Talk:Georgia

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[edit] Naming issue overview

• Status as of 20:50, 05 August 2006 (UTC):
  • (Article titles, not redirects)
  • Dab page: Georgia
  • Country: Georgia (country)
  • U.S. state: Georgia (U.S. state)
• Leading proposals
  • #1 (Georgia is primarily country) — 75 votes
    • Dab page: Georgia (disambiguation)
    • Country: Georgia
    • U.S. state: Georgia (U.S. state)
  • #2 (Georgia is primarily Dab) — 68 votes
    • Dab page: Georgia
    • Country: Georgia (country)
    • U.S. state: Georgia (U.S. state)
• Minor alternatives
  • #3 (Georgia is primarily U.S. state) — 3 votes
    • Dab page: Georgia (disambiguation)
    • Country: Georgia (country)
    • U.S. state: Georgia
  • #4 (Close to #2: Georgia is primarily Dab, via rdr to a more explicitly Dab-ish pg.) — 7 votes
    • Dab page: Georgia (disambiguation)
    • Country: Georgia (country)
    • U.S. state: Georgia (U.S. state)

Contents 1 Naming issue overview 2 Poll 2.1 Option 1: Move Georgia (country) to Georgia and the current Georgia to Georgia (disambiguation) 2.2 Option 2: Maintain the status quo. Everything stays where it is (the US state at Georgia (U.S. state), the country at Georgia (country), and the disambiguation page at Georgia. 2.3 Option 3: Move Georgia (U.S. state) to Georgia and the current Georgia to Georgia (disambiguation) 2.4 Option 4: Move Georgia to Georgia (disambiguation), and keep a redirect from Georgia to Georgia (disambiguation). Leave Georgia (U.S. state) and Georgia (country) where they are. 3 More comments (since April 2004) 4 All your pages are belong to US 5 Older comments (pre-2004) 6 Data 7 True or false?? 8 English Wikipedia is out of step 9 Population figures 10 Ending the poll (True or false??) 11 Challenging question 12 Any sensible ideas to achieve consensus? 13 Consensus 14 U.S.-centric level 14.1 Taiwanicentrism? 15 Move Georgia (country) to Republic of Georgia and move Georgia (U.S. state) to State of Georgia. 16 Fair resolution to the Country / State debate 17 Please vote: is the country of Georgia in Europe and Asia? Or just Asia? 18 Comparable cases 18.1 Macedonia 18.1.1 Comments 18.2 Luxembourg 18.2.1 Comments 18.3 Ireland 19 Proposal : Properly qualifying all three main pages 20 Requested move 21 Why Georgia (U.S. state) and not Georgia (state) or Georgia (USA)? 22 A fifth proposition? 23 State Capital 24 Add the university of Georgia? 24.1 RESPONSE From FGF2007

[edit] Poll

Hey All, I just wanted to see how many people are still interested in this topic as a resolution might be nice sometime soon. I see this has dragged on for more than a year. So without further ado I present - The Georgia Moving Poll.

I am confused about the reasoning behind Option 4. Pædia 04:34, 2004 May 12 (UTC)

For my take on why Option 4 is a good idea, and further thoughts (both ChrisO's and mine), see these proposals. +sj+ 08:19, 2004 May 18 (UTC)

Note that option 4 is a violation of policy and will never be implemented unless policy is changed. --Jiang 20:58, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

At this moment, it appears that, defining Republicans as those who want option 1 and Democrats as those who want option 2, there are only 35 Republicans to 44 Democrats. I feel sure the Democrats will most likely win. 66.245.73.105 23:52, 29 May 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure I feel confortable being defined as a Republican :-p Dmn 00:02, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

This is just a designation I use for convenience; what names would you have picked?? 66.245.11.175 14:33, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Maybe "republicans vs. constitutionalists (or democrats)", or "progressives vs. conservatives". Pædia 05:18, 2004 Jun 18 (UTC)

I object to being labelled a Republican. Please discontuinue this classification. Mintguy (T) 17:08, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

As do I. James F. (talk) 02:09, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I, too, take offense to being labelled a fascist. If anything the two terms should be swapped. {Ανάριον} 22:06, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Actually, either republicans or democrats can be fascist. Pædia 21:11, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC)

[edit] More comments (since April 2004)

If the only issue is links to Georgia that should go to Georgia (U.S. state), I would volunteer to go around and change "Georgia" links every couple weeks or so. —Bkell 08:41, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(places)#Hierarchy_of_place_names_and_disambiguation_guidelines for a proposed rule on disambiguation hierarchies - if adopted it would provide a consistent basis for what to call identically-named geographic areas of differing levels of status (including the two Georgias). -- ChrisO 11:42, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I absolutely agree that Georgia should point to Georgia(country), as we should follow the guidelines, as well as it is kind of insulting to Georgia to have them the same as the state 64.180.73.13 05:56, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

I have moved all the links that should link to the US State to link to the US State but left the ones to the country. I feel we should let the country have the place. Burgundavia 09:50, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

The effort required to change everything around is nowhere near worthwhile for any supposed benefit. Nobody is being subordinated by the current method. Consider as well that after the U.S. Declaration of Independence in 1776, the U.S. state had two presidents, serving the year until the Articles of Confederation were signed in 1777. Likewise, the republic was under the Soviet Union at one time. The state has a larger population and much larger economy than the country as well. There are equal arguments on both sides, therefore neither should be moved.  ?radiojon 04:57, 2004 May 3 (UTC)

Yes, but is it not about who is bigger or smarter or has more money. It is about principal. Consider this example. The country of Outer Noexistia has a state called The United States of America. This state has a population of 3.5 billion and an economy 3 times that of the USA. However. USA(the real country) should have the page United States of America even though The United States of America in Outer Noexista is bigger and (probably) would have more global pull.

Now for the non rational arguments. For the record I am a Canadian. I feel that this is an example of the United States members of Wikipedia exerting influence beyond that which I feel is reasonable. Burgundavia 05:24, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

BTW, to respond to Burgundavia, if there were a locale somewhere in the world named "United States of America" with 3 billion inhabitants, it certainly would push our fair nation out of its current article-name! +sj+

One of the most important features of wikipedia is clarity. In all fairness then, it doesn't matter who has the biggest economy, the most people, or the "principle" of being the Georgia page. "Georgia" should go to the disambig page. That way, no matter what you are looking for, you will be able to find it. This is not about who is right or wrong in regard to any arbitrary measuring scale, it is a matter of letting users find what they are looking for. Maclyn611 06:52, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Very well said! I'm tired of both the ignorance of Americans, and the frequent over-reactions to it from other places. The point is of course that Wikipedia must remain NPOV, and let users find what they are looking for easily and intuitively. The status quo on this issue has served Wikipedia well thus far, and should remain.

Let "Georgia" point to the country and "Georgia (U.S. state)" point to the U.S. state. No matter the relative wealth or influence of the U.S. state, it is not a sovereign nation; it is subordinate to a sovereign nation. This is just a matter of principle, as well as consistency. Only on the English wikipedia would this "debate" even exist. As for redirecting misdirects and disambiguating links throughout the wiki, this isn't really much of a problem. There is a human-assisted bot "Robbot" which, while not perfect by any means, can quickly and efficiently find and fix all disambiguating problems for a certain term. The argument "we can't fix all the links" is bogus.

Georgia, the US state, is sovereign. Just because it is jointly sovereign with the US doesn't change that fact. Should we consider England a non-sovereign entity as well, just because it shares its sovereignty with the EU? As for this only occuring on the English Wikipedia, I imagine the familiarity of people with the state vs. the country differs in other languages. With Georgia in English, I expect there is a large percentage of people who have heard of both. anthony (see warning)

Ohh dear. England isn't "sovereign", England is part of the United Kingdom which is "sovereign". The UK does not share "sovereignty" with the EU. Ohh dear. Mintguy (T) 16:39, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Indeed. This is similar to suggesting that... Queen's County, New York is sovereign, but shares its sovereignty with the US; Anthony, please stay accurate. :-) James F. (talk) 00:13, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Counties within US states are not sovereign. It's not similar to that at all. Please see http://www.snowcrest.net/siskfarm/dulsover.html, or just do a search for "dual sovereignty" yourself. anthony (see warning) 12:59, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] All your pages are belong to US

Seriously - this is shocking that this situation exists in the first place. A sovereign nation state is not placed above a member state of a federation? The page should certainly have a link top of page to the US state, but the country should appear as the main article.

May I point out that having a poll is nonsensical, this is an issue of there being more US wikipedians than any others - and mob rule being imposed.

I'm just VERY glad the US doesn't have a state named Ireland! Or Europe! Hey, I guess I should just be happy that Dublin, Ireland gets the Dublin page, as opposed to some upstart town in the US! Why don't we just disambiguate Paris, London, Maine, and a host of other places!

I've met people from the US who thought I was pulling their leg when I talked about Georgia the nation. If anything, putting the country page here should alleviate some ignorance! Zoney 00:01, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

Well now, I agree the nation should come first on the dab page, which will alleviate some ignorance, but there should be such a page to avoid confusion. And all editors need to learn to qualify their Georgia references. +sj+ 11:10, 2004 May 18 (UTC)

How about a poll only amongst people from outside the United States and Georgia? I'll go annotate my vote with my nationality. Ben Arnold 04:51, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

I voted the way I did not because I thought it was the best choice, but because of people choose not to debate the facts but the motives. We put articles where people are most likely to find them. If there are more Americans here than Eastern Europeans/Western Asians, then we go by where the Americans would choose to find things. When it comes to the location (and not content) of articles, there's nothing wrong with being tilted towards one end of the globe. The location of articles is for the convenience of our readers. Face the inevitable truth that our country will asskick yours. Bow to us.--Jiang 03:53, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I think that the place-name hierarchy is silly, as are the invocations of the U.S. state's superiority of population, land area, etc. I'd reckon that any person over the age of five residing in St. Petersburg, Florida is fully aware of the existence of "that other" St. Petersburg. On the other hand, most people living in the U.S. probably don't think of the sovereign country of Georgia unless reminded of it, and likewise most English-speakers in the former Soviet Union don't hear very much about the U.S. state of that name. This recognizability should be the only criterion for establishing priority of disambiguation. It works well enough for most topics in this encyclopedia, and almost always concurs with your vaunted hierarchy anyway. When someone mentions Georgia, the meaning depends on whether that person lives in the U.S. or the former Soviet Union. It's an inherently ambiguous situation, and we should recognize that ambiguity with an equal disambiguation. --Smack 23:43, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Older comments (pre-2004)

I think it's a bit insulting to the sovereign nation of Georgia not to have this page hosting the page about the country and to move the disambiguation to Georgia (disambiguation) Mintguy 08:52 9 Jul 2003 (UTC)

In theory, this may be ideal, but in practice, all the links to the U.S. state would never be disambiguated. I'm not sure where it was, but I think I already read a debate (even a vote?) about this. Oddly, I couldn't find it by looking for links pointing to Georgia .. --User:Docu

I don't understand what you mean by "all the links to the U.S. state would never be disambiguated". Until I moved them the other day the there were still alot of links for the state pointing here. Mintguy 07:55 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

If Georgia would be the page for the country, we would have a lot of links about the state pointing there. I disambiguated the links once before, when I added Georgia to Wikipedia:Links to disambiguating pages. The opposite solution, to use Georgia for the state, wouldn't necessarily make it easier. -- User:Docu

"If Georgia would be the page for the country, we would have a lot of links about the state pointing there." ..and... your point is? A link to here is wrong for either state or country at present. Mintguy

How about moving the country here and then have a link a top saying if you are looking for the county/city/rock band/kind of chicken feed/etc go to this linkBurgundavia 09:52, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

I feel the current solution is easier to maintain. -- User:Docu

I also think the country deserves to be here. Its no different from St. Petersburg, Florida and St. Petersburg, Russia, and dozens of other such situations. - SimonP 14:53, Aug 3, 2003 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Votes for deletion:

• Georgia - I think that Georgia (country) should be moved there. - SimonP 15:14, Aug 3, 2003 (UTC)
  • I disagree. The two meaning are in common use. This is a classic example of where a disambig page is needed. uriber 17:57, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)
    • Agree with Uriber. Leave it as disambig page. -- Infrogmation 18:37, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)
  • I agree for the Georgian language version of Wikipedia, not the English language version Marshman 18:53, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)
  • This is one of those issues that illustrates wikipedia's bias towards wealthy English speaking areas, especially the United States, as opposed to the rest of the world (a bias that reflects the internet in general). A Google search in English will point mostly to the state, because most English language websites are American. If you could confine a the search to non-American English speakers the result would, however, show the country being far more important than the state. As an indication of this I searched in French, which should represent a neutral non-American view. There "géorgie état unis" is much less common than "géorgie russie" (and since Georgia isn't even part of Russia the difference is probably even more pronounced)- SimonP 19:13, Aug 3, 2003 (UTC)
    • That may tell you what is appropriate for the French wikipedia, but is not very indicative for English. Why is this on VfD anyway? None of these pages are ever going to be deleted, this is a content issue. Stan 19:28, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Finish move

Population facts:

• Demographics of Georgia: 5,019,538 (July 2000)
• Georgia (U.S. state)#Demographics: 8,186,453 (2000)

--Menchi 21:31, Aug 3, 2003 (UTC)

So countries are less important than American administrative districts? Has this wikipedia turned into US.wikipedia.org? There're even fewer people in the country I live in than in Georgia. Crusadeonilliteracy 16:07, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)

---

[edit] Data

Please note that the country article has had more visits than the state article, by a factor of ~3. See Georgia article data. --Zigger 05:08, 2004 Jun 12 (UTC)

Couldn't this also mean that more people are familiar with the state, and are thus not clicking on that article, as opposed to the relatively unfamiliar nation? [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 00:54, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Possibly, but I have no idea about the motivation of people who did not visit a particular article. Just that of those looking for a Georgia, ~75% end up at the country article. --Zigger 13:32, 2004 Jul 11 (UTC)

---

[edit] True or false??

True or false: a generalized version of option 1 in the above poll is "Make the English Wikipedia reflect Asians(Eastern Europeans) more than Americans". 66.245.29.74 20:14, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

You are full of crap. Sosomk

False. RickK 20:25, Jun 23, 2004 (UTC)

Well, what is the correct generalized version?? 66.245.29.74 20:31, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Try "Make the English Wikipedia, which is not the American Wikipedia, be less US-centric." Though "Countries are more important than administrative divisions" probably holds more water :) The User Formerly Known As 82.6.10.139 02:41, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] English Wikipedia is out of step

As far as I can tell of the languages where Georgia could mean either the US state or the country, the English Wikipedia is the only one which has the country subordinate to every other country, in that is is disambiguated as Georgia (country). Mintguy (T) 22:23, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Is the opinion of having Georgia (country) to Georgia logical in any way independent of the statement that "a country is more important than a division of another country"?? Name some areas where the English-speaking population is very large where the people don't know the names of the U.S. states. 66.245.70.19 22:37, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I don't precisely understand the meaning of the question. Mintguy (T)

The question is I want to see the logic that the country is the dominant meaning. This isn't very logical to people familiar with the states of the United States. I want to know if there are any English-speaking people who are not familiar with the names of the U.S. states. 66.245.70.19 23:02, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Actually I suspect if you asked everyone in the USA to name all fifty states there'd be an embarrassingly large number who couldn't do it. I also doubt there are all that many people in the USA who could even place Georgia the country on a map. I fear there will be people in Georgia the US state who don't even realise Georgia the country exists. I suspect this sort of ignorance is the real reason why some Americans seem to believe that it's ridiculous for an obscure far-away country they've barely heard of to be given precedence over a subdivision of their own nation. Please, enlightened Americans (I know you exist in your droves), help your countrymen see the absurdity of their position on this matter. — Trilobite (Talk) 22:58, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

What makes you think that everyone any country outside of the US knows the names of all of the US states? Do you know the names of all of the counties in England? I don't see how this question is in any way relevant anyway.Mintguy (T) 23:16, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I don't have the names of the counties in England in my long term memory. IMHO, there are plenty of people who know the states of the United States. The United States is one of the most developed nations and how is it logical for Wikipedia to have a more Asian POV even though Asia doesn't have very many nations as developed as the United States. 66.245.70.19 23:21, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

So you are saying that Georgia, US is more important because more people have refrigerators? Mintguy (T)

Err; by this argument, I should know every province of China, India, and Russia (amongst others), because they contain lots of people are world economic powers? *sighs* Also, Georgia is a European country as much as it is an "Asian" one -- it's considering joining the EU James F. (talk) 00:12, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Well, for that matter, why should a mere potential "subdivision" of the EU take priority? I think a "subdivision" of the US is certainly more important than a "subdivision" of the EU. In all seriousness, the political structures are just as unimportant as the relative development of each region. What matters is what are visitors looking for? --Wclark 16:42, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh? You do? Curiously enough, I consider current and future member states of the Union to be infinitely more interesting than subdivisions of the United States... ;p —Nightstallion (?) 19:51, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Population figures

From the article: "...with a population of n,nnn,nnn as of yyyy". Someone's trying to prove a point (about relevant importance? no one's arguing in favor of settling this matter on the basis of population, are they?), but I can't think of any other disambiguation page with throwaway demographic stats. They don't belong, and I'm going to stamp on them. (The fact that the figs are also involved in an ongoing low-intensity edit war doesn't help matters, either.) –Hajor 00:31, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Several disambiguation pages have population figures on it. They are generally useful in lists with US towns and CDPs. They are not necessarily that useful here, but definitely more interesting than noting that the Caucasus is in western Asia. As for the edit war part .. that's another, unrelated question. -- User:Docu

[edit] Ending the poll (True or false??)

True or false: the poll is scheduled to come to an end soon. 66.245.78.88 23:16, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Challenging question

Suppose there were separate Wikipedias for Americans and Europeans and each one had its own Georgia moving poll. What would the results of each poll probably be?? 66.32.246.242 23:50, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The results would probably be drowned out by howls of indignation from the disenfranchised Asians, Africans, and Australasians. And that's allowing a broad interpretation of "American". –Hajor

[edit] Any sensible ideas to achieve consensus?

Probably not, as I really mean "can we get this article moved to Georgia (disambiguation) and put the country page here?"!

Really though, should we RFC the village pump again? Find a different way to count votes? Poll USians separately from "rest of world" and then muse over the findings?

Personally, I consider it disgraceful that this is being held up to ransom by those from the US. Georgia, USA is not a country (and a member of a federation, not a union, despite the misnomer - it's even less of a country-type entity). Georgia (sort of/mostly/maybe Europe) is a country.

zoney | talk 13:33, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I agree I think it's exceedingly disrespectful to single out Georgia as the only sovereign nation that is disambiguated with (country). I think it should be a rule that national entities outrank all others. Mintguy (T) 13:54, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I suspect that theoretically (as most "rules" in Wikipedia seem to be) that is the case. zoney ▓█▒ talk 14:13, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Ultimately, this boils down to what are looking for. Given the similar magnitude of the two pages, to place either above the other represents a clear violation of the NPOV policy. We should be finding in favour of neither, and keeping the neutral balance that the current situation brings. The User Formerly Known As 82.6.10.139

Except that it can't be "neutral" when every other country is at the page with its official name. Well, OK, Ireland is at Republic of Ireland - which is only an official description, but apart from that. Hmmm... Does Georgia (country) have a proper title/description... zoney ▓█▒ talk 01:48, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC) (Nuts - unfortunately, no, it's no longer the Republic of Georgia)

In what way is it a "clear violation" of NPOV to state that a country should have a higher priority than a subdivision of another country? Mintguy (T)

It isn't, but you know damn well that's not what this discussion is about. This isn't about which place is more important, it's about which article is more important. We should not be practising honour by association. The country may be on a higher administrative level (soverign nation vs. federated state), but that does not automatically make its article more important or relevant. In fact, I'd wouldn't give long odds on there being more queries leading to the state than the country. Giving main title preference to one article requires (or, more correctly, should require) the following conditions:

1. The article (body, not subject) proposed for the main title is clearly and significantly more important than all other uses.
2. All other articles must be sufficiently unimportant to merit the lesser coverage.

I believe that the country is more important than the state, but not that the country article is therefore automatically more important. It would be safe to say that while, under most circumstances, Georgia (country) is important enough for main title placement, it would also be safe enough to say that the article at Georgia (U.S. state) is not unimportant enough to allow the country to take main title. I'd also chance that if you asked most native English-speakers about Georgia (remember, this is en:) the U.S. state would come to mind first. This fact alone should demonstrate that it is not sufficiently unimportant. The User Formerly Known As 82.6.10.139

You said - I'd wouldn't give long odds on there being more queries leading to the state than the country- This assertion has already been proved wrong. Please look at the comment from Wclark above he saiys - Wclark 14:51, 2004 Jul 20 (UTC) As of this writing, there were 491 links to Georgia (country) and 693 links to Georgia (U.S. state), therefore it's reasonable to suppose that making Georgia pertain to the state would be more useful for contributors, and better match majority intent. Logfile stats indicate that Georgia (country) gets about 3 times the traffic of Georgia (U.S. state) so majority intent is far from clear. I withdraw my approval of this option. - clearly then you would agree that Georgia (country) is more significant to Wikipedia. Mintguy (T) 08:48, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

