A Sporcle Protest Quiz

Can you name the A Sporcle Protest?

created by joebobs

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This quiz is designed to highlight an issue within Sporcle's geography quizzes, and to protest at the current course of action being taken. Also see: http://www.sporcle.com/games/joebobs/palestine
This quiz has not been verified by Sporcle

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Hint	Answer	Explanation
What non-UN member state has diplomatic relations with 152 countries, and has some level of recognition with between 67 and 130 UN member states, but is not recognised by Sporcle?

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There are 127 comments for this game.
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A Sporcle Protest Quiz

by joebobs

Created Aug 20, 2010 in Geography
Game Plays 1,697

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	Jam1:	Aug 20th, 2010 at 17:47 GMT		89 points
	@joebobs: There is a slight difference: Taiwan and Kosovo have control over their territory which Palestine does not.

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	ckrubin:	Aug 20th, 2010 at 19:51 GMT		91 points
	In theory, it does not fall on Sporcle to recognize or not recognize anything. Each Sporcle quiz is [supposed to be] compiled according to a source, so perhaps you should be petitioning the various geographical sources that are commonly used on Sporcle.

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	France:	Aug 20th, 2010 at 20:47 GMT		4 points
	The creator of this quiz is obviously an ignorant and obtuse little man. If joebobs had any knowledge of the world whatsoever, he would not have created this useless quiz. Palestine has no control over its own territories, it has no embassies in other independent countries, and it is almost never included in any international rankings at all. Palestine is not a sovereign nation. If Sporcle accepts Palestine, it might as well accept Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Western Sahara as well.

	DefDude:	Aug 20th, 2010 at 21:01 GMT		42 points
	@France: Don't forget the Iroquois nation!

	LaviniaB:	Aug 20th, 2010 at 21:02 GMT		4 points
	@France Palestine does have embassies, you are wrong. Also you are insulting Joebobs when his argument completely makes sense and all he does is raise an international issue which concerns many people. You are the only ignorant and obtuse little man around from what I can see.

	joebobs:	Aug 20th, 2010 at 21:07 GMT		4 points
	@ ckrubin: I disagree with that. The standard 195 sporcle countries are taken from the main countries of the world quiz. There are many international rankings which include all sorts of territories with varying degrees of autonomy, and people choose to exclude them when they're not sporcle standard, i.e. 192 UN members, plus the Vatican, Kosovo and Taiwan. I'm simply suggesting it should be enlarged to include Palestine.

	NYCub:	Aug 20th, 2010 at 21:09 GMT		18 points
	While I think France's critique was maybe a little too harsh, he or she does have a point. There are plenty of disputed territories around the world, and the argument to include Palestine could just as well be made for all of these other places. (Quite frankly, I've always thought that Sporcle's inclusion of Taiwan is a bit shaky.) It hardly seems fair to say this one territory must be included, while leaving the others out.

	joebobs:	Aug 20th, 2010 at 21:27 GMT		11 points
	@ France: Hello Mr Internet Tough Guy! :D I'll address your points in order. Firstly, the 'use' of this quiz is as a protest, to flag up an issue I feel needs to spoken about on sporcle. Evidently others do too (see bsd987's comment). Secondly, your understatement of 'Palestine has no control over its territories' completely weakens your argument. Evidently, it has some control. Now, I'm perfectly willing to debate the point with people like Jam1 above, who will point out features, but to say it 'has no control' is flatly erroneous. Thirdly, your statement that it has no embassies is just a lie. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_Palestine Whilst I know it's just a wikipedia page, check out the links at the bottom and you can see most of it is well sourced. Even if you only count the sourced ones, it still makes what you said false. And to say it is almost never included in international rankings, please do give me an example. For you to say 'almost never' means you must have read a good 90% of all rankings produced every year, which I must say is impressive! Somehow I doubt you have. Palestine is actually listed in many rankings, either as State of Palestine, Palestine, Palestinian Territories, or as the West Bank and Gaza. I am aware it's not a sovereign nations. However, please define sovereign nation (that's kind of the issue at point here, just in case you haven't realised). Abkhazia and South Ossetia do not have recognition from any UN members apart from Russia. What's more, the PLO have UN observer status (just like the Vatican, which sporcle accepts). I'd agree there's a case for Western Sahara being accepted too, since it's recognised by 61 UN member states. However, the UN lists the free part of Western Sahara as a non-self governing territory, whilst it lists the West Bank and Gaza as 'Occupied Palestinian Territory', which, to me, implicitly recognises it as Palestinian territory. I put it to you, sir, that it is you who is ignorant, and you who has put together

	joebobs:	Aug 20th, 2010 at 21:28 GMT		-4 points
	@ NYCub: Please see my above comment. Sorry, you posted whilst I was writing it. I'd say there's a good case for Western Sahara's inclusion, but not as good as Palestine's. I'd say none of the others really have anywhere near as good a case.

	joebobs:	Aug 20th, 2010 at 21:37 GMT		-4 points
	Just realised it cut me off in the long post. It ended something like: and you who has put together a shoddy argument which it doesn't look like you've researched or even thought about.

