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

[Toby Bartels]

Mav wrote:

>Just following the new logic. Why should our article on the modern state of
>Mexico have history in it that doesn't belong to it? The history of the
>modern state called Mexico really doesn't start until until 1917 when its
>current constitution was drafted (arguably it may have started when it got
>its independence from Spain in 1810). So it is only logical that the article
>on the modern state should be at [[United States of Mexico]] and the main
>article on Mexican art, culture and history would be at [[Mexico]] (the
>history would probably start with Cortez since Mexican art and culture is a
>blending of Mesoamerican and Spanish art and culture).

I think that this logic is basically sound,
but that still doesn't mean that [[United States of Mexico]]
necessarily must be a separate article.
[[Mexico]] is the main article for all things Mexican,
and if everything that we had to say about Mexico fit on one page,
then it would all be there -- government, culture, history, etc.
But it doesn't fit, so we spin off other articles.
So we must look at the logic of spin-offs.

Of the present spin-offs, [[Politics of Mexico]], [[Economy of Mexico]],
[[List of states of Mexico]], and [[Demographics of Mexico]]
clearly all refer to present poltically defined conditions,
which are all about one modern state, the United States of Mexico.
OTOH, [[History of Mexico]], [[Geography of Mexico]], and [[Culture of Mexico]]
are more general, referring to Mexico under any government.

Fine, we know what *those* articles are about --
but what about [[United States of Mexico]] itself?
Where is the political entity named by this title discussed?
Well, it is discussed in [[Politics of Mexico]], [[Economy of Mexico]],
[[List of states of Mexico]], and [[Demographics of Mexico]],
each of which is prominently linked to from [[Mexico]].
So, [[United States of Mexico]] can redirect to [[Mexico]].
(And so it does -- now that I just created the redirect ^_^.)

Similarly, can [[People's Republic of China]] redirect to [[China]]?
Not as easily, since there are two sovereign states known as "China".
Similary, [[Politics of China]] is at least somewhat ambiguous
(although in that case, I'd give the PRC priority,
with a disambiguation block for the ROC linking to [[Politics of Taiwan]]).
But [[China]] itself needs to link to both --
or better, link to both [[People's Republic of China]] and to [[Taiwan]],
with these latter two articles linking to the relevant spin-offs.
(But [[China]] itself can still link to [[History of China]] and the like.)

This is what seems logical to me --
we can combine the state with the country
when the state is the only state (at least today) in the country,
but we need to spin the state off to its own article
when there are multiple states in the country.
Thus [[People's Republic of China]] is as much a spin-off of [[China]]
as [[History of China]] is, or [[History of Mexico]] a spin-off of [[Mexico]].
Also, [[Politics of China]] is a spin-off of [[People's Republic of China]]
while [[Politics of Mexico]] is a spin-off of [[United States of Mexico]] --
which is currently located entirely inside of [[Mexico]].


Let me say this all again in a diagrammatic way
(read using a fixed font, like Courier or Courier New):

           Mexico
             |
             v
             |
         +-<-+--------->----------+--------->---------+------>------+
         |                        |                   |             |
         v                        v                   v             v
         |                        |                   |             |
United States of Mexico   Culture of Mexico   History of Mexico  Geography ...
         |
         v
         |
         +---------->----------+---------->---------+------->------+
         |                     |                    |              |
         v                     v                    v              v
         |                     |                    |              |
Economy of Mexico  Demographics of Mexico  Politics of Mexico  List of ...

This is the purely logical structure of the spin-offs,
but it works well to redirect [[United States of Mexico]] to [[Mexico]]
and link to every other spin-off article from there.

          China                               Taiwan/Formosa (the island)
            |                                           |
            v                                           v
            |                                           |
            +------------>---------+----->------+----<--+-->---+
            |                      |            |              |
            v                      v            v              v
            |                      |            |              |
People's Republic of China  History of China  Taiwan  History of Taiwan/Formosa
            |                   |               |              |
            v                   v               v              v
            |                   |               |              |
        +-<-+---->-----+---<----+---->----+----------<---------+----->---+
        |              |                  |     |                        |
        v              v                  v     v                        v
        |              |                  |     |                        |
E,D,P of China  History of the PRC        +--<--+->-+  H of Formosa before 1900
                                          |         |
                                          v         v
                                          |         |
                    History of Taiwan after 1900  E,D,P of Taiwan

(This diagram is very complicated, and highly simplified here.
I hope can that you can see the spot where one line goes over another well.
That Taiwan lies under both China *and* Formosa, and similar things,
is why Wikipedia articles are not named hierarchically!)

We can redirect [[Formosa]] to [[Taiwan]] (as we currently do)
since we hardly discuss non-Chinese Formosans or Formosa before roughly 1900
(when the Chinese replaced the Formosans, making the island Taiwan).
Similarly, we can redirect [[Republic of China]] to [[Taiwan]],
and everything about the history of Taiwan/Formosa is in a single article now;
if we get more material about pre-Chinese Formosa, then these might change.

But it doesn't work so well to redirect [[People's Republic of China]]
to [[China]], since half of the E/D/P of China isn't even about the PRC.
Instead, we should have [[China]] link to [[People's Republic of China]]
and [[Taiwan]], so people can get to both Chinese states' material,
and also link to [[History of China]] and the rest from that article.
[[History of China]] itself could link to [[Chinese Empire]],
[[History of Taiwan]], and [[History of the PRC]], or such things,
depending on what is most convenient given how much is written
on the various epochs of Chinese history.  And so on.


So, to sum up, each title should be treated fairly generally,
and we should break articles up into logically divided pieces
when they get to be too long or about largely unrelated things.


-- Toby