On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 11:57 AM, Michael Everson <everson(a)evertype.com> wrote:
On 26 Nov 2008, at 19:29, phoebe ayers wrote:
Most
probably, most users who type in "Ireland" are looking for the
article
about the Republic of Ireland. However, we can't escape the fact
that the
term Ireland is ambiguous. Some users would be unaware that six of
the 32
Irish counties are not currently part of the Republic.
I would actually argue that a reader who doesn't know anything about
Ireland (picture a schoolchild in the US doing a project for St.
Patrick's day)
I don't think Ireland is all that obscure.
... would be expecting to get exactly the article
that is currently
located at "Ireland".
I tend to think that we should aim the bar a bit higher.
Just reiterating the perspective of someone not from the UK or Ireland
here.. the situation is most certainly that obscure if one is learning
about it for the first time. (I have ten years of college under my
belt, and I could no more name the counties of Ireland than fly, let
alone know which state they belonged to; nor can I tell you how and
why the partition came about -- information that I would expect to
find in a general article when I type in "ireland"). The general
articles on a topic are *not* for people who already know all about
that topic.
I would wager that even when most educated adults in the US think of
the concept of "Ireland", they think of things like leprechauns and
Guinness, not the political divisions (except perhaps in a
headline-in-the-news way). And if such cultural and historical
information (Ray brought up a good point about the history of the
island) is what I am looking for, then how precisely am I supposed to
know to click on the "Ireland (island)" article? I see a
disambiguation title like that and I think about geology -- how was
the actual island formed, and so on. Since that's not (entirely) the
case, I find it confusing.
And just as a point of order, you (Michael) seem to be unwilling to
consider any ideas other than the one you first presented, which isn't
really much of a debate or compromise on the subject. Why even bring
it up if you don't want input?
-- phoebe