Talk:Estonia

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RfC - The geographic locale of Estonia[edit]

Although this article describes Estonia as just a Northern European country, several sources categorise Estonia as a part of Eastern/Central and Eastern Europe. For example;

  1. "Estonia". The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency.
  2. Saleem, Salman; Larimo, Jorma Antero; Ummik, Kadi; Kuusik, Andres. "Cultural and paradoxical values in advertising in Eastern Europe: Evidence from Estonia". Baltic Journal of Management.
  3. Krillo, Kerly; Masso, Jaan. "The Part-Time/Full-Time Wage Gap in Central and Eastern Europe: The Case of Estonia". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  4. Kitsing, Meelis. "Explaining E-Government Success in Estonia" (PDF). This paper offers an evaluation of e-government in Estonia, which is usually seen as the most outstanding exemplar in Central and Eastern Europe. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

Because of this, I propose to add 'Eastern Europe' mention in the lede. My proposal is;

"Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Eastern and Northern Europe."

Also, Italy article mentioning both Southern and Western Europe when describing Italy's geographic locale. In my point of view, this article should follow the similar way to Italy article. 117.53.77.84 (talk) 23:46, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose — Just looking at maps of the area, Tallinn seems to be closer to Helsinki than to any other European capital city. Even the old Russian capital city, St. Petersburg, is further from Helsinki. Certain Estonian islands are even nearer to Finland than is Tallinn. The E.U. considers Estonia part of Northern Europe. [1] So does the U.N. — Neonorange (talk to Phil) (he, they) 03:40, 21 November 2023 (UTC) —[reply]
    The United Nations geoscheme has several major flaws. For example, it considers the British Isles as part of Northern Europe, Iran as a part of South Asia, and Bouvet Island as a part of South America. Also, the United Nations Statistics Division notes that "the assignment of countries or areas to specific groupings is for statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other affiliation of countries or territories". Because of those factors, I think the UN geoscheme is an inappropriate tool to determine the geographic locale of a country or territory. 117.53.77.84 (talk) 04:23, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
All of which is WP:original research, no offense. On this project, when it comes to how to describe an encyclopedic topic, the question is what the WP:reliable sources say, and what WP:weight they give to specific perspectives. Our own logic in how we think the subject should be empirically defined is irrelevant, no matter how rational and well-reasoned we believe it to be. As such, your measurements of distances between capitals isn't really useful for resolving this editorial issue, unless the sources generally also happened to adopt the position that such metrics excluded Estonia from being a part of Eastern Europe--which I see no evidence of. SnowRise let's rap 05:44, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
By your own statement, 117.53.77.84's rationale for dismissing the United Nations geoscheme is WP:OR. Simply because they personally feel it is "flawed", doesn't make it so, as it is a reliable source. ExRat (talk) 06:10, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's correct: that element of the IP's argument was also OR. But that's immaterial to whether or not the !vote they were replying to was also predicated heavily on OR, which (again, meaning no personal offense to Neonorange), it heavily (indeed, entirely and paradigmatically) was. SnowRise let's rap 00:42, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. (Summoned by bot). There seems to be at least some support among some fairly major sources (primary and secondary) for the "eastern" label, in various contexts. Since the descriptors are not mutually exclusive in this context, I see no reason not to include both. If we wanted to add some finesse, we could make it "Northern European, and sometimes regarded to belong to Eastern Europe" with attribution, or something to that effect.
On a side note, to the OP/IP opening this discussion, please read WP:RFCNEUTRAL before your next RFC: the prompt/inquiry of the discussion should be a neutral description of the dispute and the options, and any arguments for why one approach or another is appropriate should then be put in a separate post that constitutes your own !vote. This separates an objective description of the editorial dispute/issue from your own perspective on how to resolve it. SnowRise let's rap 05:37, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, per nom, if many reliable sources describe Estonia as Eastern we cannot ignore it. Marcelus (talk) 05:50, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Comment: @Gitz6666, I'm not against your proposition, but do we have a source that describes Estonia as a country of [[Baltic region]? Marcelus (talk) 15:08, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, Baltic States is obviously well established and widespread (see e.g. Britannica) but also Baltic region is not uncommon or awkward, e.g. EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region and chapter The Baltic Region: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania in The Encyclopedia of European Migration and Minorities (Cambridge University Press). More references to the Baltic Region on googlebooks include titles such as Baltic Region—The Region of Cooperation, Environmental Challenges in the Baltic Region, Birds of the Baltic Region: Ecology and Migrations, The Baltic Region: A Study in Physical and Human Geography, etc- Gitz (talk) (contribs) 15:20, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, the classification of Estonia as an Eastern European country is controversial, as shown by source analysis. See in particular this source on various Latvian and Estonian politicians commenting on the UN decision to classify Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as Northern European countries: "This is where we belong". Per MOS:OPEN the "first paragraph should define or identify the topic with a neutral point of view". We should follow the example of Lithuania, which is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. I would avoid mentioning the controversial notions of "Eastern Europe" and "Northern Europe" in the opening paragraph and would only be concerned with letting the reader know where the country is geographically located. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:57, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Comment How is the desription of "Northern Europe" controversial? The controversy seems to be the description of "Eastern Europe" – and that controversy seems to be with editors, not from actual sources. I haven't seen any sources where umbrage is taken with Estonia being placed in Northern Europe (Nordic is different thing). ExRat (talk) 15:16, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I mean, the fact that the UN "reclassified" these states from Eastern European to Northern European demonstrates that there is considerable variation in perspectives here, which should be captured by the lead. I personally am strongly opposed to omitting either descriptor and, no offense to Gitz, I think they've turned WP:NPOV on its head there, because what that policy (and related guidelines) actually tells us to do when there is a controversy is to present said controversy and the competing perspectives, not hide it for expediency and a simpler narrative. Now maybe there is an argument to be made for having that conversation lower in the article and using "Baltic" as the sole descriptor in the lead, but it wouldn't be my first choice. That said, using just Baltic is preferable to using just "Northern European". SnowRise let's rap 18:51, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose and support Gitz's suggestion to follow the example of Lithuania.--Cukrakalnis (talk) 12:55, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose and support "Lithuania solution": "Estonia is a country in the Baltic Region of Europe". Tammbecktalk 14:45, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. There seems to be a lot of people mixing (outdated, IMO) geopolitical ideas with physical geography. As I stated above, UNESCO, EuroVoc, National Geographic Society, European Commission, Europol, Committee for International Cooperation in National Research in Demography, WorldAtlas, the STW Thesaurus for Economics, European Space Agency, U.S. Department of State, the Republic of Estonia itself, etc., all place Estonia geographically in Northern Europe. Many journals using "Eastern Europe" do so in geopolitical terms. The description in the lede is supposed to describe the country's physical location, not some geopolitical construct. The only sourced controversy in the two descriptions (Northern and Eastern) lies with the term Eastern. I can find few, if any, sourced "controversies" about Estonia being described as Northern European (sourced, not people arguing on Reddit or Quora). I vote it remains Northern Europe, which it is, geographically. ExRat (talk) 15:31, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"As I stated above, UNESCO, EuroVoc, National Geographic Society, European Commission, Europol, Committee for International Cooperation in National Research in Demography, WorldAtlas, the STW Thesaurus for Economics, European Space Agency, U.S. Department of State, the Republic of Estonia itself, etc., all place Estonia geographically in Northern Europe.
Well, there's some problems with your curated list there: it's mostly WP:PRIMARY sources, which are not ideal under policy for resolving issues of controversial labels. And specifically, most of those are bodies that are going to have a pretty profound bias against the "Eastern European" for historical and political reasons.
"There seems to be a lot of people mixing (outdated, IMO) geopolitical ideas with physical geography. . . Many journals using "Eastern Europe" do so in geopolitical terms. The description in the lede is supposed to describe the country's physical location, not some geopolitical construct.
The thing is, geography is inherently cultural and political when it comes to internal borders and divisions: no land mass of any significant size is spherical, such that you can divide it into neat quadrants or have one empirical rule for how to align an axis perfectly, and into this ambiguity, humanity has always pushed social, political, and cultural influences to make meaningful distinctions. This is heavily reflected throughout our article on Geography incidentally, the lead paragraph of which ends with "Geography has been called 'a bridge between natural science and social science disciplines.'"
More to the point for our purposes here and conformity with policy, we don't get to decide what metrics to employ in determining what the "correct" labels are, any more than we are permitted to directly decide which labels are more reasonable for any other reason. That's the job of the sources. Here, there sources are unquestionably divided, even if there is something a of a lean towards "Northern European" (in contemporary English sourcing anyway). As such, we should be describing the subject and the debate accordingly. Using all three labels in the lead is probably the most policy-consistent solution in my opinion, but Gitz's "Baltic as the sole label" proposal is the next best thing. SnowRise let's rap 19:12, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Abstain and keep the current wording "(Estonia) is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe (footnote)", i.e., for lead reading ease, proposing to add a footnote there that, geographically and geopolitically, Estonia is sometimes also considered part of Central Europe and Eastern Europe by several sources — both facts are already well referenced in respective Wikipedia articles (please see Geographical centre of Europe as well). Additional comment: "country by the Baltic Sea" is more precise in terms of physical location, more encyclopaedic and less ambivalent wording than "country in the Baltic Region". I vote Estonia remains Northern Europe, which it is, and the Baltic Sea remains Northern Europe, which it also is, geographically. 85.49.210.161 (talk) 21:22, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Farewell. This is the last edit on Wikipedia. After having received physical threats from (non-Estonian, non-Northern European) individuals, a serious word of caution to anybody who can read this: unknowingly revealing your IP or any other contact details can be dangerous. 85.49.210.161 (talk) 12:53, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose because Estonia and two other Baltic states: Latvia and Lithuania are classified as Northern Europe by the United Nations geoscheme for Europe (I think this is the top-level classification and other sources are less important). The only possible compromise could be "country in northeastern Europe" (as stated in the Encyclopedia Britannica, which is a WP:RS). What is absolutely certain: all three Baltic states are not located in Eastern Europe. -- Pofka (talk) 21:07, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Comment: @Pofka: Do you consider the United Kingdom and its Crown Dependencies and the Republic of Ireland as Northern European countries or territories? They are also classified as Northern Europe by the United Nations geoscheme for Europe. 