Talk:Republic of Ireland/Archive 1

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Two additional factual points: The Republic of Ireland's 1937 constitution mentions two entities - the 32 county 'national territory' island and the 26 county 'state.' It refers to Éire or in english 'Ireland' but doesn't define which (if either or both) means which entity.

'Irish music/language' etc is complex, because alongside two states, Northern Ireland/Republic of Ireland, there are unionists/nationalists, both in each state (though unionists predominantly in Northern Ireland). Each defines the other's culture as alien and in general not part of their heritage; 'gaelic games' (nationalist), (Lambeg drum) unionist, Irish language/music (nationalist) [though the unionist Minister for Arts in Northern Ireland, who defines himself as British, is a fluent Irish language speaker.] Arts/sports, etc from both communities probably belongs on the page of Ireland, but subject to the qualification of which community sees them as their heritage.

Yes it is complicated, Scipius, but whether it is South Africa, Israel, or the two Irish states, Wikipidia needs to be able to accurately explain those complex differences. My county is bedevilled by foreigners trying to treat its complex problems though simplistic analysis. A one page 'Ireland' would simply add to that problem. Wikipidia and Ireland deserve better, especially in the light of the Good Friday Agreement, which attempts to recognise, accept and validate that complexity, not pretend it does not exist. PLEASE SCIPIUS DO NOT DO WHAT YOU ARE PROPOSING. (from an Irish Nationalist from the Republic of Ireland on the island of Ireland) JTD

I understand you would like to use more accurate terms, but, in the interest of usability, we don't always do that. If this was an encyclopedia dealing with only Ireland (the Irish Gaelic Wikipedia will likely be that way) or if Ireland was an isolated and unique case then there would be no problem. Of course we would disambiguate along your viewpoint. But Ireland is not unique in being a culture divided politically and historically across multiple modern nation-states and I don't see why it should be an exception to other cases. By using the common English name for the country we also avoid the appearance of giving in to local political sentiments, but we can explain the full situation separately. Given your feelings and the number of great articles you've written, perhaps it would be best to write an overall article on the Irish Question (or whatever you want to call it) and link to it from the disamb-top of the current article? That would make it clear we do recognise the issue, but make a concession solely based on usability and convention.-Scipius 18:19 Dec 7, 2002 (UTC)

So--what is the conclusion, here? That only Scipius defends the view that the article titled "Ireland" should contain only information about the Republic of Ireland? If that's correct, I think we should make the "Ireland" article a unified treatment of the history, culture, etc., of the whole island. We should also have an article called Republic of Ireland that addresses topics that are importantly unique to the South. I would like to see Irish traditional music linked from an article, titled Ireland, which treats all wonderful and troubled aspects of the island civilization known as Ireland. I would prefer not to see it linked from island of Ireland or Republic of Ireland. --Larry Sanger

The current article most certainly does contain information on the island (roughly equivalent to the pre-template version that nobody was offended by), it's just that it now focuses on the country. Why would it be a problem to link to Irish music from an article on the Republic? You could simply have it link from and to both the Republic and NI. You appear to argue we should strictly topics along political lines, but are you prepared to make this general policy or not, because it will entail a lot of work and it's a reversal of what we've done up till now. -Scipius 18:19 Dec 7, 2002 (UTC)
I think I agree with everything Larry said. For the record, I honestly have no feelings on the subject of how the island should be split up politically, except in that I always support the smallest possible unit of government (I think the counties should be the largest unit of political organization) and if I linked to Ireland, I would expect an article on the island, the culture of the Irish people (music, poetry, literature) and a history of the island that would mention that after whenever, the island was split between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. After reading the above, I honestly don't have any idea who's on which side, or even what the sides are, but that's what I think it should be. Potly, yours Tokerboy
I've always been for an article on the island at Ireland, and one on the Republic at Republic of Ireland. I'll move the pages around as required later (when I feel up to it), and pad out the article on the island some. --Camembert
sounds good to me. Or Éire for the republic (with redirect from Republic of Ireland -- Tarquin 17:51 Dec 7, 2002 (UTC)

In conclusion, I remain of the opinion we should have the article "Ireland" deal primarily with the Republic. Primarily because this is what we do with other cases, notably China. I am somewhat disappointed that no-one besides myself appears to address this issue: If we disambiguate Ireland along strict political lines, then should we also do this for China, or for topics like Greece and Germany, where the current state does not match all our references to it?

This is the reason why I feel this discussion belongs at WikiProject Countries and not here. Everyone seems to consider only Ireland and not the larger picture, which will involve a significant restructuring of the WikiProject and many other pages and links on Wikipedia. Can someone please explain why Ireland alone should be broken up and not China or the others? -Scipius 18:19 Dec 7, 2002 (UTC)

The fact that you are apparently alone in your opinion, Scipius--unless your recent remarks have convinced anyone to change their views (they haven't mine)--means that we should change the page so that "Ireland" treats of Ireland, rather than of the Republic of Ireland. --Larry Sanger

Not necessarily. What is your position on the questions I asked you? - Scipius 20:45 Dec 7, 2002 (UTC)
Of course not necessarily. I'm not aware of having an obligation to reply to your questions, before I state my own personal opinion, or for that matter even before we (Wikipedians interested in the issue) decide the issue. If you really want my opinion on a list of questions, for some reason (it shouldn't be because I am making the decision--that is something done by all of us together), then could you please do me the favor of actually listing out the questions? Basically, everything above has become extremely messy. If you can explain precisely what you think needs addressing, that would be a great help.
I think you haven't really taken adequate account of what others have said. I think there has to be a point at which debate is over and a decision is made. The fact that you are adamant in your opinion, and that you are so bold as to attempt to reply to everyone, should not, ultimately, have any bearing on what decision is taken. --Larry Sanger

So Scipius, will a page on 'United Kingdom' only refer to England, Korea refer to South Korea, South America only cover Brazil? From memory, most encyclopedias I've ever consulted if they do Ireland's history & politics, stop at 1922 and say 'See Republic of Ireland/Northern Ireland' for post 1922, when Ireland de facto became two states, which it has been for 80 years. NO-ONE agrees with you. Not one single person. Furthermore the China article is irrelevant. The PRC and the ROC are rival claimants to authority over Taiwan and the mainland. Ireland has two, mutually accepting, legitimate states. There is no comparison. The issue of 'Ireland' has clearly been decided by the users of Wikipidia. They have over-ruled you. If the rules you constantly refer to don't work in this case, then they, not Ireland, need to be changed. Issue closed. Case closed. Not lets get back to work. JTD

You'll see that I have gone to the Talk:China page (I hadn't noticed the dispute until now) and added my comments. I agree, the cases are very similar, and I think it's just as obvious that China should be about China, the whole kit and kaboodle, as that Ireland should be about Ireland, not just part of it. --Larry Sanger

I brought this issue up on Wikien-l. See http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2002-December/000235.html --Larry Sanger

Thanks Larry, that was exactly my main issue: how are we going to treat other cases? Given that we've now established a connection, shall we move this discussion to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries, where we can tackle both Ireland and China in general terms, as well as discuss other cases? E.g., this could go beyond these two similar cases and spread into cases like Germany or Greece. Perhaps you could repost your mailinglist post there. What do you say? -Scipius 22:40 Dec 8, 2002 (UTC)

I'm not really interested in debating about general policies. Please carry on without me on the WikiProjects page, and let's just change the Ireland and China articles. No offense but I've always, from the very beginning, been suspicious of WikiProjects. Not to say that it's not useful (the tables and a common look and feel, I must admit, is kind of neat and has clear value), I just don't want to encourage the creation of a lot of rules that tend to be taken WAY too seriously (as in this case). Besides, I would like to have a few professional geographers on board before I start taking relevant WikiProjects really really seriously. --Larry Sanger

One Very Final Point: I've looked at the page on the History of Ireland and much of it is complete garbage - dates wrong, facts wrong, numbers wrong, interpretation way off. When I get a chance I'll do a major re-write there. (I'm supposed to be writing 2 books of my own, but all this Wikipidia work is distracting me!!!) JTD

