User talk:Karen Johnson

see also User talk:Karen Johnson (old)

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Hi Karen. Is there any reason that you know about why Canberra was moved to Canberra, Australia? Or, putting it the other way about, why it should not be moved back? There seems to be no chance of ambiguity (as discussed on the talk page), but maybe there is something I haven't thought of. Cheers -- Tannin 12:14 Mar 15, 2003 (UTC)

There was a push to have Australian cities preemptively disambiguated a while ago (just as American and Canadian cities are), but that movement seemed to loose steam. I'm not sure what the Aussies want now. --mav

Okay, I had a quick look at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (city names). Wow, lots of talk. Anyway, here's something I thought is relevant to us:

As an American, I don't normally say the full name "Chicago, Illinois", just as I don't normally say the full name "John Aschcroft". There's essentially only one "Chicago" in my life and only one "Ashcroft", and their importance to me isn't idiosyncratic either. Nevertheless, if somebody says either of these full names, it doesn't sound at all weird, it just sound a little bit more precise. Is "Toronto, Ontario" like that to Canadians, or does it just sound wrong as (I've read) "Oslo, Norway" sounds wrong to Europeans? — Toby 21:35 Aug 9, 2002 (PDT)

I think Tannin and Karen would agree that an Australian would never answer a blunt "Maleny, Queensland" to the question "where are you from". They would say "Maleny, you know, about 100 km NW of Brisbane", or "Coonabarabran, in outback NSW", or "Morisset, just south of Newcastle". Unlike in America, state names aren't very useful in tracking down just where someone comes from, because our states are so damned big. Also, about the only things which are ambiguous in Australia are suburb names, since we have far fewer cities and large towns than America.

Here's what I propose: names which (according to Wikipedia) exist only in Australia should have the plain name, e.g. Canberra and Fremantle. If some day discover a Fremantle in Denmark, and some Danish people want to write an article about it, we can move our page to Fremantle, Australia to avoid offence. I also vote for block disambiguation of Brisbane, and any similar cases (see Talk:Brisbane). Suburb names need more aggressive disambiguation, but that's not really a problem at the moment, since AFAIK we only have one or two. What do you think of this proposal? -- Tim Starling 01:19 Mar 17, 2003 (UTC)

Sounds good to me, Tim. Tannin 12:01 Mar 18, 2003 (UTC)

I think the moving is a job for a sysop. Pity neither Karen nor Robert Merkel are around. -- Tim Starling 12:30 Mar 18, 2003 (UTC)

Quite so. I wasn't starting a unilaterial campaign just now, just an individual one which happened to be easy (which was what reminded me to check over here.) Tannin

This issue was gone into MANY times when the pagenaming conventions were being set up. I actually argued for using plain names, with (Australia) in brackets as an identifier, but the other faction won. I've been busy... and I'll continue to be busy for the foreseeable future (I just came back tonight to make a note on my user pages that I won't be here for the next four months because I'm travelling! If you can persuade people to agree that Canberra should be the main page for the city, then go right ahead and move the article there... (make Canberra, Australia and Canberra (Australia)[?] into redirects. KJ 11:42 Mar 21, 2003 (UTC)

OK. Thanks. Have a great trip! Tannin

Thanks for the info Karen, it's nice to have an old hand around, relatively speaking ;) I had a look at the mailing list archives on this subject -- I noticed you actually had some good arguments for the Canberra, Australia convention -- a wiki-wide city naming convention would help with the creation of new articles by contributors who don't know whether or not the name is ambiguous. However in my experience, most contributors don't think of disambiguation at all when writing articles. The Canberra, Australia convention seems to lead to a neverending workload for the regulars, who are left to modify many Canberra-like links made by infrequent or newbie contributors.

I think I'll take this to wikien-l. I'll be pushing for simple names such as Canberra and Brisbane. I'm a sysop now, and if there's no serious objections, I'll make the move myself. Have a good trip, Karen! -- Tim Starling 12:51 Mar 25, 2003 (UTC)

So this is where Tim has been discussing the fate of Brisbane. I DO have serious objections and feel that discussing any proposed change on Talk:Brisbane, Queensland would have been the proper way to move his opinions forward. Karen, your previous postings on the subject indicate that you favour Brisbane, Australia. Have you changed this view? - Gaz 16:27 Mar 27, 2003 (UTC)

Not particuarly... unless it was to use the following [[Brisbane(Australia)|]] and let the wikipedia pipe quietly disappear the bracket bit leaving us with an apparant link to 'Brisbane'. I don't see any problem with 'Brisbane,Australia'. It's simple, straightforward, and obvious to even the stupidest Tom, Dick and Harriet... I still think that all countries should follow the same principle as much as possible for the sake of clarity. But I don't have the time or energy to argue this out again! I said my piece first time round... KJ 11:19 Mar 31, 2003 (UTC)

See also /pipermail/wikien-l/2003-March/subject under the subject "City names argument resurrected" and "Re:City names argument resurrected". I'll leave Brisbane half-done for the moment. Are you also objecting to the other category of suggested moves, i.e. Canberra, Australia -> Canberra and the like? -- Tim Starling 23:09 Mar 27, 2003 (UTC)

Yes I am, but let me get up to speed with the mailing list discussion first. I have looked through all the links you posted on my Talk page. I am at work now so I'd like to continue this later. Thanks Gaz 03:13 Mar 28, 2003 (UTC)

Tim, I have continued this on my Talk page. Please read. - Gaz 05:31 Mar 29, 2003 (UTC)

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Hi KJ - I've explained a bit about the problems with the search on Wikipedia talk:Searching, though I daresay others know more about the grizzly details than me. I hope you don't leave, or at least come back when everything is fully functioning again - it'd be a shame to lose you. --Camembert

I agree - we are just going through some growing pains. But another server is on its way and the Wikimedia Foundation should also be set-up soon to manage donations. --mav

It may be growing pains but I hope they are past by the time my US trip is over in 10 weeks time. I had some digital photos that I was going to try to upload before I left, and I just don't have the time to monkey around with the wikipedia when it's as 'broken' as it is right now :( A new server would certainly ease matters - I hope it works out because this is a great project and I support the IDEA of the wikipedia 1000%... the only problem is the execution (or rather, keeping it functioning once it's reached this size.)

One idea that occurred to me last night would be modifying the search engine temporarily by telling it to ignore the message bodies and only look at the headers. So if you typed in 'kangaroo' it would find 'kangaroo' and 'kangaroo rat' but not 'marsupials of Australia'. At least that would be better than nothing! ATM I can't think of any way to navigate the wikipedia other than using the random button... which won't help me check whether somebody else has uploaded a picture of a 'fig' etc.KJ 03:23 Apr 5, 2003 (UTC)

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Hi KJ. I replaced a picture of yours with one of mine. (The wallaby in the Kangaroo article). sheep

hmmm... that would have to be the most unkangaroo-like kangaroo I've ever seen! I guess it's the peculiar angle it's standing at - the picture is very foreshortened. I don't think that anyone who didn't know what a kangaroo was would recognise it from that pic... the side view or 'hopping roo' is the most distinctive - you don't happen to have one of them do you? KJ

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Yeah! Wikipedia is a happier place now. I hope you had a good holiday. :) --mav