[WikiEN-l] Why voting *is* evil

[Philip Welch]

On Apr 11, 2006, at 3:00 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:

> I did not raise this issue to bash Americans. Nor would I have a
> complaint if a state in the US were disambig'ed with a terristory in
> Pakistan. But for a mere state in the US to be considered somehow
> "equal" in importance, interest, searchability as a *country* just
> seems wrong. I'm really having trouble putting into words exactly why
> I feel that way, so I'll leave it for a bit and come back to it.

Current political status is really somewhat of an irrelevant topic.  
What about 20 years ago, when Georgia was simply part of the USSR?  
Georgia wasn't "a country" then, but it was largely the same place.

Here's the objective metrics:

Total GDP, Per-Capita GDP, Population, Foreign Trade, Land Area, No.  
of Wiki-Links: The US State
Sovereignty, membership in int. organizations: The Nation

Now, this Wikipedia is written in English. (Arguments about African  
customers are irrelevant, as organizational style will change in a  
translation to an African language). There are 8 million people in  
Georgia (the state), almost all of whom speak English. There are 300  
million people in the United States, likewise. Georgia (the country)  
is not an English-speaking country.

There are 380 million people who speak English as a first language.  
Some 79% of English-speakers are thus Americans. Now, assuming that  
British, Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders, et. al. are all more  
interested in the country than the state, they only make up some 21%  
of the English-speaking population. You're asking to inconvenience  
4/5 of the potential user base for en. out of the belief that  
sovereignty and membership in international organizations not only  
outweigh all other considerations, but overwhelm it so much that the  
default page should not be a disambiguation page.

That's anti-Americanism.

-- 
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch