Talk:Greece

Why arent ancient/medieval Greek Kingdoms like the Macedonian Empire, Byzantine Empire, Myceneans, Minoans, Cycladics, Greek City States and so on included in the „Establishment“ part of the info box?

Almost every other country has a bigger establishment section with kingdoms from antiquity or middle ages till present being listed in the establishment part of the info box. One of the only countrys who dont is Greece. DaManFrFr (talk) 00:44, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

None of the entities you listed amounted to a state of "Greece". Several of them weren't even "states" to begin with. The first time in history there actually was a state called Greece was in 1830. And even independently of the name, there never was any single state whose territory was even roughly coextensive with what is now Greece either. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:09, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

But where a kingdom was situated or what its name was shouldnt matter as long as it was ruled by Greeks and spoke Greek. Like Georgia wasnt called Georgia till the 10th century, yet its establishment section spans until the Kingdom of Colchis(13th century BC) although not having the same name as current Georgia and also not having the same territory as modern Georgia. DaManFrFr (talk) 10:59, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Well, no. That section is about the establishment process of the present-day Greek state, not more and not less. There are certain cases where such a history legitimately goes a long way back (think of present-day France, which actually has an unbroken continuity of state-hood from the early medieval Frankish kingdom), and there may be cases where it makes sense to include earlier predecessor kingdoms even in the absence of direct continuity, if these can be shown to have served as historical models for later modern nation-building (think of medieval "Poland", "Bulgaria" etc.) But just because some historical entity was X-speaking or ruled by members of ethnicity X doesn't automatically make it part of the establishment of a modern state of X. The Georgia page you cited is just a very bad example – Wikipedians sometimes do poorly-thought-out things, and just because they did that on one article isn't a reason to do the same on another. Much better models to consider would be the articles on Italy, where the establishment section legitimately begins in 1861, or Iraq, where it starts in 1932. That's as it should be. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:33, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

I am in agreement that infoboxes in articles about contemporary states should only present "establishment process of the present-day" states, and this does indeed justify harckening back to much earlier times only in those cases of "unbroken continuity" for many centuries as is the case of France. However, Future Perfect at Sunrise introduces another criterion of inclusion, stating that "there may be cases where it makes sense to include earlier predecessor kingdoms even in the absence of direct continuity, if these can be shown to have served as historical models for later modern nation-building (think of medieval "Poland", "Bulgaria" etc.)". I think that, were this criterion to be adopted also in the case of Greece, references to events about the establishment (and disestablishment) of the eastern Roman Empire should be included in the article's infobox. For, the Byzantine Empire clearly served as a historical moden for the modern Greek state during the first century of its existence, in terms of the construction of a legal system for the modern Greek nation-state, of its national ideology and the goals of foreign policy. Since this is taken to be across the encyclopedia the standard for inclusion , as it truly seems to be, judging by the infoboxes of articles on Turkey, Bulgaria, Albania and Bulgaria (i.e. almost all countries bordering Greece along with Serbia), then it seems reasonable to adopt the same (in my personal view erroneous) criterion in the case of Greece as well and include events relating to the establishment of the eastern Roman Empire in the infobox. Ashmedai 119 (talk) 14:12, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Problem with "too long" tag

@Nikkimaria

The fact that other countries' articles are much larger in size, but bear no "too long to read" tag, makes your edit somewhat "unfair".

Greece's article is currently —2 Novemer 2023— at 313,954 bytes

Examples of country-articles exceeding Greece's byte-size but having no tag:
India, a featured article of 315,818 bytes,
Israel (at 402,037 bytes),
The United Stated (316,851 bytes),
China (at 352,561 bytes) and more.

Excuse my tone, but unless you manage to provide me with a rationale supporting your edit, or with a set of suggestions on improving the article by properly reducing its size, and if you are unwilling or unable to explain why the other articles bear no such tag, I'll have to revert your edit as unjustifiable and/or biassed.
Thank you, L'Orfeo^{Son io} 13:29, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Article size is measured in readable prose rather than raw byte count. By that metric this is the longest of the articles you mention - nearly double India. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:35, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria, Thank you for your swift answer, and, again, excuse my somewhat defensive tone. I was unaware of the means of assessment. This being considered, the comparisons I made above do not hold up. In any case, the prose could be reduced in a manner that the meaning is not shattered. In time, maybe, I'll try. L'Orfeo^{Son io} 22:18, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Transcontinental country?

