After the ratification of the Prespa Agreement in the Parliament of Greece on Friday, the most famous online encyclopedia, “Wikipedia” in just two or three hours began rewriting some of its articles in English that use the name Macedonia. The word “Macedonia” was congruosly replaced with “North Macedonia”. But soon after, by the interventions of some of the editors of the English version, the articles were restored to the previous state.
Thus, the name North Macedonia replaced Macedonia in the main entry on the Republic of Macedonia. However, now, after the last update at 9.42 am Macedonian time yesterday (8.42 UTC), the title again reads “Republic of Macedonia”.
A page titled “Republic of North Macedonia” has also been created, but it only redirects to the above entry.
After a search this afternoon, only a few articles where North Macedonia has been used as the official name of the country are available – but only in the text of the articles, not in the headlines!
We queried the editors of the Macedonian version of Wikipedia (although it has by far less articles than the English one), only to learn that he changes from Macedonia to North Macedonia in the English version also happened some time ago and caused quite a stir.
“We do not know what is going on at the moment, because we work on the Macedonian version, but I know that there was a discussion a few weeks ago and then some sort of conclusion was made to leave the names in the current state, and when the name changes officially, then the alterations will be made”, says Snezana Shtrkovska, Wikipedia editor.
Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia, where everyone can write and contribute articles, but they are subject to review and corrections by the editors, who are more active writers and people with due respect concerning their acumen and ethics.
