Talk:Georgia/Archive 3

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This page is an example of the problems with wikipedia

This is just another example of the bureaucratic bullshit that suffocates Wikipedia. There's all this drama over what a disambiguation page? Who gives a flying fuck as long as the reader can access the articles then the page serves it's purpose.

Well put. -- Eugène van der Pijll (talk) 13:03, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

People are just using this issue as a proxy debate between which is more important: the US or Europe. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.192.8.173 (talk) 22:58, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Hardly. The country should always take pre-eminence. We are an English language encyclopedia, granted, yet I would think people from the United States would hazard a guess as to what the state of Georgia is like while having little knowledge of the actual country. I want to learn about the little SSR that could. Crazy (talk) 13:38, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
The state of Georgia has 3.5 million more people and its GDP is 20 times more than that of the country. Don't forget that some US states rival that of other countries. California would have the world's 7th largest economy if it was its own country. Look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_between_U.S._states_and_countries_nominal_GDP —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.192.8.173 (talk) 07:07, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
That just proves CrazySlyHawk's point. Bringing up data etc are just attempts at justifying putting a sub-national entity above a sovereign state. 118.90.37.248 (talk) 11:28, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
All of above (the populations, the GDPs, and the differing governmental structures) are irrelevant. Per Wikipedia's naming conventions, our readers' ability to reach their desired articles is what matters. While it can play an indirect role in determining what readers seek, relative importance is not a criterion. —David Levy 11:45, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

(back to margin) While I can see the whole "article title does not need to be article text" etc. in order to send readers to the desired text, the practical effect of application based on previous articles will obviously be that "Georgia" points to the text on the US state. No argument there, if the premise is true that the majority of English Wikipedia readers desire info on the US state. (Surely someone has data on that.) With respect to that David, I see no problem.(sorry for directly addressing you by name, but that was all the User Name showed :D )

The upshot is that we risk falling into a situation where rigid adherence to rules/"principles"/policy trumps everything else, and can lead to consequences not desired by a large portion of users being able to be justified on that basis (like we have here). So, IMO if WP were to stick rigidly to a set of "ground principles" (or whatever) then sure, make the title point to the US state. I.e. I've just fleshed out the reasoning behind the phrase "rules are there to be broken".

The argument for putting the article on the former SSR at the place "Georgia" is that articles on sovereign states are usually given titles which match as closely as possible to their short names, which seems to be the case everywhere else outside Wikipedia.

Apologies for sounding arrogant/rude, if I came across that way---I did not mean that. 118.90.37.248 (talk) 08:24, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

This isn't about which is more improtant it's about if the reader can access the fucking page he/she wants. All hail grawp

I strongly oppose the idea of assigning the Georgia title to the article about the U.S. state (which few editors advocate). In my opinion, the current disambiguation setup is the best option. —David Levy 08:37, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I find it interesting that the German version of wikipedia directs "Georgia" to the US state. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.192.8.173 (talk) 07:46, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

  • German Wikipedia redirects to Georgia State because in German Georgia country is Georgien. they dont have the same name for both in German.--Satt 2 (talk) 14:29, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Well how about we just make Georgia (country) a redirect to Sakartvelo and let the U.S. state have Georgia, then? Screw English entirely, and just use the country's own name for itself? I've always thought it was kinda strange that the names of countries (and languages) are different in different languages, anyway. How did people in the English-speaking world get "Georgia" out of something that apparently sounds like "Sakartvelo" anyway? That's craziness. --Sapphic (talk) 06:30, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
The origin of the name Georgia is still disputed and has been explained in the following ways:
  1. Linking it semantically to Greek and Latin roots (respectively, γεωργος "tiller of the land" and georgicus "agricultural")
  2. Its derivation from the name of St. George. At least, popularity of the cult of Saint George in Georgia influenced the spread of the term.
  3. Under various Persian empires (536 BC-AD 638), Georgians were called Gurjhān (Gurzhan/Gurjan), or "Gurj/Gurzh people." The early Islamic/Arabic sources spelled the name Kurz/Gurz and the country Gurjistan (see Baladhuri, Tabari, Jayhani, Istakhri, Ibn Hawqal, etc.). This also could evolve or at least contribute to the later name of Georgia.
jnestorius(talk) 00:50, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
  • The country's Constitution makes it very CLEAR that in English the name should be Georgia. The country has been called Georgia by foreigners since the middle ages and there are old writings that prove so. and the constitution is not going to be amended because of this silly thing. Why would Americans Keep the state named after King George of England anyway? I bet when Georgia became independent, they don't have regions named after Russian Kings. huh.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.209.9.110 (talk) 14:32, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I believe that Wikipedia guidelines on disambiguation state that if there is a lengthy dispute over the primary meaning of a term then this MAY be an indication that there is no primary meaning. PatGallacher (talk) 12:43, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes that is the guideline. But I'm sorry to have to say this: Unfortunately the length of this "discussion" is totally the fault of US-centric chauvanism, as they simply cannot/will not accept that there is a country on this planet that the rules clearly and unambigiously state has priority over their subnational entity with the same name. Americans are regularly ridiculed for their legendary ignorance about the world. They bomb countries that 80% of them can't even find on a map. I'm sorry about the bluntness of this post, but sometimes hard things must be said. This site's url is not us.wikipedia.org but perhaps there should be such a subdomain? Roger (talk) 15:59, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
Where does it "clearly and unambiguously" state that? All things being equal we should give an independent state priority over a sub-national entity, but sometimes they aren't. PatGallacher (talk) 16:11, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
Dodger67, if you think that the length of this discussion is totally the fault of US-centric "chauvanism", then you have not read the discussion. There are perfectly valid reasons for having this disambiguation page, as there are perfectly valid reasons for giving the country priority. There is no need to attack editors with whom you don't agree and accuse them of chauvinism. Novidmarana (talk) 18:04, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
I put it to you that is only because one of the Georgias is a US state, that this so called debate is dragging on for so long. If the dispute was between the country and a state/province/region of any place other than the US, it would have been settled years ago. See Macedonia as an example of a stable disambiguation between the country (used to be part of Yugoslavia) and the province of Greece with the same name. They are even immediate neighbours too - not on separate continents as in this case. Apologies for the harshness of my earlier post, but sometimes calling a spade a $%^&#!* shovel is justifiable. Roger (talk) 10:41, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
But Macedonia just proves the point, why does the country has not priority of the Greek province. Or is all this due to Greek chauvinism? If you think that the spade is a shovel, then please read the arguments of the people who oppose. They give reasons, you don't have to agree with them, but you should respect their reasons and not suspect that there are just arrogant Americans. Голубое сало (talk) 11:00, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
My point is that Macedonia is a stable page. If you look at its talk page you will see that the current arrangement was discussed and settled relatively quickly - the arguing did not go on for years and years.
Does a mechanism like "binding arbitration" exist on wikipedia? I think it would be a very good thing if we could have a panel of trusted outsiders make a final and binding ruling based on the entire content of the article, the talk page and archive. I no longer care what the final form of this page will be just as long as it is final and the fighting is ended. Roger (talk) 13:01, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
Frankly, a major reason behind the recurring dispute is the assumption on the part of some users (most of whom don't bother to read past discussions) that the disambiguation page occupies the Georgia title because of "US-centric chauvinism." As you said, if the state/province/region existed anywhere other than the United States, this issue wouldn't exist.
Incidentally, I await your explanation of how/where "the rules clearly and unambiguously state" that the country "has priority over [the] subnational entity with the same name." —David Levy 13:17, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
To play devil's advocate, one could argue that the very reason the issue wouldn't exist is because if the province were anywhere else there would be absence of a problem with keeping  Georgia at this page due to a lack of this "US-centric chauvinism". Though the point remains that these editors are unhappy with keeping the disambiguation page here, I'm sure if you pressed them they would go beyond this rationale and provide a number of other reasons why they want the status quo to change. Oh, and as for your explanation - strange though this may seem to an evil baby-eating American (don't sue me.. :)) most of the rest of the world is entirely unaware of the names of any state (with the possible exception of California). If we did a geoloc on those stats given a while back, I guarantee most of the traffic to the state would be from within the US, fuelling notions that the current arrangement is US-centric. Sorry for the lack of coherency, 2am here. +Hexagon1 (t) 16:18, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
I don't doubt that most of the traffic to the U.S. state's article originates in the United States. But that doesn't matter. We don't discriminate based on location or punish certain users because they happen to be heavily concentrated in a particular country. We only concern ourselves with the likelihood of readers (irrespective of their whereabouts) seeking a particular article. X% of users benefit from any given setup, and whether such individuals happen to be spread around the globe or confined to a specific area is irrelevant. —David Levy 17:19, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
I wasn't forming an argument for moving the page, I was merely addressing your point on US-centric chauvinism, trying to explain why some may perceive this disambiguation page as such. Hailing from the radioactive wastelands that are the lands of Unamerica I can see where they're coming from, though I don't necessarily agree. +Hexagon1 (t) 10:02, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I realize that you're referring to a viewpoint held by other editors. Likewise, I'm addressing their position.  :-) —David Levy 17:05, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
Most of the traffic to the majority of English Wikipedia articles is from America. I bet you the majority of traffic to Georgia (country) is from America also. Just because America has the most English speakers of any country in the world. Just saying. Sheep81 (talk) 06:16, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Not quite correct. There are more English speakers in India or even China than the United States. Native English speakers aren't the only ones who read or edit English articles. The millions who take it up as a second language can easily do so as well.--Huaiwei (talk) 05:02, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