This article has the Transcontinental countries category, but is only listed (and considered) as a country in Europe. Shouldn't it be removed? Deiadameian (talk) 14:54, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, it should. Cinadon36 07:46, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Actually, the description of Greece as a "transcontinental" country is still also in the article (in the geography section), and conversely the country is also still mentioned in the List of transcontinental countries article. I have no strong feelings either way whether it should be – in one sense it clearly is, factually, transcontinental, but on the other hand it is very rarely described as such in outside sources for all I can see. We may need to live with the fact that there is no commonly accepted definition of the term and, more importantly, no factually consistent practice of using it out there. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:48, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

On the page's categorization, it is only listed as "Countries in Europe" (compare to both Portugal and Spain being also listed as "Countries in North Africa"). What I am saying is, a country can't both be transcontinental and also only belong in one contintent at the same time. Deiadameian (talk) 13:20, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree it's not super-consistent, but there's no law that requires us to be consistent when there is no consistency in real-world usage in the first place. I don't think readers would expect to find Greece in a category of "countries in Asia". Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:53, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Which means that readers won't expect to find Greece in a category of "Transcontinental countries" either. Like I said, a country can't be transcontinental when it's associated with only one continent, like Greece is. Deiadameian (talk) 15:37, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Thing is: Greece is technically a transcontinental country. But the amount of Asian territory it holds is disproportionately smaller compared to the European territory it holds. Plus it doesn't help the fact that these "Asian islands" in question, are so, in a geographical context only; they still are politically and culturally considered to be part of Europe. Just like Cyprus which is Asian geographically, but European in every other way. This unique case makes it too complicated to simply apply the standard encyclopedic criteria here. But in either way, it cannot be questioned that term "transcontinental" here is used in a purely geographical context, and that some of Greece's territories, such as Kastellorizo, are indeed, part of the Asian continent. So the best solution to all this is to simply accept the fact that Greece is transcontinental in a geographical context, but avoid giving it more significance than there is about it. It only complements to the well-established fact that the country is geopolitically noted for being situated at the crossroads of the continents. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 02:27, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Just for the fun of it: In the 1990s, this sign stood in the harbour of Kastellorizo, the 9 square km Greek island that most certainly technically is in Asia, lying just 2 km off the Turkish coast and 125 km from the nearest Greek land. The text down right states proudly: “Europe starts here” --T*U (talk) 11:24, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Trimming "History" section

Tpbradbury has recently trimmed the article as it was too long. I have reverted some parts of his edits in the article's "History" section for reasons that are explained in the summary of each of my edits and trimmed other parts trying to explain in my edits's summaries why it is preferable to delete or shorten these other sentences or phrases instead of others. Regards, Ashmedai 119 (talk) 17:18, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Article definitely needs to be summarized much better with whole sections consolidated. 58 sections here vs 36 at an FA level article like Canada or 41 for an ancient civilization like this one at Japan. The history section could be cut in half and section like economy should be reduced to four paragraphs....Economy in FA articles are usually four or five paragraphs....not 7 or 8 sections... Is it relevant how many fishing ships there were over a decade ago.... Or when 4G and 5G service was made available? We could summarize the debt crisis in a sentence or two. See Canada#Economy for a good example. Military history is as odd section to have..... If military actions were relevant enough they should be in the history section.... Again an example of way too much history here.Moxy🍁 20:45, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

