File talk:Malaysia tree diagram.svg

Clarification needed on early incorporation of the Malay States

This is from the history section of the article on Negeri Sembilan, with emphasis added:

"In 1873, the British intervened militarily in a civil war in Sungai Ujong to preserve British economic interests, and placed the country under the control of a British Resident. Jelebu followed in 1886, and the remaining states in 1895. In 1897, when the Federated Malay States (FMS) was established, Sungai Ujong and Jelebu were reunited to the confederation of small states and the whole, under the old name of the Negeri Sembilan, was placed under a single Resident and became a member of the FMS."

Two questions I have in mind: 1) No citation is included in the original article, but assuming the above is correct, then this diagram would be inaccurate in dating the FMS to 1895? 2) Could this diagram be more complete by including milestones for individual states c. 1873-1895? --Dowcet (talk) 03:54, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Dowcet. The dates were taken from File:Malaysia_Tree_Diagram.png, so can you please see sources there?

Secondly, I agree that milestone dates for individual states are useful. Do you have them, similar to the quote you gave?

Ta, cmglee (talk) 00:14, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Suggested changes

Copied from w:user_talk:cmglee, thanks to w:user:Chipmunkdavis:

• I'd flip the Unfederated Malay states symbol up to the top of that column with a "Collectively known as" tag, as Unfederated Malay states is a historiographical term rather than an actual entity.
• Holland->The Netherlands.
• I'd add a "the" before "Straits Settlements" in the two notes where Straits Settlements starts the note.
• "to the White Rajah Dynasty of Sarawak"->"to Englishman James Brooke, beginning the White Rajah Dynasty". Long, but there's space and is more accurate as there was no established dynasty it was ceded to but a single person.
• I'm not comfortable with the construction "annexed to", but I see its brevity, and for consistency given its multiple uses in this image it should probably also be used in the note where Labuan becomes part of the Straits Settlements, which is the only part to used "joined".
• I'd edit "Reformed as the Federation of Malaya" to "Reformed as the less centralised Federation of Malaya" for some context.
• Similar to above I'd change the brackets on Malacca and Penang to from "remained" to "reverted to" or a similar construction.
• I'd change the note on Labuan and Singapore to "Singapore and Labuan became the Crown Colony of Singapore" as Labuan was ruled from Singapore previously anyway as part of the Straits Settlements.
• I'm unfamiliar with the inclusion of "British" in the official title "Crown Colony of North Borneo" so I would suggest that "British" is removed in the 15 July 1946 instance and the 16 September 1963 instance.
• In the 1963 bit I'd shorten "as the State of Sabah" to just "as Sabah" given the others are also states.
• I'd remove completely the first Singaporean independence, North Borneo self-governence, and Sabahan independence claims. That's a misleading representation of what actually happened, and it would be far more accurate and informative to go straight from British rule to being part of Malaysia (note: the Singaporean self-government bit on the other hand is accurate).
• The use of "ceded from" in the bottom notes about Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya, and Labuan is an unfamiliar construction to me, as ceding is an action, so it should be "ceded by" or "ceded to" (like at the top of this image). I would however keep the current formulation for concision to avoid saying who it was ceded to, and instead change "ceded" to "separated".
• Also, looking at it now, it may be worth somehow signifying with colour the expulsion of Singapore to clearly separate that note from the Federal Territory notes. Perhaps make the colour of the Singapore bar grey below that note? Just an idea.

cmglee (talk) 13:18, 12 February 2016 (UTC)