “.tv” and many other country domain names which persons in NI can register if they choose. It does not have the special status of “.uk” (being the domain name assigned by IANNA to represent the country of which NI is a part). If you think otherwise, explain exactly why “.ie” has a status in NI which is different to “.tv”. Obviously, “.tv” is picked here as an example.
• Pt. 3 - That IANNA looks to the local law (which would be Irish law for “.ie”) and local Government (which in this case would be the Irish Government) where it makes decisions concerning “.ie”. See for example, how IANNA handled this request from the entity running “.tw” IANA Report - Delegation of the .台灣 and .台湾 (“Taiwan”) domains representing Taiwan, Province of China in Chinese to Taiwan Network Information Center
• Pt. 4 - That IEDR in its management of “.ie” is subject to the laws of Ireland (not the UK or any other country) in its management of “.ie”.

When coming back on these points, would you be kind enough to confirm if you actually disagree with each pt. (1-4). Thanks!!! Frenchmalawi (talk) 00:05, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

• The following relates to some of the points I asked RA to consider above. I want to put to bed the notion that domain names like “.tv”, “.ie”, and “.uk” etc. are simply assigned to companies/agencies and the country (and its Government) those names represent are irrelevant. This is not supported by the facts. See how, where applications are made IANNA makes decisions with reference to local laws (which would be Tuvalu law for “.tv”, Ireland law for “.ie” and United Kingdom law for “.uk” etc.) I’ve already highlighted this but here give yet more examples. You can find plenty more on the IANNA website.
• [IANA Report on Delegation of the .ME Domain ...which is particularly intereting as it concerns delegationof a country domain ...and includes reference to the criteria, e.g. "The prospective manager has the requisite authority to operate the TLD appropriately, with the desire of the government taken very seriously. (ICP-1 §a, GAC Principles)" and "According to RFC 1591 and ICP-1, IANA needs to respect the ability for a local Internet community as well as local law and local government to make decisions about the operation of a TLD.".
• Quatar - Delegation of the قطر. (“Qatar”) domain representing Qatar in Arabic to the Supreme Council of Information and Communication Technology....which includes: “The Electronic Commerce and Transactions Law No 16 of 2010 was decreed on 19 August 2010, and gives explicit responsibility for Qatar's Country Code Top-Level Domains to the proposed sponsoring organisation, reading “the Supreme Council alone is responsible for the management of top-level domains for the State of Qatar on the Internet, and has the authority to delegate this responsibility.”
• Hong Kong – Delegation of the .香港 (“Hong Kong”) domain representing Hong Kong in Chinese to Hong Kong Internet Registration Corporation Limited ...which includes “The application is consistent with known applicable laws in Hong Kong.”
• Jordan – Delegation of the الاردن. (“al-Ordon”) domain representing Jordan in Arabic to the National Information Technology Center...which includes “The application is consistent with known applicable local laws in Jordan.”
• Tunisia – Delegation of تونس. ("Tunis") representing Tunisia in Arabic to Agence Tunisienne d’Internet ... which includes “The application is consistent with known applicable local laws in Tunisia.
• Delegation of the .中国 and .中國 (“Zhongguo”) domains representing China in Chinese to China Internet Network Information Center...which includes “The application is consistent with known applicable local laws in China.”
• Principles for Delegation and Administration of ccTLDs Presented by Governmental Advisory Committee....is also noteworthy in terms of various general principles on this topic.

Frenchmalawi (talk) 01:02, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Answering your 4 questions and ignoring the load of references you added which say nothing except bulk to the discussion that I can see:

As far as I can see .ie was not assigned by IANA because IANA didn't exist when .ie was assigned to UCD, it seems to have been one person Jon Postel handing out the ISO country codes as a good way to start up the internet.

No the status of .ie vis a vis Northern Ireland is not the same as that of .tv. Any people in Northern Ireland who wish to assert an Irish culture and citizenship have a ri8ght under British law to have that recognised.

Yes IANA says the assignee should respect various policies including that the desires of the national government be taken very seriously. Ireland has passed a law saying a Minister could regulate the .ie domain but has not actually done anything that I can see.

IEDR is a company based in Ireland and is thus subject to Irish law. The domain .tv domain is run by a company based in America so this doesn't show anything much.

Overall I agree with you that .ie should not be listed as an official state internet domain name. However there are other considerations, Northern Ireland isn't the United Kingdom state which argues for not including this at all, and people in Northern Ireland have an official right to have an Irish identity recognised which would argue for including .ie if .uk is included. It would be perfectly alright to just describe it as being allowed for use by all people in Ireland. Dmcq (talk) 01:12, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Dmcq!!! I think you tried but to me your reasoning here is desperately feeble....Rather pathetic really....That's not meant in a "put down" way, just an honest assessment:

• Re Jon Postel etc. Wow - You are asserting that IANNA does not control the central root and the assignment of country domains! As if ".ie" has nothing to do with IANNA because it was Jon Postel's baby....You need to come up with some pretty remarkable sources to back this assertion up! In other words, that's nonsense. IANNA is the authority, not the late Jon Postel. I think you are alone and no one else will support you in the notion that ".ie" is ineritence disposed of by the late Jon Postel....
• What does your notion that "Any people in Northern Ireland who wish to assert an Irish culture and citizenship have a ri8ght [sic] under British law to have that recognised." to do with ".ie". People can assert whatever culture they like. That wont change the fact that ".ie" is assigned to Ireland proper, not an island ! ".ie" and ".tv". are not domain names assigned to represent the country of which NI is part. In that sense, they are foreign domain names in NI. They are exactly and equally foreign. Nationality laws in NI and UK don't affect any of this! Nor does the Good Friday Agreement etc. !!

• Not sure what you point is about where IEDR and the .tv company are incorporated ? Fancy elaborating? I'd like to know how you think that contradicts any point I have made. I think you haven't understood any of what I explained about above as regards ICAAN's recognition of local law... You haven't twigged, it appears, that when dealing with country domains, it looks to local law of the country concerned (.ie = Irish law)....But if you think I'm missing something, pray do let us know. That Tuvalu law has permitted a foreign incorporated registry to manage .tv....so what, whats your point?

• In my opinion notions like the idea "people in Northern Ireland have an official right to have an Irish identity recognised which would argue for including .ie if .uk is included." etc. are firstly totally irrelevant to what we are discussing. It so happens they are also nonsense when you stop and think about it. When was the last time the Irish flag few over Stormont? There is no equal recognition of Irish identity in NI. It's part of the UK and its official symbols are all British. There has not been one iota of change around this. To the extent that the domain name is a "symbol", it's the exact same. ".ie" has no more status in NI than ".tv".

• I'd still like to hear RA's responses as I have the impression he might be a serious editor. Frenchmalawi (talk) 17:45, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Frenchmalawi, irrespective of your long, rambling and manichean posts, you seriously need to check your tone. You will find that basic politeness might encourage people to actually engage with you to explain why you're thinking on this topic is so wrong headed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.40.254.48 (talk) 18:58, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi Anon!! I seriously believe we all need to engage in a robust discussion. I am polite - but robust discussion involves clear, umambiguous discussion - when people adduce really weak arguments, it's necessary to call that out. That doesn't make for coziness but I am polite. If you think I am not, be specific and tell me what I have said that is not polite. PS, I'd be more interested in hearing your views on the discussion. Frenchmalawi (talk) 19:24, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I really think you have a funny idea of what the British government thought it was doing when it signed those agreements and ended the troubles in Northern Ireland. The symbols of the country are of the UK and Northern Ireland which is proper and right, after all the majority wish to stay with Britain and assert a British identity, but we're not talking about a symbol of the country here. We're talking about the minority community and their peoples rights and culture. As to the Postel business etc I was just correcting your facts plus it is spelt IANA. Dmcq (talk) 02:49, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't consider your response above a serious response warranting discussion. That's my polite opinion. Any serious editors out there want to take this up? Frenchmalawi (talk) 12:47, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

The words that suggest themselves Frenchmalawi, in response not just to that comment but the total lameness of your obsession here are "desperately feeble....Rather pathetic really" Now I wonder where I got that from? ----Snowded ^TALK 13:06, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I believe the ICANN Principles for Delegation and Administration of ccTLDs makes it very clear. It states: "Delegee" means the organisation, enterprise or individual designated by the relevant government or public authority to exercise the public trust function of a ccTLD and consequently recognised through a communication between ICANN and the designated entity for that purpose. It also states The delegee should recognise that ultimate public policy authority over the relevant ccTLD rests with the relevant government or public authority. It's clear that the .ie domain is essentially assigned to the Irish government, and ultimately controlled by the Irish government. --HighKing (talk) 14:36, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

"It's been pointed out umpteen times that ICAAN assigns domains to represent ISO countries/territories!!!" And each of those umpteen times it has been wrong.” The above was a response I saw to one of my posts....I challenge that Editor to give us a narrative of what IANNA did in this report

• [IANA Report on Delegation of the .ME Domain ...which is particularly intereting as it concerns delegationof a country domain ...and includes reference to the criteria, e.g. "The prospective manager has the requisite authority to operate the TLD appropriately, with the desire of the government taken very seriously. (ICP-1 §a, GAC Principles)" and "According to RFC 1591 and ICP-1, IANA needs to respect the ability for a local Internet community as well as local law and local government to make decisions about the operation of a TLD.".