IMO the problem is this: To certain people from the US, the word "Georgia", in English, refers to the part of the USA (since users of the English language named it so, hence endowing the word "Georgia" with the English meaning of the US state), and the association of the word with the Caucasian country supposedly was not done by English speakers, hence justifying "Georgia" pointing to the state of the USA since "nobody" will associate the word "Georgia", in English, to the country. To get "Georgia" to point to the former Soviet republic, one simply needs to rebut that argument (again, this is IMO :D). 118.90.51.217 (talk) 09:27, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

The two primary topics and their prominence

I hope you'll forgive the interruption on the duologue above... However a number of recent edits have left the disambiguation page being very much unhelpful for any user who happens upon it. Key guidelines to consider here are WP:DAB and WP:MOSDAB, with primary point of a dabpage being "to help people find the information they want quickly and easily. These pages are not for exploration, but only to help the user navigate to a specific article".

With this in mind we are doing readers a disservice by making Georgia (country) and Georgia (U.S. state) so cumbersome to navigate to. These two links should be prominent, not divided by historic entries that only serve to distract and confuse the vast majority of people who stumble upon this page looking for one of the two primary meanings.

Add into the mix pointless and irrelevant cruft in the form of flag images...

Georgia (country) and Georgia (U.S. state) should be given clear prominence in the disambiguation page, as illustrated in this version of the dabpage or on other dual-primary dabpages such as Newcastle for example.

Thanks/wangi (talk) 01:01, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

My main comment on the old page revision that you linked to is that the intro is itself rather cumbersome; I would cut it to something like this: Georgia usually refers to one of these two places:. Otherwise, I think your idea to keep the two equally important topics prominent at the top of the page is very sound. (Important is the wrong word, but I think my point is clear anyway.) --Tkynerd (talk) 02:49, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
I know it's a bit of IAR from the manual of style of disambiguation pages, but I think the idea of having the link to the state and the country at the top of the page, followed by the rest of the disambiguation links, is a good idea, and will make the page as easily navigable as possible. Sort of like how things are set up at HP (disambiguation) - there, the situation was different, due to capitalization and such (which isn't here) - but taking the same idea from there, and having both links at the top.
Unrelatedly, I don't think we need the flags. And we shouldn't have the piping either. If you un-pipe the titles (per Wikipedia:MOSDAB#Piping_and_redirects), then the links will be to Georgia (country) and Georgia (U.S. State), which are plenty clear without the images. Images are generally discouraged from disambiguation pages unless navigation to the proper page from the disambiguation page is unclear without the images (MOS:DAB#Images). The examples given there of Congo and Mississippi Delta (disambiguation) are unclear without the maps; here, the qualifiers in each article's title are clear. -- Natalya 15:45, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
I lumped the country, state and sublinks of such into the "Geography" section because, at least as far as I'm concerned, countries and states are part of geography (certainly as much as cities or streets are). I agree those links should be the first entries on the page, and I think it's redundant to list the previous forms of the country and the state. But all that folderol about "two primary meanings and many other meanings" just seems to be a pointless, cumbersome deviation from the MOS (as are the flags). My preferred and suggested layout for the top of the page:

Georgia may refer to:

==Cities and streets==

Propaniac (talk) 22:22, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
There are several good suggestions on how to organize this page, but whichever version is chosen I absolutely agree that that Georgia (country) should be listed first and Georgia (U.S. State) should be listed second. Clearly, those are the most sought after terms by our readers. — Satori Son 14:13, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Also, when Georgia guy's edit fixed the piped link for Georgia (country), it removed the flag icon. I have removed the other one for Georgia (U.S. state) pending further discussion about whether they should be there at all (probably not). — Satori Son 14:41, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
I don't think there's any particular reason to list the country or the U.S. state first; I just think they should be listed at the top of the page, since they are, by a wide margin, the two articles most readers will be looking for.
Also, I have just undone edits by User:Satt 2 that restored the flags; my edit summary pointed to this discussion. Just FYI. --Tkynerd (talk) 20:07, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion

For some reason I read this entire talk page... All this energy could have been used to create many good articles! (Except the last ones: the disamb page can be improved without many problems, I think.) My common sense (without claiming that it is everyone's common sense) tells me that the discussion should be frozen for several months. Just leave it this way until the end of the year. You could count it as a "victory" for the persons who want to keep it this way, but that would be pathetic. In 2009, come back to the discussion. Think if it's really a problem if it is not according to your wishes. So what if a convention/guideline is broken? So what if you think the name should be different? I'm not saying that we should not care about article names. We should do our best, up to reasonable limits, to give every article the best name it could have. But the reasonable limit has been reached here. Having said that, I will leave this discussion after this first post.--EdgeNavidad (talk) 12:13, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Mmhmm. After reading through this page, I can't see what everyone (esp. perhaps David Levy?) is fighting against... The amount of text on this page would amount to several pretty good articles! Shame on you, people. --220.220.101.167 (talk) 01:57, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
Shame on us (esp. perhaps me?) for engaging in discussion? And what do you mean by "fighting against"? —David Levy 02:39, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
I am pretty certain that making all that amount of counterarguments would require substantial editing energy. Where does all that energy come from? From my seat, all the energy focused on this page looks so combatant. Who'd benefit from this? --220.220.101.167 (talk) 18:04, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
That's the right question, and the answer is: There would be no net benefit from the proposed move, which is why some of us are arguing so strongly against it. --Tkynerd (talk) 01:04, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

State of Georgia

Cant you move the state to State of Georgia as it says in the article. And the Country to Georgia ? Why should this be a problem anyway. for example, what would you do if a state was called England just to mock the british?--Fomerom (talk) 15:52, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Please read the talk page before you suggest a move like this. This has been discussed endlessly, and there is no consensus for a move. Further, your suggestion (as you worded it) ignores Wikipedia naming conventions, the ambiguity of the word "state" and the fact that the U.S. state of Georgia was not named that "to mock" anybody. --Tkynerd (talk) 19:22, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I'd like to reiterate the above comment, please read the entire talk page. The issue about England/England is already touched on at the end of the topic after the green thing ("This page is an example of the problems with wikipedia") where word association of "Georgia" in the English language is talked about. As you can see there are a lot of things discussed, and chances are you will find out what others think of any proposal across the various talk pages and archives. 118.90.58.242 (talk) 12:02, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
The user who started this topic is 100% right.
Everything in Wikipedia:Naming conventions points the the fact that the country of Georgia should be where typing Georgia into the search bar should lead to.
From WP:NC — "The names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized ... for a general audience over specialists". A state of a county such as the USA is a specialist subject.
Plus Georgia the country comes up first on both google and yahoo(as if consensus is even a way to gauge such an issue as this). Finally, I would ask the editors that are insisting on the disambiguation page this; don't you think it's egotistical for americans to place a region/state as equal with the same importance as a nation state? I'm sorry but a region of a country will never trump an actual country. Any attempt to rationalise around that is, to me, totally unjustifiable. ʄ!•¿talk? 20:21, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
1. What on Earth leads you to believe that "a state of a county such as the USA is a specialist subject"?
2. What is the relevance of what "comes up first on both google and yahoo"?
3. Had you read the previous discussions, you would realize that "importance" is NOT a Wikipedia naming criterion. Why don't you read those discussions instead of rehashing arguments that have been run into the ground? —David Levy 09:38, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, it's nothing short of wikitypically ridiculous that any amount of attention is even being paid to someone who would favor the dab solution. The country article belongs at Georgia and anything else is just a bad joke. 78.34.129.171 (talk) 08:57, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Would you care to elaborate? On what policies/guidelines do you base this assertion? —David Levy 09:38, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
The country Georgia belongs on the "Georgia" article, the current system is POV, because it is in effect giving a region of a country (Georgia (U.S. state)) the same importance as a nation state. The current system supports regional nationalism and therefore is not reflecting a NPOV. For example what about Azerbaijan? It is a country, however the same name is used in Iran on Azerbaijan (Iran). This system gives the country the article Azerbaijan and gives the Iranian province Azerbaijan (Iran). Makes sense to be. We should use this formula for both Georgias too. This way we can reflect a NPOV and not support regional nationalism. Ijanderson (talk) 14:16, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
I would wait and see what arbcom decides to do with Ireland. If they decide that the country "Ireland" belongs there then there may be a case for trying to get the country of Georgia moved here. However i hope that doesnt happen, its better to have a disam page in this case. Also look at China and Taiwan the "Country" doesnt take priority in those cases. BritishWatcher (talk) 14:26, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
My understanding is that the ArbCom seeks only to assist the community in reaching a decision. For the committee to simply decide on its own would be outrageous. —David Levy 14:45, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
The people there are totally divided on it, they are struggling to come up with a method of deciding how to proceed let alone coming up with the solution. However the outcome be it just overseen by Arbcom or ruled on is such a similar issue to this one it would be a good thing to wait for the results there. If Ireland state does take priority there then there is justification for Georgia country getting priority here. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:18, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
There certainly are some similarities between the two issues, but there also are substantial differences. Off the top of my head:
  • The Ireland title presently is assigned to an article (not to a disambiguation page), despite the fact that there are three extremely common meanings of "Ireland" (the island, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland).
  • All three of those meanings are very closely related (culturally, historically and geographically), with the island physically divided between the two countries.
  • Both countries have common, formal designations beyond "Ireland," eliminating the need for parenthetical disambiguation.
  • The "Georgia" debate has largely died down (with only occasional complaints from people unfamiliar with the previous discussions).
But yes, I agree that the "Ireland" dispute's outcome could be relevant. —David Levy 15:43, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
Again, our articles' titles are not based upon the subjects' relative importance. Quoth Wikipedia:Naming conventions, "the purpose of an article's title is to enable that article to be found by interested readers, and nothing more." Presumably, the nation of Azerbaijan is believed to be a far more likely search target (among readers of the English Wikipedia) than the Iranian region of Azerbaijan is. Conversely, the available data indicate that neither the nation of Georgia nor the U.S. state of Georgia is more sought by our readers by a large margin. Because there are numerous other "Georgia" articles that also are sought, the correct solution is for Georgia to be a disambiguation page.
Of course, all of this has been discussed over and over again. Please read the older threads. —David Levy 14:45, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
Hm. Speaking from experiences on other talk pages, the naming conventions are traditionally and far too often being employed as a tool for the purpose of maintaining or expanding a U.S. POV, and I wholeheartedly choose to ignore them when they interfere with sanity such as in this case. Not having the country article at Georgia looks to me like an insult to commonsense, and also (but please don't hammer me on this following minor point) to the country of Georgia. All Wikipedia policies combined aren't going to change that. It's the same old U.S. POV that haunts some aspects of usen.Wikipedia. Nevermind though. 78.34.146.122 (talk) 10:39, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
Ignoring policy (in place to ensure the encyclopedia's usability) in favor of the oft-cited "anything that doesn't discriminate against U.S. topics is unfairly biased" (scare quotes) argument doesn't strike me as a commonsense approach, and I don't appreciate being told that my viewpoint "interferes with sanity." —David Levy 20:23, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
I really don't want to get very involved in this debate, but if wanting this page to be the U.S. state of Georgia is U.S. POV then wanting it to be the nation state of Georgia is European POV. Having it be a disambig page (though not a great solution) seems to be the NPOV solution. Rreagan007 (talk) 02:20, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Hatnotes at Georgia (U.S. state) and Georgia (country)

Is there any useful reason there are hatnotes on Georgia (U.S. state) and Georgia (country)? Georgia is a disambiguation page so it's impossible to get to either of these two articles unless you specifically search for them, and they both have what they are about already in the article title so there is no confusion. Furthermore, some people like to make the Google argument for hatnotes, but it doesn't work in this case either because a Google search of "Georgia" returns you both the country and the U.S. state articles. Basically the hatnotes do not aid in navigation at all and this is the sole purpose of hatnotes. So is there any good reason not to just delete the hatnotes from these articles? (The most relevant section on WP:Hatnote is WP:NAMB.) LonelyMarble (talk) 00:28, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

No, there is no useful reason, as WP:NAMB seems to explain pretty directly. Feel free to remove them. Propaniac (talk) 01:59, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Weird

Is there any other country in the world whose name on Wikipedia leads to a disamb page? The fact that a US state is called Georgia should not stop the article Georgia from being about the country by that name, there seems to be not a little of US centrism involved here. JdeJ (talk) 10:26, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

That's because neither of those countries are called China or Ireland, their name is People's Republic of China and Republic of Ireland whereas Georgia is Georgia. FFMG (talk) 13:50, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
See Names of the Irish state. jnestorius(talk) 14:20, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
And the United Kingdom is really called United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland... but its article is "United Kingdom". and nobody calls it RRC, we call it China... simpler...--Jakezing (talk) 15:36, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
Actually PRC is quite a commonly used acronym for mainland China. Either case, how is any of this relevant to the original poster's opinions? The issues with the word China and Ireland are not at all similar to the issue with the word Georgia. +Hexagon1 (t) 05:20, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
What i was meaning is, Nobody calls it the Peoples Republic of China, they just say china, —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jakezing (talk • contribs) 12:48, September 18, 2008
The original question was "Is there any other country in the world whose name on Wikipedia leads to a disamb page?" "Ireland" is admittedly not a disamb page, but in fact is an even stronger counterexample than the type originally requested: the analogy would be if "Georgia" was the U.S. state rather than a disamb. jnestorius(talk) 10:35, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Ireland isn't a country it's an island. Honestly I couldn't follow what you just said. ʄ!•¿talk? 23:01, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
"Ireland" also is the name of a country. Please read the first paragraph of our Republic of Ireland article. —David Levy 03:21, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
(to Jakezing) And what I said, is that yes, people do often call it the PRC when talking about the government, as opposed to China when talking about the location/civilisation. +Hexagon1 (t) 01:26, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

We usually name countries after their common English name eg Germany, North Korea (not the official name of the state), this is in line with WP:NC#Use common names of persons and things, but see the section immediately after that WP:NC#Be precise when necessary. So for some countries we have to use different names from the common name. Three that I can think of are Ireland, Macedonia, Georgia and possibly Korea (which often means South Korea). That we do this is should not be surprising to anyone who speaks English and is in line with the Wikipedia:Naming Conventions --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 07:41, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Neither China nor Ireland point to a disambig. Please remember this is en.wikipedia.org not us.wikipedia.org. --Uncle Bungle (talk) 00:32, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
China/Ireland point to cultural/geographic articles to sidestep the obvious political differences between the groups who claim the names. 118.90.51.217 (talk) 09:14, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
Precisely. While both China and Ireland are embroiled in naming disputes of the real world, Georgia is embroiled in a naming dispute exclusive to wikipedia.--Huaiwei (talk) 12:11, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
While I agree that in general countries should take priority over federal subdivisions I don't think it can be applied as a hard and fast rule. Countries are also generally larger than subdivisions but this is not the case when it comes to Georgia. If Georgia in the USA was a county or a town then obviously the country would take priority, but the US state has more than twice
A few other reasons why I don't think the country is much more notable than the US state:
1) For most of the 20th Century the present country was a subdivision of the USSR and not an independent country.

2) Without intending to disrespect the country, Georgia's impression on the English-speaking world (or indeed wider world) has been limited as far as countries go because of being a small component of the USSR, being rather small and poor, being geographically and politically distant from English-speaking countries etc. 3) Being more populous, more prosperous and predominantly English-speaking, the US state I am sure has a larger impact on the consciousness of the English-speaking world.

I'm not arguing that one is more notable than the other, simply that the country isn't much more notable than the US state, hence the need for a disambiguation page.
I don't see any parallel with Ireland because the country and the US state are two totally different things while "Ireland" can either be the country or the island, the two overlapping to a great extent. Booshank (talk) 19:57, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
I think the nation should have priority over the US state. It is a sovereign subject of international law with a history spanning thousands of years, while the US state really is but a US state, nothing more, nothing less. When you think about famous people from Georgia, if you're talking about the US state you'd think about people (off the top of my head Martin Luther King, Jimmy Carter and Ray Charles) whose influence and contribution was essentially to America rather than to Georgia itself, while the country has its own famous figures regarded as national heroes (Cholokashvili, Chavchavadze), and while the US Georgians are more famous internationally than their counterparts from the Caucasus, one would say they are famous Americans rather than Georgians.
Georgians are also a distinct ethnic group with a unique language and culture, while the culture of the US state is considered a subculture of the Southern US (itself a subculture of the US).
The state is a regional entity, and while its economy and population are larger than that of the country and are rather significant to that of the US as a whole, it has little to no influence to the outside world: as stated above, influential people from Georgia are famous as Americans rather than just as Georgians. It is also true that despite Georgia's long history its influence on a global scale (and thus to the English-speaking world) is dwarfed by that of its neighbours and was hindered by centuries of domination by various empires. But that doesn't make it any less of a nation, which the US state is not.
When someone from the US talks about Georgia, it likely refers to the US state, (unless they're talking about foreign relations (something the state doesn't have, when the news headlines are "Russia invades Georgia" it's clearly about the country, else it would simply be "Russia invades America")) when someone from anywhere else refers to Georgia, in most (if not all) cases it refers to the country, because the two Georgias are unrelated and one is an administrative division while the other is a sovereign nation.
The only remotely similar example I can think of is Formosa, which in most cases refers to the island of Taiwan except for people from Argentina where it mostly refers to the Formosa province. Yet, one is not redirected to a disambiguation page when searching for Formosa. Double standards? English language wikipedia doesn't equal Anglosphere-centered wikipedia, does it? - 87.231.184.211 (talk) 11:41, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
Please, please, please read the past discussions.
I realize that this would take some time, but you just spent a great deal writing the above (an argument based entirely upon conditions that have absolutely nothing to do with Wikipedia's article naming criteria).
So please read the past discussions. Or at least the "nutshell" summary. Please? —David Levy 17:41, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Stepping back: presumably, the vast majority of wiki users see nothing wrong with getting to choose which Georgia they want to read about. Thats exactly what a disambiguation page provides, a list of choices. How that got to be a slight on the country in this case, who knows. Maybe its just another tired case of beating_a_dead_horse. I hope they can find some comfort: the link for Georgia_(country) gets first billing, as it were, over Georgia_(U.S._state). Fhue (talk) 07:02, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

So, I went to the Formosa article

The article about Formosa links to an island that is very far away. I bet nobody in the world really knows that island. The province in Argentina is closer to me. How can the main island of a country be more important than a subdivision? I bet nobody in Wikipedia ever heard of the island Formosa. --FixmanPraise me 16:41, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

1. As explained above, our articles' titles are not based upon the subjects' importance.
2. There's no need for sarcastic mockery. —David Levy 14:01, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
Sarcastic mockery? How about valid point ? 78.34.133.225 (talk) 09:27, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
1. You don't see the sarcasm and mockery?
2. As explained over and over in the discussions that Fixman and you evidently haven't read, our articles' titles are not based on the subjects' importance.
3. No one has written anything along the lines of Fixman's intentionally absurd "closer to me" argument. Off the top of my head, the U.S. contains numerous places called Alexandria, Athens, Berlin, London, Madrid, Melbourne, Moscow, Paris, Rome, Toronto, Vienna and Warsaw, but those titles are rightly assigned to the Egyptian, Greek, German, English, Spanish, Australian, Russian, French, Italian, Canadian, Austrian and Polish cities that visitors to this site probably seek when typing the names.
In the case of Georgia, neither the country's article nor the U.S. state's article is more sought by our readers by a large margin. —David Levy 12:43, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
Ok, those are valid examples. Maybe I'm still put off too much by things like what I could only accurately term juvenile dick comparison e.g. in this revision of Toledo. Come to think of it I guess I'm merely registering my strong provisional opposition (do I hear someone laugh in the back? maybe rightly so...) to having the U.S. state's article at this title. 78.34.143.183 (talk) 04:15, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
Very few people have opined that the U.S. state's article should occupy the Georgia title, and no one is more opposed to the idea than I am. —David Levy 08:23, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
And just as a data point: I've known since I was a child that Formosa was an older name for Taiwan. I had never heard of the Argentinian province before I read this thread. --Tkynerd (talk) 00:29, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Ditto here. +Hexagon1 (t) 06:45, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Ludicrous page name situation

I have not the time or patience to read all material on this matter, but I am sure one day common sense will prevail. The fact that arguments appear here opposing that the country be given the title, are embarrasing. Georgia US State is a sub-division. Therefore, the county Georgia should be written without disambiguation. Compare San Marino and San Marino, California. Chesdovi (talk) 01:25, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

You aren't willing to read the past discussions? Well, I certainly am not willing to rehash them for you, and I doubt that many editors are. —David Levy 06:39, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Chesdovi, your objections can be found in the archives—specifically here ("Importance IS a naming criterion.") and here (pretty much most of it). Most people currently involved are familiar with the archived discussion. 118.90.0.148 (talk) 00:39, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Chesdovi you are right of course. But don't concern yourself with it; it's just wikipedia. There is no rhyme nor reason to most of the stuff that happens on it, haha. ʄ!•¿talk? 00:37, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

FAQ

Given the number of times the phrase "past discussions"/"previous discussions" has been used on this page, I'd like to suggest an FAQ or summary of the arguments and rebuttals. This would aid both those who feel they have a new argument and those (such as me) who are genuinely curious. Recognizance (talk) 22:40, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

If a FAQ is written, the best place to put it is directly on Template:GeorgiaRMArchive, since that is transcluded on all the pages in question. Cheers. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 16:33, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
IMO, a summary would be best. It is possible to just quote a few lines for WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, including how it is based more on what is "significantly more commonly searched for and read than other meanings" than the amount of significance or importance, and also the whole second paragraph about "If there is extended discussion about which article truly is the primary topic, that may be a sign that there is in fact no primary topic". Zzyzx11 (Talk) 16:47, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Wow, really?