117.53.77.84 (talk) 22:41, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Comment. The United Nations geoscheme is a reliable source. Simply because you personally disagree with their categorization doesn't make it not a reliable source. The United Nations geoscheme isn't the only body that classifies the UK and Republic of Ireland as Northern Europe. ExRat (talk) 22:56, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Comment: I mean the UK and Ireland classified as Western Europe or the unique Anglosphere region by the majority of sources. Maybe the UN geoscheme is a reliable source, but it's not the absolute source, and it has several major flaws, like classifying Iran as a part of South Asia, and Bouvet Island as a part of South America as I previously mentioned. Pofka said that he/she thought the UN geoscheme was the top-level classification and other sources were less important. That's why I left that reply. 117.53.77.84 (talk) 23:18, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I see no big problem to classify United Kingdom and Ireland as Northern Europe because they are as much in the north as Denmark (only the southern part of England is below Denmark). Scottish capital Edinburgh is more to the north than Danish capital Copenhagen. Overall, United Kingdom probably is a Northwestern country, but large part of it (likely the larger part) is in the north. By the way, I would support Lithuania's solution in Estonia's case as well (to include a note with different evaluations of its geographic location per different sources). -- Pofka (talk) 20:02, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    The UK and especially Ireland are both proportionally further west of the central point of continental longitude than they are north of the continent's central latitude. So you see why we can't rely on these "eyeballing" sorts of assessment and idiomatic arguments, right?
    More to the point, even if your reasoning were rock solid and everyone here agreed with you that you had found the most important metrics and developed them flawlessly, it would still be immaterial to resolving the editorial issue here. Because even if we did all agree with you down to the smallest detail, all of that you just argued above would still be WP:Original research. It might be most rational and well-considered conclusion in the world, but if it comes from your own reasoning, rather than the sources, it's still OR. Conversely, even if we found the bulk of sources on the topic to be filled with logical errors, or bad priorities, or foolish arguments, we'd still have to go with presenting those positions/labels in accordance with the WP:WEIGHT they appear in, in the WP:RS. SnowRise let's rap 03:20, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - (Summoned by bot) Largely per what Gitz has said. I think it should be mentioned in the article somewhere with appropriate contextualization but not in the lede itself. - Aoidh (talk) 18:26, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Comment: @Aoidh: Shall we count your opinion as supporting "Lithuania solution"? 117.53.77.84 (talk) 19:09, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. The Lithuania solution seems best. DrowssapSMM (talk) (contributions) 22:21, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. The article seems to discuss influence from Northern Europe more than Eastern Europe. Senorangel (talk) 00:06, 29 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - and support the 'Lithuania' model proposed by Gitz avoid mentioning the controversial notions of "Eastern Europe" and "Northern Europe" in the opening paragraph and … only be concerned with letting the reader know where the country is geographically located. The competing 'regional descriptors' seem so vast anyway as to be insufficient geographic or cultural locators - including both would only worsen the generality. Pincrete (talk) 13:10, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support Estonia is, like Latvia and Lithuania, a post-Soviet state. The fundamentals are all derived from the East, from the demographic and government structure to the fact that the biggest highlight of Estonia's capital, Tallinn, is an Eastern Orthodox church. I don't deny that Estonia is part of Western civilization but it is simply not Northern Europe. Unless... :) We stop considering Russia itself to be Eastern Europe and recognize it as Northern Europe instead! With Eastern Europe then disappearing like a mirage... :P just kidding
79.191.153.61 (talk) 06:07, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
By that same logic we could also say that Finland should be categorized as Eastern Europe because it used to be a part of Russia. Saying that a country should be categorized as Eastern Europe because it used to be a part of Soviet Union makes no sense. Countries are classified by where they are geographically, not whether they used to be a part of that monstrosity or not. This argument is ludicrous. Even more, Russia is very hard to categorize as it's a humongously massive country making this argument even more ridiculous. MylowattsIAm (talk) 16:21, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. While there seem to be dispute over the classification, it does not seem such a contentious topic that we somehow need to avoid it entirely in the lede. Grouping countries into this kind of categories is pretty arbitrary anyway, if multiple reliable sources classify them differently, we can just include both in the description. Honestly, omission seem rather an insincere way to approach this topic. Tutwakhamoe (talk) 21:41, 16 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I'm in favor of the Lithuania solution. Nemov (talk) 15:46, 19 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. So...Latvia, a country directly south of Estonia, is Northern Europe. Yet, Estonia is not. Yeah, this made it all so much better. ExRat (talk) 05:38, 24 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Just call them Northeastern Europe and move on. Undashing (talk) 06:39, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. (I'm didn't want to involve / take part here in this RfC, however,) regarding multiple unilateral changes by @Undashing:Undashing (talk) especially this Estonia article which RfC still ongoing and not closed yet, Undashing unilaterally change without RfC closure, Undashing please don't change without waiting for RfC to be completed. Thanks. --- Cat12zu3 (talk) 07:50, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Since most organizations, including the most important global organizations, some of which the Baltics are a member of categorize Estonia as Northern Europe then it would make the most sense to leave Northern Europe as the primary classification. And then there is the clickable thingy next to the statement where you can see that some also classify it as eastern for some reason. So the lead sentence says Northern Europe and you can click the thing and see the additional info, that's what I mean. It makes sense why the Baltics are categorized as northern europe, since they're literally on the same latitude as southern Sweden and Estonia itself is even above Denmark which is classified as northern. So the Baltics states are, without a doubt, primarily Nothern and so the lead sentence should say northern. --- mylowattsIAm (talk) 19:50, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Religion[edit]