It is an example of a country domain name that has been assigned by IANNA. I challenge that Editor to read the IANNA report and explain how (which appears to be his contention) that “.mk” (being the example here) is not to represent a country/territory listed on the ISO list. I challenge that Editor to explain, how he feels comfortable divorcing that domain name from the State concerned (in this case Montenegro, obviously Ireland applies for .ie but we don't have a report for it because it's assigned many years ago). Go ahead! Explain that report and how exactly Montenegro (independent country) relates to “.me”. Give it some thought and show me the errors of my ways... I would politely ask you to focus on the substantive issue (that ".ie" represents Ireland not any part of any other country) on the point, not side issues.Thanks. Frenchmalawi (talk) 22:39, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

IANA not IANNA. ICANN not ICAAN. IANA is managed by ICANN but most of the major ccTLDs have been delegated prior to the creation of either. IANA evaluates proposals to delegate or redelegate based on specific criteria. This is a world away from what you think seems to happen. Repurposed ccTLDs, where the registry or operator decides to expand the ccTLD's use beyond its original country/territory market, are quite common. The most recent high profile repurposed ccTLD is .co ccTLD. The sponsoring organisation for .me is the government of Montenegro. It is administered by the .me registry and it is an open ccTLD. It is still the ccTLD for Montenegro despite what you may think. Most ccTLD registries originated in university computer science departments and were often run on a voluntary basis with no fees being payable for the registration of a domain name. The policy for these ccTLDs were often decided on an as-needed basis by the registry and the local internet community. Today, there are more effective policy making procedures. The sponsoring organisation for the .mk ccTLD is the government of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia though I think that you might be getting it confused with .me ccTLD. Jmccormac (talk) 04:58, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Show nothing

Notwithstanding the point above about who has been assigned the domain, the main point is geographical or geopolitical relevance. A domain has this type of relevance only if limitations are set in the rules as set out by the registrar. Some domains have no limitations, but that does not make them relevant to a geographic area. Only those domains that set out defined and specific geographic or geopolitical boundaries are relevant to those areas included in those boundaries. Hence the relevance of ".ie" and ".eu". We've gone around in circles on this, and there's no consensus to change the article. Although I'm slowly coming around to the idea that we should not have any ccTLD's for Northern Ireland since the NI government doesn't communicate with ICANN for a ccTLD designated under RFC1591 and ISO-3166 --HighKing (talk) 14:38, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

What you say is essentially correct, unlike the majority of ramblings from the uninformed contributors above, whose main thurst is politics rather than accuracy. The .ie domain deserves a mention, but as a footnote, with .uk being the sole domain mentioned in the infobox field. However, as you suggest - and as I've also suggested - a compromise is to remove the field from the infobox, as in RA's template, but it's important that it should also be removed from the Eng, Sco and Wal articles as well. This is an easy solution. It is also accurate in that domains aren't, or haven't been, awarded to any of the constituent countries of the UK, so I commend this approach. The Roman Candle (talk) 16:30, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

It's not just a compromise, it is correct. IANA has not delegated a ccTLD code to Northern Ireland, so none should be given. The field was designed for 'domain allocated', not for 'domains used'. I strongly support RA's template since it is the only one that will prevent repeated cases of proxy flag waving. --Red King (talk) 15:01, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

No objection to that but it would be nice to have some sort of idea though of what to do when domains like .scot or .kurd are allocated and it becomes harder to say something like .cat is nonsense and ignore the problem. (just had a look at [6], .kurd doesn't seem to be getting anywhere yet but there is an application for .irish. I found the list very interesting) Dmcq (talk) 15:19, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

The field as it stands (in the sovereign state version of the template) is strictly for country code top level domains (ccTLD)s like .uk, .fr, .us etc. These are under national control (but may be outsourced) and are delegated by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). If Scotland achieves independence, it will get one of these (goodness knows what - all the obvious ones like sc, sd, sa, as, al are all gone).

However, the generic Top Level Domains like .com, .net and .int, and the new ones like .asia, .travel, .jobs, .mobi, etc. are under ICANN control and they sell the rights to manage them (essentially selling domains under them). The proposed new gTLDs like .scot, .cymru .kurd, .amazon, .google etc fall into the latter category and will be very expensive indeed. Whoever buys .scot or .cymru will need to do a lot to recoup his/her investment! I guess this will be for talk:Scotland and talk.Wales to argue. For now, let's just aim for a resolution to the Norn Iron case. --Red King (talk) 17:26, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I am not so sure that showing nothing is a good idea. The main TLDs in NI are .uk ccTLD, .com TLD and .ie ccTLD. Eurid does not break down the statistics for NI and includes them with UK figures. The way that this issue is being bulldozed by Frenchmalawi would lead one to wonder about Good Faith editing. It might be possible to ask Nominet for a registration figure for NI. The web hosting market in Ireland is a complex market and there are NI companies hosting ROI clients and vice versa. The number .uk ccTLD domains hosted on Irish webhosters is actually higher than the number of .net TLD domains hosted on those webhosters. There was some attempt to market the .ni ccTLD (Nicuragua) as being the NI TLD but it really didn't take off and there was a change in regulations, I think, that caused problems. I am not concerned with the politics of the issue as my main work deals with domain name/webhosting industry. The article should really reflect the current situation in NI and that seems to be that the most popular TLDs in NI are .uk, .com and .ie. Jmccormac (talk) 14:27, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I've being using Wikipedia jargon. 'Put nothing' when filling in a template has the effect that that option is not shown. In this case, 'internet domain (allocated)' would not appear when no information is given. RA's proposal is better, because the option would not even exist. The argument about 'which domains do we use?' is entirely beside the point as there has never been a space in the template for any country in the world for that. --Red King (talk) 17:26, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Jmccormac that the article should reflect the current situation, which seems to be that the TLDs relevant in NI are .uk, .com and .ie. Daicaregos (talk) 14:50, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Agree, its basic information that has utility and there is no need for all this verbiage playing symbolic games. Its probably no coincidence that the Belfast protests are happening in parallel. Leave the article as it is ----Snowded ^TALK 16:28, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

An interesting juxtaposition, each component of which has common elements; reduce emphasis on the British angle, then remove it, then replace it with the Irish angle. So we start with .uk, then we have .uk and .ie, and then maybe we have just .ie, or maybe .ie in a superior position, and if we can't get that, then we don't have anything. And so it is with the flag on City Hall, Belfast; reduce the days it flies from 365 to 21, then maybe don't fly it at all, or maybe have the tricolour there as well, the longterm aim being to just have the tricolour. I've noticed a similar situation here at Wikipedia with the use of a flag for Northern Ireland. Getting back to .uk and .ie, Snowded and Daicaregos, you have both completely missed the point about the purpose of that part of the infobox, but I expect you know you've missed the point anyway. It really boils down to a simple fact; .uk is the TLD applicable to Northern Ireland and .ie isn't. However, to be accurate we should remove the line from all the constituent country infoboxes, since the .uk TLD has not actually been assigned to any of them. The Roman Candle (talk) 17:01, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Which flag for Northern Ireland do you mean? Daicaregos (talk) 17:15, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

None in particular, it's just that flags and NI are a big issue on Wikipedia, as in real life. The Roman Candle (talk) 17:21, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

I haven't missed the point Roman Candle and your response I think demonstrates I was spot on. We should record what is used regardless of what we think should be ----Snowded ^TALK 17:46, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

The point that you have missed, The Roman Candle, is that (as has been said here many times) internet domains are not assigned to governments but to registrars who then decide, subject to any laws that are applied to them by governments, where those domains shall be made available. The top-level country domain available in England, Scotland and Wales is .uk; the top-level country domain available in the Republic of Ireland is .ie; and the top-level country domains available in Northern Ireland are .ie and .uk. There is no need to strip useful information out of the infoboxes for the four parts of the UK , particularly as that would then leave the .ie domain listed only in the Republic of Ireland infobox, giving the inaccurate impression that it is only available in that jurisdiction. Brocach (talk) 18:15, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Wrong. The Roman Candle (talk) 18:52, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh well, that's me told. Brocach (talk) 19:08, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Quite so, but if you'd like an expansion, here goes; virtually everything you say is incorrect. No if or buts, just plain wrong. The only point you're right about is where you mention domains being available in various places, but that is irrelevant to the current debate. The Roman Candle (talk) 19:14, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually, no, you're wrong to claim that what Brocach said was wrong. :-) Brocach is technically correct on most everything he has said in the para above. We're really just dancing around the meaning of "assigned". We could equally say that there's more than one type of responsibility being recognized and rights being assigned. The domain is "assigned" to the Delegee for administration and management. The ultimate responsibility of the rules governing the domain is assigned to the relevant government or public authority. --HighKing (talk) 23:05, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

You need to understand Brocach that you can't be right, because then Roman Candle might just have to admit that this very minor issue is not the final compromise with Fenianism which results in the collapse of civilisation as he knows it.----Snowded ^TALK 19:19, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Maybe he/she (though I think you're right, Snowded) could at least say what is incorrect in the statement "internet domains are not assigned to governments but to registrars"; in the case of .ie, that was originally University College Dublin Computing Services Computer Centre, and is now IEDR Ltd. It might keep him/her off the streets for a while trying to find anything wrong with that. Brocach (talk) 19:24, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

HighKing's already explained it. See above. By the way, I'm a 'he' (see my user page). The Roman Candle (talk) 20:01, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Au contraire. HighKing manages to take a text saying that "Delegee" means the organisation, enterprise or individual designated by the relevant government or public authority to exercise the public trust function of a ccTLD... ultimate public policy authority over the relevant ccTLD rests with the relevant government or public authority and read that as "clearly" establishing that "the .ie domain is essentially assigned to the Irish government, and ultimately controlled by the Irish government". What it actually establishes is (1) that governments are expected not to run the domain themselves, but to entrust that task to another organisation, enterprise or individual; and (2) that the government retains "public policy authority" over the domain. In .ie's case, the Irish government has never had that domain assigned to it, "essentially" or otherwise; rather, it recognised the long-standing arrangement, arrived at with no known government input, that existed first with UCD, then with IEDR Ltd; and the Irish government's public policy in relation to .ie is not to exercise any control, and certainly not to interfere in any way with the decision of the controlling registrar to extend the application of the domain to the whole of Ireland. Brocach (talk) 20:45, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

I believe you've captured the historical aspects of the ".ie" domain, and I agree with them. But the IANA has moved on since then, and the situation regarding ccTLD's has since changed. For example, the "Delegee" is chosen by the relevant "Government", and equally, that Government can take the registrar function away from one Delegee and reassign it to another. ICANN cannot assign a ccTLD to a Delegee of their own choice. Also, the Delegee provisions a recognition that the management and administration of the ccTLD are subject to the ultimate authority of the relevant government, and must conform with relevant domestic laws and regulations, and international law and international conventions. --HighKing (talk) 23:05, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