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	kristofferjay:	Aug 20th, 2010 at 22:00 GMT		11 points
	I seem to recall Israel sending an air strike into Gaza a few years ago followed by an invasion. If the Gaza Strip really is part of Israel, wouldn't that then be considered civil war? I don't think I heard that term used once. I suppose that is one argument in favor of Palestine having control of their own territory, at least in part. I'm not sure which way I fall on this debate, but I think the author makes a cogent argument and I think this is a fine medium for protest.

	Jam1:	Aug 20th, 2010 at 22:00 GMT		16 points
	@joebobs: In my opinion, if Palestine is a seperate country, so should Western Sahara. Western Sahara was a colony of Spain, and was promised an independence referendum. However, Morocco and Mauritania clamied the territory, and pressured Spain to split it between them. Spain gave in and shared it between them, and denied the Sahrawi's their independence referendum they should have had. That alongside the fact they control a substantial amount of their territory, and the fact that Mauritania gave their part of Western Sahara back to the Sahrawis (although it was invaded by Morocco) gives them a good case for independence as well.

	joebobs:	Aug 20th, 2010 at 22:05 GMT		4 points
	I completely agree Jam, and I'd be happy to see Western Sahara accepted too. The only thing which makes it more complicated is the level of UN recognition, the fact that slightly fewer states recognise it, and that its territory is less clear (would we count the free zones, controlled by the Sahwari, or all of Western Sahara?). But I agree, more countries recognise Western Sahara than Taiwan, and a similar number as recognise Kosovo.

	joebobs:	Aug 20th, 2010 at 22:08 GMT		-2 points
	Thankyou kristofferjay, and cysion, I agree that is a limitation for us. However, I'd say sporcle should strive toward a less ethnocentric view, and try to be more internationalist, despite the fact that most of its users are American. This is the internet after all, the global forum and what not.

	1447:	Aug 20th, 2010 at 22:09 GMT		1 point
	I think you're doing a good job JoeBobs, I've always been annoyed by the lack of Palestine (and the SADR) in relevant quizzes on this website. I don't think you'll get anywhere though, Kosovo and Taiwan ended its wars decades ago, but the Arab-Israeli conflict continues to this day. As a mostly American website, it's safer to just "go with the flow" and treat Palestine as air. I've nominated your quiz though, hope has never hurt anyone. If you want more political incorrectness, allow me to shamelessly advertise for my own Palestine quiz: http://www.sporcle.com/games/1447/quiz_palestine

	ThurinEthir:	Aug 20th, 2010 at 22:29 GMT		17 points
	As a strong supporter of Taiwanese independence I tend to feel sympathetic towards other independence movements, but at the same time I understand and somewhat agree with the reasons to not include Palestine. So I'll just leave this link: http://geography.about.com/cs/countries/a/numbercountries.htm What makes a country a country isn't simply how many other countries recognize it. Taiwan (and presumably Kosovo) supposedly fit more of those requirements (which, just to clarify, aren't official or anything) than Palestine, but whether or not those entities do in fact fit those requirements is very arguable.

	Sjoerd:	Aug 20th, 2010 at 22:49 GMT		2 points
	How can you people vote padawanofpie's comment down? I lolled when I saw it. I think control over your territory is an important issue, but Palestine is probably the most controversial non-Sporcle recognized entity. They have a government and member some major organisations. I don't know what to think. Pragmatically I'd say: if sources provide information on Palestine usefull for quizzes, then recognize it, and otherwise not.

	Sjoerd:	Aug 20th, 2010 at 22:52 GMT		25 points
	Oh and please be more polite to each other. Most arguments here make sense and others are funny, nobody is obtuse here.

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	newenglander:	Aug 21st, 2010 at 01:33 GMT		4 points
	@cysion-sporcle is an extremely conservative sight? I beg to differ

	France:	Aug 21st, 2010 at 03:36 GMT		15 points
	There has never been a Palestinian state. There was a Palestinian British Mandate, an area which was under Turkish control from 1417 to 1917 and was administered by the British after the end of the 1st World War and until 1948 (see the history page for more details). The Palestinians might or might not deserve independence. But the facts are that the Palestinians have refused a State of their own twice already: in 1948 and in October, 2000.There is not, nor has there ever been, a country named Palestine. It's what the territory of Israel was called in antiquity, but there has NEVER been a nation called Palestine. The people there didn't even call themselves that until after WWII. Palestine is not a country, although I will admit I was wrong on the embassy fact. Does it deserve to be a country? Maybe. Palestine is two small pieces of land called the West Bank and the Gaza strip, and the West Bank. It does not even have statehood within the United Nations. While it may be recognized internationally, Palestine does not have full rights or control over its territory. Until it is officially accepted as a sovereign nation by the international community and is included among international organizations and census information, it will remain a territory. It may become a country in the future, and probably will, but at this point in time, there is no reason for Sporcle to accept Palestine as an answer on Geography quizzes. I don't think Kosovo should be accepted either, but it is often included in the source material provided, whereas Palestine is not. Until Palestine gains full control of its own government, its own territory and its system of rules and laws, it should not be considered, regardless of how many countries give it official recognition.

	Tahnan:	Aug 21st, 2010 at 04:25 GMT		31 points
	I'm not going to weigh in on the Palestine debate, but to clear up a misconception by "kobayashi68" above: only quiz-taking in which someone gets at least one answer right are counted in the results, so any quiz with only one right answer is necessarily going to be at 100%. So the fact that 100% of the people who found at least one right answer got the answer doesn't really mean anything.

	cysion:	Aug 21st, 2010 at 09:56 GMT		0 points
	@newenglander: Okay, maybe I shouldn't have put in the "extremely" part, but I met their borders more than once and I was baffled by how fast I reached them.

	joebobs:	Aug 21st, 2010 at 12:34 GMT		4 points
	Thanks France for coming back with a cogent argument. If you're one of the people who doesn't think Kosovo should be recognised, I can now understand why you don't think Palestine should be. However, the fact that sporcle DOES recognise Kosovo, surely means they should also recognise Palestine. I don't think this can be adequately explained away as saying that Kosovo appears more often in source material than Palestine. As I say, what we're essentially talking about is the Countries of the world quiz, which provides the standard as to what can be accepted. For example, many sources will have French Guiana listed separately to France, or England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland listed separately. We know to ignore these (and rightly so in this example) because the we have a set of 195 sporcle standard nations, provided by the countries of the world quiz. Hence, I don't think it's to do with the sources. As regards your other arguments, rather than repeat what I've already said, I'll simply refer to my above points, and say, regardless of how Palestine existed in the past, we're talking about how it exists and how it is recognised NOW.

	joebobs:	Aug 21st, 2010 at 12:37 GMT		4 points
	This quiz has been reported, and someone has said: 'Palestine is not country and this person is making a political statement using sporcle as their forum.' This is ridiculous! I'm not making a political statement using sporcle as a forum! I'm simply saying that sporcle should recognise Palestine as a country, if we are also to recognise Taiwan and Kosovo, without it looking like ethnocentrism. This is a protest ABOUT SPORCLE. Where else would I voice this? The idea is for this to be seen and read by sporclers, and hopefully the sporcle mods too. The main purpose of this quiz is to provoke discussion so we can establish where sporcle stands on this issue.

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	Jam1:	Aug 21st, 2010 at 21:03 GMT		12 points
	@joebobs: One more thing (regarding Taiwan), you say few countries recognise Taiwan, however this is not the case. China has threatened any country that recognises Taiwan as an indepedendent nation- so few country officially recognise it. However many states, such as the US, Russia, India and most of Europe, have informal relations. Taiwan actually has unofficial embassies in some of these places. So if you combine both formal and informal relations, Taiwan has over 60 recognising countries (a similar level to Kosovo). Another reason why Taiwan is recognised on sporcle is because it used to control China's seat at the UN, and was recognised by nearly all countries, until China took control of the seat and made the threats. In my opinion, Taiwan has a pretty good claim to recognition, more than Kosovo, Palestine and Western Sahara. Those three don't have a long history of independence and have never been UN members like Taiwan- therefore I think none of them should be on sporcle.

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