(Moved above to preserve comment integrity) The "assertion", by which I think you actually mean "guess", has not been proved either way. What logfile stats? Where is the evidence to support your claim? "XYZ said it's so" is not evidence. If I read that comment correctly, it doesn't even support your own argument. Let me take that gun before you shoot your other foot. "... majority intent is far from clear." How does that register as a vote for the country? Especially when the poster of that comment has voted to maintain the status quo? Since you seem intent on hammering a question which has already been answered, I'll turn it back on you. In what way is it not biased and non-NPOV to arbitrarily place the country article in main title position? Like I've always said, it's a decision for hte visitors to make as to which is more important for their research, not for you to make for them. The User Formerly Known As 82.6.10.139 21:25, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

wClark stated "As of this writing, there were 491 links to Georgia (country) and 693 links to Georgia (U.S. state)" later he said "Logfile stats indicate that Georgia (country) gets about 3 times the traffic of Georgia (U.S. state) ". The former statement is in contrast to the latter one so he concluded - " so majority intent is far from clear". I was adressing the specific point you raised in your "guess" (with implied certainty) that "[there are] ... more queries leading to the state than the country". The former point made by wClark is not relevant to this specific point. A number of Wikipedia stats can be found at Wikipedia:Statistics. The log stats for March 2004 can be found at http://wikimedia.org/stats/en.wikipedia.org/url_200403.html (WARNING: this is a 38mb file). These stats indicate that for March, Georgia (country) received 2312 hits, Georgia (U.S. state) received 1335 hits and Georgia (unqualified) received 763 hits. Not quite the 3:1 of whenever wClark checked but still a significant lead for the country. Mintguy (T)

If Georgia had a fuller name (e.g. "Republic of Georgia") we would be able to use that, like we do for Republic of Macedonia, Republic of Ireland, People's Republic of China, et al. Is it disrespectful for these other countries then, since they prefer their conventional short form over the official names? We're not attempting to single out Georgia. It's just that software wont allow two articles with the same name to reside at the same place. The purpose is disambiguation. --Jiang 02:25, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

That's certainly the case but the net result is that Georgia ends up being singled out. Mintguy (T)

Why is this a problem? Are we to sacrifice NPOV and the principles of relevance? Are any of you here actually from Georgia (country)? Didn't think so.

Hello Anon. Two points. I am positive some of our readers and editors are from are from Georgia. If I was from Georgia, what differerence would that make though? Secondly, what has NPOV got to do with it? Mintguy (T) 08:41, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Apologies for not signing. NPOV should easily be the single, most-important consideration, above all else, even the concept of state vs. country. The question is not about "some of our readers and editors", but the people arguing here. If you were from Georgia, which you're not (rendering the whole comment safe to ignore), what difference would it make to you presonally to have (country) at the end of the article name? For the reasons posited above, to give either article main title would be biased. The User Formerly Known As 82.6.10.139

You said - "to give either article main title would be biased." - This implies that to place any article at an undisambigutated spot spot implies a POV. I don't think this is the case. I think it is simply a matter of convention. If we were to declare a policy that "national entities have a greater priority than sub-national ones" then this should solve this particular problem that has split the Wikipedia community. I am adressing the title of this section which is "Any sensible ideas to achieve consensus?" Mintguy (T) 08:44, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This implies that to place any article at an undisambigutated spot implies a POV. No, it doesn't. You are extending a generalisation from a special case which needs special treatment. You still have answeredonly one side of the argument, attempting to prove your case through implication and spin. Obviously you believe the nation is important enough for top placing, but "It's a sovereign state" doesn't really cut it, when technically many of the US states are also sovereign. They set their own laws, and have their own independent governments. It works similarly to how EU law is applied here in the UK. At any time, the government can repeal the act that gives EU law precedence, at the cost of their membership in the EU. You need to answer two questions: (1) What makes the country article (not the country itself) more important? (2) Why is the state article unimportant? Unless you can make a good case for both, Option 1 is not likely to be enacted. Chris 15:25, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Ok time for a review. Earlier, after you said - "Given the similar magnitude of the two pages, to place either above the other represents a clear violation of the NPOV policy. " - I said - "In what way is it a "clear violation" of NPOV to state that a country should have a higher priority than a subdivision of another country?". I was talking about that being a proposed policy for Wikipedia, to sort out a disagreement that has split the community, but you seem to have misinterpreted this because you replied - "It isn't, but you know damn well that's not what this discussion is about. This isn't about which place is more important, it's about which article is more important." - importance means subjectivity, I am not arguing about importance I am talking about hierarchy. NPOV has nothing to do with this, as I stated before. You then said "I'd wouldn't give long odds on there being more queries leading to the state than the country" - I said - "This assertion has already been proved wrong. Please look at the comment from Wclark" - I should have also pointed out the earlier section on this page, Data where User:Zigger had given a link to a breakdown of this data at Georgia_article_data. You said "What logfile stats? Where is the evidence to support your claim? "XYZ said it's so" is not evidence." - so I pointed you to the Wikipedia:Statistics page where you can find these stats for yourself. In a different thread you said "For the reasons posited above, to give either article main title would be biased. " - I'm not clear what "reasons" you are referring to, (perhaps NPOV?, but again I ask what has NPOV got to do with suggesting that we enact a standard rule that national entities should supercede sub-national ones? It is merely a matter of adopting (or not adopting) a convention for disambiguation purposes, NPOV doesn't enter into it. Still I decided to tackle the question of "supposed" bias by saying - "This implies that to place any article at an un-disambigutated spot implies a POV.", you replied - "No, it doesn't. You are extending a generalisation from a special case which needs special treatment." right so you are saying that in all other cases, giving a page to a particular article is not showing bias, but in this "special case" it would be. Huh? why is that? There are plenty of pages occupy the undisambiguated spot and it has got nothing to do with bias. It is a matter of convenience and convention. Georgia is no different. I'm not arguing from a "biassed perspective", I'm arguing from a practical one. However, it just happens however that in the case of [Georgia (country)] I (and a number of other people) happen to think that it is both insulting and anti-Internationalist for Wikipedia to allow [Georgia (country)] to be unique in having this disambiguation, so although I have my own reasons for believing that Georgia should not be disambiguated, I'm not using those reasons to argue the case. So leaving aside this personal view, lets tackle a your more recent points. You said "technically many of the US states are also sovereign" - no they are not. Not in the context of what we are talking about which is "independent of, and unlimited by, any other authority". If we are using what I presume is your definition then Bavaria and Saxony are also sovereign. There is no comparison to be made with the EU, not yet anyway. So now you state " What makes the country article (not the country itself) more important? (2) Why is the state article unimportant? ". I don't like to characterise it as important or unimportant, but if you want to look at the broads statistics just look below where Georgia (country) finds itself accessed roughly 3 times as often as the state. If you want to call this "importance" then do so, but as far as I am concerned this has nothing to do with the subjective concept of importance. It is about Internationalism and disambiguation formost. Mintguy (T) 18:37, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The net effect of changing the status quo includes the likely breaking of a whole load of unqualified links (go fix them all if you like), and relegating the state article to equal placement with a small town of the same name, amongst other things. You still fail to close the argument completely. I agree that the country (i.e. Georgia itself, not the article) is higher on the scale of things than the state (i.e. the state of Georgia, not the article about it), but is the entity (and its associated article) sufficiently unimportant to deserve relegation? You also make a point of it being "insulting" and "disrespectful". To whom? Having looked at the stats, there's not really anything conclusive there either. Were those thousands upon thousands of hits, fair enough, but are they hits or unique visits? Have you discounted regular editors of the articles? It is fairly trivial business to reload a page 2000 times to prove a point (I should know, I've both seen it done and done it myself). Wikipedia is not a travel guide, the CIA World Factbook or the Citizen's Advice Bureau. "Our" (TINW) first duty should not be to "internationalism" (whatever that is - perhaps an American conceit for "admitting the rest of the world exists"), but to making accurate, up-to-date information available and accessible. Political correctness is more of a hindrance than a help. The concept of "internationalism" is nothing but PC, and something we can live without. As for disambiguation, if anything Option 1 makes things more ambiguous. Someone from outside is looking for the state, types in "Georgia" and winds up at the country. How does that help disambiguation? Similarly, someone might want information about ex-Soviet republics, types in "Georgia" and ends up at a page about the US state. Georgia is the only nation tagged with (country) and this is apparently disrespectful. So, similarly, it must also be disrespectful that Georgia is the only US state to be tagged with (state). So, points remaining unanswered and/or entirely dodged:

1. On the grand scale of things, is the state and the article unimportant? (I do not consider a 2:1 majority of hits enough to excuse this)
2. Have you consulted any bona fide Georgians (of either variety) to see whether they feel insulted or disrespected?
3. On what basis is it a safe assumption that most (not merely more, but most) visitors will want either article based purely on the name?
4. Why is political correctness coming before efficient organisation of information?

Chris 03:57, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You said - ' The net effect of changing the status quo includes the likely breaking of a whole load of unqualified links (go fix them all if you like) - Unqualified links are already broken. A link to [[Georgia]] is wrong for both state and country at the moment. Moving the country page would actually have the opposite effect to the one you state. As for doing this myself, I'd be glad to, I've done it before. We also have bots for this kind of task. The difficulty of moving links is no argument for moving a page.

You then said- .. and relegating the state article to equal placement with a small town of the same name, amongst other things. - The State article is already disambiguated so it would not affect the state in any way whatsoever.

You then said - You still fail to close the argument completely. I agree that the country (i.e. Georgia itself, not the article) is higher on the scale of things than the state (i.e. the state of Georgia, not the article about it), but is the entity (and its associated article) sufficiently unimportant to deserve relegation? - There would be no relegation. The state is would remain where it is now at Georgia (U.S. state)

You then said - You also make a point of it being "insulting" and "disrespectful". To whom? - I'm not arguing from this angle, this is just my personal view. You then said - Having looked at the stats, there's not really anything conclusive there either. Were those thousands upon thousands of hits, fair enough, but are they hits or unique visits? Have you discounted regular editors of the articles? It is fairly trivial business to reload a page 2000 times to prove a point (I should know, I've both seen it done and done it myself). - There is no basis for this speculation. The figures below are for three full months; I would find it hard to believe anyone was deliberately manipulating the hit count and sustaining it over such a long period of time. However I invite you to check the stats for other months and check for yourself.

You then said - Wikipedia is not a travel guide, the CIA World Factbook or the Citizen's Advice Bureau. "Our" (TINW) first duty should not be to "internationalism" (whatever that is - perhaps an American conceit for "admitting the rest of the world exists"), but to making accurate, up-to-date information available and accessible. Political correctness is more of a hindrance than a help. The concept of "internationalism" is nothing but PC, and something we can live without. - It is most certainly not political correctness. In the words of Jimbo Wales, Wikipedia is not an Internet encyclopaedia, it is an encyclopaedia that happens to be on the Internet. I believe that there is a proposed plan that sometime in the future it will be given away on disk and in printed form in places like Africa where regular encyclopaedias are difficult to come by and too expensive. In the main what I am trying to say is that we should be targeting our International audience which is the global community and not the rich (in global terms) people with computers an cheap Internet access in the United States and Western Europe.

You then said - As for disambiguation, if anything Option 1 makes things more ambiguous. Someone from outside is looking for the state, types in "Georgia" and winds up at the country. How does that help disambiguation? Similarly, someone might want information about ex-Soviet republics, types in "Georgia" and ends up at a page about the US state. Georgia is the only nation tagged with (country) and this is apparently disrespectful. So, similarly, it must also be disrespectful that Georgia is the only US state to be tagged with (state). - As stated above the disrespect factor is my opinion and I am not arguing from that perspective.

Your points.

1. It's 2:1 and then 3:1 in May. But you seem to be moving the goalposts somewhat, so I hesitate to ask what you might consider a suitable ratio.
2. Irrelevant.
3. I don't entirely understand the question, but perhaps you might want to check the stats out for the other months if you feel that they might be being manipulated in some way.
4. Misunderstanding of what I meant by Internationalism.

Mintguy (T) 04:32, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

1. Point remains unanswered. I might still question the decision if the ratio were 5:1, or more still. The state article is relegated, from "high on disambig list" to "hidden behind another article".
2. I think it's perfectly relevant. A major point of your vote and your argument (despite trying to disclaim it later) is that you find it disrespectful and insulting. Given you're not in either, have you found someone that is, to see how they feel?
3. The decision to move either article to main title would have to be based on the assumption that said article would be the one people are looking for under that title. It is a safe assumption that the Sun will rise at about 6:30 local time here. It is not a safe assumption that I will be up and out of bed by 9am. On what basis would the assumption "the vast majority of people searching for 'Georgia' are looking for the country" a safe one?
4. You talk about "our International audience" as if it doesn't include yourself. Anyway, which should an article title be above anything else? Unambiguous or politically correct? Evidently, in this case we can't have a title which is both.

If all of this gets a little unwieldy for the page as a whole (as it looks as if nobody else is interested ;-) perhaps we can continue from this point onwards on our Talk pages? Chris 05:07, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

1. You said I might still question the decision if the ratio were 5:1, or more .. - So there is no satisfactory answer for you here. Well that makes it difficult to argue over. As for "hidden behind another article". What do you mean? That a user looking for Georgia U.S. state has to make 3 clicks instead of two?
2. You said - despite trying to disclaim it later - I never defended it as a rational standpoint but I am certainly not disclaiming it. If you want to claim this as a point of victory then go ahead. My view still stands. I don't contest that your opinion differs.
3. You said On what basis would the assumption "the vast majority of people searching for 'Georgia' are looking for the country" a safe one? - How about Occam's razor?
4. You said You talk about "our International audience" as if it doesn't include yourself. - I don't understand what is intended by this sentence, but the issue has nothing to do with PC I can assure you. PC and me don't get on.

Mintguy (T) 08:35, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Continuing on talk page. Throwing several arguments around at once is getting difficult. Chris

[edit] Consensus

Throughout the period since the poll began, option #2 has always been in the lead, but option #1 keeps trying to catch up. In addition, there really is no true difference between option #2 and option #4, so when it comes to comparing the votes, they really should not count separately. So:

• Option #1: 28 voters
• Options #2 and #4: 38 voters
• Option #3: 5 voters

66.245.2.106 14:14, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Which is far from being consensus. Besides, there's the question of what is right, irrespective of the "majority" view. If it were not for the self-importance of those from the US, this would not be an issue - Georgia (the country) would be at this page with a dab link. zoney ▓   ▒ talk 17:52, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Or, alternately, were it not for the rabid anti-US bias of some people, this wouldn't be a discussion, and we'd have the disambig. page. The US state has more inhabitants than the country. Similarly, if there were a Chinese province named France that was bigger than the country of France, I think we should have a disambig. page about it. --Delirium 08:08, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps it's time for a new poll, with a clean sheet, to see if opinions have shifted over time. Anyway, after the above exchange about statistics, I checked the wikistats for March, April and May 2004. Perhaps someone more conscientious than myself might like to do a more through analysis; but I think that the following stats quite conclusively prove that the natural home for the Georgia (country) page is at Georgia.

• Hits for March 2004 ( http://wikimedia.org/stats/en.wikipedia.org/url_200403.html - WARNING THIS IS A 43mb FILE)
  • Georgia (country) - 2312 hits
  • Georgia (U.S. state) - 1335 hits
  • Georgia [unqualified] - 763 hits

• Hits for April 2004 ( http://wikimedia.org/stats/en.wikipedia.org/url_200404.html - WARNING THIS IS A 43mb FILE)
  • Georgia (country) - 1606 hits
  • Georgia (U.S. state) - 821 hits
  • Georgia [unqualified] - 441 hits

• Hits for May 2004 ( http://wikimedia.org/stats/en.wikipedia.org/url_200405.html - WARNING THIS IS A 43mb FILE)
  • Georgia (country) - 2380 hits
  • Georgia (U.S. state) - 853 hits
  • Georgia [unqualified] - 675 hits

Mintguy (T) 21:32, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] U.S.-centric level

How U.S. centric do you think Wikipedia is at this moment?? On a scale from 0 to 100 where 0 is completely U.S. centric and 100 is completely non-U.S. centric. the English Wikipedia should stay at about 50. Option 1 of this moving poll certainly looks like something around 90 on this scale; options 2 and 4 are both around 50. Anyone who disagrees with this?? 66.245.79.225 21:41, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Err.. the question doesn't make any sense, and doesn't really contribute to the debate. Please get an account Mr Anon. Mintguy (T) 22:02, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Err.. yes I do disagree with this. Your number scale doesn't make a lot of sense I'm afraid, but I don't think the "English Wikipedia should stay at around 50." The English Wikipedia should not be anywhere-centric. Obviously it will always have more coverage of topics relating to Anglophone countries, in the same way that kw: has plenty of articles on small Cornish villages and absolutely nothing on the Tet Offensive or Ulaanbaatar or Jean-Bertrand Aristide. But that's a matter of who's making the contributions and where they're likely to be from. What we are discussing here is a matter of naming policy. Why do you think the English Wikipedia should be intentionally 50% US-centric? That seems to me extraordinarily arrogant. Try looking at it from the opposite point of view (something like this analogy has been used before by someone, but it's a good one). Imagine some internal part of Georgia decided to name itself United States of America. Would you favour moving the current article on the USA to "United States of America (country)" so that it had equal standing with "United States of America (Georgian state)"? I somehow doubt this. And yes, please do get an account, as it makes it much easier for all concerned to keep track of who is saying what. Names are much easier to remember than IP addresses. — Trilobite (Talk) 22:40, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It is complete nonsense for Wikipedia to have an article titled "United States of American (Georgian state)". There is absolutely no such thing! I'm pretty sure that everyone who is familiar with the term "United States of America" knows its meaning of the country, including people who are also familiar with other meanings. 66.245.79.225 22:44, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well done. There is indeed no such thing as "United States of American [sic] (Georgian state)". Unfortunately this makes it clear that you're unable to cope with the use of simple hypothetical examples to illustrate a point, so I don't think there's much point in me replying. — Trilobite (Talk) 23:02, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I would favor that, if they were of roughly comparable size. If there were a subnational entity with on the order of 300 million people named United States, I think it would be only natural to have a disambiguation page linking to United States (country) and United States (Hypothestanian province). --Delirium 08:11, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)

I shall repeat: what the hell does it matter whether we disambiguate or not? Why is everyone so earnest about this issue? It's not an issue of facts, or neutrality, it's an issue of what title we list info under. The difference between one option or the other is, at most, one extra click of the mouse. I fail to see why everyone's so argumentative and ego-driven over this self-imposed "controversy." Fishal 15:42, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You know what, this is dumb. We are making an encyclopedia, not a social commentary. There is clearly some confusion about what "Georgia" means; there are links to it referring to the U.S. state, and there are links to it referring to the republic. So what if people who think "Georgia" is only a state are geographically ignorant Americans. The fact is, they use Wikipedia too, and I think making Georgia a disambig SHOULD NOT imply that we think the US state is just as "important" as the independent republic. The people on both sides who take offense at this just baffle me. Fishal 16:08, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Very good. I still say it's US-centricism. The only reason the country article is not here, is due to the preference of those from the US to have a link to their state here. While others from elsewhere may support this being a disambiguation page, they would be in a distinct minority were it not for the views of those from the US. I would most likely insist on the same were I from the US, but as I am not, I still think the current situation is pants. zoney ♣ talk 23:06, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Oh please. This isn't an issue of US-centricism, it is an issue of disambiguation. If this were really an issue of US-centricism, then the fact that the US state has twice the population and several times the economic importance would be used to justify having the US state at just Georgia (not to mention the fact that almost every single article that does link here wants the US state). As it is, there is no preference for either the US state or the country by the same name. This makes it easier to fix misplaced links since no article should directly link to this page. --mav 22:37, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Agreed that this has nothing to do with US-centrism. US-centrism would be insisting on moving the U.S. state of Georgia to the main Georgia page. This is an encyclopedia. When there is a name clash, it shouldn't matter what the articles are about. There will be people looking for both entries. Name clashes of any kind should always always always result in the main article being a disambiguation. --||bass 19:33, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Taiwanicentrism?

There are precedents for a sovereign nation being delegated to a "lower level" in the Wikipedia "hierarchy." China is almost universally understood as the short form of the People's Republic of China. But if you go to the China article, you will find a general article explaining that the Republic of China, which most people refer to as Taiwan, claims China as well. So the sovereign and independent state of China (PRC) is not in the main China article. Is this Taiwanicantrism? No. But placing the PRC under the "China" name would have confused and/or offended certain users of Wikipedia. And now it is the same with this one. Disambiguating "Georgia" to help out a large body of users does not mean we are biased! Fishal 18:41, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

A. Wrong talk page. B. your argument is no longer relevant after changes were made to the China article. --Tokek 18:10, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Move Georgia (country) to Republic of Georgia and move Georgia (U.S. state) to State of Georgia.

Why don't we? - 68.72.133.233 01:20, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

See the vote above. Also, Republic of Georgia is the old official name for the country, but it is currently just called Georgia. Thryduulf 10:18, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Furthermore, Georgia (country) is in fact a state. -- Hokanomono 13:21, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Fair resolution to the Country / State debate

I propose that

• each one of the 50 states be moved to (or, in Georgia's case, kept at) Alabama (U.S.State), Alaska (U.S.State), etc.
• redirect pages be added for each of the state names to the corresponding state's article
• the disambiguation pages (for each of the state names that need them) be State Name (disambiguation) (this requires moving only Georgia's Dab page)
• that "Georgia" redirect to the Dab page,
• that the country of Georgia be kept at Georgia (country)

As I see it, moving 49 of the 50 states and adding 49 redirect pages is a small price to pay for

• consistency among all 50 states,
• fairness to the world's population, who will see Wikipedia as less U.S.-centric
• a good precedent for other cases that might come up in the future in which a district of a country conflicts with other uses of that word.

--GraemeMcRae 05:34, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Complicated. This isn't really about applying an arbitrary standard to have a good overall effect; it's about finding a sensible solution to a common problem of shared importance. The best solution isn't specific to countries/states, but rather specific to situations with two high-profile articles which are often confused to one another. +sj + 17:53, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Please vote: is the country of Georgia in Europe and Asia? Or just Asia?

In an earlier revision, the country was described as "a nation in the Caucasus region of eastern Europe and western Asia". Then, on October 5, it was changed to "a nation in the Caucasus region of western Asia". Was this change in keeping with the consensus? --GraemeMcRae 01:22, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

• EUROPEGeorgia is Europe historically and culturally. Please consider the fact that Georgian history goes all the way back to Ancient Greeks and Georgian People are European in every aspect. Sosomk

  The same could be said about Algeria, Lebanon or Lybia or even Pakistan etc.--Nixer 12:40, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

• Asia. Georgia is in Asia. The dividing line is the Caucasus range. LuiKhuntek 06:34, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

• Depends on who you ask. As Geography of Europe notes, Europe is "much more a cultural than a geographically definable area" The current Georgian government considers the country to be part of Europe, but this is obviously a touchy issue. --Delirium 09:29, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

  They want be a part of Europe. Just as Armenians also want do be Europeans. You cannot become European just because you named Robert, Ronald, Richard, Henri, Edmond or Marlen (Western-European names very popular in Armenia [5]).--Nixer 12:40, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Nixer, I just wonder why you cannot find something more useful to do for Wikipedia instead of posting, wherever possible, your "white nationalistic" theories about Georgia being not an European nation.--Kober 13:13, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Where do you see "white nationalism"? Is saying Turkmens arent European also nationalism?--Nixer 17:37, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

• Both. The traditional (and natural?) continental border follows the watershed of the South Caucasian range. The UN says it's in Western Asia, the Council of Europe includes the Caucasian republics. I wonder what the Georgians themselves say? --Big Adamsky 20:06, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

• Both. —Nightstallion (?) 14:14, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

• Asia. Both geographically, culturally and racially. Yes, it is Christian, but this does not make it any more European.--Nixer 12:26, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

This has been discussed at Template talk:Europe. Template:Europe currently lists Georgia. -- Hokanomono 14:28, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

• Note. Georgia may be in the Union of European Football Associations* but so is Isreal.--Greasysteve13 08:02, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

• Both. Like this picture suggests. Lets just call it Eurasian.--Greasysteve13 08:03, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

*Yes I know nobody brought that up.--Greasysteve13 11:36, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comparable cases

I want to point out that the case of Georgia is not unique in the english wikipedia. A comparison with other cases might be fruitful for this discussion. In the following try to seperate undisputed facts from opinion. Please post opinions as signed comments in the comments sections, but feel free to amend the "fact" sections as if it were an article. -- Hokanomono 14:17, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Macedonia

Macedonia is a redirect to a designated disambiguation-page. This is analogue to the proposal #4.

The case of Macedonia bears the following parallels:

• There is a sovereign country as well as a subdivision of another sovereign country.
• In the ranking of area and population, the sovereign country goes under the subdivision of Greace.

The following differences might restrict the comparability:

• In the case of Macedonia there is an ongoing official dispute over the name. I've never heard about such a dispute in the case of Georgia.
• Both--the sovereign country and the subdivision of Greace--are part of the geographic region with the name Macedonia.
• 'Macedonia' isn't the complete official name of the country. It is either 'Republic of Macedonia' or 'Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia'.

[edit] Comments

[edit] Luxembourg

Luxembourg is an article about the country Luxembourg with a link to the disambiguation page.

Parallels:

• There exist other geographic entities with the same name. Some are in the same country, some are in other countries.

Notable differences:

• The current article Luxembourg is the winner in all the rankings of area, population, and hierarchy of sovereignity, not to mention name recognition among almost all readers. (haven't checked log stats)

[edit] Comments

[edit] Ireland

The official title of the State covering most of the island of Ireland is Ireland (Éire in Irish). The Republic of Ireland is a description, and is not used for official titles, international treaties, etc. Hence President of Ireland, Government of Ireland, Flag of Ireland, etc.

The Irish Republic (often used in the British media, particularly BBC) is entirely erroneous, referring to the unilaterally declared state of 1919. (The Provisional IRA regard themselves as the continuation of the legitimate army of that all-Ireland state, not the current Republic).

For the purposes of disambiguity, the Wikipedia article about the current sovereign state is currently at Republic of Ireland.

zoney ♣ talk 14:58, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

IN RESPONSE TO ALL!! HOW the **** CAN YOU PUT A STATE(couple hundred years of history) OVER A COUNTRY(Thousands years of History) ...OMG please i bet that probably a georgian guy was with colombus and named the state after the country to grow some tomatoes.WE EUROPEANS CREATED YOU AMERICANS!!DONT FORGET..WE ARE YOUR ROOTS!IT MAY BE FUNNY...But it has a POINT.. What IS THIS...AMERICAPEDIA!!!

What is this? A centre for ants? EamonnPKeane 16:34, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Wow that funny. So Columbus named Georgia after a British king who wasn't born before he died.

Hello, Anonymous. First, note that Georgia (country) appears before Georgia (U.S. State) in the disambiguation page. Thus, your point itself appears to be factually incorrect, leaving aside the supporting arguments. Second, note that Wikipedia is not a system for doling out rewards and honors for attaining cultural significance, nor for ranking different groups by such. It is a source of information, and the pages are named and disambiguated in a way that attempts to disseminate that information as easily and as usefully as possible. If the country article were at "Georgia", newly-written articles might link to it having intended to reach the state instead. With multiple articles of very roughly comparable noteworthiness, it makes sense to have a disambiguation page sit in the middle. --dreish~talk 17:42, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal : Properly qualifying all three main pages

The three main pages related to Georgia at the moment are the country, the US state, and the dab. Each should have a qualified name; then the debate can be focused on the page to which Georgia should redirect.

I think there should be a general policy that in case of more than one popular use of a term/title, the bare title should be a redirect, in addition to the top-line "for other uses" note on each article page. +sj + 18:08, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Proposal : Move this page to Georgia (disambiguation) and update the Style Guide page on disambiguations to describe this situation. +sj + 22:23, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Please discuss instead at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages). I tried to propose a change in policy to saying that all Wikipedia dis-ambiguation pages that are too large to reach the {{disambig}} template without scrolling should have the (disambiguation) suffix in their name, but can still have a suffix-less title as a re-direct. However, there appears to be several Wikipedians who don't think it's that important to know immediately. Any additional comments?? Georgia guy 22:43, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

If the main page for Georgia is in fact a disambiguation, then I think it makes no difference whether there is a (disambiguation) suffix there or not. If you think it will be helpful, why not be bold and complete the move? Fishal 16:51, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

How about we delete all articles and create 2 new ones: "Peach State," and "Sakartvelo" :)--TigranTheGreat 23:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

Please see the request and poll at Talk:Georgia_(country)#Requested_move. bogdan 12:31, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why Georgia (U.S. state) and not Georgia (state) or Georgia (USA)?