The avoidance of any mention of Soviet suppression of religion is so startling as to raise the suspicion of propaganda. 伟思礼 (talk) 04:22, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@伟思礼 Conversely, it may be due to the absence of reliable sources. —C.Fred (talk) 04:24, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Lithuania was also under soviet domination but stay majorly christian... Respublica1810 (talk) 12:46, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Why can't we just call them Northeastern Europe?[edit]

Jesus christ, is that too hard? It will solve the North Europe or Eastern Europe issue. Undashing (talk) 22:01, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Palojärv" listed at Redirects for discussion[edit]

The redirect Palojärv has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 March 22 § Palojärv until a consensus is reached. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 17:09, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Change tab "Independence from Russia and Germany" to Formation[edit]

Following the example of the article about Lithuania, change the tab "Independence from Russia and Germany" to "Formation" and by adding the first mention of Estonia as Aestii with the addition of a link to the tab 'Early Middle Ages' in the article 'History of Estonia. Pronto20 (talk) 23:04, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Palojärv (disambiguation)" listed at Redirects for discussion[edit]

The redirect Palojärv (disambiguation) has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 April 5 § Palojärv (disambiguation) until a consensus is reached. signed, Rosguill talk 20:18, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

RfC - Another "Northern" or "Eastern" issue[edit]

An IP user added a description like 'geographiclly located in Northern Europe' in the lede. (1, 2, 3, 4) I think it violates "Lithuania solution", the consensus which is made in the previous talk. (#RfC - The geographic locale of Estonia) I request other users' opinions for this issue. Do you support or oppose to add this description? 117.53.77.84 (talk) 15:13, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@117.53.77.84 Comment(Summoned by bot) Don't see a problem with replacing 'geographically located in Northern Europe' with 'geographically located in Northern and Eastern Europe' --Louis P. Boog (talk) 19:37, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't participated in the above RfC, but it is not immediately obvious to me that the "Lithuania solution" is the clear consensus.
In any case, I don't have a problem with Estonia's geographic location being described as "Northern Europe" or "Northern and Eastern Europe" (although "Central Europe" is a bit much). Both options seem a bit more informative to a global audience than simply "Baltic region". Although we could also follow the Latvia article and write it as "a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe". In fact, that seems like the best option, for the lede at least. Indrek (talk) 05:19, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment(Summoned by bot), the present text seems well phrased, except the "geographically" is - at best - redundant. "Located" ordinarily means "physically (ie geographically) placed" so the word is acting as a PoV comment on other ways to classify. If Estonia is classified as belonging in various 'broad sweep' world regions, then the who and why of those classifications seems useful. I cannot comment on the present accuracy, since no sources are provided.Pincrete (talk) 14:00, 18 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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