Mark Gallagher wrote:
Just ask yourself: if Georgia (US state) was not, in fact, a US state, but an Australian state, or a British county, or ... whatever ... would we have had all those arguments? I suspect it would indeed have been "obvious beyond words" if the grand ol' US of A
wasn't >involved.
To back up Mark's point with a concrete example, [[Victoria]] has had no controversy, despite the Australian state getting far less prominence on that page than it deserves.
Always amazed by how much energy this particular debate consumes though. Who really cares about primacy, the other page is only a click away....
Pcb21
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On 4/11/06, Pete Bartlett pcb21@yahoo.com wrote:
To back up Mark's point with a concrete example, [[Victoria]] has had no controversy, despite the Australian state getting far less prominence on that page than it deserves.
That is truly the mother of all disambiguation pages! It would probably do well to highlight the most important cases (notably, the ex Queen, the Australian state, and the Canadian city) up the top, as recommended in whatever manual of style page. Then the more obscure articles, like defunct voting zones in Canadian provinces can be hidden down the bottom.
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 4/11/06, Pete Bartlett pcb21@yahoo.com wrote:
To back up Mark's point with a concrete example, [[Victoria]] has had no controversy, despite the Australian state getting far less prominence on that page than it deserves.
That is truly the mother of all disambiguation pages! It would probably do well to highlight the most important cases (notably, the ex Queen, the Australian state, and the Canadian city) up the top, as recommended in whatever manual of style page. Then the more obscure articles, like defunct voting zones in Canadian provinces can be hidden down the bottom.
Without even looking, I'd suggest something like:
* [[Queen Victoria]] * [[Victoria, Australia]] ** Stuff relating to Victoria, Australia * [[Victoria, British Columbia]] * Stuff relating to Victoria, British Columbia
etc.
Ok, now after looking at it, it's kinda messy, but I guess it works...
On 4/13/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Without even looking, I'd suggest something like:
- [[Queen Victoria]]
- [[Victoria, Australia]]
** Stuff relating to Victoria, Australia
- [[Victoria, British Columbia]]
- Stuff relating to Victoria, British Columbia
Have a look now.
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 4/13/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Without even looking, I'd suggest something like:
- [[Queen Victoria]]
- [[Victoria, Australia]]
** Stuff relating to Victoria, Australia
- [[Victoria, British Columbia]]
- Stuff relating to Victoria, British Columbia
Have a look now.
Nice work. I've added {{disambig}} to the top as well, since (somewhere, probably [[Wikipedia:Disambiguation]]) says that you can do so for really long disambiguation pages.
Hi, Just to point out a case where the opposite strategy in all this has been involved, have a look at [[Camembert]]. What do you think this would be an article on? Nope - that's at [[Camembert (cheese)]].
A similar pattern has been applied right throughout the category:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:French_cheeses
So I'm not convinced that the rule "pragmatic disambiguation over presumed importance" is applied all that consistency.
Steve
On 16/04/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
Hi, Just to point out a case where the opposite strategy in all this has been involved, have a look at [[Camembert]]. What do you think this would be an article on? Nope - that's at [[Camembert (cheese)]].
A similar pattern has been applied right throughout the category:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:French_cheeses
So I'm not convinced that the rule "pragmatic disambiguation over presumed importance" is applied all that consistency.
Not just French cheese; see [[Stilton]] and [[Cheddar]]. Even [[Jarlsberg]] redirects to [[Jarlsberg cheese]], so I guess that's being held for an article on the place as well.
-- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
On 4/16/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
So I'm not convinced that the rule "pragmatic disambiguation over presumed importance" is applied all that consistency.
Sounds like some head-beating is necessary, but I already have way too much of this to do.
-Matt
On 16/04/06, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/16/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
So I'm not convinced that the rule "pragmatic disambiguation over presumed importance" is applied all that consistency.
Sounds like some head-beating is necessary, but I already have way too much of this to do.
You're not talking about mine, are you? :) I'm happy to beat people with a fixed rule, but I'd like more confirmation that this rule actually exists and is accepted by the community. There is the guideline on disambig pages, but it's fairly vague. A hard-line "a city does *not* get priority over a cheese if most people would expect the cheese" would be helpful.
Steve
On 4/16/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
You're not talking about mine, are you? :) I'm happy to beat people with a fixed rule, but I'd like more confirmation that this rule actually exists and is accepted by the community. There is the guideline on disambig pages, but it's fairly vague. A hard-line "a city does *not* get priority over a cheese if most people would expect the cheese" would be helpful.
'Accepted by the community' is a hard one - partly because any preference based on common use runs into a strong nationalist and anti-US sentiment among certain users, despite common English usage being generally preferable according to our naming conventions.
-Matt
On 16/04/06, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
'Accepted by the community' is a hard one - partly because any preference based on common use runs into a strong nationalist and anti-US sentiment among certain users, despite common English usage being generally preferable according to our naming conventions.
IMHO, pulling out "anti-US sentiment" is a bit of a cop-out. There are lots of reasons why non-American people may object to the way American people do things that have nothing to do with prejudices against them as individuals.
But anyway.
Steve
On 16 Apr 2006, at 18:11, Steve Bennett wrote:
On 16/04/06, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/16/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
So I'm not convinced that the rule "pragmatic disambiguation over presumed importance" is applied all that consistency.
Sounds like some head-beating is necessary, but I already have way too much of this to do.
You're not talking about mine, are you? :) I'm happy to beat people with a fixed rule, but I'd like more confirmation that this rule actually exists and is accepted by the community. There is the guideline on disambig pages, but it's fairly vague. A hard-line "a city does *not* get priority over a cheese if most people would expect the cheese" would be helpful.
I would find it very odd that something named after something else should ever get priority.
However obscure the original is, like Camembert, or Jethro Tull, I think it should be at the article place. (Actually Jethro Tull is now a dab page).
Justinc
On 17/04/06, Justin Cormack justin@specialbusservice.com wrote:
I would find it very odd that something named after something else should ever get priority.
However obscure the original is, like Camembert, or Jethro Tull, I think it should be at the article place. (Actually Jethro Tull is now a dab page).
Ok, so you're in favour of us making a judgment about which page "deserves" the title as the main article? Personally, I feel that this is the more "encyclopaedic" road. The alternative, prioritising the page that most visitors/editors visit/expect, is the more "pragmatic" road.
To me, the fact that "Camembert" pulls up a stub article on an entirely unremarkable commune in France is surprising. Perhaps a similar surprise to that that would be experienced by Americans visiting "Georgia" and finding the birthplace of Stalin. The question is, is this surprise good or bad?
Alternatively put, is Wikipedia bound by the principle of least surprise?
Steve
On 17 Apr 2006, at 11:54, Steve Bennett wrote:
Alternatively put, is Wikipedia bound by the principle of least surprise?
Actually I am probably in favour of the principle of most surprise. Let people find out about stuff they dont know about. If we put Georgia the country at Georgia, people might get interested in a country with a cuisine based around pomegranates and walnuts. They can speculate as to why Jethro Tull named themselves after an agriculturalist, and learn about the lesser known [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]].
Justinc
Justin Cormack wrote:
On 17 Apr 2006, at 11:54, Steve Bennett wrote:
Alternatively put, is Wikipedia bound by the principle of least surprise?
Actually I am probably in favour of the principle of most surprise. Let people find out about stuff they dont know about. If we put Georgia the country at Georgia, people might get interested in a country with a cuisine based around pomegranates and walnuts. They can speculate as to why Jethro Tull named themselves after an agriculturalist, and learn about the lesser known [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]].
Lesser known? The anthropologist is clearly better known.
Ec
On 18 Apr 2006, at 00:03, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Justin Cormack wrote:
learn about the lesser known [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]].
Lesser known? The anthropologist is clearly better known.
Its an old joke. Perhaps from a novel by David Lodge. Or Malcolm Bradbury. Who may be the same person, according to graffiti at the University of East Anglia. Or my memory is failing.
Justinc
Justin Cormack wrote:
On 18 Apr 2006, at 00:03, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Justin Cormack wrote:
learn about the lesser known [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]].
Lesser known? The anthropologist is clearly better known.
Its an old joke. Perhaps from a novel by David Lodge. Or Malcolm Bradbury. Who may be the same person, according to graffiti at the University of East Anglia. Or my memory is failing.
Ahhh! Since I'm not familiar with either of these authors it's not surprising that I'm also unfamiliar with the Claude Lévi-Strauss that appears as a character in their novels.
Ec
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 17/04/06, Justin Cormack justin@specialbusservice.com wrote:
I would find it very odd that something named after something else should ever get priority.
However obscure the original is, like Camembert, or Jethro Tull, I think it should be at the article place. (Actually Jethro Tull is now a dab page).
Ok, so you're in favour of us making a judgment about which page "deserves" the title as the main article? Personally, I feel that this is the more "encyclopaedic" road. The alternative, prioritising the page that most visitors/editors visit/expect, is the more "pragmatic" road.
To me, the fact that "Camembert" pulls up a stub article on an entirely unremarkable commune in France is surprising. Perhaps a similar surprise to that that would be experienced by Americans visiting "Georgia" and finding the birthplace of Stalin. The question is, is this surprise good or bad?
Alternatively put, is Wikipedia bound by the principle of least surprise?
The conflict does not simply lie in that principle, but in the fact that not all people will be surprised in the same way.
Ec
On 17/04/06, Justin Cormack justin@specialbusservice.com wrote:
On 16 Apr 2006, at 18:11, Steve Bennett wrote:
On 16/04/06, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/16/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
So I'm not convinced that the rule "pragmatic disambiguation over presumed importance" is applied all that consistency.