I don't wanna get mixed up in the disambiguation arguments here, but I would like to know why Georgia (U.S. state) was chosen as the page name over simpler titles (my favorite is Georgia (state)). I realize that the word state, out of context, can imply sovereign state, but moving this page to Georgia (state) would allow users to reach it directly without using punctuation or capitalization. This is how the French and Spanish pages do it. Alternately, if we are concerned about the ambiguity of the word state, we could move the page to Georgia (USA), as the Italian and Portuguese pages do. (In many other languages, like German, the country and state are spelled differently, allowing for natural disambiguation.) Either way, the page title would be much more natural than it currently is. (It may also ease the pain of any future redirect (gasp!) of Georgia (country) to Georgia. Cheers from Atlanta,
Alcuin 17:47, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but wikipedias like Spanish and Portuguese have the country, not the disambig in this article. :P
bogdan 18:17, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

_ _ I haven't bothered understanding what relevance the other-language WPs' approach might have, but there is no reason to consider what they do, since we'd still have to judge (esp'ly in light of their being less adequately staffed) whether they'd made the right decision.

_ _ In any case, it would be a waste of time typing even "Georgia (state)" into the Go/Search pane. Type "Georgia", and click on the lk, rather than trying to guess what qualified names are rdrs. Or if they need to go there frequently, they can bookmark it or create a WP page for that and other lks they use frequently.

_ _ Also, mv'g Georgia (U.S. state) to Georgia (state) would require it to have an otherwise pointless ToP Dab. But Georgia (state) is now a Dab instead of a bad rdr, in case avoiding caps, you're willing to type damn parens in order to choose from the 4 states rather than the two dozen lks on Georgia.
--Jerzy•t 22:36, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A fifth proposition?

Perhaps change the naming of all fifty United States of America to [[state name, United States of America]] or [[state name, USA]]? Then we could move Georgia (country) to Georgia, with Georgia (U.S. state) now at Georgia, USA or Georgia, United States of America. And to pre-empt the questions from any of my less-enlightened country-mates, no, we can't just put it at [[state name, United States]] because there are other nations that have that name, namely the United States of Mexico. -Darryl Hamlin 08:39, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

This is not consistent with current policies. And pre-emptively disambiguating 49 other articles is excessive, especially because "Georgia" would still remain a disambiguation page; changing "Georgia (U.S. state)" to "Georgia, USA" would have no effect on the primary Georgia disambiguation. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:58, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I suppose you have a good point. Ah well, didn't hurt to suggest it, did it? -Darryl Hamlin 08:50, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] State Capital

On the right hand of the page - in the box, under the map of the US with the State of Georgia highlighted - wiki lists the capital of Georgia as Savannah. I can't figure out how to make the edit, so can someone who is smarter than me change this to Atlanta? Thanks!! Rnmartin69 17:15, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Add the university of Georgia?

This is in response to a kind question on my talk page from User:Fgf2007, who added U of Georgia and I reverted.

Apologies if I was too brusque before in the edit summary. Anyway, my worry with U of Georgia is... where does it end? How about various Georgia governmental institutions, for both the country and the state, for instance? Corporations that are chartered by state, so a branch would have "XYZ of Georgia?" Since you mentioned the Washington disambig, in some ways, something like the University of Mary Washington or Washington & Lee might make more sense: they are names that happen to be similar to the item being disambiguated. U of Georgia is more like something related to the State entry, where it is in fact linked from. I mean, if anything should be linked on the virtue of the name, I'll grant that's not bad, but it seems to open the way to lots of "Blank of Georgia" articles. I still disagree, but I'll leave it up to you if you want to put in a link.

As for your sandbox... I'll just say that as a general tip, you might want to read MoS:DAB, especially the part on "only wikilink directly relevant things." I know I violated that rule like crazy early on, and lots of disambig pages still do, but you don't need to link things like the sports team, UGA the Bulldog, or United States. It should, with rare exceptions, just be the things that could be confused with the term. SnowFire 03:57, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] RESPONSE From FGF2007

QUOTE -- "Thanks for your message. I responded on Talk:Georgia, so any future people thinking about the page can see what we were up to. SnowFire 03:58, 31 January 2007 (UTC)" -- END QUOTE

What I can see is a very sad case of people waging a meaningless, useless, pointless, "no where to go with it" battle over the use of a particular word, in this case - "Georgia". I have been on Wikipedia only for a matter of weeks, but I learn very quickly how to read between the lines.

I have also done my homework - "Georgia" is indeed the only U.S. state subjected to this kind of treatment here at Wikipedia. The other states are "as is" - even the state of Washington.

In states that have disambiguation pages, all those I've browsed through, with the notable exception of the Washington-Disambiguation, are fairly consistent with one another - even with the "Georgia" page. And on state disambiguation pages - except for Washington's - where a university is mentioned, it's always the University of (Statename), or (Statename) University, and usually takes up one line. For example, here's Virginia's --

• University of Virginia, and the Virginia Cavaliers athletics teams

So, would you have preferred that I used this single line? --

• The University of Georgia, and the Georgia Bulldogs athletics teams

I never really intended to do anything except just mention THE University of Georgia and its athletic teams. Adding advice on where to find other Georgia educational entities with "Georgia" in their titles was intended as a friendly way of referring folks to such sites, as well as to suggest that such sites should not be placed on the Georgia page. That's all I had intended.

You have put a bad feeling in me to the point that I just won't bother now. I want no part of whatever of this is. It is a ridiculous, senseless matter as far as I'm concerned.

That's It! I'm Done Here! -- Fgf2007 06:52, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I would like to comment that I support the inclusion of the University of Georgia and its related athletics teams on this disambiguation page. I frequently check the incoming links to this page, and there are instances when people link to just "Georgia" when referring to the university. Here are some examples. [6] [7] I agree with SnowFire that there is no need for countless "Blank of Georgia" articles on this page, but the inclusion of this particular link seems reasonable. Khatru2 09:43, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Still not sure, especially on the sports teams count. I suppose that would be useful for automated "link to disambiguation page" replacer tools, but that seems an artificial artifact. For instance, New York (disambiguation) does not contain a list of New York sports teams (New York Yankees, New York Giants, etc.) despite the fact that they are routinely referred to as "New York" in sports contexts, and I have no doubt lots of incoming links to the main New York page really mean the team.

Fgf2007, not sure what I did to cause offense, but that was not the intent. SnowFire 14:19, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know the situation of other U.S. state name disambiguation pages, but the University of Georgia is the only thing that I can recall that has been linked to as "Georgia" that has no entry on this page. I am not as concerned about the ability of editors to fix the links as I am about what's best for the readers who might encounter such a link. In response to your example of New York sports teams, I do not see the harm in including entries that could be referred to simply as "New York," especially if there are potentially lots of incoming links. On the other hand, there are some things on this page that I cannot envision anyone would type or link to "Georgia" to find, namely Georgia on My Mind and Georgia Railroad and Banking Company. I think that, in general, disambiguation pages should contain things that could be typed as or linked to by that name, and only those things. Khatru2 22:23, 31 January 2007 (UTC)