Talk:Georgia

I think 'georgia' should redirect to the Georgia country site and should have a disambiguation page.

Agreed, and now it does.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 05:59, 23 April 2010 (EDT)

Georgia and disambiguation

Today I took the action as stated above. I received the following on my user talk page:

I realize this may be more U.S. parochialism, but I don't agree with moving Georgia (country) to Georgia. At the very least, I would like to see some discussion of it before making that move. (WT-en) LtPowers 09:06, 23 April 2010 (EDT)

A country surely takes priority over a state? I suggest you discuss at Talk:Georgia.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 11:04, 23 April 2010 (EDT)

So here it is. If anyone cannot follow what I did, I removed the redirect to a disambiguation page for Georgia and added an otheruses template to the Georgia country article. Therefore anyone searching for Georgia will end up at the country page, from where the otheruses template directs to the disambiguation page for other places called Georgia. It seems blindingly obvious to me that if a country name has more than one use, then the country name takes priority over a state or city or town or whatever. If anyone disagrees, please explain why.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 11:04, 23 April 2010 (EDT)

The policy wording is:

"As an exception, if one place is so much more famous than others with the same name that the disambiguation is a hindrance rather than a help, leave it without a disambiguator on the end"

I'm not sure that Georgia (the country) meets that bar, but I also live in the US so I'm probably biased. Additionally, I think based on our current guidelines that Georgia (the state) should actually be named Georgia (United States of America), no? -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 11:12, 23 April 2010 (EDT)

The rest of that policy reads... and if you even have to think about which place is "more famous", go back to rule 1. Examples: Paris is the capital of France; Paris (Texas) is a nice little prairie town in the US. Los Angeles is the megalopolis in southern California; Los Angeles (Chile) is a mid-sized town south of Santiago. Peru is the country in South America; Peru (Indiana) is a town in the Midwest of the United States.

To me, Georgia the country is certainly way more famous than the southern state of the USA, and I suspect it would be to anyone who is not American? I would also suggest a clear change to that policy stating that a country name always takes priorty. --(WT-en) Burmesedays 11:19, 23 April 2010 (EDT)

As an American I actually think of the state first, so more feedback is probably needed. However, for what it's worth, WikiPedia:Georgia is a disambiguation page. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 11:24, 23 April 2010 (EDT)

While I'd prefer that Georgia goes straight to the country, I think it's probably best to defer to WP's convention in this case, to avoid interminable debate. Ryan is right re: the name of the disambiguator. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 12:09, 23 April 2010 (EDT)

I absolutely do not support the idea that countries should always take precedence. The goal should be to get people where they want to go as quickly as possible, and we simply cannot assume that the readers of our travel guides are significantly more likely to be looking for Georgia, the country, than they are for Georgia, the state. It's not like the country is a huge travel destination. (WT-en) LtPowers 14:34, 23 April 2010 (EDT)

Oh, as for disambiguators, I'm not sure how you can say "state" is wrong, when it's used as the example on the policy page. (WT-en) LtPowers 14:35, 23 April 2010 (EDT)

I fundamentally disagree with all of that on several levels but there are far more important things to do than argue about it. The Americans won the day at Wikipedia as well, despite Georgia the country receiving more hits and a whole host of other arguments which make sense to me. Assuming there are are no more users who think this is the right thing to do, I will change back to old scheme. --(WT-en) Burmesedays 14:42, 23 April 2010 (EDT)

Re: Georgia (United States of America), there is probably a larger discussion to be had about bullet #2 in the naming conventions. The policy page also references Cordoba (state), but as the Cordoba disambiguation page shows the actual implementation has been very different. Similarly, Midwest (United States of America) is considered correct, but per the naming conventions it should apparently be Midwest (region, United States of America). -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 14:48, 23 April 2010 (EDT)

In continental Europe most people will think of the country Georgia and not the American state due to the related history and the proximity to Europe. Most Europeans know Atlanta but not the state so i would side with Burmesedays. I think disambiguation is justified as so many Americans are here around and otherwise we have too many jerks like these: [1] A big hail to Texas ;-) (WT-en) jan 14:58, 23 April 2010 (EDT) P.s. some edit conflicts here. sorry ryan

Perhaps Palestine should go straight to a disambiguation page as well? :)--(WT-en) Burmesedays 15:00, 23 April 2010 (EDT)

I feared that you would think that *rotfl* This will be the joke tonight in the pub with my friends! slanger (WT-en) jan 15:09, 23 April 2010 (EDT)

Before my rant, I should say that Georgia-the country-is among the top 5 countries I most want to visit, so I'm certainly a Sakhartvelo-booster. I'm too lazy to dig through the policies, but as mentioned above ... and if you even have to think about which place is "more famous", go back to rule 1. I'm sure 99.999% of Americans (and Canadians too) will say the US state is more/as famous and I'd venture a guess that 80-90% don't even know that there is a country called Georgia. Now, this is the English-language Wikivoyage, so the usage of words (in this case a proper name) among native speakers ought to take precedence and given the population of the US, I'd say this is should be a big consideration.

What about Washington, should the state trump the city because its a step higher in the government hierarchy? Among Americans/Canadians the name can be either the state or city, but among others and non-native speakers "Washington" refers to the city...do non-Americans refer (often) to the city as "Washington, D.C." as our article is titled? Same issue with New York, which most Americans refer to as New York City? My point is that usage among native speakers should take precedence and among native speakers neither is more famous...half (mostly Americans and our cousins to the north) will say the state is more famous, the other half (Brits, Aussies, Kiwis, etc.) are more likely to say the country is more famous. So can't we just leave it as a choice? Is it really excruciatingly painful to see a page with two choices and select the page you want to navigate to? Most links should already link to the desired article...which brings up another issue, is anyone willing to go through all the links to this page and correct those referring to the state. (For the record: the state is a little over twice the size at 153,909 km2 in area and nearly 10 million residents, while the country has just 69,700 km² and 4.3 million residents.) (WT-en) AHeneen 03:51, 24 April 2010 (EDT)

As an aside (I am trying not to argue this one any further, but it is hard not to cite 3,000 years of recorded history and truly magnificent natural attractions, versus a 270 year old American state famous for growing peaches and peanuts :)), very few links would need correcting. Links to the US state should already go straight to Georgia (state). Georgia now goes to the country with an otheruses template, instead of to the disambiguation page. --(WT-en) Burmesedays 04:35, 24 April 2010 (EDT)

We all have different things we value in travel; for you, it's history, but that's not a criterion for everyone. Natural attractions or not, Georgia, the country, just isn't a major travel destination. Keep in mind, too, that no one is suggesting that the state should get the undisambiguated name; we're just saying that we can't make an assumption that someone typing "Georgia" into the search box is most likely looking for the country. (WT-en) LtPowers 09:36, 24 April 2010 (EDT)

I'd say Georgia is more famous for its cultural/historical attractions than natural ones. And what about Washington? Do you go with the larger entity (the state) which has thousands of years of history or the city with a drastically smaller footprint and population but is more famous worldwide. See the point? LtPowers said it nicely...we're not advocating the state receive preference, just a simple page to painlessly click on the state or the country. (WT-en) AHeneen 14:31, 24 April 2010 (EDT)

Per the above discussion, I've reverted the move. For the record, I encountered some trouble because this talk page (which was originally Talk:Georgia, i.e., the talk page for the disambiguation page) was not moved to Talk:Georgia (disambiguation), as it should have been. As well, Talk:Georgia (country) was essentially orphaned when Georgia (country) became a redirect; it should have been moved to Talk:Georgia. Anyway, I think everything is now back where it should be. I'll be off to fix the links now. (WT-en) LtPowers 19:27, 23 May 2010 (EDT)