Talk:England (disambiguation)

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[edit] UK position

I'd updated two lines to read:


England may be:

  • England, a nation in Europe, and the largest and most populous part of the United Kingdom.
  • The inaccurate use of the national name above to refer to the entire United Kingdom.


This was reverted to the current state of


England may be:


I changed it because I thought the England line was slightly misleading in that it implied that England was simply a nation in Europe, without reference to its context in the UK (through which it currently derives its political power).

The second line was there because it's a disambiguation page and, like it or not, there is a tendency for people to think of England when they are really discussing the United Kingdom; hence they may actually be looking for the United Kingdom.

Before I put these back in their current, or modified forms, I'd like to get some feedback on what you think.

Fourohfour 11:07, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Having that stuff there is silly. Nobody gets to this page except from clicking the link at the top of England. But that article already includes the misuse etc. This page is only for people who wanted to know about other uses of the term.
If this was a case where the disambiguation page was at England, then yes, your version would be preferred. Morwen - Talk 11:19, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
You have a point, although I still feel the first entry would be better phrased as "part of the United Kingdom". Is England even technically a 'nation' (as opposed to country)?
Fourohfour 11:30, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
There is no technical definition of "nation" or "country" (unless you can point me at one), therefore I would contend that nothing is technically a nation or a country. The choice is linguistic and political. Morwen - Talk 11:46, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
Although I strongly agree with you there, I don't see any reason not to use the longer version. ("A country in Europe, the largest and most populous part of the United Kingdom") Might as well be clear. Doops | talk 17:09, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
Be clear, yes, but be clear about disambiguating it from the other possible entries. If somebody was looking for Lynndie England or England, Arkansas, and the England (the country) link didn't include the extra text about relative size and population, would there be any chance of confusion? That, I think, is key to deciding what should be on a dab page. Not, "Is this extra information interesting", but "does this extra information help the user select which entry they were looking for"? --RoySmith 02:00, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, Morwen's right of course; pretty much the only way anybody will be reaching this page is via England. So arguably we don't need a link back there at all! :) But of course we do, if merely as a matter of principle. At any rate, whatever wording is adopted, I think there should be a mention of "UK" in it. A Massachusetts disambiguation page wouldn't say "a subnational entity in North America"; it would mention the US. So how about "a country in Europe, part of the UK" ?Doops | talk 02:53, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
I have revised it to read
England, the largest constituent nation within the United Kingdom.
which I hope satisfies everyone. Perhaps the phrasing (as opposed to the factual content) could do with some tweaking; decide for yourselves.
BTW, perhaps 'Kingdom of England' (not my entry) should be in a sublist indicating that it refers (basically) to the same 'England' as the main one?
Fourohfour 17:08, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
If there were more entries on this dab page, then I'd say it would be worth splitting into multiple sub-lists. But with only 4 total, it's probably not necessary. I did, however, get rid of the extraneous links, in accordance with the convention that there is only one link per entry on a dab page.
I thought that was a general recommendation with exceptions if they proved genuinely useful, not a hard and fast rule. But... it's not that big a deal to me personally. Fourohfour 17:58, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
It is indeed only a recommendation. In fact, the Manual of Style even says that you can break the rules. But, what makes those extra links so special that they justify breaking the rules in this case? It is very tempting to try and cram all sorts of interesting information into a dab page, but the end result is usually a mess of links which just confuses the reader. Give them just enough information to figure out which link they wanted, and you've done the job. All that extra information belongs in the article itself. If you want to explore when it's appropriate to break the rules, I invite you to come join Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation; I would certainly welcome your input to the discussions there. --RoySmith 18:42, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
Point taken.... I've just come across one user who seems hell-bent on contributing countless stupid acronyms to disambig pages, so I'm not too tolerant of excessive bloat myself now anyway (^_^) Fourohfour 23:20, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Modern vs. Historical

What bothers me about the first two entries is that the discriptions don't really emphasize the most significant difference the two -- that of time. Geographically, they refer to the same thing (I'm assuming their borders were roughly the same). What would people think about:

  • England, part of the current-day United Kingdom.
  • Kingdom of England, the historical state that existed from the 8th century until 1707.

--RoySmith 23:12, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Seems fine to me
Fourohfour 23:20, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

When I added Kingdom of England I was deliberately vague about when the nation was founded since there is no single agreed date. So I think my statement "founded during the 8th and 9th centuries" should remain.

[edit] Does the football team belong here?

I don't think it makes much sense to have the football team entry. Would anybody looking for an article about England's national football team type "England" into a search box? I don't think so. Doesn't the name "England" apply equally to any national sports team? Wouldn't you describe a cricket match as "England vs. South Africa", for example? --RoySmith 02:39, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to assume that someone will see that use of 'England' and type it in here. My rule of thumb is whether (in the vast majority of cases), this meaning will be seen in a context that makes it clear what is being referred to (which counts *against* inclusion in a disambig page). In addition, your argument about other sports is spot on.
OTOH, I don't think there's an "obvious" search title for (e.g.) the England football team, so the inclusion of teams may be warranted here; but perhaps that should be a list on another page, else this disambig page will get filled up with countless entries such as "The England Kabaddi team". Fourohfour 12:13, 10 December 2005 (UTC)