And they say we, Poles, have a dry sense of humour. Let me guess Milos, you
are on purpouse mixing up two definitions of the "White Sea" (Бело
море / Belo More) in Serbian. :P
Coming back to the question of Yaroslav: this issue comes up regularily and
I find it perfectly valid.
Two years ago in Milan we had a quite heated discussion on this topic. The
problem is that "the global south" is a yet another widespread and
well-intended but inherently lame euphemism for "poor countries" also known
as "the third world", a.k.a. "developing countries" a.k.a. something
different whatever comes handy. Unfortunately, euphemisms bring big
problems on their own.
One huge problem with this division is its heroic simplicity, mixing up
economic differences with social and cultural issues and splitting the
world into white and black, no grey.
Second thing is its mix of geography with socioeconomic issues which leads
to confusions, even in classification by e.g. ITU.
Third thing is: it is arbitrary as no firm metric or threshold is given.
Contrary to the claim, the Wikimedia list is *not* solely based on ITU list
and UN list (what can be actually better, because according to ITU and UN
M49 Bosnia and Hercegovina is "North", when Hongkong, Macau and South Korea
are.. South!).
Certainly, everything can be managable when you remember about the
questionable definitions and build your strategies upon a more refined
thinking. It would be _bad_ if this tag was used as a "support more / less"
flag and financial decisions on particular projects and people were heavily
based upon this underexplained and arbitrary list.
// Side note: even in case of Wikimania 2015 I am aware of at least one
example of a "global northerner" refused a visa to Mexico, which is
allegedly in the Global South.
Personally, I would drop this "global south / north" thinking altogether
and in financial decisions move to some more refined analysis, taking into
account multiple benchmarks like personal income (which is often
distributed far less equal in the developing world).
In the global perspective, I would be happy if the Board considered an
official change of the strategy to some more detailed perspective, openly
communicating which cultural and socioeconomic areas they find particularly
interesting and what are their plans to each of them. E.g.: "why do we
think the Arab world is important and how do we want to build a thriving
community sharing our basic values there?")
However whatever approach will be taken, if would be great if this topic is
even better communicated (I know many people try already, kudos to
Theo10011 and others for
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_South ) and
discussed.
Otherwise people will keep on asking why UAE or Kuwait people are
considered "poor" while Kosovars are labeled "rich".
Best Regards,
michał buczyński
Dnia 11 czerwca 2015 22:14 Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com> napisał(a):
I think the reason is more than obvious: Belarus is
south of Moldova
and
Ukraine is in between, so it went south. As Russia is basically on
the east
of all of three countries, it's logical to put it among the northern
countries.Not that I object the general reasoning, but Belarus is north of
Moldova
(Ukraine is either way).
Besides it's not nice to write spoilers on the public
list, I would
remind you that according to the 6th century
naming rules, every White Sea has to be south of every Black Sea. As
Moldova is closer to the Black Sea than
Belarus, Belarus is closer to the White Sea, it's logical that Belarus is
on the south of Moldova.