The Roman Candle - I think I am on the same page as you. I enjoyed your comparisons with Belfast City Hall....Though I think the fact that the Irish state gets listed as "ROI" everywhere shows that all this politics cuts various ways.... I know nothing about you or your editing history but would guess (I may well be wrong) you support the "ROI" naming arrangements on Wiki....If so, if a State can't even get its name...can we complain about a little domain name...! Any way, this has nothing to do with what we are talking about but I had a chuckle reading your bit so thought I'd post this. Keep up what you are saying. I really don't respect the posts of most other editors here. I gave extremely detailed arguments that were ignored. On the evidence, it's an "open and shut case" but politics is in play here...Best of luck!!! Frenchmalawi (talk) 00:48, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Not necessary, Frenchmalawi, we had noticed your lack of respect and that "politics is in play". Some of us are trying to keep WP as a neutral space that merely records the realities around us, such as the applicability of internet domain names to particular territories. Others would rather delete useful information from multiple articles than allow one politically unpalatable fact to be recorded on one article. Brocach (talk) 00:56, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi Brocach !! I think that's unfair to say I am showing a "lack of respect". We will have to disagree on that. "

This was posted above...Maybe [The Roman Candle]..could at least say what is incorrect in the statement "internet domains are not assigned to governments but to registrars" Guys - It's been pointed out umpteen times that ICAAN assigns domains to represent ISO countries/territories!!! .ie is assigned to represent Ireland proper! ICAAN also defers to sovereign governments concerning those domains (I posted loads of reports showing this). That a sovereign government supports a particular entity (IEDR for .ie) is irrelevant! Frenchmalawi (talk) 01:01, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

"I really don't respect the posts of most other editors here." Frenchmalawi, 00:48. "I think that's unfair to say I am showing a "lack of respect"." Frenchmalawi, 01:01. Nothing further, m'lud. Brocach (talk) 09:35, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Jumping in here Brocach - It's not disrespectful in my opinion. People don't typically respect posts unless a bit of thought goes into them. I can't respect thoughtless posts. I certainly do respect the posts of those editors who go to the trouble and time of giving it some thought, reasoning their posts properly etc. In my opinion, it is disrespectful of the Wiki project to make thoughtless posts....But this is all off topic. Frenchmalawi (talk) 22:24, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Jimping right back - if you post something like "I really don't respect the posts of most other editors here" and then think it "unfair" to suggest that you lack respect, you need to ask yourself whether your posts are as thoughtful and reasoned as they should be. Brocach (talk) 22:37, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I think it is really they have a different outlook and regards states as more important than almost anything else. Personally I see that as rather medieval with its kings and absolute rule, but I'm sure UKIP for instance would agree with it. You can see that with the business of going on about 'Republic of Ireland' for the country article. Yes it would be nice if the article was titled Ireland but there's problems and editors came to a conclusion about what had to give. Dmcq (talk) 12:42, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

"It's been pointed out umpteen times that ICAAN assigns domains to represent ISO countries/territories!!!" And each of those umpteen times it has been wrong. IANA "assigns" country code domains but most country codes are based on ISO 3166-1. IANA is responsible for determining an appropriate trustee for each ccTLD. Many ccTLDs predate the formation of ICANN too and ICANN is not in the business of deciding which country or territory gets what ccTLD. Now for the second error. "internet domains are not assigned to governments but to registrars" If you don't know the difference between a registry (the administrator of a TLD) and registrar (an organisation that registers domains on behalf of clients) then you really shouldn't be commenting on the mistakes of others. The DNS Root Zone is controlled by The US Department of Commerce but administered by IANA. Historically the position on .ie ccTLD was somewhat unclear with the relevant Minister having final say over the administration of the ccTLD. That was changed so that ComReg manages policy and IEDR administrates the ccTLD. The .ie ccTLD is still delegated to UCD's Computer Science department. The .ie ccTLD is a managed TLD where registrants have to meet certain conditions. This makes it quite different to open TLDs such as .tv and .me which permit global registrations. Registrants from NI can register .ie domains as easily as ROI registrants. The "significant connection" condition applies to registrants in Scotland, England and Wales. This makes .ie quite different to open or repurposed ccTLDs such as .tv and .me. The reason I have not engaged with Frenchmalawi's arguments is simply because they are, for the most part, based on misunderstandings and errors. At this stage, it is quite clear that many of us here are trying to keep Wikipedia apolitical and based on reality. Frenchmalawi's crusade to have NI's page changed purely for what appears to be a political agenda (though it could be just some strange obsession with NI) is wearing a bit thin. Jmccormac (talk) 11:37, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

More than a bit; it's astonishing how many otherwise perfectly useful words have been sacrificed on this campaign. Yes, I shouldn't have used using "registrar" loosely in its ordinary sense as "someone who runs a registry", as there is (usually) a distinction in the arcane world of domain names; but I can't help pointing out that for .ie, IEDR Ltd is both the registry and a registrar, in that it flogs .ie domains itself. Brocach (talk) 14:55, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

The terms can be quite specific in the industry but it wasn't a criticism of your use of the terms. IEDR (the registry) is also what is sometimes referred to as a registrar of last resort. This enables people or organisations who would not want to register a domain via the ordinary registrars to register domains directly with IEDR. About ten years ago, there were some concerns about IEDR competing with its own registrars but the bulk of .ie registrations now go through .ie registrars. Jmccormac (talk) 15:10, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

It's pretty expensive to go to them direct, that seems to be a common way of doing things with other domains as well. Dmcq (talk) 15:49, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Some people seem to be very confused here. (a) ICANN (not IANA) determines who may be the registrar for generic TLDs. (b) IANA delegates Country code TLDs on the basis of ISO3166 to national governments. In what the USofA quaintly called 'The Free World', this function is almost always outsourced - to IEDR in Ireland, to Nominet in the UK and so on. In extremely rare cases, where there is not a functioning government or where the integrity of the DNS might be compromised, it will recognize a de facto national registrar.
But none of this matters. This field applies only to sovereign states. Its purpose is to show which ccTLD has been allocated to the state. Northern Ireland is not a sovereign state, so the field does not apply in this instance and should not be used. It is not designed to show which domains people use. Now will people please stop rioting at each other and RTFM! (meaning {{template:infobox country}} --Red King (talk) 19:59, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Its the country template not the sovereign state template, and citizens of NI have the right to adopt one of two sovereign states so we reflect reality at the moment, not dogma.----Snowded ^TALK 20:36, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Don't be silly. The field is for domain assigned, not domain used. There are tens of domains available to people in NI. They don't matter. --Red King (talk) 23:12, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

"It's been pointed out umpteen times that ICAAN assigns domains to represent ISO countries/territories!!!" And each of those umpteen times it has been wrong.” The above was a response I saw to one of my posts....I challenge that Editor to give us a narrative of what IANNA did in this report

• [IANA Report on Delegation of the .ME Domain ...which is particularly intereting as it concerns delegationof a country domain ...and includes reference to the criteria, e.g. "The prospective manager has the requisite authority to operate the TLD appropriately, with the desire of the government taken very seriously. (ICP-1 §a, GAC Principles)" and "According to RFC 1591 and ICP-1, IANA needs to respect the ability for a local Internet community as well as local law and local government to make decisions about the operation of a TLD.".

I challenge you to explain the report, specifically:

• (1) Does Montenegro (independent ISO listed country) have any connection with the “.me” domain?
• Does Spain (independent ISO listed country) have a different relationship to the “.me” domain?
• If the “.me” registry decided to permit registrations of “.me” domains by persons in Spain, would that mean we should list “.me” on the Spain page?

Thanks. Frenchmalawi (talk) 22:45, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

No because for the umpteenth time, that field is for the ccTLD allocated to the country, Spain - which is .es. It is not for the domains available to Spanish people (of which there are tens). --Red King (talk) 23:12, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

The most popular domains in various countries tend to follow a particular pattern. Mature country level markets tend to have the local ccTLD dominating with a ccTLD/.com axis representing 80% or more of the domain footprint for the country (the UK and Germany would be the best examples for this). With NI, the main TLDs are .uk/.com/.ie. The other TLDs (typically .net/org/biz/info/mobi/eu) each tend to occupy single digit percentages of the country's domain market. The position of .com in most country's domain footprint is due to its legacy position and the DotCom bubble but as a market matures, the local ccTLD overtakes it in terms of registrations. Each country tends to have a small set of TLDs which accounts for the majority of domains registered in that country. With the US the most popular TLD (and arguably the US's de facto ccTLD)is actually .com whereas the de jure ccTLD is .us ccTLD. Again with Spain and .es, having TLDs available for registration does not mean that Spanish people will register domains in these TLD in large or significant numbers. The domain count for .es in November 2012 was 1,612,733 (.es registry figure) but the number of Spanish .eu registrations at present(Eurid statistics) is 105,524. There are approximately 1 million Spanish owned/hosted .com domains, approximately 148K .net domains, approximately 98K .org domains, approximately 14.5K .biz domains and approximately 48K .info domains on the nameservers of Spanish webhosters. The bulk of domain registrations are clustered around the ccTLD/com axis. Jmccormac (talk) 05:54, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Països Catalans doesn't show .cat in its infobox so I'd have thought just removing the internet tld field here was reasonable. As to .me the reply has already been given as regards .tv above by Jmccormac. The .me domain is operated as a generic name rather than a closed one. Dmcq (talk) 23:35, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I'd like the editor who originally made the comment (Jmccormac) to respond. He might be a serious editor and I'd like to hear his responses if he is. Sorry Dmcq, but to me your reples above were like jibberish in terms of relevance from my perspective...RK's has a clear view which I am fine with and agree with. Frenchmalawi (talk) 00:02, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Don't worry I'm used to people not getting what I say despite my efforts. You haven't though actually said anything new for Jmccormac to respond to that I can see, replacing .tv with .me has not added any content to your argument. Dmcq (talk) 01:07, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Frenchmalawi, if you are going to throw reports about, the least you could do is read them and make some effort to understand what they are about and what they mean. IANA evaluates delegation and redelegation requests. It does not just decide to delegate ccTLDs on a whim. The government of Montenegro is the sponsoring organisation for .me ccTLD. The .me ccTLD is an open ccTLD in which people from Spain (and other countries) can register domains. The .es ccTLD is the ccTLD for Spain. The .me ccTLD is an open/generic ccTLD. It appears that you are just throwing reports and comments around in what seems to be a campaign to have .ie removed from the NI page.Jmccormac (talk) 06:08, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Jmccormac - I challenge you to answer my questions (put above). Answer them (1), (2) and (3). I note you haven't even attempted to answer them and ignore statements in the report like "In accordance with ICANN’s performance of these functions, IANA received a request for the delegation of the .ME top-level domain. This domain is designated in the ISO 3166-1 standard for Montenegro, a European country with a population of approximately 700,000. The application for delegation was received on 24 December 2006." I'm disappointed with your reply. My challenge to you stands. Frenchmalawi (talk) 23:03, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Time to close

• Remove .ie, leave .uk: Frenchmalawi Murry1975
• Leave both: Emmette Hernandez Coleman, HighKing, Snowded, Fishiehelper2, Daicaregos, Brocach, RA, Jmccormac, 92.40.254.48
• Show nothing: Red King, Andrew Gray, Tom Morris, CMD, The Roman Candle
• Unclear: Canterbury Tail
• Leave .uk or show nothing: Mabuska, User:Frenchmalawi, BritishWatcher, Jon C.
• Leave both or show nothing: Dmcq, HighKing, Mo ainm

I hope I have that right; one or two shifted positions during the debate, which is allowed, even on Wikipedia. I'd say that the weight of opinion against a proposal supported by only three editors means that we should each go and have a nice cup of tea and forget that this ever happened. Brocach (talk) 23:23, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

SO you are quite happy to appear ridiculous to the rest of Wikipedia, which can tell the difference between domain assigned and domain used. And if you insist on having domain used, why have you left out .com, .net. .tv, .me, .travel, .jobs etc etc.? --Red King (talk) 23:32, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Amended the list to put myself under show nothing as well as leave both. Probably best to do the same sort of business with Mabuska rather than showing combinations. Dmcq (talk) 23:40, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)::No consensus has emerged for change. No-one is ridiculous. Just drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass. It's time to close, thank you. Daicaregos (talk) 00:09, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Agree with Red King that this is ridiculous. Frenchmalawi (talk) 00:10, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

After reviewing prompted by others' edits to my post, I decided that BritishWatcher (who had been accorded an extra two votes by those edits) settled for ".uk or show nothing". Created an extra category for Dmcq but Mabuska's contribution was unambiguous. It is absolutely clear that the proposal has failed. Brocach (talk) 12:00, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

I've moved myself to leave only UK or show nothing. I'd be happy to support its removal as NI isn't a state, but not while England, Scotland and Wales still have .uk. — Jon C.^ॐ 12:14, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Eight editors want to leave things as they are. The majority remainder want, or would accept, some sort of change, so now is not the time to move on, it is the time to decide what the change should be. My preference at this point is to remove the TLD box from all the UK countries, but failing that, leave .uk for Northern Ireland, with a footnote explaining about .ie. The Roman Candle (talk) 12:42, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

I've added my name to the "show both or do nothing" option also. --HighKing (talk) 12:57, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

HK, can you clarify yor preference? It's headed "Leave [show] both or show nothing. The Roman Candle (talk) 13:04, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Sorry - it's the last option above. Leave both or show nothing. --HighKing (talk) 13:28, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Fairness - I put my own name after several options and at least one was removed.

Fairness - I put British Watcher's name after a few options too (saying I had done so) because he clearly expressed openness to several options.

Can we re-start poll and get people to actually record their own preferences? Right now it's wrong....As some one has just put down what they think people want. Frenchmalawi (talk) 22:51, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

I also think we should just drop a message on the talk page of the editors who participated telling them about the poll....Is that ok to do? Frenchmalawi (talk) 22:58, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

I deleted your vote for "remove .ie, leave .uk" because you also voted for "leave .uk or show nothing"; the second option encapsulates the first and I couldn't think of a good enough reason why you should be allowed multiple votes while everyone else had one. It is, of course, OK to notify people in neutral terms that the poll is happening. It is not OK to canvass support for your views. It is not OK to vote, as you have done, as a self-appointed proxy for others. If you vote many times in your own poll, expect everyone else to vote as often as they choose. Do not expect a different outcome. Brocach (talk) 00:58, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

it's pretty obvious that there are multiple potential solutions...so it follows, we have to be able to support more than one option....Frenchmalawi (talk) 13:43, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

"It is not OK to vote, as you have done, as a self-appointed proxy for other" - Brocach, hold on there a second. No one voted here....An editor put down other editors names after options. I did the same (for BW). Hope you aren't suggesting I did anything wrong. Any way, I have opened a poll so we can actually vote and avoid these sorts of arguments. Frenchmalawi (talk) 13:43, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Proper Poll (each editor to vote)

• Remove .ie, leave .uk: Frenchmalawi (talk) 22:54, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
• Leave both:
• Show nothing: Frenchmalawi (talk) 22:54, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
• Unclear:
• Leave .uk or show nothing: Frenchmalawi (talk) 22:54, 11 January 2013 (UTC) Jon C.
• Leave both or show nothing:----Snowded ^TALK 06:12, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

If Frenchmalawi has three votes, so have we all, pile in there lads and let's see if this produces a consensus in favour of change. Brocach (talk) 00:48, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Ah. I was mistaken. Only Frenchmalawi is allowed three votes; I am only allowed one (two others deleted by Jon C.). In which case, I'll withdraw altogeher and wait for a more sensible poll. Brocach (talk) 16:19, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

This is getting insane. No consensus for change emerged and now another poll where each editor gets multiple votes in attempt to force some consensus for change is added? At this stage, it seems that Frenchmalawi is on a bit of a crusade to have .ie removed from the NI page. Jmccormac (talk) 07:30, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Jmccormac - Please assume good faith. What have I done to deserve being spoken of in that manner "crusade" etc. We have a disagreement about content (I don't think its consistent with WP practice that a foreign country's domain name should be listed where all other WP articles list a national domain name - I've given plenty of reasons, and various people agree with me). Please treat me with some courtesy. Same goes to Snowded (re below post) Frenchmalawi (talk) 13:48, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

His general failure to avoid personal attacks and general failure to listen put him close to an ANI report and his latest messing around here inclines me to just say leave it as it is, close the thread. Two or three of his comments make it very very clear this is a political campaign, not an attempt to improve the article----Snowded ^TALK 10:15, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Guys - it's pretty obvious that there are multiple potential solutions...so it follows, we have to be able to support more than one option....Maybe the poll will identify an option that commands great support. Frenchmalawi (talk) 13:39, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

As an aside, Snowded - obviously I disagree with your suggestions that somehow I am out of line. It seems like a personal attack is being made against me, but I don't want to get side tracked. Let's just carry on and hope to get a consensus. Frenchmalawi (talk) 13:39, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Political campaign? As far as I can see the only political campaigning is by those who would rather paint the e-kerb-stones red/white/blue or green/white/orange. Why go for accuracy when a POV is available? (and btw, I didn't see FrenchMalawi make any personal attacks. Accusing him of doing so without good reason is itself a personal attack). --Red King (talk) 13:48, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Red King. Appreciate it. I'm for robust discussion and challenging each other, but I hate personal attacks and "threats" like threatening complaints against me. Frenchmalawi (talk) 14:07, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Could you try and be a bit less 'robust' in your discussion then please and perhaps people will be a bit less 'robust' with you. Dmcq (talk) 14:24, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

If there is to be a poll could it have some system to it please rather than being a higgledy piggledy list of options and combinations with duplications and omissions thank. My preference would be fora list of the distinct implementation options - e.g. keep both, not keep both or neither, and have people put in their name for each option they can live with. So yes there would be multiple votes. There are other ways of doing it like having every combination and a name being only put down once for the exact combination they can support. And most complex would be something with a list in order of supported options per person and then some way of judging either what has the most support or the least opposition.

Anyway as a start I'd like to propose we just have the 3 options (amended to 4)

• Show .uk and .ie and .eu
• Show .uk and .ie only
• Show .uk and .eu only
• Show .uk only
• Show nothing

And people can put their name on each of the options they can live with easily without complaint. Dmcq (talk) 14:18, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Dmcq....You've included ".eu" - in one of the options above...That would, accidentally I am sure, distort the mental process: I for one have no problem with ".eu" but would never vote for option 1 so what am I supposed to do? Agree with the principle of narrowing the options....If it could be amended to omit reference to ".eu" and leave that to a separate discussion if people want to discuss ".eu" that might be a good way....Otherwise, I like your 3 neat options. Frenchmalawi (talk) 14:35, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't see the point of having a second discussion about .eu. I've put in .eu with .uk and if you are happy whether it is in or out you can put your name against both. Dmcq (talk) 14:54, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

I think adding .eu into the mix was unhelpful if you wanted just 3 options. Because of it we now have to have 5 options as Show .uk and .ie only' has to go in as well (otherwise it would be inconsistent). I think we started off with five options to begin with so not sure what the point of all this was in the end ....but I happy for you to restart a poll with those 5 options. A discussion of ".eu" would only have been needed if it had been raised. Any way, c'est la vie. We are back to five options. Frenchmalawi (talk) 20:39, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

The poll could be a lot easier than that, with just two options: 1, do it according to ISO 3166.1 and IANA - or - 2, do it according to some random POV. That's the real choice. --Red King (talk) 21:25, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with you Red King but this is Wiki....Frenchmalawi (talk) 15:29, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Yet another poll