So, let's move this...please don't wait for me to do it, I'm lazy.  :-) --Larry Sanger

OK, I've moved this page here, and moved the old "Island of Ireland" page to Ireland. At a glance, it seems some of the subpages also need renaming: I've moved Geography of Ireland to Geography of the Republic of Ireland, for instance. Hopefully, I'll be able to do some more work on these pages when I have time - right now, I have none. --Camembert

I believ i heard somewhere that teh offical name of Ireland is Ireland not Republic of Ireland. I'll look at the source where i found that info when i get home. -fnzy

The official name of the state as given in the constitution is indeed "Éire", the English equivalent of which is "Ireland" - however, there's a problem here because "Ireland" is also used for the name of the island on which the state is located, so it is necessary for us to give the modern-day state a more precise name (at least, this is how most people see it, though there is some disagreement on the matter). The above disucssion, plus the archived discussion on Talk:Ireland (archive) covers this. --Camembert

Alright, it's becoming clear that my opinion is not really appreciated, but I'll try one more time. My main issue with the renaming is that it is inconsistent with what we do elsewhere and it has also made many links less usable for the moment. None of you cared to address this issue (other than "I don't give a damn"), until it finally dawned on Larry and he seems content to limit his involvement to just Ireland and China. Unfortunately, this goes beyond just Ireland and China and this is why I feel this needs to be discussed in general terms. Are we going to make exceptions for China and Ireland and leave cases like Germany or Greece alone or what? I am actually quite sympathetic to a more accurate approach, but I would like it clearly established, as it will have consequences for the WikiProject and a great many links to countries and articles. -Scipius 20:07 Dec 10, 2002 (UTC)

Scipius, this is getting ridiculous. The reason why no-one is taking your opinion seriously is because it is NOT WORTH taking seriously. Now you are acting like a spoiled kid, who if they can't get their own way, takes the football away and goes into a sulk. Stop acting like you were the only one on the planet whose opinion matters. The pages as re-arranged finally made sense. SO PUT THEM BACK. And go off and find some other pages you can screw up. (And before anyone complains, the text I removed to make space here was MY text, which obviously Scipius doesn't play a blind but of notice to!) JTD PS: The great CIA factbook you seem so devoted to is as usual wrong in many of its facts.

Well, I guess I'm finished talking to you. -Scipius 19:54 Dec 11, 2002 (UTC)

I think you're misrepresenting what's going on, Scipius. I didn't make any new points when I commented about China; I simply applied the commonsense principles people had been using on this page to the analogous issues on that page. If you feel it needs to be discussed in general terms, go ahead, but don't feel put out so much if people fail to care terribly, terribly much about whatever conclusion you arrive at: we'll take one issue at a time, thank you, rather than taking orders from a priori principles that turn out to be not very well thought out. If anything you'd do the WikiProject a service by reporting our findings there. --Larry Sanger

But what if a different conclusion is reached then is agreeable to people here? As mav pointed out in the mailinglist (regretfully, I can't join you there, though I do read the list), do we start disambiguating along strict historic lines? We already do this to an extent and as the history articles get longer it may be a good move for reducing the length of the page, but if we follow your viewpoint we should do this for all countries where the historical sense of the nation does not wholly match the current state, such as Greece or Germany. This is pertinent for the WikiProject, as we will probably have to rewrite certain articles' History sections and adopt this for future articles. Also, there are many links that currently assume there's only one concept of the country and we'll need to go through them all.
One might say, "we'll deal with that when it becomes a problem", but I'd like to have it set clearly somewhat before, as this whole unfortunate experience has shown that people often do not take the simple trouble to look at the larger picture and work to solve that. If however the community has made a decision at a central location then at least we'll be able to point to that, rather than a page that may not seem relevant to others. I've started the topic at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries, I hope to see you there. -Scipius 19:54 Dec 11, 2002 (UTC)

