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A fact from Proposals for the United States to purchase Greenland appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 1 September 2019 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
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Support This should be plural, as you say. I can't think of a better title quickly myself. I wouldn't go with "History of the United States' interest in Greenland" because it's much more specific than "interest". I'm fine with either "purchase" or "acquire". › Morteetalk18:20, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Support BarrelProof's version. BarrelProof makes a very good point and I think his "Proposals for..." is an improvement on "Proposals by...". › Morteetalk22:22, 24 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Move to a somewhat different title: The concern with the current title is valid. However, a purchasing proposal "by the United States" would be a purchasing proposal issued by the United States as the proposing entity. Much of what is discussed in the article are proposals and suggestions by individual people or expressions of general or strategic interest, not proposals for purchase emanating from the United States as the proposing entity. Perhaps "Proposals for the United States to purchase Greenland" would be better. —BarrelProof (talk) 00:22, 23 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's a somewhat meaningless distinction: the people who have made such proposals are U.S. government representatives, thus synecdoches of the United States Government. Of course, the U.S. as a landmass or collection of states technically cannot propose anything, nor go to war, make laws, etc (the people of the U.S. do), but in common parlance, it's not improper to say so. --Animalparty! (talk) 23:04, 24 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
One difference is the 1910 proposal, which was an ambassador floating ideas in the administration. If we're discussing proposals "for", then that belongs in the article. If "by", not. The 2019 case seems grey to me: some things Donald Trump does can reasonably be described as "the United States" doing it, but not others. I don't think it's clear whether "the United States" proposed to buy Greenland in this case. Unless there's a reason why "by" is actually better wording than "for", I prefer the "for" version to remove that potential ambiguity. › Morteetalk01:25, 25 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Alternative: I think it is obvious that "proposal" should be plural (i.e., Partial support), and I think BarrelProof's suggestion "Proposals for the United States to purchase Greenland" is a further (slight) improvement. However, I think the existence of this article, created two weeks ago (for obvious reasons), is a bit of an oddity. Far more importantly we should have a Greenland–United States relations article. (What we have is a redirect from Greenland - United States relations to Denmark–United States relations, but it has been proposed to redirect here instead.) In such an article, the present material would make up a good part (unless it was made a "main article" link in a section). (Also, we should have a broader article on the scramble for the Arctic by USA, China and Russia, but I suppose that is or should be covered in Geopolitics of the Arctic.)
So, what I am suggesting is really a move to Greenland–United States relations instead, but it would require someone sufficiently knowledgeable to put a substantial amount of effort into expanding the article to deserve that name. I think the move could come first, though, hoping for someone to put in the effort later.--Nø (talk) 17:31, 1 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Map should include Puerto Rico
This is relatively minor, but if Greenland were purchased by the US, it would (presumably) become a territory given its small population. As such, the map should probably also have Puerto Rico colored red. Thanks. Jacoby531 (talk) 17:11, 25 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The first two paragraphs of the section "2019" read:
In 2017, the Danish government declined a proposal from China to purchase an abandoned naval base on Greenland over concerns the arrangement would strain its relations with the United States.
American president Donald Trump discussed the idea of purchasing Greenland with senior advisers. Administration staff members reportedly discussed expanding the American partnership with the island, including a possible purchase; one official stated that the United States can subsidize Greenland for much more than Denmark can.
Now, as I understand it, the first was about real estate - China buying a piece of land, but Greenland/Denmark retaining sovereignity over all of Greenland. The second - though Trump did describe it at one point as a real estate deal - was as I understand it about USA gaining sovereignity of Greenland. I think that in principle those are two very different things, and I think the juxtaposition of the two paragraphs suggests that they are more similar than they really are. I think the article should be clearer on this.--Nø (talk) 15:26, 1 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Distance
Some of the following trivia might be relevant somewhere in this article (perhaps alongside info that Greenland is on the North American continental plate) - but a source would be required. These values I approximated using Google Earth:
Distance between territories:
Greenland--Denmark: 2050 km (1275 miles)
Greenland--USA: 1965 km (1220 miles)
Greenland--Canada: 22 km (14 miles) (not counting minor and in one case disputed islands)