I know many, many people will bash me, but is there some reason for disambig page besides the higher population? We are disambiguing a 5000 year history country with two times the hits with a crappy province. --BrownGez (talk) 22:48, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Is there some reason why people aren't willing to read the past discussions (or even the "nutshell" summary)? —David Levy 17:41, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
other than laziness, ignorance or the growing trend of pointless squabbling? characterizing a US state as "crappy province" should be your biggest clue to one of the first two, at least. Fhue (talk) 06:43, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Well, I'm going to be a pain as well but in the other direction. I did read the In a Nutshell bit, and as an American, of course I think of the State first. Moreover, for consistency, the only state that I can find that does not exist at its primary name is Georgia. Washington, who most people actually would think of DC or the first president first, goes to the state. New York, which most people think of the city first, goes to the state. As people have pointed out, there are certainly other countries that are found at disambiguation pages. So I'm going to be a jerk and suggest Georgia, on the English language wikipedia, actually goes to the state. Not because it's better, but because it's more consistent. I'd imagine those Anglophiles would not be too happy if I suggested Essex pointed directly to a disambiguation page instead of their beloved county, when it is clear that most people looking for Essex (on the basis of population of the combined entities) are looking for a different Essex. But, then every English county would no longer be located directly on the primary article and the Queen would not be amused. CSZero (talk) 14:07, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
We are not amused. Rreagan007 (talk) 14:27, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
Let's have another poll! Polls are fun, and there have been polls in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 but nothing so far in 2009. 76.117.1.254 (talk) 00:31, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
2009's poll is well over-due. DoubleBlue (talk) 04:07, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
Hear hear, we're way behind schedule, I haven't called anyone "an uneducated American" or "East European nationalist" all year. Also, Rreagan007, I'm going to have to take issue with your Essex analogy, are you suggesting that the only people who search Wikipedia for geographical areas are people living in them? I better nominate Atlantis and Liancourt Rocks for deletion. Personally I'm completely unaware of any Essex bar the British one and I've come across references to that one countless times, even though it is on the other side of the world from me. Notability is clearly far better established with that one. Ought we cater to some US county full of hill-billies and uneducated Americans (now I just have to find an Eastern European debate... :) ) who spend their free time googling their own local government subdivision? +Hexagon1 13:40, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
Just for the record, it was not I who said that. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:35, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Strange disambiguation case

I've just read all the discussions but I'm still confused as to why a country whose official name is Georgia is disambiguated with a state whose official name is not Georgia but rather the State of Georgia. (I'm not from either them btw). This is a disambiguation of one official name conflicting with one name in parlance. (cf. Ireland). If you're looking for Georgia the state you have to 'go twice'. This page and then click the link which takes you to page name that is neither the official name nor the common name. Ditto for Georgia. If Georgia the country was here, people looking for the State of Georgia would still have to do that extra click anyway, but those looking for a country will find it. This looks like a compromise that helps no one.

Here a question: is there any other country whose official name is the same as the commonly spoken name that doesn't have its own page? Macgroover (talk) 17:29, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

To answer your question, I can think of three right off the top of my head: Ireland, China, and Macedonia. I thought you said that you had read all of the discussion. Either this is not true or you have a very poor memory, for if you had then you would have read this being discussed several times already. In addition, the argument you made in the first paragraph has been made before... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.138.245.200 (talk) 14:02, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
The official (English) the official name of China is "The People's Republic of China", and the official name of Macedonia is "The Republic of Macedonia" so two of your 'three' off the top of your head are *not* the official names, so perhaps it's not a poor memory issue as you assert. The official English name of Georgia is "Georgia". ( I will concede that Ireland is the official name of The Republic of Ireland, but this is a very different case whereby the country is named from the island on which is resides - in fact all the three examples you give are countries that essentially correspond geographically to the area which causes the disambiguation, and the Republic of Ireland is a commonly used name to refer to Eire - on top of which the word Ireland is the official name of 2 things whereas Georgia is only the office name of the country but not the state. ). I'll express my question more carefully: is there any other country whose (unique) official name is the same as the commonly spoken name yet lands you to a disambiguation page? () Macgroover (talk) 17:48, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
I am not the above IP, but please (Macgroover) do not take that as an insult. Indeed most ideas have been discussed to death, and the pages are probably just waiting for enough interested people. Most of the existing readers on both sides of the debate are also tired to repeating :D 118.90.57.67 (talk) 23:47, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

'Georgia' should lead to the country. And no more stupid voting

Don't vote again. Americans are only going to vote against such a move because they're the greater number however ignorant. Wikipedia isn't a democracy thank fuck and it should dumb itself down for American users. I'm sick of seeing imperial units (feet, ounces, etc.) used in articles. Remove all such mentions even if they are used with metric units. Similarly instances of 'American news' speech like "London, England" and other ignorant phrases need to go. And an historic country certainly takes priority over a region or province of another country.--Xania talk 22:28, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Wow - how eloquent, and especially the "thank fuck" part! You're really an inspiration :-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.70.181.108 (talk • contribs) 00:47, 2 September 2009
Considering the Wikipedia is hosted in Florida and largely managed by Jimbo Wales, an American, I do not foresee what you suggest as feasible. I too am deeply puzzled when I see "George is twenty-three cubits and four furlongs high and lives 935/543 leagues that way", but all you can do is add metric units where-ever you see they have been omitted. While Wikipedia is not a democracy, were it a dictatorship and knowing where Wikipedia is hosted and by whom, what system of measurement (and which Georgia) do you think would be given preference? +Hexagon1 13:59, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
Given that the country of Georgia doesn't even use the word "Georgia" as the name of the country in it's own language, I can't see how it has any claim to being the primary user. On the other hand, the state of Goergia is English-speaking, and has about twice the population of the country, I think the state has a good claim on being the primary topic in its own language. In fact, the Georgian language article for the state is at ka:ჯორჯია, which appears to be Georgian for "Georgia"! So if the Georgian language article for the state doesn't have to be DABbed, why in the world should the English language articel be DABbed? As such, I'm serioulsy considering proposing that the state be the primary topic, something that has apparently not been proposed before. - BilCat (talk) 03:33, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Please don't do that. The idea has been discussed and overwhelmingly rejected (rightly so). —David Levy 03:53, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Please don't tell me what I should or shouldn't do. Consensus can and does change, and in this case it should. I honestly don't see how the state is not the primary topic, given that the US has the largest Primarily English speaking population of any country. That's part of what makes something a "primary topic": usage. - BilCat (talk) 04:18, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
You would understand if you'd bothered to read the previous discussions.
We base this sort of decision on what our readers seek (not on any of the factors that you cited), and the article about the U.S. state clearly does not predominate in that respect.
In fact, the available evidence suggests that the article about the country is sought slightly more, but not by a large margin (which is why I strongly oppose the idea of assigning the base title to that subject). I (an American, incidentally) would oppose your proposal with equal vigor, if not for the fact that I wouldn't need to; the aforementioned discussions have demonstrated overwhelming opposition to the idea (by a far larger margin than that by which the idea of favoring the country's article is opposed). —David Levy 04:37, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Incidentally, I was addressing your statement that the idea had "apparently not been proposed before." —David Levy 04:41, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
I said "proposed", not discusssed. There are six move proposals listed at the top of the page, all for their country; if there were specific proposals regarding the state, they ouught to be listed there too - I have no reason to assume that list was not exhaustive. I have read some of the move discussions, and I found most of the opposition to be based on faulty arguments. You said: "the available evidence suggests that the article about the country is sought slightly more". Is this recent evidence? And where is it? (I've looked: WP is worse than th proverbial haystack to find something when you haven't a clue where it is!) I edit a large amount of articles, on both US and international topics, particularly in the fields of aviation and military, and in my experience Georgia used primarily to mean the US state. I can understand "Georgia" not referring to the state in Swedish, French, German, or Georgian (though it does in Georgian!), but not in English. Yes, I live in Georgia, where English is spoken, not the "Georgian"language. In that language's WP, "Georgia" refers to the US state, not their own country - that't very odd to me! The pro-Georgia-country side has proposed a move six times" - and you think I shouldn't officially propose it once? I believe that if Georgia (U.S. state) is proposed specifically to be the primary topic, that many editors who were not aware of any of the previous discussions will support the move. (And I'm not talking about canvassing in any way.) Let's just have a fair proposal, and see what happens. If my proposal loses, I'll accept that, don't worry. - BilCat (talk) 05:39, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
1. The idea has been included in other move debates. There hasn't been a dedicated proposal (that I know of) because literally every discussion has made it abundantly clear that it's a nonstarter. Almost no one has supported the idea.
2. This is the evidence to which I referred.
3. "Georgia" is the country's official English-language name. English is spoken by many people outside of the United States, to whom the country is far more familiar. —David Levy 06:42, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Btw, no other US state's title is DABed, not even Washington State, for which there are several other possibilites for alternate topics. I'm quite surprised pro-Washington, D.C. wikipedians allowed this to stand, as the current trend is to have the top 50 US city articles at undabbed titles. - BilCat (talk) 05:45, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

A similar situation

is with the articles about Memphis (the US state won that one). I fear that many of the links to the US state then were due to automatically generated articles about minor localities in the USA. Nonetheless I maintain the proper destination for Georgia is for the dab or the former SSR. 118.90.20.3 (talk) 11:21, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

There isn't a US state called "Memphis" so how would automatically generated articles have linked to "Memphis"? --96.32.132.83 (talk) 00:07, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
Please try to give a charitable interpretation. Memphis USA vs Memphis Egypt, as can be easily seen... 118.90.35.40 (talk) 11:14, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
Yes, we agree that there is no US state called "Memphis". So, what "Memphis" would automatically generated articles about minor localities in the USA have linked to? Those articles automatically link to other localities? The examples I've seen don't do that.
[1] An automatically generated article about a minor locality in the USA. It has a link to the county in which it is located but links to no other article of any geographic location.
[2] Even on the current version of the article, the only link to "Memphis" is the one in the Memphis area navbox, which is surely not automatically generated?
Other examples of automatically generated articles: [3] (again, links to the county, no other geographic place) [4] (same here)
Thus, it is shown that these automatically generated articles did not have automatically generated links to related places, other than their county in each of the examples I have shown... and thus any link to "Memphis" is likely manually placed, not automatically.
-96.32.141.172 (talk) 04:51, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
Pwned.

English speakers are guilty of this.

... and French speakers, and German speakers, and Greek speakers (who'd rather call Sakartvelo "Georgia" istead of the old Greek name "Iviria" (Iberia)) and so on. Basically there is a standard in all these languages, for a reason that I fail to understand to call Sakartvelo "Georgia". Why? Apart from considering St. George protector of Sakartvelo, Sakartvelo never made any claim that they are the "real" Georgia and not the US state. They basically accepted the international situation, in which their state is called "Georgia".

What they specifically DON'T like though is to be called Gruzins and their country Gruzinya using Russian words. So basically if US Georgians want to solve this, it's simple: English is your leanguage: stop calling Sakartvelo "Georgia" and start calling it "Sakartvelo". Why did you call it Georgia in the first place I find hard to imagine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.124.35.173 (talk) 20:02, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes you are right. However, English WP needs to cater to English speaking Americans too :p The thing boils down to whether an English-speaking USA guy will recognize (or probably tolerate) Georgia as a country across the Atlantic. It seems not! 118.90.85.8 (talk) 04:08, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
The country across the Atlantic is called Sakartvelo, as the user pointed out. Why would an American want to call it Georgia? Are we so vain that we now call other countries after US states? Hmm, the Greeks don't liek the country of Macedonia being called that, so let's call it Montana. And we can call, England - New New York, Germany can be Pensylvania, Sweden can be California, and so on. That way we won't be intolerant, and want to use the names in our country only for places in our country. Makes a lot of sense. - BilCat (talk) 05:53, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Why would an American want to call it Georgia? Are we so vain that we now call other countries after US states?
Are you under the impression that this is the American Wikipedia? It's isn't. It's the English-language Wikipedia, and "Georgia" is the country's official English-language name. —David Levy 06:42, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Are you under the impression I'm so stupid as to not know that? Evidentlyv not so. And English is not the country's official language. If it were, you'd have a point. - BilCat (talk) 07:13, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
1. I haven't questioned your intelligence, but I'm unaware of your degree of knowledge on this subject. You pondered "Why would an American want to call it Georgia?" and referred to the concept of "call[ing] other countries after US states," and that's what I'm addressing.
2. The language spoken in the country is irrelevant. This is the English-language Wikipedia, and the country is called "Georgia" in the English language. Our goal is to guide our readers to their intended destinations, and many people typing "Georgia" seek the country's article. —David Levy 07:29, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
I was writing a tongue-in-cheek response to the previous post. The user said, "The thing boils down to whether an English-speaking USA guy will recognize (or probably tolerate) Georgia as a country across the Atlantic. It seems not!" As an American, I have no problem with another country being called Georgia! - BilCat (talk) 07:47, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Okay; thanks for clarifying. —David Levy 07:50, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
No, you are wrong. Their own English name for themselves is Georgia. See also their constitution (Article I: 'Georgia shall be the name of Georgia.') or the fact the suffix on all those websites is .ge. Relax. -LlywelynII (talk) 22:44, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
Why is Georgia's constitution in English? Yclept:Berr (talk) 17:34, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
That's obviously a translation. I had expected it would be an official translation even if carrying no legal weight but it appears I was mistaken:
Text was provided by the Technical Information Institute “Techinform” which bears responsibility for the accuracy of the translation.
Nil Einne (talk) 21:32, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

State of Georgia

The weird thing is that the official name of the U.S. state isn't actually Georgia, but the State of Georgia. So we're disambiguating a country whose name is Georgia (in English & like Germany & Japan is different from the 'native' name) with an entity that isn't even officially called Georgia. The only other parallel AFAIK where a country has been disambiguated (but even in this case to an entity that actually has the same name) is Ireland, but that is a case where the name of the island and the country are intrinsically connected anyway as well as Ireland having an act describing the place as the Republic of Ireland. To disambiguate a country when another (major) place with the same name doesn't actually exist seems strange to me. 203.196.81.163 (talk) 20:00, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

The former British colony of Georgia has had that name in English since 1732. It was named after King George, the ruler of Hannover and the British Empire.

Until the country of Georgia invaded South Ossetia in 2008, very few English-speaking people worried too much about the existence of that country. A few were aware that it was where Joseph Stalin and Lavrentiy Beria came from; though most English-speaking people mistakenly thought that they were Russian. Georgia as a country is small and economically unimportant.

Logically Georgia, the long established former British colony is the major use of the name Georgia. The recently independent tiny country in the Caucasus would seem to be a minor use of the name Georgia.--Toddy1 (talk) 20:28, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Very narrow perspective there. The Beatles were well enough educated to write a clever line about it when they created Back in the USSR. HiLo48 (talk) 08:37, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
The "clever line" in Back in the U.S.S.R. was "and Georgia's always on my mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mind"", a reference to the US song Georgia on My Mind, and a pun on multiple meanings of Georgia: girl's name, the former British colony, and the place in the Caucasus.--Toddy1 (talk) 05:58, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
The country existed about 700 years before the State of Georgia. Histories of countries are not erased prior to when they were colonized. The fact of the matter is a country called Georgia (in English) exists, a state called Georgia doesn't exist. Only the State of Georgia. In other words, there's a viable alternative to Georgia (U.S. State): The State of Georgia. This would be similar to the case of using Republic of Ireland (the official description of the country) to prevent a disambiguation. 203.196.81.163 (talk) 08:27, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
The argument about using an official name contradicts the overall Wikipedia policy stated at WP:COMMONNAME, that common names are preferred over official ones. IIRC, that was pointed out on the Ireland discussions, but consensus eventually was to have this compromise: separate articles on Ireland, the island, as the primary topic; one on the Republic of Ireland, the sovereign country; and a third article on Northern Ireland, the constituent country of the UK. The situation with Georgia is different because you do not have a common physical feature like the island of Ireland. Nor does it fully address all of the central issues about why Georgia should or should not remain a disambiguation page, or why or why not Georgia, the country, should become the primary topic. Only renaming Georgia (U.S. state) to something else still does not address one of the repeated central arguments about keeping Georgia a disambiguation page: there is no clear evidence that the Eurasian country is significantly more commonly searched for than the U.S. state. Zzyzx11 (talk) 16:47, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
"State of Georgia" is the official "formal" name of the state, but "Georgia" by itself is no less official, and appears that way on many official state and federal documents. Also, "State of Georgia" is not as viable as the IP thinks, as some have argued that the Eurasian country is also a "state"! - BilCat (talk) 17:11, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
That is also another reason why we try to avoid ambiguous official names like "State of" because it could mean, especially in this case, either a U.S. state or a sovereign state. Zzyzx11 (talk) 17:15, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
While "state of Georgia" could mean the country, but it generally doens't. This slight possibility is no reason to change the redirect from Georgia (U.S. state) to this article. "State of Georgia" is the US state's formal official name, and that is not ambiguous. The country of Georgia's official name in English is just "Georgia". - BilCat (talk) 22:48, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
Also, the country's name is not "Republic of Georgia', or we could move the article to that title, and end this long-running dispute. It's simply "Georgia". Also, US state has a republican form of govenment per the US Constitution, so it could also be called the "republic of Georgia." :) - BilCat (talk) 22:58, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
I'm a bit late here, but State of Georgia is not the name of the state, in the sense of a location. It's the name of the state, understood as a governmental entity.
That is to say, the State of Georgia might be a plaintiff or a defendant in a lawsuit or habeas proceeding. But if you're asking where Atlanta is, it's in Georgia, not in State of Georgia.
The same remarks apply to, as far as I know, all US states, with the exception of the ones that style themselves Commonwealth of; I think those are Massachusetts, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. For those, same remarks, mutatis mutandis. --Trovatore (talk) 06:35, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Index of archived arguments

(Feel free to edit this. Perhaps this section can be spun off to a subpage or the Georgia talk header? Also, can someone go through the "Substantial discussions" 1/11, 2/6, 2/14, 2/16 and the move proposals M4 and M5 and index them?)

References are in the format Archive no./section no. "M" stands for "Move discussion". Examples:

The enumeration of this list is not intended to indicate the strength or importance of the points but simply to make references to this list easier. Points may be repeated depending on the context in which they appear in the archive.

  1. Pro country
    1. WP:CSB and "Georgia" in English (1/1 Irpen, Carl Kenner WP:CSB, 1/3, 1/4, 3/6 and talks about but does not mention WP:CSB, 3/4, M2 Joffeloff mentions WP:CSB), US centrism (1/13).
    2. WP:NC general audience: the US state is a specialist topic. (3/4)
    3. The Caucasian Georgia is a sovereign state/raises status of US state to sovereign state. (1/2, 3/4)
    4. English WP is out of step. (1/7)
    5. WP:IAR (2/12)
    6. Importance (M2 SJK)
    7. Pro-US side are holding this page to ransom (1/11)
  2. Pro US state
    1. Economy, population etc. larger., country is obscure. (2/9, 3/1)
    2. "There would be no net benefit from the proposed move". (3/3)
    3. "Georgia" in English (1/3, 1/4, 1/11 The User Formerly, 3/6, 2/11), more US readers (1/1 StarryEyes, Raggaga, 4.89.243.64 and more)
    4. "On an English-language wikipedia, an English-language jurisdiction with a larger population should not be subservient to a country that has only been independent for 15 years and doesn't speak English. A disambiguation page is an appropriate compromise." (1/1 Kirjtc2)
  3. Keep the dab page
    1. M2 Earthliberator
    2. WP:NPOV if both topics are of equal magnitude, WP shouldn't say which is more important. (1/2 radiojon, 1/11 zoney)
    3. Let users find what they are looking for (1/2)
  4. Other (for either side or none)
    1. WP:STAT, Notability, traffic data, WP:GOOGLETEST (1/5, 1/11, 1/12, 2/5, 2/10, 2/11, 3/4). (WP:GOOGLETEST not explicitly mentioned on those pages.)
    2. "Georgia" in English. (1/1 raggaga, 1/3, 1/4, 1/15)
    3. WP:IAR (2/12)
    4. WP:NC titles not based on subjects' importance. (2/11 agrees, 2/14 disagrees, 3/4, 3/7)
    5. WP:PLACE (in general) (1/2)
    6. WP:PLACE and Comparable cases: Macedonia, Luxembourg, Ireland, Turkey, China, Formosa (compared with Argentina), San Marino, Azerbaijan. (1/1 Llundun, 1/17, 2/2, 3/6, 3/7, M2 Bkell et al. Luxembourg, Azerbaijan, WP:PLACE, 3/8 touched at 3/4)
    7. WP:NC common name. (3/6)
    8. WP:DAB is (just) a guideline. (2/14)
    9. Leave it as it is (2/13), dead horse. (3/6 talks about but does not mention WP:LETGO)
    10. The "correct name is just Georgia, so any additional text should clearly be disambiguation text" (M3 Michael Z)
    11. The choice is not a statement on the value of the two Georgias (M2 Sosomk)
    12. The country is indeed more important, but that doesn't mean that the country's page on WP should get priority naming (1/11)
  5. Miscellaneous Wikipedia-dependent issues
    1. Hatnotes etc. (2/8)
    2. "[[Georgia (country)|]] is easier than [[Republic of Georgia|Georgia]]" (M3 Henrygb)
  6. Substantial discussions 1/11 (particularly difficult), 2/6, 2/14, 2/16 No Consensus

As an aside, this debate has been going on for about five years now. 118.90.57.67 (talk) 00:38, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I haven't a clue how to interpret the above. Anyway, I'm now conviced it's time to propose that the state be the primary topic, as it clearly is. See the "Georgian" article on the state proof that even the Georgians accept it. - BilCat (talk) 04:23, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
"References are in the format Archive no./section no.", e.g. "1/12" is archive 1, section 12. 118.90.111.248 (talk) 07:05, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Why not just link to the sections? That would make it easier to use, wouldn't it? BilCat (talk) 07:07, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Done. 118.90.111.248 (talk) 07:26, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
OK, thanks! - BilCat (talk) 07:51, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
I think the list is proving its worth already: the conversation below contains absolutely no new arguments :D. 10... 20... 30 GOTO 10 ! 118.90.38.95 (talk) 11:34, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

So, basically

Arguments pro-country:

  • Georgia is a sovereign state, that way it has more importance than a subdivision.
  • Georgia has a 3000 year history, and it has been a nation much longer than the state.
  • Historically, Georgia has been very important on world scale, unlike the state whose international importance has been tied to the overall importance of the United States.
  • Georgia has more hits and page views than the state.
  • Georgia would counter the Systemic Bias present in Wikipedia.

Arguments pro-state:

  • Georgia is bigger and has more population.

