Talk:Territory of Papua

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I was appalled to discover the extent of ignorance here on the 'pedia about this region just now.

Daeron messaged me today to ask for my help or advice on something to do with West Papua. I'm not sure what, as I half-read his note while opening up the link he provided and discovered — to my absolute astonishment — that the entry on the western half of New Guinea — i.e., the area formerly colonised by the Dutch and now controlled by Indonesia — was titled Papua.

Now as every schoolboy knows, Papua is the area south of the Owen Staney Ranges. The Territory of Papua and the Territory of New Guinea (the area north of the ranges) were joined together in 1949 to make up Papua New Guinea. Papua is the southern half, New Guinea is the northern half.

It seems that the Javanese government has now decided to rename a completely different area (the former West Irian) to Papua. One does not have to be Albert Einstein to work out the motivation: they already have the western half of the island, why not give it a new name that quietly implies that the eastern half belongs to them as well?

Well, it is our task as Wikipedians to simply report, not to comment, so normally we follow every official name change faithfully. In this case, however, that option is simply not available. The name Papua already applies to somewhere else, and has done since before any of us were alive.

OK, someone came along and renamed the "West Papua" or "West Irian" entry to "Papua" - doubtless in all good faith. That's OK. Mistakes happen. But nobody noticed! (No, not me either.) But the really appalling thing is what I observed as I was sorting out the mess of misdirected links after I renamed the West Papua article and created this one. There were all sorts of stupid and nonsensical links, that clearly demonstrated that most people hadn't the faintest idea of the geography. Tannin 09:44, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Heh, "as every schoolboy knows" should maybe be modified to "as every Australian schoolboy knows". I doubt many outside Australia or Indonesia know much about New Guinea geography or politics - we have to rely on you to tell us what's what! Stan 13:55, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yeah .... and we let you down. I'm ashamed of us. Tannin

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