[WikiEN-l] [Foundation-l] Trouble in Ireland

[Andrew Gray]

2008/11/26 David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>:
> 2008/11/26 Alex Sawczynec <glasscobra15 at gmail.com>:
>
>> So hang on a second here -- can someone please explain what's so
>> horrifyingly inadequate about the current state that things need to be
>> renamed? Unless something is completely disingenuous about the name
>> "Republic of Ireland," I'm not seeing a pressing need for these changes.
>
>
> Um, I was wondering that too.
>
> Let's assume a reader of Wikipedia isn't going to go through megabytes
> of talk-page arguments and frankly couldn't give a hoot about editor
> conduct issues. They just want to look stuff up.
>
> What's in it for the readers?

The argument runs that our status quo is bad because, well, "Republic
of Ireland" isn't the name. It means every time the article is looked
at by a reader, we have an incorrect name in big bold letters at the
top, and one with unpleasant political associations at that.

(I suppose a good analogy would be us still using "Ceylon"...)

> What's a one-sentence statement of the compelling reason from each
> side, stated from a neutral point of view?

Off the top of my head...

[[Ireland]] the island (the status quo):

"There *is* a name for the nation that we can use, and there isn't
another name for the island. So we should go with those."

[[Ireland]] being the country:

"Using "Republic of Ireland" is not very common, except in the UK, and
it's inappropriate to use it as the title. The country has prominence
over the geographical feature for our names; see how we deal with
Australia, Madagascar or Sri Lanka."

[[Ireland]] as disambiguation:

"People use "Ireland" in speech to mean either of them, and historical
contexts it's very difficult to define what article to use anyway. The
two topics are completely confused in common usage; we need primary
disambiguation."

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk