Category talk:Geography stubs

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Notice Most of the discussion relating to this and other stub categories occurs at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting. You may wish to consider leaving a note there rather than here.

I think we should remove the following from this category's text:

There are also a number of sub-categories for different regions and countries in Category:Stubs by region. Please help reduce the size of this category by putting articles into their appropriate geography sub-categories. To add articles to these region/country sub-categories, use stub templates such as {{australia-stub}} and {{china-stub}} (for example) instead of {{geo-stub}}.

In practice, the country related sub-categories are not geography sub-categories at all, but general usage categories for all types of article relating to that country. -- Chris j wood 22:44, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Good point. It's worth noting, though, that there are a number of true geo subcategories (Australia-geo-stub, France-geo-stub, etc), and the number is going to increase soon... Grutness|hello? 05:35, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Do geo-stubs need to be in the parent Category:Stub categories?

Is it still necessary for all of the geo-stub categories to go directly into Category:Stub categories in addition to this category? Could we just put them here and include a list at the top (since the list is there anyway)? That would seriously cut down on the number of stubs displaying in the parent category, making it much easier to tell what is going on. -Aranel ("Sarah") 23:18, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Mmm... I'm in two minds about that. What you say is true, but there was also a case recently where someone created "United States geography stubs", probably because "US geography stubs" wasn't listed in the parent category. Then again, that may only have been done because it was fairly obvious that there were lots of other country-specific geo stub categories listed. I'm willing to be swayed either way. Grutness|hello? 00:50, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
The situation in the parent category is getting even worse. I'm thinking we should go for it. -Aranel ("Sarah") 16:15, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
(deep intake of breath)... Okay - let's go for it! But we should also run this past "stub sorting" (even if after the fact...) Grutness|hello?

[edit] Where's the England stub?

Where's the stub for England (as opposed to UK)? — MacRusgail 11:22, July 11, 2005

There doesn't appear to be one (see Category:UK geography stubs). If you would like to propose it, you are welcome to do so at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Criteria. P.S. Don't forget you can sign your posts by simply adding ~~~~ — Fingers-of-Pyrex 16:44, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
Definitely. I see there's already one for London, but I'd have no problem with regional English stubs.... --MacRusgail 18:23, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

England currently has over 2000 stubs - far too big for a stub category to be effective. The original plan was simply to take out the easier to digest chunks like Scotland, Wales, NI and London in the hope that the size of the main category would come down to something useful - it didn't. For this reason there is currently discussion underway at WP:WSS/C about the best way to split the remaining stubs up. The present suggestion is to split England into the nine governmental regions, to make usably-sized stub categories. The oher possibility is to do a tally of what is in this category and remove individula counties. In either case, there will be separate categories for different parts of England soon. Grutness...wha? 23:50, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

See my reply above. Regions are a great idea, but nine?! I think that's going a bit far. England can easily be broken down into regions, but not that many. The danger of course is that you'll end up with something like "UK North West" referring to North West England is that it is geographically inaccurate. If there can be a UK stub, and one for all the other countries of the UK (except Cornwall perhaps), why not for England? I realise these are to be broken down, but this is a fair enough question. Or doesn't England think of itself as a country?
Personally I think there should be Ireland stubs, not NI stubs (it's still a country, despite being divided by imperialism), but that's another story! I would suggest a Channel Island stub as well... the CIs and Isle of Man are technically not UK, and this is a can of worms in itself. --MacRusgail 15:37, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Okay - there's three distinct points here so:

  1. The reason for no England stub is that,. as I said before, it's too huge. And breaking things down by region is best done by using official regions, otherwise you'll get people saying "Is Rotherham in the North or in the Midlands? Is Gloucester in the West Country? Is Peterborough in East Anglia?". The best solution would be to do what is done with places like Africa. Category: Africa geography stubs contains five large regions and a map showing them all, and is otherwise virtually empty. Within each of those regions there are one or two smaller categories for those individual countries which have enough stubs for them to be separated out. An England category containing regions containing the few counties with enough stubs would work in exactly the same way. But to do that will require a lot of pre-preparation in the form of seeing exactly what counties pass the WP:WSS/C thresholds for category creation.
  2. NI is deliberately separate, and is a subcategory of both UK and Ireland geography stubs. That way Wikipedia maintains a NPOV.
  3. There are not enough IoM or CI stubs to get close to threshold for separate categories (60-100 stubs are required). Many of the articles from those that I have stubbed (and yes, the initial sorting of UK geo-stubs was largely done by me!) have a note in <!-- --> form on them explaining the reason that particular stub has been used.

Grutness...wha? 00:38, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

So why does the UK (which is mostly England), and France and Germany with far bigger populations have stubs? Neither IoM nor CI are in the UK, so which category should they be put into in the meantime? I could probably find you 60+ CI stubs quite easily. --MacRusgail 15:38, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

When the splitting was started, there was no idea just how many stubs there would be for each individual country, so the bigger countries were pared off first (such as the US and the UK), then the more obvious of the rest. Others were simply grouped by region until it was kniown whether they would reach the WP:WSS criteria for splitting. Now, several of them are so large they are being proposed for further split. In the case of the Channel Islands and IoM, they have never got close to threshold, but, as I say, the UK category is in the process of being discussed for split. If you want to propose a separate category for the Channel islands and can show that there are over 60 current stubs for there, then feel free to do so at WP:WSS/C, where such proposals are debated. Given that the split is likely to be started in the next week, then a separate category for one or the other, or both, may well take place then. As for where to put them for now, as it says quite clearly at the top of Category:Europe geography stubs, UK-geo-stub is used for "United Kingdom (including the Isle of Man and Channel Isles) ". Please don't just use geo-stub for them, since I'll simply have to move them again! Grutness...wha? 00:30, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Nothing personal, I think including the CIs and the IOM in the UK is misleading, not to say inaccurate. --ImpartialCelt 18:17, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
True, but it's more intuitive for editors to look there for them than in Category:Europe geography stubs, which at the moment is the other most likely place - or possibly Category:British Overseas Territories geography stubs. If and when there are enough stubs from the crown dependencies, then a separate stub category or separate categories are likely to be made. But at the moment there aren't enough of them. But - as I said above - the UK geography stubs are being tallied at the moment to see what splits are needed. Give things a month and the category is likely to be thoroughly subdivided. (A month? Yes - it takes a long time to count up what's in there, since I'm doing it manually in my spare time. Especially since some stubs give little indication of where a place is. The first few of counties should be pared off in the next couple of weeks). Grutness...wha? 02:27, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] CI and IoM

Where is written that one must have a certain number of articles to create a new category. Pedantry demands that stubs for the British Crown Dependencies should not be in UK_geography_stubs (some pedants would say they should not even be in a sub-category of it). So if the CI and IoM stubs want a category of their own why can't they have one? Category:Candidates_for_speedy_deletion usually has less than 60 items and no one complains about that. -- RHaworth 10:12, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

That's because it's a category rather than a stub category. Stub categories have a different target audience (editors rather than readers), and have different criteria for creation because of it. A category can quite happily exist with two articles. A stub category with two articles would quickly be emptied by an editor and would therefore become a candidate for deletion. The creation criteria are listed at Wikipedia:Stub#New stub categories. Hpefully the current count of UK geography stubs will discover enough articles from the crown dependencies for there to be at least one category covering both, if not two separate categories. As things stand (count is now at 3000 stubs) they haven't got there yet, but they're fairly close. Grutness...wha? 10:23, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
But they are also geographically, culturally and politically related. Yes I am aware that there are two Bailiwicks, but why not?--MacRusgail 17:47, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
Cat:Crown Dependency geography stubs and {{UK-crown-geo-stub}} have been created. Grutness...wha? 06:23, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
Both these items have now been deleted via WP:SFD. Logged discussion here. --TheParanoidOne 10:27, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
(a slight clarification in case anyone is worried - the reason for the deletion is that there are now separate ChannelIslands-geo-stub and IsleofMan-geo-stub templates and categories! Grutness...wha? 06:40, 3 July 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Cornwall and Yorkshire

I did a "guesstimate" from the UK geo stubs, and if 60-100 is the lower threshold, wouldn't Cornwall qualify? I suggest {{UKC-geo-stub}} and a small St Piran's cross. Also would Yorkshire qualify as well?--MacRusgail 20:06, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Two points here: first, Yorkshire may do eventually, but of the first 400 stubs which I've counted, there has been exactly one Cornwall stub, and ten from Yorkshire - compared to 44 for Lincolnshire. And if it did get made, then UKC could just as easily be Cumbria. Cornwall-geo-stub may eventually be made, but it is far from the most likely in the first run. Regional importance or identity is not one of the criteria for splitting areas, nor should it be. To use an extreme hypothetical example, if there were 10 geo-stubs from the USA and 100 from Liechtenstein, Liechtenstein would get a separate stub category first.
As I said before, give time for the official count-up, and then watch this space (or more precisely, watch the UK geography stub category). Grutness...wha? 01:32, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
"Regional importance or identity is not one of the criteria for splitting areas, nor should it be." - why not? Earlier you were complaining that it would be difficult to categorise various areas of England, e.g. the north and south west. Surely it makes more sense to use established areas where they are well known. I wouldn't exactly call England or Cornwall "regions", these are nations. --MacRusgail 14:54, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
Criteria for making a new stub category was explained perfectly with the USA/Liechtenstein example. AFAICT Grutness' didn't complain that it would be difficult to categorise England, but that we should use the official regions "South West, South East, etc", rather than any unofficial regions like "West Country, Wessex, etc." Joe D (t) 16:30, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
I think we're going in circles here. Yorkshire and Cornwall are better known, and have some official status than "North East" etc (if they do get stubs, it's "North East England" please! Not "NE UK"). Cornwall's status under law is also a very odd one anyway (see Constitutional status of Cornwall), and many Cornish do not consider themselves English. --MacRusgail 19:05, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
I know very well about that - I fly my St. Piran's cross flag every March 5th. But Joe D is right. The fact that Cornwall and Yorkshire are well known or have special status is completely irrelevant as far as creation of stub categories is concerned, as I quite clearly explained earlier on. The most important thing with stub categories is to have manageable and useful sizes of category. The current category is not a manageable size, but one with only ten stubs would not be a useful size. As for the names, they would have standardised names. A northeastern England one would almost certainly be England-northeast-geo-stub. To call it "NE UK" would go against stub naming policy, and would also be stupid as it would start to get stubs for places like Aberdeen and Caithness, which are clearly not what the category should be for. By the way, Yorkshire is quite likely to end up having its own category. After counting up the first 1000 UK-geo-stubs, there are five counties which are a country mile clear of the rest in terms of stub numbers. And an odd assortment they are too - Yorks, Durham, Somerset, Dorset, and Lincs. Between them, they account for 1/3 of the stubs. Grutness...wha? 02:12, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
As things stand now, it looks likely there will be separate stubs for Durham, Northamptonshire, Yorkshire, Dorset, and Lincolnshire. These five cover 1/3 of the 2300 so far counted. Grutness...wha? 01:12, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
So Yorkshire clearly qualifies; however, the other four/five counties are less obvious categories, unless Dorset and Somerset are lumped together, which is not practical. --MacRusgail 17:50, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
If you follow the link in the next section, you'll see where the discussion went after the count was finished. Durham, Yorkshire, and Dorset are the biggest three in terms of numbers (one in eight of the uncategorised UK stubs was from Durham - nearly 500 stubs), and were the first three split off. More will be shortly. Somerset is in the next three and has over 100, and therefore very likely to be split off once the first three are populated. Grutness...wha? 00:45, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Further split of UK-geo-stub

Currently, there are separate geography stub categories for Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. A separate category for England has been mooted, but it would contain some 3800 stub articles, considerably more than is regarded as optimum according to Wikipedia: WikiProject Stub sorting guidelines (which roughly state that stub categories should have between 100 and 600 items to be of best use to editors). In order to remedy this situation, all 3860 current unsubcategorised UK geography stubs have just been tallied to see whereabouts they refer to. Discussions are now underway with regard to splitting off regions or individual counties that have over 100 stub articles. Understandably, given the confusion between traditional counties, ceremonial counties, and the split of city areas over the last few decades, this is a thorny issue. We at WP:WSS would welcome any input at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Criteria#Further_split_of_UK-geo-stub. Grutness...wha? 03:28, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Continents / Subcontinents

Who shall learn this: AfricaC <> CAsia <> CentralAm  ? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 02:20, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Stub sorters. And if you can think of anywhere else in the world other than Central Africa that it would make sense to call AfricaC, then I'd like to hear it. See also comments below. Grutness...wha? 03:49, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
  1. AmericaC, AsiaC
  2. if you do this stuff for stubsorters - have fun. Then I simply use geo-stub from now on. I do not know why then you some weeks ago pointed out to me that there are specific geo-stub. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 11:04, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

I pointed it out because I thought it would be of use to editors interested in Argentinian articles. Obviously I was wrong in your case, since you are happy to put them in the general geo-stub categpory where Argentinian editors will not find them. But if you want to impede the development of articles on Argentina, so be it - although it seems to be a clearly anti-Argentinian move on your part. I didn't point out a perfectly acceptable template so that you could make your own duplicate of it.

I am not happy with this. But if the stub police is sorting it, because the system is set up for them as you said - why getting headaches of unsystematic constructions. You solve them for me. Thanks for your work. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 13:37, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

As to the two variants you mention: CentralAm was created before names were standardised (there is a redirect from CAmerica-geo-stub, though), and AfricaC and the others are used instead of CAfrica etc to stop the confusion which would ensue with SAfrica being used for a region (Southern Africa) rather than for a country (South Africa).

You also have to realise that quite a number of the names in use are those created by people who have ignored standard practice and simply created stubs and redirects without proposing them at WP:WSS/C first. If the names were subject to debate first, then there would be virtually no non-standard names. it is people who simply decide to create stubs and redirects for their own use without consensus that cause most of the problems for the stub sorting wikiproject, no matter how well-meaning those creations may be. Grutness...wha? 11:15, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New country stubs in South America

Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay should IMO all get their own geo-stub. Splittung SouthAm is too much work. When creating a stub you probably know which country it belongs do. Afterwards by simply seeing it in Cat:SouthAm-geo-stub people may have hard time with locating the stubs correctly. Maybe some of these cats currently do not have much stubs, but certainly these countries are big enough to produce more stubs soon. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 12:02, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Then propose it at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Criteria. However, be warned that the standard criteria for splitting a category into smaller units are (a) that the main category has a very lareg number of stubs (usually over about 400); and (b) the new categories should have over 60, and preferably over 100 stubs. At the last tally, the unsplit South American geography stubs category had under 250 stubs, and Ecuador was the only country with close to the criterion for splitting (exactly 60 stubs, in fact). Colombia had 56, Venezuela 48, Bolivia 25, Paraguay 15, Surinam 15, Guyana 13, Uruguay 10, and French Guiana 6. The number of stubs currently in existence is used as a criterion, because just because more could be made doesn't guarantee that more will be made. as for being big enough countries, that is an irrelevance. It might be relevant for normal categories as used by readers, but stub categories, as used by editors, have different requirements. Ecuador is, however, a distinct possibility for splitting at some point in the future, if the number of stubs increases, as is Colombia. In fact, the current "top group" of unsplit countries which may soon split are Ecuador, Nigeria, Sudan, Trinidad and Tobago, Colombia , Slovakia, and Puerto Rico - all of which have 50 or more stubs. There's certainly no point in splitting a lot of the small ones (in terms of number of stubs), though.
So - to cut a long story short: Ecuador and Colombia - very probably soon; Venezuela - maybe, if it gets a few more stubs. The others - not yet, but if they start getting lots of stubs, then they will be considered. Grutness...wha? 04:06, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
  1. Where is the 60 entries rule written?
  2. Will you delete a cat if it passes from 70 to 50?
  3. Shall I look every week whether a cat for a country exists?
  4. How do you count? (look in every article? Isn't it time consuming?)

Maybe instead of answering here, write a FAQ Tobias Conradi (Talk) 11:04, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

  1. At Wikipedia:Stub#New stub categories.
no 60 on the whole page. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 23:17, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
You're right - the threshold seems to have been raised, it's now "100 to 300". Grutness...wha? 23:32, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
  1. Categories are not deleted if they drop back below the criterion values, but they may be considered for deletion if the number of articles is very low and new articles are not being put in them.
  2. You can if you wish, or simply use preview - type in {{ecuador-geo-stub}}, for example, and if it comes up with a red link then the stub type is not yet created. If it comes up blue, you can use it. A litmus test.
  3. Yes, the count is done by hand and is very time consuming. I have spent almost my entire time on Wikipedia for the last two weeks counting 4000 UK geography stubs to work out what further splits are required. Luckily, there are 100 members of the stub-sorting project. Keeping a database means that you only need to look once, though, so when the categories are re-checked only those changes from the previous month need to be looked at.
The FAQ is at Wikipedia:Stub - essential reading for all matters relating to stub categories and templates. Grutness...wha? 22:45, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
I saw how time consuming this is. If I would have been allowed to create Bolivia and Suriname they could have been sorted in the same ride. Maybe for Uruguay and Venezuela the 60 criterion is not met , but well let's go and create stubs there. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 23:14, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
As I said, once it's done, it's not time consuming at all. Every month there's only a handful of new stubs that need counting. If you want to propose new stub categories, do so through the propoer channels so that they can be debated. Grutness...wha? 23:32, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
what a stupid work. at first you count then you go to each article again and change the stub note. Maybe this whole stub thing is nonsens. one stub template for all and this combinied with category analysis .... Maybe this is not possible yet.
If you want to propose new stub categories, do so through the propoer channels so that they can be debated. there is too much debating. SIMPLE rules and done. bureaucratic procedure for Praguay-geo-stub? Can't see the benefit. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 00:30, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] short - long

why do wales and scotland get UKW/UKS while a country large as Argentina is not allowed a redirect like AR? UK-bias here? And the word wales is allready short!! not to compare with Argentina. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 02:26, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Quite simply because these were used to convert existing UK-geo-stubs for one section of the UK. the same is the case with the conversion form Asia-geo-stub to CAsia-geo-stub, and from Africa-geo-stub to AfricaC, AfricaN, AfricaW, AfricaE and AfricaS. In the case of UKW and UKS, they are temporary measures already being orphaned. If you want equality for Argentina, then you would no doubt be quite happy for it to be called SouthAmA-geo-stub. Grutness...wha? 03:36, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
equality was about length, and I do not want equality for all, but reasonable fair treatment. This is UK US NZ SA centrism. Flavoured with SM and BiH. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 11:08, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
So, you're complaining because you have to type 22 characters rather than the 15 that are needed for UK, US, and the like, and would prefer to use a confusingly ambiguous template name to counteract that? Why don't you use cut and paste like everyone else? Next you'll be accusing the stub sorters of being biased against the Philippines, Netherlands, Switzerland, and Afghanistan, all of which have considerably longer geo-stub names still! Note that all the countries you have mentioned have multi-word names, where either the abbreviation is well-known or spelling could become a serious problem (also the reason why we have Kyrg-geo-stub rather than Kyrgyzstan-geo-stub). We're not biased against your country - your country simply has a moderately (but not extremely) long name. I should know - I've added the argentina-stub-template to about 100 articles, and I didn't find any problems with it at all.
The stub sorters must be really biased against classical music (I'm glad you aren't having to use {{Classical-composition-stub}}!). Grutness...wha? 11:34, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
is there any well-known international standard for music classification? For countries such thing exists and especially if something is a GEO-STUB a redirect would help. I also prefer {{dab}} to {{disambig}} it saves 5 useless letters. the 2-letter-uppercase-zone in GEO-STUB is free, why not use it as redirect when it saves 7 letters? Yes NL CH PH should be set up as well. This is total english country bias otherwise (UK US NZ SA [looks like Saudi Arabia]). Maybe AU is left out because people could confuse it with Austria, but for the others I see bias. Editors of articles for english countries are preferred. NI stub speaks for itself. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 13:28, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

..."english countries" like Serbia-Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kyrgyzstan...? Yet no shortening for countries like Australia, Canada, Malaysia. Most commonwealth countries don't even have separate geo-stub categories. Some bias. We could quite asily have had AU for Australia , CA for Canada and ML for Malaysia, but it would be too confusing, since other countries could easily be mistaken for them, and most people don't have any knowledge of any ISO codes other than for their own country. Maybe AU is left out because people could confuse it with Austria Yes, exactly. Just as AR could be confused for Armenia. Seven whole letters! Woohoo! You clearly don't like your country's name. CUT AND PASTE. As for Northern Ireland being "An english country", I'd advise you not to try saying that in Belfast! Grutness...wha? 00:58, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

"english" in this context was short for "english speaking". So, why do you have "Northern Ireland" = NI? Of course this is bias. Kygyzstan is bias as well - "I can not write it, so I make Kyrg". Why don't you cut and paste? Why don't you cut and pas United States? United Kingdom? Papua New Guinea?
Northern Ireland. Two words beginning with and known internationally as N.I. United States. Two words beginning with and known internationally as U.S. United Kingdom, Two words, beginning with and known internationally as U.K. Papua New Guinea. Three words, beginning with and known internationally as P.N.G. Argentina. One word, known internationally as Argentina. Grutness...wha? 00:35, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
I think your british understanding of international is different to mine. BTW then the template should be P.N.G.-geo-stub? For me PNG (click it!) is not Papua New Guinea. What you call international seems to be "Grutness and his friends". Why is two-words more worth than one word? What will you do with Saudi Arabia if stubs are getting more there? Will english South Africa be worth more than arab Saudi Arabia? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 19:36, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

The SA-stub was created before the WikiProject formalised the rules for stub names, and several from that time still exist. Many are being changed, but it is a long process. If a separate Saudi Arabia geo-stub is ever needed - which it may be if the number of stubs increases beyond its current 41 - then the name will be changed. Until that time, changing the template on 500 or so South African geography stubs is not a high priority. By the way, you may be interested to know, given my "obvious pro-British bias", that there may well soon be a Northamptonshire-geo-stub for the 200 or so stubs from that English county. Of course, the British postcodes are easy enough for anyone to look up, so I could simply make it NN-geo-stub, but no, it goes against naming policy. As for P.N.G.-geo-stub, yes, it probably should have stops. But stops are not used in stub template names. Ever. Otherwise we would have U.K.-geo-stub, U.S.-geo-stub... and Argentina-geo-stub. In other words, this is totally meaningless in the context of your argument. What I call international is what is used throughout the english-speaking world (perhaps you have forgotten that this is the English language version of Wikipedia?). As for PNG, if we ever need a network graphics geo-stub, for towns and cities within the mythical land of Portablenetworkgraphica then we will have to change PNG-geo-stub. As for my "British understanding of international", it has come about through living and working in a number of different countries (I have not been to Britain for over 30 years). Are you seriously trying to tell me that the people in Argentina, or Ghana, or Iran, or Mexicodo not recognise "U.S." as referring to the United states, or "U.K." as referring to the United Kingdom? Because if you are I can find you many, many examples to prove you incorrect. As to "just me and my friends", it is the WP:WSS naming conventions that we're talking about here, not some arbitrary rule that I've decided on off the top of my head. Grutness...wha? 00:21, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

I was not talking about US, UK. US , UK will be recognized also in that what I understand as international. PNG and probably NI not. If one says in geo-context this is fine, than you could also have GER-geo-stub. GER might be international recognized in the same level as PNG is. Obviously for PNG this abbrev. is needed much more than for GER.
most people don't have any knowledge of any ISO codes other than for their own country - I know people that have this knowledge. If you are anti-international(-standards) you might not have this. Further reading: ISO_3166-1_alpha-2#Uses_and_applications BTW: I was neither born in AR nor do I currently live there, if this is what you refer to by "Argentina - your country" I only want AR-geo-stub as redirect - so people that do not know the code can use "Argentina-geo-stub". Not much confusion to be expected. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 10:33, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
1) AR could just as easily stanbd for Armenia, a country which you do not seem to want to acknowledge even exists. 2) Redirects to templates are strongly discouraged, which is why many of them are being slowly orphaned and deleted - they produce a double load on the servers, since two templates need to be called up for every usage of them. You may be interested to know that among recently deleted templates were such as AU-depot-stub and FR-bio-stub - for exactly the same reason as AR-geo-stub has been proposed for deletion. Grutness...wha? 00:35, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
1) "a country which you do not seem to want to acknowledge even exists" - wao - your british IQ seems to go down or your senses do so. Where did you get this from? BTW: Without looking in ISO list I think it is AM, just to show you that also people outside of a country might know the codes. 2) I can understand this. But AFAIK they try to change the software. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 19:14, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
"a country which you do not seem to want to acknowledge even exists" - yes. Quite clearly you don't want to admit that Armenia could be confused with AR, which is why you have not faced that comment previously in all your ranting about AR automatically being Argentina. As you said, if a person checks the codes, they will know the difference. But when sorting stubs for 200-odd countries, which is better, to use the country names or stop before every stub and check the code to see what to use for the next one? Grutness...wha? 00:21, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
can be confused, but abbrev should only be used by people that are sure about them. AM-people will know that the code is AM and not AR. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 11:41, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

There's no point in carrying on with this. You're simply arguing from an inflexible position based on what you want, I'm simply arguing from an inflexible position based on Wikipedia naming convention. The whole argument is a waste of time. It's also in completely the wrong place - this should either have been argued at Template talk:Argentina-geo-stub or at SFD. Grutness...wha? 00:32, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

I am not only arguing from "what I want" you may have seen that there where other people using ISO 3166-1 in their stubs too. The discussion started not as SFD or Argentina-geo-stub, so initially it was right here. The other thing: I also thought about the uselessness. How many times "Argentina" could I haved typed. ... Nevertheless thanks for not having stopped talking with me. I hope we both learned something from the discussion. I can understand your anti-AR arguments, and the currently not discussaable seems to be serverload. To condense my motivation for AR: If I type something really fast I simply hate every (what I consider) useless letter. Best regards from Berlin in "my country": DE ;-) Tobias Conradi (Talk) 11:41, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
Don't be silly - Berlin's not in Denmark - it's in the FRG! ;) And best wishes from my country, New Zealand. I hope the conversation didn't get too heated, although at times we probably both felt like we were hitting our heads against a wall! Grutness...wha? 04:10, 23 July 2005 (UTC)