[WikiEN-l] election

Fri Feb 28 04:59:06 UTC 2003

I would be dead set against 'List of Americans'. America has two meanings. 
It can be state-specific, the US, or geography-specific, the continent of 
America. We have to be ultra-careful to remember that Wiki is meant to be a 
world-wide sourcebook, which means avoiding causing (1) confusion, (2) 
unnecessary offence, (3) inaccuracy.

'Claiming' US = America sets a precedent that poses the question, what to we 
call the 'continent' and how do we refer to people on the continent who are 
not resident in the US? 'Non-American Americans?'

This same problem exists on the island of Ireland.  Ireland can mean one 
island or two political entities, Northern Ireland and the Republic of 
Ireland, with half the people on Northern Ireland not wanting to be called 
Irish (and taking high offence in being called Irish) and half 'demanding' 
it. The solution there is to call the political entities by their formal 
name, and the geographic entity (the island) simply as Ireland. (And run a 
mile from a 'List of Irish people' - Calling Ian Paisley Irish and you'd be 
picking your teeth up from the ground. Call Gerry Adams 'British' and you'd 
be trying to find your kneecaps!)

The same is true in the UK. England is NOT the island it is on. Using 
England to mean everyone on the island on Great Britain 'english' is liable 
to get you a punch in the face from people in Scotland and Wales, who will 
tell you 'we are bloody well not English and how dare you suggest it!' Just 
because a lot of people thousands of miles might call everyone from that 
island 'English' would be NO EXCUSE for us doing it. Ditto with America. 
Call the geographic entity 'America' but those who could from the various 
counties/states by the political entity, US, Canada, Mexico.

It may seem pedantic but this is a SERIOUS sourcebook here, not a game where 
we adopt the attitude 'ah shucks, who cares?' Canadians aren't going to take 
a sourcebook seriously that acts as though they don't exist and usupts the 
name of the continent they share for 'one' bit of the continent' just as 
Scottish people will treat as rubbish a sourcebook that calls everyone on 
the island of Great Britain as english, Norwegians would hit the roof if we 
presumed that everyone in Scandanavia was Swedish, and the Portuguese would 
practically declare war (without even having a George Bush!) if we called 
everyone on Iberia Spanish.  (And anyone who talks about Ireland as being 
part of the British Isles - or worse still calls us 'British', which still 
happens, would be told in no uncertain manner to 'fuck off, you ignorant 
wanker!')

So be VERY VERY careful with terminology, if you want Wikipedia to be taken 
seriously out there.

JT.

>
>
>The first one is stupid, the second one is all right, I suggested [[List of 
>people from the United States]], and nobody even commented on that.
>
>Zoe
>
>
>  mail <pholango at yahoo.com> wrote:it looks like we will have a vote to 
>decide what to
>call notable u.s. citizens. the top two choices are
>"people from the united states" or "americans"
>
>[[Talk:List of United States people]]
>
>__________________________________________________
>Do you Yahoo!?
>Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more
>http://taxes.yahoo.com/
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
>http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>---------------------------------
>Do you Yahoo!?
>Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, and more

_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE* 
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus