Talk:South Ossetia

Incorrect and poorly visible map

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The map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Ossetia#/media/File:Asia_location_South_Ossetia_(with_Georgia_and_Abkhazia).png is way too zoomed out, the dark green spot is entirely invisible, even on a laptop, let alone a phone, although the map is called "Location South Ossetia", which is precisely what it does not show.

And because there are no "light grey" zone visible in Georgia under the whole greyish hash that is over all of Georgia, viewers will think that you meant "hashed grey", and so it looks like South Ossetia (for those who found the dark green spot) is in the same hashed grey zone as Abkhazia, which is terribly confusing and wrong. There is just no way that the viewers can know that the whole hashed grey zone represents all of Georgia, especially since there are over 16 unnamed countries in this picture, Georgia being only about 3% of the whole picture! Or even worse, the viewer will think that the only visible light grey zone is Abkhazia while it is actually Crimea.

I suggest to have Georgia fill out the whole picture dimensions. Maybe add a light background color rather than a hash over the whole of Georgia, and the neighboring country names, or at least Russia's. Adding the capital Tbilisi's location and the only 2 main roads in all of Western Georgia would also help locate occupied South Ossetia, which is just east of the Caucasus mountain road.

I suppose Wikipedia has standards for maps, but the dark blue spots that represent the seas and lakes are actually all that you see in the picture. They pop out so visibly that you'd think they are the highlighted zones for the picture if you don't know the geography for this region (and if you do, you don't need the map). A light blue color for the seas, maybe with a wavy pattern rather than a color as solid as the colors used for land, would make the highlighted land mass zones stand out immediately, especially if they are identified by flashy colors like red.

A bit of work, so I hope there is a standard editable wikipedia world map that can be used to easily highlight and locate this area. The large focus also makes the map obsolete if Crimea and the DPR/LPR self-proclaimed republics and also occupied Russian territories are present, as occupation lines move quickly... Chimel31 (talk) 14:35, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

There are good available overview location maps (and details) in the more adequate SVG file format. No need to create new ones.

For example, this one works fine for me on the phone (checked it in the page in preview mode). The same yet alternative with hatch for Georgia doesn't work as well.

As closeup, for infobox property image_map2 I would suggest this one

Or this one

Labrang (talk) 17:45, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure I see much of a difference between the currently used File:Asia_location_South_Ossetia_(with_Georgia_and_Abkhazia).png and File:South Ossetia in its region (non-independent).svg (is it the different format?) so I'm fine with either one of them. Alaexis_¿question? 06:14, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

Added the current map to the top of this convo for reference. I agree the proposed File:South Ossetia in its region (non-independent).svg seems much the same with more distinct colours. I don't think there's a need to reflect the ongoing war. CMD (talk) 08:04, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

Y - Done yesterday as I proposed above, as a newly added map earlier last weekend has been nominated for deletion for being erroneous. Labrang (talk) 10:51, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• National Anthem of South Ossetia.ogg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 10:23, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:

• National Anthem of South Ossetia.ogg

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 10:24, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

United Nations

We say in the article that South Ossetia is "recognised by the United Nations as de jure part of Georgia" and that "the United Nations consider the territory part of Georgia". There is no reference for either statement. I suggested we either find a reference for these statements or remove them.

We also say in the infobox "Recognised by 5 out of 193 member states of the United Nations". Again there is no supporting reference for that statement. This article from The Conversation (a green-tick source) says "Besides Russia, only four other United Nations members have recognized its independence: Nicaragua, Venezuela, Syria and Nauru".[1] I have added the reference as verification of the statement. Burrobert (talk) 03:07, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

For the 2nd point, there was already a reference for that in the intro section.

. "Only Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Nauru, and Syria recognise South Ossetia as a sovereign state.[9]" Labrang (talk) 22:44, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

There is no such thing as "recognition by the United Nations". The United Nations is a membership body that essentially provides a forum for its members to work together. Whereas the ability to recognise sovereignty is an attribute of sovereign states only.

Yes, it is sometimes argued that by offering one of many flavours of membership, the organisation essentially recognises that member as a sovereign country. But this more of a state practice than a binding document. Also, the only legally binding UN documents are SC resolutions, and they never concern any "recognition of sovereignty" (instead, see e.g. this on South Sudan). — kashmīrī ^TALK 23:41, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

First paragrph needs more NPOV

The first paragraph seems to have a bias towards a certain status of the country. It doesn't accurately portrays it because it seems to make the idea that South Ossetia is practically a recognized state, with no mention otherwise in the first paragraph. The info about non-recognition starts in the second paragraph below, which doesn't really provide proper balance, specially when the country is only recognized by very few countries. I tried reflecting this by changing "partially recognised" to "mostly unrecognised" but such change was manually reverted by User:Kashmiri. Regards, --Thinker78 (talk) 23:14, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Infobox status

@Nikkimaria, why do you think that the status field is not the right place to say that only 5 countries recognise South Ossetia? This is not covered elsewhere in the infobox. There is nothing in the description at Template:Infobox_country that contradicts it. Alaexis_¿question? 15:52, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

That parameter is used to describe the country's status in the sense of whether it is a territory or dependency, not to enumerate its recognition by other countries. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:36, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

i agreed with your change here, however it would be nice for that to be clarified on the template doc. perhaps a discussion at Template talk:Infobox country to iron it out would be good ... sawyer * he/they * talk 00:24, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, I still think it's worth mentioning it and that it's a good place to do it but overall it's not that important. Alaexis_¿question? 12:26, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

The bigger problem with the infobox is that it implies that South Ossetia actually is independent from Georgia. — Red XIV ^(talk) 20:05, 8 September 2024 (UTC)