Just placed my little piece of sand. --186.136.40.74 (talk) 21:11, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Wow, that's pretty one-sided, typical of proponents of the country not actually called Georgia in it's own language, and typical of systemic anti-US bias. Laughable - BilCat (talk) 03:33, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Next, we'll have people from other countries telling Americans they can't call themselves Americans, cause it's also the name of a (double) continent they are from. Wait, they already do that! - BilCat (talk) 03:40, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
"Historically, Georgia has been very important on world scale" I'm just curious, 186.136.40.74, what exactly do you feel made Georgia so very important on a global scale??? As far as I can tell, Georgia's been something of a back-water for most of its history - at the margins of (and often a province of) larger empires and outside any of the major historical centers of civilization. 84.138.199.46 (talk) 17:22, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
Hmm, and the state of Georgia has ever been such a dominant global power, has it? :) Please think in the best interest of the Wikipedia. Stats show that Georgia (country) is clearly more sought after than the state, and it should be made the primary topic. That's all we're here for, not to pass judgement on who is better than whom. —what a crazy random happenstance 17:41, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
The user was inquiring about the validity of a specific assertion. Even if there were absolutely no doubt that the country, rather than the state, should be the primary topic, there's nothing at all wrong with asking "Is this a true statement about the country's importance?" It must be very easy for you to make your decisions if you never question anything you're told. Propaniac (talk) 16:28, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
Mainspace talk pages are not the appropriate venue to discuss arbitrary perceptions of "importance", nor are they an appropriate place to attack users. Please remain civil and on topic. —what a crazy random happenstance 12:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
WACRH, nobody was being un-civil or off-topic or, by any stretch of the imagination, making a personal attack. Rather, the specific assertion that the country known in English as Georgia "has been very important on world scale" was called into question. This assertion was put forward as an argument for moving the country article here, so the validity of that statement is quite relevant. As far as I can tell though, nobody has yet put forth any evidence to support the idea of Georgia being "very important on world scale." 84.138.236.205 (talk) 13:28, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
The Culture of Georgia spans 5000 years, and it is of utter imporance because of spreading christianity on the Caucasus and central Asia. Please read History of Georgia. However, how does the state of georgia been important at a world scale? --190.226.50.130 (talk) 19:32, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
The above would be relevant if "subjects' importance" were included in our article name criteria (which it is not). —David Levy 20:48, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Not so basically -- "Is there a primary topic?"

There is no consensus on which use of Georgia is the primary one. Hence this disambiguation page and years of debate, voting etc .. All the relevant (and not so relevant) arguments have been made, but apparently some folks dont bother to read the colored boxes on this page (above) to see the many move proposals and archived discussions, nor even the nutshell summary (above). So it's worth repeating what another editor quoted in Archive 3, from WP:DISAMBIG > WP:PRIMARYTOPIC: "If there is extended discussion about which article truly is the primary topic, that may be a sign that there is in fact no primary topic." PrBeacon (talk) 00:45, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree, and I'm from the U.S. South. Everyone must remember that Wikipedia (even in the English language) is an international site; it should never favor one country over another. In my view, both the nation and the U.S. state have a rightful claim to primacy; since both nations and U.S. states are normally listed in Wikipedia without a modifier, IMO their claims are equal. (And even if the nation isn't called "Georgia" in its own language, that's nothing new; Germany is called "Deutschland" in German. The government calls itself "Georgia" in English, and unlike Burma & Macedonia there's no national or international naming dispute.) Though the nation is greater in terms of sovereign authority (thus it's properly listed first on the disambig page), the overall volume of U.S.-related traffic favors the state (even if the nation's page may have more traffic from time to time). Thus, the disambig page should be primary. --RBBrittain (talk) 19:11, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Conversation needs more numbers, less US/anti bias

As of 21 Feb 2010, wiki has 12776 articles linked to Georgia (country) and 23251 to Georgia (U.S. state). Via this. Google trends shows general English language usage isn't even close. Meanwhile, people seem to look at the Georgia (country) page more often (presumably because they're less familiar with it:) assuming [5] is a reliable source, you get

Georgia_(U.S._state) has been viewed 99243 times in 201001. This article ranked 3728 in traffic on en.wikipedia.org
Georgia_(country) has been viewed 130885 times in 201001. This article ranked 1934 in traffic on en.wikipedia.org

So, yeah, I'd say it's fair to say they're both very common and there's no primary topic. -LlywelynII (talk) 23:22, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Almost twice as many articles link to the state as to the country? All other factors being near equal, I'd say this is a clear tipping point in the state's favor as being the primary topic here. After all, the links in other articles are the main use of the article titles. Btw, the Google trends chart means absolutely nothing to me. Can you summarize? Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 02:38, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Yes, the internal links are important, but all other factors aren't equal. There are good enough arguments on both sides. Repeated move requests and rejections count for something, like past consensus. PrBeacon (talk) 06:09, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
I would tend to agree. No primary topic, so main article is a disambig page. The only reason it rankles is that the same logic is not applied to New York and Washington - clearly no primary topic exists there, but in those instances the "state trumps city because it's a higher order entity" folk win out - what's the difference between those cases and this? SteveRwanda (talk) 23:59, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I agree but sometimes striving for consistency can be counterproductive. Another editor makes a strong case against having a disamb.page for New York: Talk:New_York_(state)/Archive_3#Lack_of_primary_topic_does_NOT_necessitate_a_disambiguation_page and I think the same would apply to Washington. Why it doesn't apply to this case (U.S. state & another country) is more subtle and, perhaps, subjective. PrBeacon (talk) 01:31, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
I am coming at this from a slightly different angle, the need for consistency across Wikipedia for naming conventions on nation-state articles. I have kicked off a discussion about it at the project page and would welcome views - my reaction to the bit in the header of this talk page about primacy is that it is wrong, because Georgia the country clearly rates higher than other Georgias and so this should trump sillinesses like Google search counts in a grown-up cyclopedia. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 12:51, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
"Georgia the country clearly rates higher than other Georgias" - thanks, feels nice to hear that although I know that it is not true. Georgia the state has the larger economy (by far), has more people, arguably its cultural, economic and political influence as a state is higher. Georgia the country has a longer written history, albeit it was usually at fringes of empires (unfortunately). Georgia the state has a shorter written history, but might have made more impact globally. What rates higher - the state or the country - is very subjective and depends entirely on the interests of the reader. Btw, the name of the country is Sakartvelo anyway and not Georgia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.43.229.183 (talk) 19:52, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

You cannot be serious

That is all. I can't be bothered to rehash the arguments for giving the country primary topic status, which have been made ad nauseum. I just think it is ridiculous that so many American editors of Wikipedia think the clash of names with their country's internal subdivision merits the demotion of an article on a country to a parenthesized title. I expected better. I say this not as some anti-American that many people reading this comment no doubt imagine me to be: I came to this article after reading about the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which I admire greatly and just used on a talk page to argue against an example of censorship on Wikipedia. To my dismay, I found that that article has a redirect from First Amendment (unqualified), as if no one else has amended their constitution. The other countries of the world are not really so important, I guess. Trust me: this kind of bias looks really amateurish and stupid. Wikipedia can do better than this! Terminal emulator (talk) 18:18, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

If you don't wish to rehash the arguments, why did you post the above (which adds nothing new to the proceedings)? —David Levy 18:23, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
As a piece of feedback from a disappointed reader, which ought to be a data point for Wikipedia editors considering what to do with this page. Terminal emulator (talk) 18:32, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
I don't see how such commentary can accomplish anything other than reigniting arguments that have been thoroughly covered many times over. —David Levy 18:37, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
This will be my last post on this topic because what I had to say has clearly gone in one ear and out the other. The point was that I, as a reader, think you editors have come to the wrong decision about this page, and wanted to tell you this as a piece of feedback that I hoped you would find somewhat useful. Evidently you don't consider it to be of much consequence and have made up your mind about the dispute. That's that then! Terminal emulator (talk) 18:55, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
I'm sorry you feel that way about Wikipedia. The only thing that your commentary does is basically rehash one of the frequently raised arguments here that the title "Georgia (country)" with the disambiguating word in parentheses "demotes" that article and make it "less important". But the reality here on Wikipedia is that those who argue against that here, and those who did support that renaming of the First Amendment page, seem to want to strictly enforce the rules on Wikipedia:Disambiguation regarding primary topics - only topics that are highly likely -- much more likely than any other, and more likely than all the others combined -- to be the subject being sought by readers should get titles with no disambiguating word in parentheses. To them, it is all about helping the reader to search and find topics when they use the search box. Issues about the perception that "topics are being demoted or promoted" by the parentheses in the article titles are irrelevant to them. Cheers. Zzyzx11 (talk) 19:10, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
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