I understand Ashmedai's comment. It is logical that when a user boldly undertakes the task of reducing an artcile's size without prior discussion or adequate explanation, they might end up removing parts that another user may find important. Generally, the "trimminng" so far seems okay; it is mostly trimming of superfluous wording and making sentences more concise. There might still be some trivial information in parts like the economy, politics etc. (as Moxy pointed out) that could be condensed. For example, the Dept Crisis section continues to be disproportionately huge, compared to other sections; I'm not even sure it needs to be a separate section in the first place (as Moxy said, even a few sentences could be sufficient). Some sections seem to have a lot of paragraphs consisting of only a few sentences. Perhaps these need to be condesed into fewer, solid paragraphs. I guess, we'll see how it goes. Piccco (talk) 15:12, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I do not mean to question the need to somehow shorten this article. But I doubt that "The history section could be cut in half", as Moxy claims, without detrimental effects to the article's quality. The article on Israel (which is comparable as it concerns a newly founded nation-state which traces its history to past millenia) seems to have a "History" section with as many subsections as this article. Neither do I agree that "the "trimming" so far seems okay", as far as the "History" section is concerned. This has been done in a matter that is hasty, since editors started chopping off important information (that has to be restored) without first bothering to locate and delete repetitions, and in a manner that betrays that editors involved lack either even superficial knowledge of or a genuine interest for the article's subject -- editing the article in a matter that it stated that the 4th of August Regime lasted until 1974... The process so far has been exceptionally uneven with information on the foundational event of the modern Greek nation-state, the Greek Revolution, covered in less text than is devoted to the performance of various sport teams. That is, I can't understand why the trimming has been focused on the section on History and not e.g. on "Economy" or "Sports" or the sections on "Philosophy" and "Mythology" which deal almost entirely with the pre-modern past and not with the modern nation-state, which is the article's main topic. I am thus removing the "too long" template from the article's section on History. Ashmedai 119 (talk) 12:12, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Ashmedai, I understand you and I agree that the history does not need further trimming. Just like you, I was a little more concerned about that section specifically (eventhough I didn't state it in my previous comment), because as already mentioned, during the trimming important information could end up being removed in the process. Due to the very large size of the recently removed content, I haven't been able to very carefully look at what is being removed. I agree that the war of independence might need more coverage; perhaps even the 'early history' section might've also been trimmed a bit too much (?). In any case, based on the current statistics, the article is not anymore in major need of trimming and the removal of the "too long" tags is appropriate. Piccco (talk) 14:49, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Ashmedai, I just wanted to explain myself a bit regarding a few edits I recently made. In regards to the "economic miracle" sentence in the introduction; I did not really intend to imply that the economic growth and the restoration of democracy were somehow linked; that's why I did not re-add the older wording, which included the word 'nonetheless'. I just thought that the first sentense of the last paragraph would become a bit crowded with even more information being added, but If you think it's better there, I don't really have strong opinions about this. Regarding the League of Corinth; I just thought the organization itself is definitely remarkable enough to have a reference in the paragraph. By "united" I had in mind not one state, of course, but mainly military unity. In any case, perhaps a better wording could be found for that too. Piccco (talk) 21:43, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Piccco, thank you for your message. There is talk in the literature of the participation in the campaign against the Persian Empire having a unifying effect, but at the same time Walbank, "The Problem of Greek Nationality", Phoenix 5, 2 writes among others about the League of Corinth being the "supposedly great moment of Greek unification" (p. 43), comments on "The difficulty involved in transforming such a war-alliance into an instrument of political unification in time of peace" adding that "any attempt by the hegemon -the war-leader- to centralize political power was always felt by the rest to be an encroachment and an abuse" (p. 50), and argues (ibid.) that "if there is any practical trace of unity in fourth century Greece, it was realized in the coalition which Demosthenes raised against Philip. For the next hundred and fifty years the one constant basis of common action in Greece is hostility towards Macedon" and that "The Macedonian controlled Leagues from 338 down to 224 were debarred from fostering unity in Greece precisely because they were Macedonian. Their political structure was often admirable. Both the League of Philip II and the League of Antigonus Doson have been praised as being among the most statesmanlike achievements of their kind in world history; but both stood for outside domination" (pp. 53-4). All together, taken into account along with the terms used in the sources already cited in the article's relevant passage, seem to me to make the use of the term rather problematic. Ashmedai 119 (talk) 20:41, 24 April 2024 (UTC)