On 4/10/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all, Just came across http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Georgia . It is obvious beyond words to me that [[Georgia]] should be the country, and the US state should be at something like [[Georgia (US State)]]. However, an ongoing poll evenly ties between that, and keeping Georgia is a disambiguation page.
I find this sad. :(
It is obvious that this particular issue is going to be _contentious._ I don't know what proportion of Wikipedia users or Wikipedia editors live in the United States, but it is large enough to matter. Before the breakup of the Soviet Union, the existence of Georgia, the SSR was almost unknown. Frankly, the only thing I knew about it was that it was the Stalin's birthplace, and even that was only because of a joking reference I'd heard to some politician: ("He's from Georgia? So was Stalin.).
Given that this issue is contentious, it's going to be hard to settle. Straw polls are just one of a number of techniques for trying to reach stability in an article. Unless it is clear that some other technique _would_ have produced a clear, stable consensus and that the straw poll is _preventing_ a consensus that would otherwise have gelled, it doesn't prove polls are evil.
And since, no matter what the outcome is, anyone who types in "Georgia" will quickly find what they are seeking, it doesn't matter what the outcome is. Many of these article-naming debates seem to me just to be arenas for people who enjoy trying to win arguments, and, unlike edit wars, they are relatively harmless because the results _do not matter_.
If Steve Bennett's argument is that polls are evil because ignorant idiots who voted in the poll came up cast a majority of votes for what is "obviously beyond words" the wrong answer, I don't buy it. A majority vote for George W. Bush in a national U. S. election when it is obvious beyond words that that is the wrong answer does not prove that voting is evil. How's that for U.S.-centric for you? Pffpplsfft!
Our naming policy calls for the "most common" name, not the most correct or most appropriate name. Arguments on geographic names are always difficult to resolve because "most common among _whom_" is somewhat undefined for Wikipedia. Unless you are going to suggest that polls should be weighted to reflect what the outcome would be if participation included proportional representation by every English- speaking person in the world... that is, that Wikipedia should serve what is ideally its potential audience rather than its real audience.
Non-rhetorical question: does the national makeup of readers differ in proportion from the national makeup of active editors?
On 4/11/06, Daniel P. B. Smith wikipedia2006@dpbsmith.com wrote:
If Steve Bennett's argument is that polls are evil because ignorant idiots who voted in the poll came up cast a majority of votes for what is "obviously beyond words" the wrong answer, I don't buy it. A majority vote for George W. Bush in a national U. S. election when it is obvious beyond words that that is the wrong answer does not prove that voting is evil. How's that for U.S.-centric for you? Pffpplsfft!
My argument could better be summed up as "Polls are evil because only the immediate contributors to Wikipedia were asked".
Non-rhetorical question: does the national makeup of readers differ in proportion from the national makeup of active editors?
I would suggest for a start that there is a large number of people who are comfortable reading, but not contributing to Wikipedia. Those people are probably less likely to live in Anglophone countries, no?
I feel this way with the French Wikipedia - I rarely feel comfortable doing any kind of copyediting unless mistakes are particularly obvious. There is certainly information I could contribute, but rarely do. Thus I am contributing to the bias of French Wikipedia in favour of a French/Quebecois perspective on the world.
Could someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the Wikipedias were all supposed to reflect the same, neutral viewpoint on the world - not the cultural biases of the individual nations that speak the relative languages. That may be a bad assumption on my part.
Steve
On 4/11/06, Daniel P. B. Smith wikipedia2006@dpbsmith.com wrote:
Before the breakup of the Soviet Union, the existence of Georgia, the SSR was almost unknown.
Oh what nonsense. Stalin himself was a Georgian and this was common knowledge in the Soviet era.
On 4/11/06, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/11/06, Daniel P. B. Smith wikipedia2006@dpbsmith.com wrote:
Before the breakup of the Soviet Union, the existence of Georgia, the SSR was almost unknown.
Oh what nonsense. Stalin himself was a Georgian and this was common knowledge in the Soviet era.
I think Daniel really meant a different word than 'unknown'. Georgia-the-SSR was rarely MENTIONED, and if it was, it was rare for it to be mentioned in non-specialist circles outside a little piece of trivia about Stalin's birthplace.
-Matt
On 4/11/06, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
I think Daniel really meant a different word than 'unknown'. Georgia-the-SSR was rarely MENTIONED, and if it was, it was rare for it to be mentioned in non-specialist circles outside a little piece of trivia about Stalin's birthplace.
Yes, but the same is true of Georgia the US state, so that doesn't get us anywhere.
On Apr 11, 2006, at 8:42 PM, Tony Sidaway wrote:
I think Daniel really meant a different word than 'unknown'. Georgia-the-SSR was rarely MENTIONED, and if it was, it was rare for it to be mentioned in non-specialist circles outside a little piece of trivia about Stalin's birthplace.
Yes, but the same is true of Georgia the US state, so that doesn't get us anywhere.
Actually it gets us someplace very useful: to the conclusion that Georgia the state and Georgia the country are close enough to equal that [[Georgia]] should be the disambiguation page.
On 4/11/06, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/11/06, Daniel P. B. Smith wikipedia2006@dpbsmith.com wrote:
Before the breakup of the Soviet Union, the existence of Georgia, the SSR was almost unknown.
Oh what nonsense. Stalin himself was a Georgian and this was common knowledge in the Soviet era.
Common knowledge to whom? You are making assumptions, that everyone knows what you knew. As an American, I know somewhere in the back of my head that Georgia is a country, but mostly to me it is a state that grows peaches and established as a colony for debtors.
Please do NOT go all ignorant American on me. It's a matter of perspective. It does not make me "ignorant." The name "Salem" to me denotes "Salem, Massachusetts," not the capital of Oregon, which could be argued to be more prominent (also prominent: it being a common town/city name meaning "city on a hill", a common place name in the Middle East (which I, as an American, must know nothing about)). This isn't because of the media or movies and "witchcraft." It is because I live very close to Salem, and have never heard "Salem" used to refer to Oregon. This doesn't mean I am ignorant to its existence, it's just not what comes to mind.
Similarly, Georgia the state is much closer to me than the country, and as such, it is more important to my own life. I can't speak for the American media because I don't watch the news, but Georgia (country) has not been mentioned in my life. Does that make all of the US ignorant plebes? No, we just are concerned with different things. Is it wrong to assume that many people on English Wikipedia could possibly be from the US? No, approximately 298,000,000 people live in the US, 97% of whom speak English very well, and "74.9% of Americans living in households with a fixed line phone have home access to the Internet. This amounts to 204.307 million Americans out of the projected 272.81 million who are at least two years old."
It's very possible that these 204.307 million people access Wikipedia. Especially since the schools I've attended reccommend it. So the "common" name could very well be the American idea of it. Shrug.