Scupius - why did you remove most of the info on this page with the edit summary "Withdrawing template"? I note it was marked as a minor edit, which it most certainly was not. I've put the old version back, because it contains far more information. As for concerns about inconsistency and so forth - the people who care about the WikiProject are the ones who need to sort things out there - it shouldn't be the concern of editors who just want to edit this article (or the China one, or any other) and make it as good and accurate as possible. As for making "many links less usable" - what links are these? It's true that Ireland is a hopeless stub at the moment, but it will be expanded, for sure. --Camembert

I've removed it (and again did so), because this page (and especially the title) is no longer compatible with the template as it is now, nor is it accurate in all regards. For instance, the History section talks about the whole of Ireland and that may have to change. I obviously made a mistake in applying the template to this country and there's been somewhat of a backlash against the project here and as such it's best to remove it all together until the WikiProject is something that's less controversial. It's not a big problem, anyone can edit the current article for accuracy and such (you can probably do better than I did) and we can easily reapply the template at a later date, using whatever information is available by that time. As for usability, it's apparent that that is not the major concern for the moment. Please leave the template off for the moment, it'll be back soon enough. You're right though, it wasn't a minor edit, I was aiming for the "Watch this article" button. Sorry about that. -Scipius 19:54 Dec 11, 2002 (UTC)

Well, I must admit, I'm a little confused. It's true that the history section talks a little about the island pre-Republic, but I think that's useful to give a little historical context to the country. So long as it isn't expanded too much, it should be fine (more on the breakaway of the southern 26 counties which brought the Republic into existence would be good, though). I can see nothing in the rest of the template-version which refers to the island as a whole, and nothing which is inaccurate. So why can't we have it here? You're surely not saying that it can't be here because it doesn't fit in with the WikiProject template, or because the template is under review, are you? That seems very odd to me - the project should serve the articles, not the other way round. If the template is going to change in some way, then fair enough, but why can't we have the old, and most informative, version of the page here in the meantime? --Camembert

We don't know what the template will look like once this is all resolved. Take a look at the links to the various "Main article:" sections, they all still have "of Ireland". Furthermore, the template article contained information about the whole of Irleand that was far more extensive than the Ireland article. This gives the impression the Republic article is our main article, something which all of you disagree with, especially since you've renamed the pages. Since you're unfortunately not interested in joining the WikiProject, I also thought this would be a better way for you all to add what you feel is important (since the template article was mostly a combination of my writing and the CIA's) and we can then work the new template around that. I realise this page is less usable, but then, so is Ireland. If you're truly interested in quality, perhaps it would have been better to rename only after you'd written a good overall "Ireland" article. I hope this will spur you on and rest assured, the template will be back in its full glory soon enough. -Scipius 21:39 Dec 11, 2002 (UTC)

This gives the impression the Republic article is our main article, something which all of you disagree with - well, I don't disagree that the Republic article is the main article about the Republic! I never really had any concnerns with the content of this page before (ie in the template version which you have removed) and I still don't - the problem was with the title, not the content. It's accurate, and covers everything that needs to be covered. So I guess I still don't understand the problem. But, I don't have enough time to look closely at this right now, so I'm just going to leave it, and hopefully other people will get on with it. I'll still do up the Ireland page if nobody else does sooner (I don't think that the fact that Ireland is currently weak should have any bearing on what is on this page, by the way). Good luck to everybody else. --Camembert

I'm utterly confused now. Which version are we sticking with, and who decides? One minute we have a high quality version, the next minute a shortened version full of dodgy figures, that loses all the contributions that everyone has made. I know Scipius disagrees with the decision that was taken, but what has that to do with the template? In any case, 'Ireland' in some areas does act as an all-island unit (religion, for example, is organised on a 32 county basis!). Having some element of 'all-the island' is no problem, once you make it clear that the politically since 1920/2 Ireland is made up of two states and that historically both states have evolved separately since then.