Sounds like some head-beating is necessary, but I already have way too much of this to do.
You're not talking about mine, are you? :) I'm happy to beat people with a fixed rule, but I'd like more confirmation that this rule actually exists and is accepted by the community. There is the guideline on disambig pages, but it's fairly vague. A hard-line "a city does *not* get priority over a cheese if most people would expect the cheese" would be helpful.
I would find it very odd that something named after something else should ever get priority.
However obscure the original is, like Camembert, or Jethro Tull, I think it should be at the article place. (Actually Jethro Tull is now a dab page).
This sounds good, and you can make a decent argument even for somewhere like "Boston", but, say, "Baltimore"? The original appears to have been an Irish hamlet somewhere in Longford that doesn't even exist any more...
([[Memphis]] is a pretty good example of how to handle an obscure source and go into a disambig, though)
-- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
On 17/04/06, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
([[Memphis]] is a pretty good example of how to handle an obscure source and go into a disambig, though)
Interesting - it had forgotten to actually link to [[Memphis (mythology)]] so I fixed that. It's funny how some disambigs, like this one, are quite restrained - there are few entries that aren't "genuinely ambiguous". No link to [[Memphis Belle]], for example. Whereas on other dab pages, the standard for inclusion appears to be "includes the word somewhere in the title", and sometimes not even that :)
Steve
G'day Steve,
On 17/04/06, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
([[Memphis]] is a pretty good example of how to handle an obscure source and go into a disambig, though)
Interesting - it had forgotten to actually link to [[Memphis (mythology)]] so I fixed that. It's funny how some disambigs, like this one, are quite restrained - there are few entries that aren't "genuinely ambiguous". No link to [[Memphis Belle]], for example. Whereas on other dab pages, the standard for inclusion appears to be "includes the word somewhere in the title", and sometimes not even that :)
When creating disambigs or redirects, I often use myself as the Model Searcher (because my memory is lousy). There's plenty of times when I've been looking for an article with an utterly unambiguous name, but only been able to remember part of the name ... fortunately, there's usually a helpful disambig around to remind me ...
Cheers,
On 19/04/06, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
When creating disambigs or redirects, I often use myself as the Model Searcher (because my memory is lousy). There's plenty of times when I've been looking for an article with an utterly unambiguous name, but only been able to remember part of the name ... fortunately, there's usually a helpful disambig around to remind me ...
Me too. Or (and I expect flames for this :)) if I see a redlink to an article that actually exists, I generally create the redlink and make it redirect, rather than simply fixing the link. I figure that no mistake is original enough that it won't be repeated, possibly with more serious consequences, like duplicate articles getting created...
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
Me too. Or (and I expect flames for this :)) if I see a redlink to an article that actually exists, I generally create the redlink and make it redirect, rather than simply fixing the link. I figure that no mistake is original enough that it won't be repeated, possibly with more serious consequences, like duplicate articles getting created...
Or, in some cases better yet, create the redirect and _then_ fix the link.
It really depends on the type of the mistake. Simple typos and obvious spelling mistakes I just fix. Arguably _not_ having redirects for these is better, since that way the red link makes the typo stand out.
For less obvious mistakes, like missing diacritics, capitalization or pluralization errors, missing or superfluous "the", or wrong regional spelling of words in official titles, I create the redirect and then possibly fix the link. This involves deciding whether the redirect is actually incorrect, or just a reasonable if nonstandard alternative. Sometimes I even proactively create redirects for variants no-one has tried yet, but which someone some day might.
The same goes for unusual spellings where it's clear the person making the link didn't know the correct spelling. One often finds these on new pages patrol when someone creates a duplicate article because they either saw the redlink or, perhaps more commonly, tried to search for the incorrect spelling. (One that sticks to my mind is "Inagodadavida", which I successfully caught and redirected to [[In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida]].)
On 19/04/06, Ilmari Karonen nospam@vyznev.net wrote:
Or, in some cases better yet, create the redirect and _then_ fix the link.
Agreed.
Actually agree with your whole post.
Steve
Justin Cormack wrote:
On 16 Apr 2006, at 18:11, Steve Bennett wrote:
On 16/04/06, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/16/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
So I'm not convinced that the rule "pragmatic disambiguation over presumed importance" is applied all that consistency.
Sounds like some head-beating is necessary, but I already have way too much of this to do.
You're not talking about mine, are you? :) I'm happy to beat people with a fixed rule, but I'd like more confirmation that this rule actually exists and is accepted by the community. There is the guideline on disambig pages, but it's fairly vague. A hard-line "a city does *not* get priority over a cheese if most people would expect the cheese" would be helpful.
I would find it very odd that something named after something else should ever get priority.
However obscure the original is, like Camembert, or Jethro Tull, I think it should be at the article place.
I agree. Head-beating on this subject is too likely to result in headcheese. See http://www.cooks.com/rec/search/0,1-0,headcheese,FF.html
Ec