Re the recent (and excellent) efforts being made to apply consistency for naming conventions, I would like to throw a mild spanner in.
How come cities in the USA are identified simply by [[City, State]] and not [[City, State, USA]]? There would seem to be a presupposition that *everyone* will recognise US state names.
Admittedly you'd be hard pressed to find someone who hasn't heard of California. However a lot of people might not have heard of Iowa, Missouri, New Hampshire, Montana, or Louisiana, or would not know that New York, Mississippi and Washington are also states, or that New Mexico is actually in the USA.
I did a quick survey of people in my office (all of whom can be regarded as quite highly educated), and in each case I managed to find a US State they had never heard of or were confused about. By means of comparison, those US editors might try and name the 6 states of Australia, or the 9 provinces of South Africa, or the I-don't-know-how-many Provinces of Canada (with due apologies to my Canadian colleagues). And that is only considering the English-speaking world...
Manning
And on this subject, just what is the most commonly spoken language in Georgia? English? Russian? Or Georgian? It all depends on which Georgia you mean...
Cheers
Derek
----- Original Message ----- From: Manning Bartlett To: wikipedia-l@nupedia.com Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2002 9:25 PM Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Naming conventions for US States
Re the recent (and excellent) efforts being made to apply consistency for naming conventions, I would like to throw a mild spanner in.
How come cities in the USA are identified simply by [[City, State]] and not [[City, State, USA]]? There would seem to be a presupposition that *everyone* will recognise US state names.
Admittedly you'd be hard pressed to find someone who hasn't heard of California. However a lot of people might not have heard of Iowa, Missouri, New Hampshire, Montana, or Louisiana, or would not know that New York, Mississippi and Washington are also states, or that New Mexico is actually in the USA.
I did a quick survey of people in my office (all of whom can be regarded as quite highly educated), and in each case I managed to find a US State they had never heard of or were confused about. By means of comparison, those US editors might try and name the 6 states of Australia, or the 9 provinces of South Africa, or the I-don't-know-how-many Provinces of Canada (with due apologies to my Canadian colleagues). And that is only considering the English-speaking world...
Manning
On Wednesday 19 June 2002 16:46, Derek Ross wrote:
And on this subject, just what is the most commonly spoken language in Georgia? English? Russian? Or Georgian? It all depends on which Georgia you mean...
Then there's South Georgia, which isn't in Georgia, even though Georgia is in the South.
phma
Two pages are listed as Orphans that have illegal names: [[What_is_Mathematics,_Really?|What is Mathematics, Really?]] and [[Wikipedia:|Wikipedia:]]. Can someone with powers that surpass those of us mere sysops either blow those pages away or rename to some that can be accessed for editing?
Secondly, the years 803 through 809 continue to be listed as orphans despite having numerous incoming links. Why is that?
-- Sean Barrett | Any time you skip a commercial you're stealing sean@epoptic.com | the programming. I guess there's a certain | amount of tolerance for going to the bathroom. | --Jamie Kellner, CEO of Turner Broadcasting
On Wednesday 19 June 2002 16:25, Manning Bartlett wrote:
I did a quick survey of people in my office (all of whom can be regarded as quite highly educated), and in each case I managed to find a US State they had never heard of or were confused about. By means of comparison, those US editors might try and name the 6 states of Australia, or the 9 provinces of South Africa, or the I-don't-know-how-many Provinces of Canada (with due apologies to my Canadian colleagues). And that is only considering the English-speaking world...
Geographic knowledge, from what I've heard (I don't have an office to do a quick survey of), is *much* worse here in the USA. A friend of mine once told someone he's from North Dakota, and the other guy answered "Now which of the Dakotas is it that borders Canada?" And I went to a gathering in western North Carolina and made a nametag in the shape of North Carolina. Someone asked me, "Is that a state?"
phma
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