I know Ireland is a confusing case, but surely the basic unit that we should focus on is the state as it currently exists (The Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland), with background info that explains the contextual relationships that exist, which in these cases are (1) between the North and South states; (2) between the island as a unit (culturally, religiously etc), (3) between the various Irelands and Great Britain, given the length and complexity of the relationship there. The existing template can be adapted to do this. There is no need to take it all out and replace it with a dodgy list of statistics that will give readers little more than a headache (not to mention infuriate Irish people with their glaring inaccuracies. If these are from some CIA yearbook, and that's the level of knowledge the CIA possesses about the rest of the world, God Help America!!!) (PS - Sorry for being a tad rude earlier, Scipius. Didn't mean to get personal, but thought your behaviour completely unacceptable and wrong in re-doing the pages the way you did!) JTD

Well, I'm sorry, but if you state that you do not value my opinion, then why bother asking for it now? I think I've been friendly towards you, but if this is not at least somewhat reciprocated, then my interest in discussing things with you has ended. -Scipius 21:39 Dec 11, 2002 (UTC)

Scipius, I do value your opinion, and admire the work you have done on Wikipedia. Again I apologise for being rude. Maybe the problem is we both take Wikipedia very seriously (which it deserves to be) and want to see things done correctly. I've had a stressful week (bad flu, demands from my publisher for completed chapters of my books, death of a friend last week, etc) so I been a bit sharper than I normally am with everyone. We disagree on how the Republic of Ireland page should be, but we both think it important to get it right. So I'll make a suggestion. While some of the 'old' page was applicable to the island of Ireland, other bits were applicable to the Republic (eg, religion, some of the links, etc.) While you re-do the template, could you transfer back those bits of the old version that are relevant to the new page. But as I said, I DO value your opinion, even if I disagree with it. I have spent far more time than I ever expected adding in references, definitions and explanations on Irish affairs and your interest in Ireland is most welcome. JTD

Apologies accepted of course, you can read my reply to your e-mail for more. As for the template, it all depends on what the outcome for the WikiProject will be. Tell you what, I'll put the table back in, as that strictly contains only uncontroversial info on the Republic. The rest can wait until all is resolved. -Scipius 22:52 Dec 14, 2002 (UTC)

Scipius, thanks for the change. I've added in some additional information specifically defined as referring to the ROI and contextualised it as such, as well as some external links to Dáil Éireann and the main political parties. It should make the page useful to readers in its current formats. JTD


I see there's been quite a debate about the name of this article, but I don't want to continue with that. The issue I do want to raise is the application of the country template to this page. I'll try to make the page more like the template intended, and will probably move lot of content to more detailed articles. Comments are welcome, of course. Jeronimo

I have now tried to reapply the template, restoring the original sectioning, and trying to keep each section not much more than a short introduction. For all headings, I have put the main article at "xxx of the Republic of Ireland", with the exception of History (for which two articles would be the best solution), and Culture (for which one entry should suffice). The History section might be a little short and inaccurate, so changes are welcome there. I have put the former, more extensive text that was there at History of the Republic of Ireland as a starter for that article. I have considerably shortened the texts on religion and language in Ireland. The additional information on Irish was already at Irish language, but I have moved the religious information to Religion in the Republic of Ireland. Also, I have considerably shortened the list of "see also"s. Many of these topics were already listed in the article, while many others seemed to detailed. The list should be a starting point to find other articles about Ireland, but not list all of them (if that is desirable a "Articles related to Ireland"-article can always be made). Of course, the current selection listed is rather random, so please feel free to change. Jeronimo

What the heck have you done? You have mucked up information, lost important information, miscontextualised information and made a good article into a mediocre one.

  1. If turning this 'templating' already existing articles, you are supposed to create a temporary version to develop the template on, and only if and when it is ready then replace the original article with it.
  2. One of the most infuriating aspects of wiki is its reliance on CIA sourcebooks which as a number of international contributors have pointed out are ludicrously inaccurate in many many cases for quite a few countries.

