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# Countries of the world/Talk

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What about historical but presently defunct countries? -- Extinct countries, empires, etc.

I must say that I object to getting rid of the CountriesX system completely. I don't mind much seeing all the countries here on this page listed in a table (though see below). But I think there was no harm in leaving the individual pages alone.

We could have the letters in the table (the big A, big B, etc.) point to individual pages for that group of countries.

My objection to having all the countries here on this page are two-fold.

First, this page is now a giant monstrosity. Any list over a certain length ought to be broken down alphabetically, I think. For example, over on actresses and actors, I anticipate that we would prefer, eventually, to not have a huge and useless list, but instead to break it down alphabetically and perhaps by era (date of birth, for example). But in any event, even if we did have one big page of actors, we should also have alphabetically-broken-down pages, etc.

Second, I think that the use of tables for this sort of thing ought to be discouraged, for the same reason that people complained (rightfully so, I think) about the biology page. Yes, it looks nicer, but it also makes it harder to use the data for other purposes (by other projects, for example), and it makes it harder for newcomers. Simple straight text is really nice for many reasons.

Well, it is broken down alphabetically, as it ought to be. :-) But why on separate pages? I don't think it's a monstrosity at all. I like being able to see all the countries in the world from one page; it's kind of a pain to have to click through to the "CountriesA" page just to find the entry on Andorra. I'll grant you it would be nicer if it were alphabetized horizontally rather than vertically. That wouldn't take long to do, though.

As to the second objection, well, since I was the first one to object to the biology page format, I guess you're right. How about this? --LMS

I like the second form better. It's more accesible for devices that do not render tables well --AstroNomer

It would be nice to have some sort of a jumpbar on the top of the pages A B C D E F .. where clicking on A takes you to the A's, etc.. I'm not sure if this can be done with this software (Wiki) Rob Salzman

28/05/2001 - I've moved the country listing by continent to /By continent. I think this makes navigation easier and helps to [make wikipedia useful]? -- WojPob

I agree, WojPob.

I think the next Really Cool thing to do would be to find a public domain/free atlas, and start uploading maps. Or e-mail them to Jason. If someone does that, it will force Jason to give some people some sort of capability and permission to upload image files to the Wikipedia server. --LMS

My understanding was that the images on the CIA site are also in the public domain and could be used. LDC objected to the format (jpg), though, saying the quality was not high enough. Personally, I think the qualities of these particular jpgs are high enough, and would have added them to the site if not for my concerns about the size of them and the resulting download times for people like me on dialup. :-) the relevant part of the CIA site starts at http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/indexgeo.html; an arbitrary example of one of their maps is http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/iz.html. But I have to admit that my main interest is in where the country lies in relation to its neighbors, and that this is of course :-) not what everyone will be interested in--other people may want to know population distribution, altitude, etc. And others may object to the somewhat cartoonish quality of the CIA maps, with their bold, thick boundaries. (One suspects that for the CIA every issue is so clearly defined....) --KQ

As Tim Shell pointed out, the U.S. Department of State has published information in the public domain at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/bgn/ ; all of it is free (as in beer and speech) for use unless it has a copyright notice posted. I've added much information on Albania, attempting to integrate it into the CIA info (which is also in the public domain) and have added a new subpage (apologies to Larry), "foreign relations." I had a question for the general Wikipedia public, though: the Department of State has yet more information specific to the relations between the United States and Albania. I have not added it, as (IMHO) it seems too specific and begs for equally detailed information about its relations with other countries, which I can not provide. Do you think this is the correct approach? --KQ

But why not? If the information is factual & encyclopedic, who cares if it's very detailed? You might not want to, though, just because it doesn't seem worth the effort. I could understand that.

I do think that this poses a problem for subpages. :-) You could put it under [U.S.-Albania foreign relations]?, I guess. --LMS

I'm coming around to your views about subpages, I think. I wouldn't mind changing all of them in the "countries of the world" context (albania/government etc.) except changing them presents the new problem of what to change them to: "Government of Albania" or "Albanian government"? As inconvenient as they are, subpage titles still fit the most information the most concisely.

I think you're right about the US-Albania foreign relations: probably it is too specific to be of much interest to most people. --KQ

Chechnya should not be included here yet. The peace treaty of 1996 deferred independence talks till 2001, and most governments considers Chechen territory part of Russia -- Piotr Wozniak

Taiwan is, Chechnya should also be.

When I think "Countries of the World" my mind taxonomizes it into two things. The first is a table with all the countries, listed by continent first and alphabetically second, which includes statistics such as pop., GDP per capita, growth rate, doubling time, etc. The second, and hierarchically equal part, is a spiel about the distinct differences between a country, a state, and a nation. ( Looking them up in a dictionary doesn't do any good because Webster is a sellout. )

I'd be happy to write said spiel if people would like, although I do admit that it doesn't, in fact actually matter that much.

--Seckstu

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