[WikiEN-l] [[Ireland]] and [[China]]

[Ray Saintonge]

Daniel Mayer wrote:

>On Monday 09 December 2002 04:00 am, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>>I don't dispute the factual correctness of Mav's statement (or his hard
>>work and dedication), but I disagree with the conclusions that he draws
>>from that statement.  I find him to prone to decide issues based on his
>>genuflections to the Google God.  
>>
>I've stated on many occasions that Google is 
>simply a tool to be used that can give an impression of usage when the most 
>proper usage is in question. That data can then be used as one important 
>external factor to help decide what we should be naming things. If and when a 
>naming conflict arises or there is otherwise an ambiguity issue presented, 
>then alternates need to be sought.
>
I can go along with that.  I just don't worry as much as Mav does about 
the Google ranking of any particular article.  If the article is any 
good, then Google will recognize it in due time.  I also don't spend 
much time worrying about other people's broken links when they have 
linked to some specific article.  Is there not a way whereby when a 
person tries to connect to a non-existing article he can be defaulted 
back to the main page?

> With deepest respect I see Mav as a
>dedicated simplifier who would very much like to see knowledge in neatly
>wrapped little packages; sometimes that means cutting off the sharp and
>thorny bits just to get the gift to fit into the package.  Once we get
>into that box it is more difficult to look out and see the other
>possibilities.
>
>Also with the deepest respect, I think your oversimplication of me as a 
>"dedicated simplifier" is a bit off the mark (yet does have a thin veneer of 
>truth to it). For me, its not the knowledge itself but how that knowledge 
>interelates with other knowledge and how everything fits together in a 
>cohesive whole in order to make something superior to the sum of its parts 
>(similar to the role of chemistry and physiology in creating the emergent 
>property we call life). Granted, the use of the short forms of country names 
>was a bit simplistic, but it fit into our established naming conventions and 
>is also the form that most people would expect - thus its perceived overall 
>usefulness for both readers and contributors won the day.
>
This is interesting, because it seems to encompass the differences 
between the concepts of knowledge which Mav and I have.  In a chicken or 
egg controversy, I would be arguing for the chicken and he would be 
arguing for the egg..  My chicken is a free-range one that is at times a 
little wild and unruly; he is attracted to bright shiny objects which he 
likes to bring home, but those bright shiny objects can include 
undischarged bullets that explode in the chicken coop at inopportune 
times.  Mav's egg is orderly and nicely shaped, and that shape contains 
everything that the inhabitant will need to know for life; it has 
difficulty comprehending a swan among ducklings. The wonder is not that 
chemistry and physiology came together to form life, but that they did 
so without human intervention.  

How various bits of knowledge interrelate is indeed a focus of what we 
are all doing here.  A comprehensive encyclopedia is one of the most 
interdisciplinary works that can be imagined.  Most of our naming 
conventions make sense, even the ones that I disagree with, but I look 
at them as guidelines rather than rules.  Where the naming conventions 
conflict with the knowledge, the naming convention must adapt or give 
way, not the other way around.  Ideally the one thing that a naming 
convention will accomplish is an assurance that somehow the article and 
the links to it will be connected, each having been created without the 
need to know that the other in fact exists.  I am not as commtted as Mav 
to "the form that most people would expect".  I happen to believe that 
the main entry for something should be at it's "most correct" form. 
 Obviously, we can't completely ignore the most expected forms, but 
redirects are wonderful bidirectionsl tools, and I am not bothered when 
a link from [[Bill Clinton]] redirects to [[William Jefferson Clinton]]. 
 The person who did not know the connection between those two names has 
an opportunity to learn something.  When I get a surprising result I 
begin by asking "why?"; once that question is asked I can learn something.

> This makes perfect sense until the fact that a modern nation like the PRC is 
>not the same as the historical China. So, upon reflection, a more complicated 
>system is needed for naming countries in order to bypass the ambiguity 
>between the two different (yet related) entities and write on-topic articles. 
>I in fact enjoy complex solutions so long as the result is logical, useful 
>and is reasonably self-consistant with the minimum of exceptions. In short, I 
>adhere to Einstein's call to make things as simple as possible, but no 
>simpler. Note the "no simpler" part.
>
Einstein's comment is in some respects a modern retelling of Occam, but 
the simplicity line is not always clear.  Mav's criteria for an 
enjoyable complex solution are all valid.  However, even a minimum 
number of exceptions is a number of exceptions, and that makes this the 
most difficult of the four criteria.  The PRC/China question is a clear 
example of such a problem.  Having recognized the problem, we must ask 
whethger this exception is serious enough to warrant a change of policy 
affecting the naming of all countries.  Probably not, but we do have an 
obligation to explain the problem and the exception at the most 
appropriate place, which in this instance seems to be at [[China]].. 
 Similar, but still different, explanations may be needed at [[Korea]], 
[[Samoa]], [[Congo]] and a few others.  But no, we do not need a more 
complicated naming system just to deal with these exceptions.

>So I focus on many details at once and track how those many details might 
>combine to form the big picture. Sometimes the detailed work leads to blind 
>corners (or failed metabolic pathways) because I fail to take related details 
>into account or fail to see their importance (or even their existence). This 
>is what occurred with the China issue; I failed to compute the detail on what 
>in fact was the best and most useful way for the article itself to present 
>and organize its data since I overlooked the fact that the PRC and China are 
>really separate entities.  
>
If I had read that last paragraph in a context of dealing with gifted 
children, I would say that Mav is striving for perfection.  Gifted kids 
are often seriously disappointed when they cannot achieve perfection. 
 The word "fail" appeared four times in that last paragraph, but it's 
only meaningful in the most superficial sense.  Nobody's knowledge is so 
all-encompassing that he can account for all the possible exceptions. 
 What happened was not a failure.  There will always be exceptions; 
there will always be ambiguous usages coming from areas of study which 
have never been of interest to you at all.  

Eclecticology

>