Because of the complex history of Ireland you cannot simply summarise aspects of its nomenclature, country information, history and politics into one sentence. This may perhaps be possible in some cases with some countries but most definitely not here, any more than in Belgium or other states with complex governmental, political, linguistic or other problems. So this article is going to have to undergo yet another major fixing to cull CIA book nonsense and simplistic mis-information that has already had to be culled by Irish contributors a number of times before. Constantly having to do this because of misleading over-simplifications by well meaning contributors is at this stage a pain in the neck. So much of what was taken out is going to have to be put back in, again!

Please don't try to templatise articles that because of their complexity cannot be simplified without losing the ability to communicate the necessary facts. FearÉÍREANN 00:12 25 May 2003 (UTC)

I think that we should revert to the last pre-template version, then create a temp page for the templated version. The current version can be copied there for sorting out. I want to do this as soon as possible but I'll wait a couple of hours for comments, in case someone thinks that what I've suggested is a bad idea. -- Derek Ross 02:21 25 May 2003 (UTC)

Okay, time's up. I'm about to copy the ROI current version to Republic of Ireland/temp and reverting the article to its last pre-template form (06:49 3 May 2003 Vkem). -- Derek Ross 03:53 25 May 2003 (UTC)

Good idea Derek. I don't doubt that Jerinimo was well meaning in what he did, but his changes lost some crucial information, specifically:

  1. because of the complex nature of the nomenclature of the two Ireland states, it is vital that the opening paragraph explain what the current nomenclature is, why it is, and how it relates to the evolution of nomenclature since 1919:
  2. an accurate explanation of the religious indentity of the ROI, the subtleties of which were completely lost in Jeronimo's change.

The idea that a reader should have to go to other pages for basic information is in my view wrong. Detailed information should be elsewhere, but enough factual information should be available on this page to allow people to have an (i) accurate, (ii) factual, (iii) informative, (iv) relevant picture of what the Republic of Ireland is. Given that so much of the ROI's existence is complex, the sort of information required by the template is simply not enough. Specifically the ROI had changed dramatically as a society in the 1990s in its cultural, ethnic and religious make-up. Hardcopy version of the Encyclopædia Brittanica and the World Book cannot capture that change. Even CD-ROM versions are notoriously unreliable; the World Book even plays the wrong Irish national anthem!!! Wiki can and should get the facts right. If the template prevents that then the template needs to be changed.

As people who have followed my work know, I am not' someone who has a problem with rules or templates. I was the author of the guidelines on the naming conventions on titles. I am all in favour of templates and guidelines. But it is important to get enough information correct and if a template makes that a problem, then the template needs to be changed, not the information. FearÉÍREANN 04:53 25 May 2003 (UTC)

FearÉÍRANN, I do understand that a complex story cannot be completely simplified, but this is supposed to be an encyclopedia. That means that the person that looks up something about Ireland should be able to know what it is about without having to dig through very complex legal matter. Instead, the article should make the reader curious to do so, and give starting points and some links to explore the (complex) story of the country (ROI in this case) further. I don't think the current article does. However, I look forward to reading your suggestions for improving the page that has apparently been put at Republic of Ireland/temp. Jeronimo 13:08 26 May 2003 (UTC)

Speaking as someone who's looked at this article for the first time just now, and who is known not to be "properly educated", my eyes completely glazed over at the legal gobbledygook, including the full text(!) of a law, but I persevered more than the average student and finally managed to find the table with the flag, capital, etc, and the map showing where the place is. The legal minutiae are just that, important only to a handful of specialists, and it's bad article design to put the less-important stuff at the front. It makes the Republic look like the home of legalistic pedants who want to tell you about their laws before mentioning where they live, which I don't think is the case (from my personal experience, the first thing that the Irish want to tell you about is Beamish - how come there's no article!? :-) ). Stan 14:05 26 May 2003 (UTC)

Beamish? Nah. I thought the stereotype was Guinness (or Murphy's if you're in Cork). Maybe despite having lived here my whole life, and having a family tree that's been traced back to the nephew of Brian Boru, I'm just not Irish enough :-P -- Jimregan
I like Guiness well enough, but it doesn't seem to get the lip-smacking that a mention of Beamish does - my sample size is small though. :-) Stan

The Republic of Ireland Act was put there by another user against my advice. Though as a primary document it should not have been put in there, others users insisted it was OK and so I bowed to what what in my view a seriously unwise consensus. (But then we get them here on wiki sometimes!) BTW 1: my drink is Smithwicks and like vast numbers of Irish people I hate Guinness!!! BTW II: I too am descended from Brian Boru (for those who don't know, Brian Boru was Árd Rí or High King of Ireland one thousand years ago), as indeed is Queen Elizabeth II. So I guess that makes Jim, Liz and I cousins!!! Apparently George W. Bush may also be a descendant of Brian Boru though I'm not sure how happy I am having G.W. as a relative, no matter how distant!!! FearÉÍREANN 23:12 26 May 2003 (UTC)

The history of the page and talk is very confusing to me, not at all clear who wanted what. I do believe that for as many articles as possible, the top screen, the first that a reader sees, should have an appealing pic. One of the things one learns working for Apple is the sheer power of good graphics to draw people in. For a country article, that means flag, coat of arms, and scenic photo. Once your readers get that, they'll be happy to hang around and read some text too.
That's a fundamental error of a sort that says a lot about Apple. I'm sorry to say this, but it completely misses the fact that not everybody can access those conveniently; the benefit is real except for those people it pushes aside - and if you are thinking of telling them to upgrade, that is a form of blaming the victim. The error is self reinforcing since it drives people off the statistical base, the way shooting the sick improves public health; if you do a before/after comparison, that sort of deterioration always shows that user satisfaction improves (it happens in economics, the way driving farmers broke makes farmers statistically better off in aggregate - broken men aren't farmers any more). I would suggest people could get a better understanding by following up what [1] has to say in the area. PML.
I wouldn't use Apple as an example to follow. Sure, we'd have pretty pictures to draw people in, but there'd be nothing useful underneath it :-P -- Jimregan
Oh yeah, and just so it can be on the record, I'm ashamed to have lived in the same state as G.W.B. In fact, I ashamed to be a citizen of the same country - nay, the same species! (I'm guessing he's related to humans). When we visit Europe in August, we're going to wear "Impeach Bush" buttons everywhere - unless of course we get sent to Gitmo for posting all this subversive material. :-) Stan 02:21 27 May 2003 (UTC)
I've always thought it ironic that the Americans are once again ruled by George III... -- Derek Ross
Hmmm... related to GWB eh? Well, one look at my surname implies a relation to a far less desirable American president... -- Jimregan
Oh, and mine's a Heineken :) I like stout in general (there's eatin' and drinkin' in it, after all), but can't deal with the consequences. -- Jimregan

Perhaps my mention of "Apple" is too Silicon Valley-centric - most high-tech companies in SV would be ecstatic to have 1/10 of the customer loyalty that Apple enjoys. But a lot of it is really simple technique, like the little smiling Mac that used to show up during boot. It's useful in that it indicates successful boot, costs practically nothing in resources, and the result is instant enthusiasm - "My computer smiled at me!" is the usual reaction.

That may be a local attitude. Certainly people with my background and inclination would react like Marvin the paranoid android. We would say "My computer smiled at me!", we just wouldn't like it. The reaction to Bill Gates' bloody paperclip is far more what we would feel - disgust at being manipulated and having things getting in the way. Now, what Jef Raskin designed for the Canon Cat to do on start up, showing a snapshot of previous work as a starting context, that's user friendly. My original point was that this over-visual approach inherently selects for people who like that, so merely pointing at an increasing proportion of user satisfaction is no indicator of success. PML.
The cheapest PC in the world could have done it 10 years ago, but none of them did because MS doesn't have to bother - people will use MS stuff even if they hate it. If you don't believe me, just stand behind some readers and watch them mousing around in Wikipedia; I guarantee you that they will prefer the articles where they get to look at pictures. Stan 04:09 27 May 2003 (UTC)
Well, I understand what you were getting at. I would have said get a real operating system, but you already have. It's just that Mac bashing is such a hard habit to break :) -- Jimregan
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