Put your name against every option you'd be okay with having in the article. A quick way is to use ~~~ (Three tildas). We can then figure out if there is a reasonable majority for one or whether we can leave out others. Dmcq (talk) 22:03, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

• Show .uk and .ie and .eu - Dmcq (talk) Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) Jmccormac (talk)----Snowded ^TALK Brocach (talk) ÓCorcráin (talk) Daicaregos (talk)
• Show .uk and .ie only - Spathaky (talk)----Snowded ^TALK ÓCorcráin (talk) Daicaregos (talk)
• Show .uk and .eu only - Frenchmalawi (talk) 15:25, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
• Show .uk only - — Jon C.^ॐ Frenchmalawi (talk) 15:25, 13 January 2013 (UTC) The Roman Candle (talk) BritishWatcher (talk) 09:51, 16 January 2013 (UTC) Mabuska ^(talk) 13:58, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
• Show nothing - Dmcq (talk), Gavin Lisburn (talk) 01:35, 13 January 2013 (UTC), — Jon C.^ॐ (pending removal from England, Scotland and Wales, too) Frenchmalawi (talk) 15:25, 13 January 2013 (UTC) The Roman Candle (talk) (pending removal as Jon.C) BritishWatcher (talk) 09:51, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• Show .uk only - Other articles on countries don't have numerous Internet TLDs listed. The Scotland, England and Wales articles don't have .gb or .eu listed, only .uk. The United Kingdom article has just .uk listed, not .eu or .gb. Articles on countries on Wikipedia have just the one standard Internet TLD listed otherwise there's an almost infinite number of Internet TLDs you could include, such as .com, .net, .org, .gov, .biz, .tv and so on. Quite vivid blur (talk) 03:25, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Basically it is due to the Country Template having an entry for the relevant TLD and that's generally a country code TLD. As I mentioned above, most of the domain footprint of a country will be concentrated on the ccTLD/.com axis with the majority of domains being registered in these two TLDs. With NI, the main spread of domains is over .uk/.com/.ie with .net/.org/.biz/.info and .eu having subtantially smaller shares. The single TLD entry in the Country Template does not reflect the reality of each country or territory's domain name footprint. For example, there are more .uk domains hosted on Irish webhosters than .net domains. With the UK's .eu count, a lot of the registrations that Eurid claims are UK owned may be owned by US and Canadian cyberwarehousers using UK front companies (the same applies to the Irish .eu count where the number of .eu domains on Irish registrars is approximately 9K as opposed to the 27K that Eurid claims are Irish registrations). However most Wikipedians may be unfamiliar with the domain name/webhosting industry and this leads to prolonged threads like this one. Jmccormac (talk) 09:29, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I think you ignore the real "geographic spread" - which is the official spread. The country domains are assigned by ICAAN/IANNA to represent actual countries...where the domains get hosted or who uses them is irrelevant. ".uk" is for the UK; ".ie" is for Ireland proper (and not NI)...! How they arrive at these decisions was illustrated in the Montenegro report I provided. Frenchmalawi (talk) 15:25, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

QuiteVividBlur - As per the above, I entirely agree with you. It's all been discussed ad nauseum on this page. My own theory on the inclusion of ".ie" is pure Wiki politics. I am entitled to hold that view. Frenchmalawi (talk) 15:28, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

@Frenchmalawi - I don't ignore the real "geographic spread" - something that is nebulous enough to mean anything. For people involved in the domain name/webhosting industry, search engine development or mapping domain name usage and internet development it may mean something different. IANA assigns ccTLDs. If they were simply assigned to countries, as you think, then the .ps ccTLD for the Palestinian Territories does create some problems with your theory. The .me report is simply the report for a delegation request. As to the politics of the situation, you seem to be pushing an agenda to have .ie dropped from the NI page even though the reference to .ie and .eu have been there on the page for years. Most of us here are trying to be apolitical. The first and second (I think) polls did not reach any consensus for change and now another poll has been introduced. I suppose there will be another poll if this effort fails. Well at least you are probably going to unite people of Northern Ireland, Southern Ireland and the UK in sheer exasperation with your obsession. :) Too many polls! Jmccormac (talk) 16:32, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I'd say that your post above was more in the line of an attack on me/my integrity rather than dealing with the issues. "If they were simply assigned to countries..." They are most definitely assigned to represent countries/territories. In the case of .PS, read the IANA report. It represents "Palestinian Territories, Occupied". As to "The .me report is simply the report for a delegation request." Of course it is....but what does it say...It says ".me" represents the country of Montenegro...not somewhere else! Frenchmalawi (talk) 17:45, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I think your posts here do raise questions as to your integrity and civility. You have an obvious political agenda (see your reference to the Union Jack above), you don't address the Good Friday settlement and you have attacked individual editors. Here again you are making irrelevant comparisons and generally creating more and more noise - its lame. Given that I have little sympathy with your complaint ----Snowded ^TALK 20:32, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I think you are engaged in a nasty personal attack on me Snowded. I think it is bang out of order. Frenchmalawi (talk) 22:18, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

You feel free to dole it out, but can't take a return? Sorry but I think your behaviour is an issue here, and a growing one. You obfuscate with long repetitious posts, you make (or support) politically provocative comments. If someone has the temerity to disagree with you then you attack or claim grievance (see your response to Jmccormac. ----Snowded ^TALK 22:56, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Again, I think you are engaged in a nasty personal attack on me Snowded. I don't know what your motives are. Please drop it. Frenchmalawi (talk) 11:35, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Motive is very simple - to try and get you to stop what is a disruptive, aggressive and clearly politically motivated pattern of behaviour on a minor issue. Somehow I don't think I will succeed ----Snowded ^TALK 12:58, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I haven't seen any of these apparent personal attacks or disruptive behaviour. Could you point to some? — Jon C.^ॐ 13:04, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I too am struggling to find them. The Roman Candle (talk) 13:26, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Dismissing other editors as not being "serious editors" because they disagree with him/her? Dismissing facts and reasoned arguments as "jibberish" or "pathetic"? Not exactly best Wikipedian behaviour. When no consensus for change was established, persisting with the same arguments and suppositions used prior to the poll. Not respecting other editors - there's a quote there earlier where Frenchmalawi claims not to have respect for some other editors but this thread is so long that it is hardly worth scrolling back to find it. If one wasn't assuming good faith, it would seem that given the volume of posts here on this thread that that the Frenchmalawi account was set up with the aim of having .ie removed from the NI page. But then we must assume good faith. Jmccormac (talk) 14:09, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

When FrenchMalawi first appeared on the scene a few weeks ago, I asked on his Talk page if he'd ever edited before, since he exhibits a fairly good knowledge of WP rules and editing technique. He didn't provide a satisfactory response - nor did he deny editing previously. He subsequently blanked the page. His editing style is most familiar, but I can't quite put my finger on it.... --HighKing (talk) 14:30, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Agree, I've been trying to remember where I have see that style before. ----Snowded ^TALK 20:36, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Regarding the reamrks highlighted above by jmccormac, maybe you've got a point, but there's also a fair bit of baiting going on here. What concerns me is that whatever expertise is put to this issue, it's ignored by the majority of editors who, let's face it, are here to push their pov rather than ensure accuracy. I'm sorry to have to say this, but to me it's very clear. Maybe the matter should be taken away from here and put to some other Wiki Project to be sorted out. We then might get some NPOV into the situation. Is there a WikiInternet project or something similar? The Roman Candle (talk) 17:06, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Well I was thinking that once the options that had half a hope were settled on we could raise a general WP:RfC and decide the matter that way. I don't think we can say any of the arguments here are overwhelming in their logic or that any of the policies determine the result so I think it'll just have to come down to that. Dmcq (talk) 18:25, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Before Christmas, I ran a web mapping survey of about 12.5 million UK and UK hosted websites so it gave me a bit more of an insight into domain registration and usage patterns for websites and domains associated with the UK than the average Wikipedia editor. I've been trying to explain how the Irish, NI and UK markets are heavily interlinked and that the TLDs that apply to countries are not simply the assigned ccTLDs. It is a very specialised area and bouncing the issue off to some Wiki Project with minimal traffic and the odd editor is not really going to create a new consensus. The big problem with applying expertise to such a problem is that most editors don't have any great expertise in the field. The expertise tends to be limited to those in the domain name/webhosting industry, the registries themselves and the search engine companies. While legislation may sometimes be cited, the reality is that registries tend to each have their own set of registration conditions and these are often arrived at through consultation between the registry, the relevant governments and the local internet community and stakeholders. Jmccormac (talk) 17:53, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

(1) About the personal attack on me:

• Whose really doing the personal attacks here? (1) Jmccormac has said that I am on a “crusade” (repeatedly) and a “political agenda”, a “campaign”, that I am “throwing reports and comments around” and has suggested my comments are “insane”; (2) Snowded has claimed I am on an “obvious political agenda”, have made “politically provocative comments” (this is from an Editor who has repeatedly referred to the Good Friday Agreement, as if it was relevant here); that I have “attacked individual editors” (spot the irony), that I generally create “more and more noise” and I am “lame”; and (3) High King started posting comments on my talk page questioning me about myself as if he had some right to do so. He now appears to be trying to use the fact that I deleted his (what for me were nasty innuendos) from my talk page against me.
• Jmccormac in trying to justify this personal attack on me has given some very selective quotes such as my reference to “serious editors” (are you seriously suggesting all Editors make an equal contribution and actually are serious and address issues? Of course they don’t); calling arguments "jibberish" or "pathetic" – I did say that once and perhaps I could be more delicate but I never did anything like you and Snowded did – singling me out and questioning my motives, labelling them “political” and part of a “crusade” etc. If I have somehow attacked an editor here, it is a very pale attack compared to the nasty one being perpetrated on me.
• I appeal to every one to put aside all this nasty personal attacking and get back to our simple topic – whether “.ie” the domain name assigned to represent Ireland should be listed on the NI page. An earlier attack on BritishWatcher (who supported my view) was also launched. We can all (including me) try to be more respectful of each other too (for what its worth, I am not the sensitive type so as long as your arguments are based on reasoning, I won’t mind if you harshly condemn anything I say as long as its reasoned and not a personal attack).

(2) About the latest comments on issues: I want to respond here without being accused of “personally attacking any one”....It’s not always easy to strike that balance but here goes. Jmccormac. You seem to have quite a bit of industry expertise. You refer to a mapping survey etc you were involved in, that the Irish, NI and UK markets are heavily interlinked”. You mention that “the big problem with applying expertise to such a problem is that most editors don't have any great expertise in the field” and “the reality is that registries tend to each have their own set of registration conditions” etc. Frankly, I don’t disagree with a word of that. I also would be the first to admit I have no industry specific knowledge whatsoever. I sense you are some one with some expertise but that you have got lost in the detail. What we are talking about is really a very simple black or white issue. All the matters I quoted you on in this paragraph are 100% irrelevant in my view. That is because “.ie” is assigned to represent Ireland; “.uk” is assigned to represent the UK. That doesn’t mean the Government of Ireland or the UK own those domain names. It means simply just what I said. The are special domain names specifically created and assigned with the intention to represent specific countries. You’ve repeatedly referred to what the “registration conditions “ of registries are etc. Sorry, in my respectful opinion, that is simply irrelevant to what we are discussing. You also, in my respectful, humble, modest opinion ignore Wikipedia precedent: we don’t include “.jp” on the China article, we don’t include “.tv” on the USA article, etc etc. Why, in this case, are you and others arguing that all that should be ignored and Northern Ireland is some extraordinary exceptional case. Is my suggesting otherwise a “political crusade”? Of course not.... Frenchmalawi (talk) 00:24, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Now lets see. You are a new editor with detailed knowledge of how Wikipedia works who refuses to answer questions about prior editing history (or is at least evasive). This on a page with a very long history of politically motivated sock puppets. You ignore arguments about the GFA and constitutional changes that followed, supporting editors who are concerned about progressive "loss" over the Belfast City Hall flag issue. You make a series of aggressive statements about other editors over a period of time. Finally after a period of giving you the benefit of the doubt several experienced editors start to call you out over the behaviour issues, the obvious political slant and the very long repetitious posts on what is a lame debate. You then play the innocent. Sorry some of us have seen this pattern far too many times before as, I suspect, you have----Snowded ^TALK 07:32, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Give it a rest will you thanks. This page is supposed to be about Northern Ireland, not a reenactment. Could everyone with a grievance about everyone else follow WP:CONDUCTDISPUTE or just go to WP:ANI or some such place. Otherwise just comment on content not people please and anyone who goes around the place insulting others and being completely ignorant or trolling will be recognised for what they are anyway once the debate cools down. Dmcq (talk) 10:22, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Seriously?

All this rubbish and diatribe over an internet domain (.ie), people's time wasted and bytes of data dedicated to this petty squabbling perpetuated by a very select few individuals with certain political affiliations over two letters. If people make an issue over something like this no wonder northern Ireland is a shitpot. Grow up and stop making pathetic political statements and accusations of political bias over something so inconsequential, grow up and do something more productive instead of this bullshit. The fact that there are multiple polls because people did not like the first results and that this has gone on for almost a month now is really astounding. This is so fucking beyond ridiculous, it is unbelievable. ÓCorcráin (talk) 16:13, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I would like to associate myself with the remarks of the last speaker, Mr Chairperson. Brocach (talk) 18:27, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

The problem with the first polls was that multiple combinations were being shown together with multiple votes and the conclusions being drawn were very problematic. At least now it is starting to look like we can probably ignore the .uk and .eu only and the .uk only options. I'm a bit surprised there aren't more people saying they would be happy with a .uk only option but perhaps it is early days. Anyway the debate has not come anywhere near being long enough to become an entry in WP:LAME, wouldn't it be better to pick some of those and convey your constructive comments to them and then maybe they will all see the light and become sensible editors? ;-) Dmcq (talk) 17:16, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Quote "All this rubbish and diatribe over an internet domain". Is it rubbish to insist on some objectivity, integrigy on WP. I don't think so. It's been a worthwhile discussion, whatever the outcome is. Frenchmalawi (talk) 17:48, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Imagine if editors put ".jp" beside ".cn" on the China article...! Frenchmalawi (talk) 17:54, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I mostly agree with ÓCorcráin, and I'm the guy who originally added .ie to the infobox. It was supposed to be a trivial little edit, I didn't expect it to restart the troubles. It's not that big of a deal weather the infobox lists .ie. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 04:47, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for chipping in...Though you haven't given any reasoning for why you "mostly agree" with the other editor. So we can only speculate! Frenchmalawi (talk) 11:33, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Mosley the same reasons as ÓCorcráin, it's kind of stupid to have this huge mouth-long discussion over something so inconsequential. That the person who added .ie in the first place thinks that this has gotten ridiculous should be a hint. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 13:37, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Shouldn't wp:BRD have applied to this case and the contentious material have been removed until a consensus was achieved on this talk page? I also would like to say that I see some here saying that Frenchmalawi is being disruptive and offensive, yet I can't really see any evidence of this. In fact, I see more evidence of this by those making the accusations. The bottom line is the Internet TLD section of the infobox is supposed to contain the Internet TLD for that country, not all of the possible Internet TLDs available within that country. .ie and .eu are the Internet TLDs the Republic of Ireland and European Union respectively. The England, Scotland and Wales articles only include .uk, and not .gb or .eu. The United Kingdom article only includes .uk, the Republic of Ireland article only includes .ie, the France article only includes .fr, the Germany article only includes .de and the European Union article only includes .eu. As for pushing a political agenda and being disruptive, what's more politically biased and disruptive than including the Internet TLD for the Republic of Ireland on the Northern Ireland article? Quite vivid blur (talk) 05:04, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Not really, and you are missing the point that Frenchmalawi is deliberately ignoring. The citizens of Northern Ireland can choose between two nationalities (hence by reference to the GFA which set that up). So the box reflects that both of those are in operation. Excluding that for Ireland is thus to take a pre GFA Unionist position. Given Frenchmalawi's support for an editor who said this is like the flag issue on Belfast City Hall and other comments that appears to what is is going on here----Snowded ^TALK 07:19, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing some common sense to this discussion, Quite vivid blur. We need some more outside editors' opinions on this whose judgements aren't clouded by all that's gone on here before. — Jon C.^ॐ 09:02, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

If you're saying 'Internet TLD' means 'what country TLD was assigned by IANA to this country' then 'Nothing' would be the proper choice I think. That would exclude .cat (have a read of that article) being used by Catalonians also I believe and in fact looking at Catalonia I see they do not have any internet TLD listed which is consistent with that. Dmcq (talk) 10:37, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Interestingly .cat is mentioned on the Spain article as is .eu ccTLD. The .eu ccTLD is also mentioned on the UK article. Jmccormac (talk) 11:39, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

.cat is not mentioned in the Catalonia article info box, nor in the article, other than as a 'See also'. The Roman Candle (talk) 12:06, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

.cat is also mentioned on the France article as are the ccTLDs of some of France's overseas departments and territories. It also mentions the .eu ccTLD. The USA page mentions .us ccTLD, .gov, .mil and .edu TLDs in the info-box. Jmccormac (talk) 14:44, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

But only as a footnote to the .fr entry, which remains the only one diectly specified in the infobox line. I get the impression that most editors who want to remove .ie would be happy with a similar note; I certainly would be. Is anyone objecting to this option? The Roman Candle (talk) 16:36, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

.ie is more than a footnote; it is applicable in Northern Ireland in precisely the same way as .uk.

Those who say that the non-inclusion of .cat is an argument for removing .ie from Northern Ireland may not have grasped that .cat is a generic domain available far beyond Catalunya. It presumably isn't shown at Catalonia because it's not specific to that region, though I think that it probably should be listed there as the majority of the 62,000 .cat registrations are likely to be there. Brocach (talk) 17:25, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't think anyone was suggesting that .ie should be included in the UK article which would be the analogous case of including .cat under France. Dmcq (talk) 17:55, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I hope you didn't think I was, Dmcq - what I meant above could be more clearly expressed as ".ie is applicable in Northern Ireland in precisely the same way as .uk is applicable in Northern Ireland". .cat should be footnoted in France, Andorra, Italy and other places where Catalan is a minority language, and should arguably be listed at Catalonia alongside .es. The likely reason it isn't is not, as my last suggested, its non-geographic status, but the fact that the infobox used is for "settlement" rather than country. No doubt that will be corrected after a referendum or two. Brocach (talk) 19:37, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

The official site for Catalonia is a .cat site rather than a .es site. Jmccormac (talk) 18:09, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

It isn't a country TLD so by some of the arguments above it isn't any more than .com is. Dmcq (talk) 18:32, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

.cat is different from .com in that it is a sponsored TLD (sTLD) and it has a sponsor representing the specific community served by the TLD. In .cat's case it is the Catalan linguistic and cultural community. Jmccormac (talk) 19:07, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Nonetheless, Catalunya (line Northern Ireland) does not have an allocated ccTLD. .cat is a generic TLD which could equally be used for tabby cats and persian cats. People in Catalunya may chose to use it, but that doesn't make it the domain for Catalunya. The situation closely parallels that in NI. It does not matter which domains people in a territory chose to buy (eg .ie, .tv, .ni, .eu. .me, .md) but only which domain has been alocated. That is the purpose for the template field and all this kaffuffle arises because some bright spark thought it would be a good idea to use the international sovereign state template for the constituent countries of the UK. We should not be showing any ccTLD for NI but if we must have one then it has to be .uk. --Red King (talk) 13:44, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Absolutely right and very clerarly put, but you are banging your head against a brick wall on this one, as I'm sure you know. The Roman Candle (talk) 13:50, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

