On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 11:57 AM, Michael Everson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 26 Nov 2008, at 19:29, phoebe ayers wrote: > >>> Most probably, most users who type in "Ireland" are looking for the >>> article >>> about the Republic of Ireland. However, we can't escape the fact >>> that the >>> term Ireland is ambiguous. Some users would be unaware that six of >>> the 32 >>> Irish counties are not currently part of the Republic. >> >> I would actually argue that a reader who doesn't know anything about >> Ireland (picture a schoolchild in the US doing a project for St. >> Patrick's day) > > I don't think Ireland is all that obscure. > >> ... would be expecting to get exactly the article that is currently >> located at "Ireland". > > I tend to think that we should aim the bar a bit higher.
Just reiterating the perspective of someone not from the UK or Ireland here.. the situation is most certainly that obscure if one is learning about it for the first time. (I have ten years of college under my belt, and I could no more name the counties of Ireland than fly, let alone know which state they belonged to; nor can I tell you how and why the partition came about -- information that I would expect to find in a general article when I type in "ireland"). The general articles on a topic are *not* for people who already know all about that topic. I would wager that even when most educated adults in the US think of the concept of "Ireland", they think of things like leprechauns and Guinness, not the political divisions (except perhaps in a headline-in-the-news way). And if such cultural and historical information (Ray brought up a good point about the history of the island) is what I am looking for, then how precisely am I supposed to know to click on the "Ireland (island)" article? I see a disambiguation title like that and I think about geology -- how was the actual island formed, and so on. Since that's not (entirely) the case, I find it confusing. And just as a point of order, you (Michael) seem to be unwilling to consider any ideas other than the one you first presented, which isn't really much of a debate or compromise on the subject. Why even bring it up if you don't want input? -- phoebe _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
