Talk:Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of the Organizations WikiProject, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of organizations. We are developing a framework that will sort every category by location, field, ideology, and type. We need a few more people to help coordinate this ambitious project. If you have any technical experience with templates, or just have an interest in the topic, add your name, and check out the talk page to get involved.

This article has been improved by the Cleanup Taskforce to conform with a higher standard of quality. Please see its Cleanup Taskforce page for more details on this process, and possible ideas on how you can further improve this article!

Contents 1 Northern hemisphere 2 map 3 Conventional Forces in Europe 4 OSCEwatch 5 OSCE Magazine and 2005 annual report 6 Coöperation — standardised and less awkward? 7 Discussion area for the request for the movement of Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to Organization for Security and Coöperation in Europe 8 Requested move 8.1 Survey 8.2 Discussion 9 CSCE vs. OSCE: Problem with Redirect 10 Work in Progress 11 Criticism of OSCE

[edit] Northern hemisphere

First paragraph: "In its region, which covers most of the northern hemisphere," It think that's a bit misleading given China and India (for example) are in the northern hemisphere, and are not members. How about "much of the northern hemisphere"? And/or move the map higher up, above the index links.

[edit] map

maybe someone could include a map showing the member states?

[edit] Conventional Forces in Europe

The following text was merged into the section on history. The article has been deleted and redirected here. Ganymead 02:57, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe

Keen to gain international recognition of its sphere of interest and believing that such recognition would solidify its grip on its East European satellite states, the Soviet Union, beginning in the early 1970s, sponsored an initiative calling for the convening of a Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). For the West, such meetings meant the possibility of tying the Soviet Union and its satellites to an international security system, thereby lessening tensions, furthering economic cooperation, and obtaining humanitarian improvements for the people of Eastern Europe. The first of the series of conferences opened in July 1973 in Helsinki and was attended by the foreign ministers of the thirty-five member states. At the conference's final meeting in 1975, the heads of state of all member countries were in attendance for the signing of the Final Act, or the Helsinki Accords.

As subsequent CSCE conferences showed, Soviet officials had totally underestimated the effect of the provisions for the exchange of information, which allowed for the unscrambled reception of Western media broadcasts within the geographic area of the Warsaw Pact countries. East Germans benefited especially from access to West German radio and television programs, which furnished previously unobtainable news about world events. Television viewers in the East also became aware of an obviously far superior standard of living in the West and developed a new awareness of the deficiencies of the communist regime, an awareness that fifteen years later led to the events that brought down that regime.

This should not have been merged. It appears to be a copyright violation from [1]. --Anon 12:35, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] OSCEwatch

The external link to OSCEwatch looks inappropriate: this is a private group, with controversial (pro-russian) views. It seems that the only reason for the link is that OSCEwatch has 'OSCE' in its name.

Should we remove the link ?

[edit] OSCE Magazine and 2005 annual report

I am in regular receipt of the OSCE Magazine (whose subscription anyone in the participating states can request, gratis) and have just received the OSCE 2005 annual report. Perhaps I will add something later.... – Kaihsu 20:31, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Coöperation — standardised and less awkward?

The website of OSCE says "Co-operation". Nearly no-one uses the spelling Coöperation and no English speaker is ever going to type it.

Sure it's cooler with the Heavy metal umlaut, but there's no real reason for it here. Please correct me if I'm wrong. --Amir E. Aharoni 06:38, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

The “standardised” comment referred to my instituting the diaeretic spelling throughout the article, to conform with its use in the title. The three correct alternative ways to spell the single word expressing the same meaning as the phrase “joint operation” are (in alphabetical order) “co-operate”, “cooperate”, and “coöperate”; true, “awkward” is a subjective judgement, but if I may share with you my rationale for changing the spelling to the latter of the three, perhaps you will agree...

The reason for not using “cooperate” is fairly obvious; the typical pronunciation for ‘oo’ is /uː/, which leads some people to stumble over this word, as it is correctly pronounced /koʊˈɒ.pə.ɹeɪt/, and not /ˈkuː.pə.ɹeɪt/ — English is difficult enough to spell already without adding yet another exception.

Hyphens, I believe, are best done away with as soon as possible in single words, being most useful in making compound neologisms more readable. However, “co-operate” is certainly not a neologism, and is familiar to most people fluent in English; therefore, retaining the hyphen is unnecessary (except for the pronunciatory reason given above). Hyphenated single words, in my opinion, look awkward, and are made even worse when adding another affix; “co-operate” and “co-operative” may seem fine to you, but how about “unco-operative”?

Therefore, the best of both worlds is found in “coöperate”, which looks like a whole word (no problem with “uncoöperative”, for example), whilst avoiding the distracting pronunciation problems (at first, at least) of using a second unaccented ‘o’. The diaeresis in “coöperate” has the same function as the one in “naïve” (which without the diaeresis would be pronounced /neɪv/ instead of /næˈiːv/) — to indicate that the vowel pair are not a digraph.

True, a number of readers will be unfamiliar with the usage, so, if you want, I’ll add an explanatory sentence in italics with a link at the top of both pages that I’ve moved. What do you say? Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 10:44, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm all for Co-operation, because that's the form that the organization itself uses.

Wikipedia:Manual of Style says that the spelling in the article should follow the culture of the article's subject. The subject here is OSCE, and the OSCE spells it co-operation.

And what about OECD? --Amir E. Aharoni 11:19, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorted. I suppose that you have a point. Although doesn’t that apply to color/colour and organisation/organization disputes? ~That is, in cases where the choice is entirely arbitrary, and there is no argument like the one above that can be given on either side?

Anyway, do you think the explanatory preface is necessary or not? Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 12:20, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I do not think that the Manual of Style applies in this situation. This is a functional, non-partisan spelling. Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 12:31, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia could make hundreds of obfuscatory changes to its spelling practices to make English spelling "less awkward", sure, but it's just an unnecessary idiosyncracy of Wikipedia style that editors would have to follow and that readers would be clueless on. There's hardly any publication still around (the New Yorker being an exception) that uses diaereses for assimilated English words like cooperate. At best it was a fad practice, probably based on the model of French.

Performing a Google search for cooperation in theory returns every instance of cooperation, co-operation, and coöperation—but if you perform the search you'll have to go back at least a dozen pages before you hit coöperation. People just don't use it anymore, and readers are therefore not used to seeing it. It's the product of the same sort of pointless pedantry that insists, for example, of keeping the ligature in œsophagus or the circumflex on rôle. Strad 04:20, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I support the move to "co-operation" for the reasons above. Peter O. (Talk) 00:30, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

If there are no objections I will move the page back and remove the diaereses around 00:00 18 September UTC Strad 15:45, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I object. Strad’s objection centres on readers’ unfamiliarity with this use of the diaeresis; this is remedied if the abovementioned explanatory preface is added. I will add such a preface very soon (a few hours’ time at most). No one has yet repudiated my argument as to the functional superiority of the diaeretic spelling of coöperate, as well as others. Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 23:04, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

An explanation is just unnecessary and irrelevant clutter. The far more elegant solution is to use accepted spellings (which function perfectly fine, since everyone uses them) instead of trying to impose pet spellings and then having to explain them to everyone. Strad 23:33, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

The explanatory preamble has been added. I fail to see how it clutters the article any more than the disambiguation link already does. Anyway, why the objection to educating people? Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 00:00, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

You have not adequately answered my defences and criticisms; therefore, I am moving the article back. Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 00:17, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

WP:ASR. —Ruud 00:23, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion area for the request for the movement of Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to Organization for Security and Coöperation in Europe

[edit] CSCE vs. OSCE: Problem with Redirect

The acronym 'CSCE' currently redirects here, but this shouldn't be the case (I'm not entirely sure how to fix it). While the CSCE, or Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, is closely related to the OSCE it is actually a US Government agency that helps 'monitor and encourage compliance with the agreements of the OSCE' and is not, in fact, the same thing as the OSCE. If someone could fix this, it would be appreciated. --The Way 06:38, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, I've had a go at this. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe is now a new stub page, please help expand it. CSCE was already an acronym page, which I've added Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe to. That page also mentions something called "Conference for Security and Co-operation in Europe". Should the OSCE page mention Conference for Security and Co-operation in Europe somewhere on it? Francis Irving 07:31, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Work in Progress

Please note the Activities section is not complete. It is quite a large undertaking. I will have the rest of it very shortly. Please bear with me as I continue to add segments. Buffadren 09:59, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Section 2 inserted outlining the ecomonic / environmental activities, I will finish this in a few days,Buffadren 15:10, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

All activities sections finished.Buffadren 18:57, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism of OSCE

Much like the United Nations an organisation like the OSCE cannot exist without some critiicism. I have inserted a section of some more noted criticisms in recent times and ongoing. It is not my intention to criticise the excellent work of the OSCE.We cannot ignore the negatives either. Buffadren 20:03, 5 March 2007 (UTC)