Talk:Republic of Ireland/temp/discuss this page

The introduction at least looks a lot better now, without all the legal stuff. Concerning application of the template, I would suggest shortening the history quite a bit. It should be possible to make a decent summary, or otherwise focus on recent developments. The full story as it is now should be at History of the Republic of Ireland, and it is already at some related articles such as Irish Free State, etc. Remember that this is an online encyclopedia, so following a link to another topic where it is treated in detail is very easy. I will not attempt to do this.

I disagree totally.

1. Irish history is very very complicated. All the history section does is answer the question "what is the Republic of Ireland and where did it come from?" If you don't answer this, the reader will not know what is the links between the Irish Free State, Éire and the Republic of Ireland and will be utterly confused, particularly as to why both Éire and the Republic of Ireland co-exist, or have done since 1949. People have difficulty understanding why if it had a president since in 1937 it wasn't a republic since 1937, and how come it had both a king and a president. That has to be explained. Iif you don't know that, then the odds utterly confused about all of this.
   
   
2. A separate history page would have to cover a hell of a lot more than just this. All that is here is what is relevant, no more. I have asked people to look at it and all found it a straight-forward adequate explanation. Anything shorter won't give enough of an explanation and it is unrealistic to expect people to go to a detailed history page to try to make head or tail of the Irish nomenclature when the basic narrowly focused information can and should be explained simply here.

Anything shorter simply will not leave people with enough information to grasp the key essentials. What you are proposing is the equivalent of telling people wanting to know about Bismarck to go and read all about nineteenth century Prussian and German history, when a simple analysis can and should be provided in the Bismarck page, allowing them if they want more detailed depth to go to a link page. FearÉIREANN 20:50 27 May 2003 (UTC)

The county-list can be changed to reflect the current status (since 1990). I'll do this right away.

*sigh* Don't. Leave it the way they are. You don't seem to understand what Irish counties are. They were created in the nineteenth century as local government units, often based on a collection of baronies (poor law unions). As local governmental units they have now been changed. But they also have other identifications; sporting, religion, cultural, etc. Dublin no longer exists as a single local governmental unit, but it does exist as a sporting and cultural unit. I covered that by keeping the traditional list while pointing out the new local governmental counties that have replaced some of them. Removing them altogether and going along with the new local governmental list would be all wrong, unless you go into a long long explanation as to what counties mean and how they were changed. Please leave the list in the current format. That is the most straight-forward way of covering them. FearÉIREANN

The politics section could be a bit shorter as well. I'll see if I can make something out of it.

No it couldn't. There is no link page. All that is here is a simple factual analysis, nothing detailed. FearÉIREANN

Language & Religion are already included in Demographics. The article on Irish language is already quite extensive, and the extra details added here are discussed at length there. Religion could also be moved, with a reference in the demographics section and/or the miscellaneous topics. I'll make these changes.

No they aren't and they are irrelevent to that category. In fact putting them in that category is one way guaranteed to infuriate every Irish person reading the page. And no the Irish language information here is simple, straight-forward and encyclopædic. As to religion, many people have the mistaken impression that Ireland is an exclusively Roman Catholic state, in which Catholicism has a dominant position. The paragraphs here without going into detail explain that that impression is wrong."

"Proper encyclopædias do not tolerate one or two lines with a message to look elsewhere for the information. They give a rounded overview on the main page, then leave it up to the reader to go elsewhere if they wish for more detailed brackground information. FearÉIREANN

As for the "See also" and Related Articles, I think we could cut out all the articles that are already linked from the text and/or table. Current list length is allright, but it should be short. If it gets too long, we should consider moving it to a Lis of articles related to (the Republic of) Ireland page. Jeronimo

Why? To be honest I find your approach to this article strange in the extreme. You seem to think that an article should have the minimum amount of information. That is not how encyclopædias are constructed. Each article is designed to contain a rounded overview. No encyclopædia tells readers "go and look elsewhere for basic facts". They put the basic facts on the page. Links are intended to offer a chance to do more in depth reading, not as the place the reader has to go to to get the basic facts. I have written pages on Ireland for two encyclopædias (I have a contract in front of me asking me to contribute to an update of one of them for the new CD-ROM version.) What you are proprosing would be unencyclopædic, chronically inaccurate and next to useless (if not utterly confusing) to readers, who would be denied the sort of information that a proper encyclopædia automatically puts on the main page.

I have asked a number of wiki users to review the page and they are all happy with the page as it is now, finding it encyclopædic, comprehensive and factual. A couple made minor suggestions for additions or changes of language. You seem to be the only person who wants a far shorter, far less comprehensive, far less encyclopædic article. Indeed quite a few people have complained that other 'state' pages on wiki are poor and uninformative, and suggested that they copy the sort of detail used here to provide a more comprehensive page covering the sort of information encyclopædias expect a main page to carry. The put in depth analysis, not elementary facts in linked articles. FearÉIREANN 20:50 27 May 2003 (UTC)

All the facts seem to be there. Must admit that I didn't know that George VI was King of Ireland. I assumed Eire was a republic from 1937. Ah well, we live and learn. My only suggestion would be to move the Politics section further down. I feel that most people are more interested in Culture, Geography and Economy, than in the Politics and could probably use a change of emphasis after the History section which is already mostly political history. But all-in-all, nice job ! -- Derek Ross 02:46 29 May 2003 (UTC)