It isn't right. The .cat domain was allocated for the specific purpose as you can read at the .cat article and it is strongly controlled like .ie is. The basic question you really should be thinking of is whether for instance you would allow .scot in the internet TLD entry for Scotland when it is set up? Dmcq (talk) 17:55, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Of course. Why on earth would you not? Daicaregos (talk) 18:15, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

It won't be a country tld like the UK or the Isle of Man, it will be a culture one like .cat. Theoretically it could even be based in some other country altogether like America or Russia. Dmcq (talk) 19:04, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

No. The .cat TLD is a sponsored TLD and that's a different thing to a generic TLD. As I explained above, the .cat is intended to serve the Catalan linguistic and cultural community. So while your idea that it might equally be used for tabby and persian cats is not exactly accurate and technically the .eu ccTLD also applies to NI. Jmccormac (talk) 13:55, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Disputed cctld

I have added the disputed tag to the infobox after .ie. This article is continuing to state factually inaccurate and biased information. This is not a minor issue that should just be ignored, there is a serious problem with the current version that must be addressed one way or another. BritishWatcher (talk) 09:58, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

You will notice above that the .uk and .eu domains are also under discussion. I have moved your tag accordingly. Brocach (talk) 10:11, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Interestingly there is a consensus to leave the situation alone. Jmccormac (talk) 10:24, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Again with what could be called an ultra-nationalist obsession to remove (.ie) but not (.eu)? I do not understand the logic of some people, just leave it alone. Drop the stick, take a deep breath and calmly back away. ÓCorcráin (talk) 11:06, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Only one editor has endorsed that option as okay so I don't think one can say that and by their ideas that sovereignty and regulation is all that matters it is a reasonable position and they seemed to think .cat was no more relevant than .tv is. Dmcq (talk) 12:56, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Of course it has to be disputed. Dot ie was not allocated to Northern Ireland and so should not be shown. Actually .uk should not be shown either, for exactly the same reason. Dot cat is for cats, but people in Catalunya have chosen to buy it. Dot tv is for Tuvalu, but people in the telly industry have chosen to buy it. Dot fm is for the Federated states of Micronesia but radio people have chosen to use it. Big deal. --Red King (talk) 13:54, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

I was talking about the .uk and .eu combination. The domain .cat is not and never was for cats though some people have managed to get one like that for cats. One can never underestimate the determination of cat lovers. In fact looking at their terms I see they encourage people to tell them about sites that don't comply and after a warning will deregister them i.e. they will remove sites about cats. Dmcq (talk) 15:42, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

dotCAT is not for cats despite what you may think. It was set up specifically for the Catalonian linguistic and cultural community. The .tv ccTLD is a repurposed ccTLD as is .fm and they are intended to serve a wider market than just the original country level market. Is it time for another poll yet as the last one did not generate a consensus for change? Jmccormac (talk) 14:00, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't think you would ever get such a poll on Ireland-related matters. We just have to put up with pov-slanted articles. The Roman Candle (talk) 14:08, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

What would you think about a section on domain usage in NI explaining the issues? Jmccormac (talk) 14:20, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, a brief section - no detailed technical stuff - would be fine, but I'd be surprised if, on the back of it, you secured agreement to take .ie out of the infobox. It seems obvious to me, but that's just me I suppose, that the solution is to remove that line from the infobox from all UK constituent countries. Such a move could be coupled with a mention in the text of each article, but again, we're up against the Irish angle here, so I won't be holding my breath. The Roman Candle (talk) 14:31, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Of course we're "up against" the Irish angle - it's an Irish article... But what we're really up against is the usual name-calling, lack of good faith, toys thrown out of prams because of not getting own way, etc. Not finger pointing, but the archives show that it's usually the same crew who engage in this behaviour, over and over again. That's the real problem here... --HighKing (talk) 15:38, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

It unequivocably can't be .ie -- that's the ISO 3166-1 ccTLD allocated to the Republic of Ireland, as opposed to .uk, the legacy ASCII ccTLD which is allocated by common convention to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, of which NI is currently a part, not just by the fiat of the UK government, but also by all the usual objective standards -- territorial recognition by other countries, de-facto administrative control, etc. etc. This is also understood as de-facto reality by the goverment of the Republic of Ireland -- the nation that also calls itself Ireland -- regardless of its consitutional territorial aspirations. Following some hypothetical re-unification of Ireland into a single Irish state, it would indeed be .ie -- but, much though Irish nationalists would like that, that hasn't happened yet, and looks unlikely to happen in the next fifty years to a century. If it happens, people will be welcome to make the edit to update the page, among the complete refactoring of the Ireland and Northern Ireland pages that would follow. -- The Anome (talk) 21:14, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Update: I've just read up the page, and all thse arguments have been made very clearly by other editors, higher up this talk page, with authoritative references and clear reasoning. I can't see any wiggle room here. -- The Anome (talk) 21:14, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

For you, The Anome, ze vor is over. Brocach (talk) 22:51, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

You want to bring up World War II and the Nazis in a discussion relating to Ireland? That really is a hostage to fortune. -- The Anome (talk) 23:14, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Ireland? Ermahgerd, I thought we were talking about Her Majesty's loyal fifth of it. Brocach (talk) 23:45, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

And therein lies the problem. When it is something potentially bad, it is *all* Ireland. It does get a bit confusing. Jmccormac (talk) 23:31, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Evidently the whole Good Friday Agreement didn't make much of an impact. Neither did the poll above where the consensus was effectively for no change to the current situation. The problem with reading back up the page is that one tends to arrive at the initial disagreement rather than the agreement.Jmccormac (talk) 22:54, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

The avoidance of the Good Friday Agreement is interesting and is part of the timing link of the lame dispute to the Belfast City Hall Flag Controversy - acknowledged by some of the participants. Given that The Anome has just joined the conversation I'd be interested to see how he deals with the fact that the UK Government has acknowledged the right of people in Northern Ireland to take Irish Citizenship? Its unique and is reflected in the presence of the two codes. Without new arguments its over anyway and the disputed tag can be removed ----Snowded ^TALK 09:51, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

What does citizenship have to do with an internet ccTLD? — Jon C.^ॐ 10:14, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

I'll [WP:AGF|assume its a serious question]]. You have two internet addresses which apply to two nation states. We have an article about a country which is a part of one, but for which its citizens can choose to be a part of the other. A fact which was recently agreed by by both governments. So we list both ----Snowded ^TALK 10:36, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

You are still confusing 'ccTLD allocated' with 'ccTLD used'. No one is challenging the right of Northern Irish people to use whichever ccTLD they like and will accept foreign registrations. The infobox does not support that option, although some people here want to misuse it to do so. --Red King (talk) 21:01, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

RFC

The dispute isn't quite over. The poll showed more for the option of keeping the box as it is but only by 7 to 6 over removing the line completely. I think we should have an RfC on just those two options saying a poll and discussion has shown them to be the two viable options. And yes we should have a small section in the article about it whatever happens to the info box. Dmcq (talk) 11:09, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I support an RFC. --Red King (talk) 21:01, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

So even though there is a consensus here on the Talk Page for no change to the current situation, you want to try another way? The most logical alternative (not particularly needed given that the poll resulted in a consensus for no change) would be to have a section in each of the articles on TLD usage with the TLD reference in the infobox pointing to that section in each article. The Country Template was obviously created by people with limited real-world knowledge of how domains and TLDs are used within countries or even geographical regions/territories. Jmccormac (talk) 21:44, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

What a strange statement. So you know more about the domain naming system that the guys at IANA who devised it? Let's just go to RFC since you won't accept that its not a bug. --Red King (talk) 22:40, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

I was talking about the Wikipedia Country Template which was apparently formulated with a limited view of how TLDs are used in various countries/territories. Jmccormac (talk) 22:53, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

I oppose an RFC at this time. I suggest everyone leave it for a period of time, calm down, and if required we can come back to the issue later. Asking for an RFC at this stage just looks like sour grapes because some editors don't like how the discussion went. We've all been there, and I've learned the value of stepping away, taking a break, and coming back later. --HighKing (talk) 17:24, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

The most recent vote above hardly had a clear majority in favour of the status quo, the vote appears to be 7-5. Considering this is not merely about personal choice/style, and is infact about a significant number of editors believing this article is currently presenting misleading and inaccurate information. We should not just sit by and leave such information in the article, a RFC will bring additional views and help settle this matter. If a RFC found most saying the current version is fine, then whilst id bitterly disagree and view it as in accurate.. id accept that is the will of the community and not raise this matter again. But at present i see a small majority preventing what is clearly inaccurate information from being removed. When questioned about why its justified, we hear things like NI citizens can be Irish, or the authority that runs .ie encourages people in NI to use the domain two. These matters are entirely irrelevant and do not justify claiming .ie is a top level country domain of Northern Ireland. We need more uninvolved editors coming at this situation from the tech/internet side of things, not from the NI / UK / ROI side. Im still waiting for someone to provide any evidence at all that a top level country domain .IE was assigned to an island or two states.. rather than to the Irish republic. BritishWatcher (talk) 20:52, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

This discussion was widely advertised and others joined in. Asking for an RFC right now, will just cause those already participating to simply reiterate the views everyone here has already expressed, and I sincerely doubt that any/enough new voices will be found - certainly not enough to change the consensus. The best bet would be to wait a while and put forward the suggestion to remove the line from the infobox and add a section. I believe that has some chance of winning support. And btw, your response to me above simply reads as nationalistic drum banging and sour-grape-whining. Using statements such as "significant number of editors believing this article is currently presenting misleading and inaccurate information", "whilst id bitterly disagree and view it as in accurate", "i see a small majority preventing what is clearly inaccurate information from being removed", "we hear things like NI citizens can be Irish, or the authority that runs .ie encourages people in NI to use the domain two. These matters are entirely irrelevant", etc, etc, is disrespectful of other editors, and shows a nationalistic bias which has no place in writing good articles for WP. Just my 2c. --HighKing (talk) 21:19, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

I am not being disrespectful of editors, im stating the arguments some editors have used are totally irrelevant to this debate. That is not unreasonable. I am not proposing biased or "nationalistic" content be added to this article. Quite the opposite infact, im supporting the removal of content that is misleading, inaccurate and could be viewed as "nationalistic". By putting .ie in that infobox, it is pretty much claiming Northern Ireland belongs to the republic of Ireland. It is totally unacceptable and clearly wrong. There is a legitimate secondary debate about if .uk and .eu belong in that infobox or not as they are not strictly "NI", but clearly NI is part of both the UK and EU. The only odd one out here is .ie, which is a top level country domain of a foreign country, and yes i find its inclusion extremely offensive and provocative, along with being inaccurate, biased and misleading. BritishWatcher (talk) 11:42, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

You are I'm afraid and not for the first time. Saying that something you find to be an "inconvenient truth" namely the GFA is irrelevant is disrespectful to other editors and does smack of drum banging. ----Snowded ^TALK 12:25, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

The GFA argument was a straw man the first time you wheeled it out. Where in the Belfast Agreement does it mention internet TLDs? This is nothing to do with citizenship, identity, nationalism or anything else, it's simply about which ccTLD applies to Northern Ireland. — Jon C.^ॐ 12:32, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh but it is to do with that. Thanks to the GFA agreement citizens of NI can choose, so it makes sense for the domains of both countries to be included. It means that NI is not the same constitutionally as England, Wales, Scotland etc. Suggesting that it should have included TLDs to be relevant is pretty far fetched. Whatever I think it pretty much disqualifies you from drafting a neutral RrC ----Snowded ^TALK 12:36, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I disagree. That residents of NI can choose to become citizens of the Republic doesn't automatically mean the South's TLD applies to the North. I don't know how you're making that connection. Do they use the euro in NI, too? Maybe the GFA says something about it... — Jon C.^ॐ 12:52, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Not that its relevant, but I have used Euros in Belfast and Sterling in Drogheda but that is as red herring. Nationality is tied into identity, and there are two national identities available to the citizens of NI. Part of identity is the suffix you use on your web site, so .ie is legitimate in NI as a part of exercising identity rights under the GFA ----Snowded ^TALK 13:11, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

This has absolutely nothing to do with nationality... this is not an article on people from Northern Ireland and what domains they may or may not use. This is about Northern Ireland and if it has a top level country domain. Northern Ireland is part of the UK, and it is part of the EU. it is NOT part of the Republic of Ireland, and inclusion of .ie which is the top level country domain of the Republic of Ireland clearly implies that it is part of ROI. This constant reference to the GFA has nothing at all to do with it. The GFA recognised that NI is part of the UK until such a time as the people of Northern Ireland choose otherwise. Please provide evidence that a top level country domain .ie was assigned to the island, and not a country as the name implies? BritishWatcher (talk) 16:25, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I do find it ironic when you say its nothing to do with nationality, but then make the specious statement that putting .ie in the information box would be to say that NI is part of Ireland (the country). Looks like its the key issue for you. My previous comments stand, I am not sure if you don't understand them or don't accept them, but its the same difference anyway. ----Snowded ^TALK 12:38, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

I fully support a RFC and think it is probably the best way of solving this matter to get additional input. BritishWatcher (talk) 20:32, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Support an RFC too. We could do with some neutral voices here. — Jon C.^ॐ 09:00, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Like to put one in then? We need something reasonably neutral at the top or it will just be a mass of recriminations. Think you could summarize the question and the main arguments in say four lines? Dmcq (talk) 09:20, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Support an RFC, but is such support needed anyway? Can anyone raise an RFC at any time? If so, maybe someone knowledgeable in the process should do one straight away. The Roman Candle (talk) 16:37, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Oppose an RFC. This issue has been done to death here, and those who didn't like the outcome just want another forum. Brocach (talk) 21:53, 21 January 2013 (UTC).

Oppose. Per Brocach. Just drop the stick and move on. ÓCorcráin (talk) 12:32, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Comment What is the point of this discussion? If someone wants to raise an RFC they can do so. I'm not sure of the format of these things, but I would urge a more experienced editor to go ahead. There is no consensus here on the way forward. At most there's a vote with a small majority, but I don't regard that as "consensus". The Roman Candle (talk) 12:52, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

True, there's certainly no consensus right now. Not sure what people hope an RFC will achieve either - it will probably also lead to no consensus unless a different argument is put forward or a different proposal is made. My reasons for not dragging this out any more is that without a different argument, it will only result in editors "digging in" to their respective positions. The usual method is to keep talking. But to reach agreement, points must be agreed and eventually, concessions made or compromises reached. It seems to me from reading back this long discussion that very few editors acknowledge points made by other editors, agree and concede points, and offer compromises. Therefore we're stuck, and I don't see how an RFC will further progress since we already have more than 10 editors actively involved here. --HighKing (talk) 18:17, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

I have decided to WP:Be Bold and announce an RFC. --Red King (talk) 21:00, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Request for Comment

RfC: Should the ccTLD field in this 'Infobox Country' be shown at all when it describes a part of a state; if so what should it contain.

Extensive discussion above has resolved to three incompatible positions:

• (a) Northern Ireland is not a sovereign state and does not qualify for a ccTLD. None should be shown.
• (b) Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, so [only] the ccTLD for the United Kingdom, .uk, should be shown.
• (c) According to the Belfast Agreement, people in Northern Ireland may identify as Irish or British, so the domain for the Republic of Ireland, .ie , should be shown alongside .uk..

Advice from disinterested wikipedians is welcome. Red King (talk) 20:59, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Survey

• C, but not quite for the stated reason. .ie was clearly intended for use by all four provinces of Ireland by the IE Domain Registry, not just the republic. Look at the website; it's map includes all four provinces, and the Registrations Policy explicitly includes Northern Ireland. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 21:47, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

The problem with A is that it's WP:Local Consensus. Other articles such as England and Scotland don't treat TLD's that way.

• A local poll above showed the following support in decreasing popularity order of the various options in the sense that people wouldn't complain about them so some people supported more than one option. This RfC has to decide on a particular option so only option should preferably be chosen.

1. Show .uk and .ie and .eu - 7
2. Show nothing - 6 (two said it should be in parallel to removing the entry from England Scotland and Wales - just show for the UK)
3. Show .uk only - 5
4. Show .uk and .ie only - 4
5. Show .uk and .eu only - 1

Thus just removing .ie is not generally supported, both .ie and .eu should be removed if the .uk but not .ie option is chosen and we shouldn't just remove .eu on its own either. Dmcq (talk) 21:58, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support (a) show nothing. Well I'd also support keeping as it is but if I have to go for one then (a) is my choice. I would also support not having anything for Scotland rather than showing .the new .scot TLD and the same with Wales and its .cym or whatever when it is approved. They are cultural and linguistic TLDs not country TLDs and so by the arguments against .ie shouldn't be included with them either. The situation can be better explained by a small section in the article itself. Dmcq (talk) 22:06, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Technical clarification: dot uk, dot ie, dot fr etc are [[country code top level domain]s], delegated to the national government but typically outsourced. On the other hand, dot scot, dot cymru, dot cat etc are in the category of 'generic' top level domains, like dot com, dot net, dot jobs etc, where a private organisation is licenced by ICANN to operate the domain. --Red King (talk) 22:39, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Not quite what 'generic' might imply or is as done for .com etc. Checks need to be in place like .cat or .ie have, see Community TLD under Registration policies. Dmcq (talk) 23:20, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

The .cat would be a Sponsored TLD in that it serves a community as do .museum and .aero sTLDs. From what I remember, .cymru is a new gTLD with Nominet backing it [7]. Many of the same arguments are going to play out on the UK country pages over the next few years. Jmccormac (talk) 01:01, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

C, but for the various reasons discussed at great length on Talk:Northern Ireland rather than the one presented above by the proposer. This issue has been talked to death, and is now being forum-shopped. Brocach (talk) 10:50, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

C per Brocach, the GFA is only one argument for this option, and its forum shopping bordering on disruptive behaviour ----Snowded ^TALK 10:54, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
B. I can't support "A" as the England, Scotland and Wales articles all have the UK's TLD. As an aside, I do love the attempts from the posters above to shut down any discussion that might change a status quo they're in favour of. How long before someone whips out the "drop the stick, back away from the dead horse" quip? We've already had "bordering on disruption"... — Jon C.^ॐ 11:35, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

B - Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, ".uk" is Northern Ireland's only country code top-level domain. ".ie" is the country code top-level domain of the republic of Ireland. It is misleading, inaccurate and offensive to include ".ie" which implies Northern Ireland is part of the Republic of Ireland. The key is in the name " country code top-level domain", the UK is a country, ROI is a country, under some definitions NI is a country.. but the island of Ireland is NOT a country and it does not have a " country code top-level domain". Reference to the Belfast agreement is completely irrelevant, the belfast agreement allowed people in NI to be Irish citizens, it did not cede Northern Ireland to the Irish republic, quite the opposite.. the agreement recognised that Northern Ireland was entirely part of the United Kingdom until such a time as the people vote to change that relationship. The body that assigns internet codes bases domains on ISO 3166-1 which clearly applies to sovereign states like the Republic of Ireland / United Kingdom. NOT to an island. No one arguing for ".ie" to remain has provided ANY evidence that ".ie" was assigned to the island, merely that the body responsible for the Irish domain allows people with a connection to NI to get a domain (but they do not have to be in Northern Ireland, they could be anywhere in the world), and people in NI can use many domain names. This is strictly about is ".ie" Northern Ireland's country domain... it is clearly not so its inclusion is wrong. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:20, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

NOTE - IANA (the authority responsible for assigning domains) "2) Country Codes - The IANA is not in the business of deciding what is and what is not a country. The selection of the ISO 3166 list as a basis for country code top-level domain names was made with the knowledge that ISO has a procedure for determining which entities should be and should not be on that list." - See the ISO_3166-1 for what countries are on the list and look at the map. It quite clearly shows IE is the Republic of Ireland, not the whole of the island. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:34, 23 January 2013 (UTC)