Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-06-10 India

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[edit] Mediators opening remarks

Mediation can be a way to improve our skills in collaborative authoring and enrich our time here on WP. If we succeed at this, WP will be the better for it.

Would each of you be able to begin with an opening statement? I will suggest some groundrules for our discussions.

[edit] Suggested groundrules for this mediation

The following have proved useful in past mediations:

  • be brief:
  • use “I” messages (I think, I feel…)
  • avoid criticism (“you” messages);
  • when responding to another participant, speak directly to them. It is a good idea to paraphrase what they have just said to show that you have understood them;
  • Use diffs, where they would be useful to support statements;
  • follow WP behavioural policies, especially WP:CIV, WP:NPA and WP:CON.
  • Try to assume good faith; relax and enjoy the discussion.

Please add your opening statement below. Fowler and Fowler has established his format. You may follow this sort of format or choose your own. If you need to reach me with a question or comment, please contact me on my talk page or e-mail me. I am here most days. Sunray (talk) 06:47, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Participants' statements

[edit] Statement of Fowler&fowler (talk · contribs)

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Note: this is just something I've hurriedly written down. I will be changing it quite a bit, so please don't try to refute anything or fret over its size. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:14, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement of the dispute

From my perspective, there are two main issues:
  • 1. Should the following sentence in the India page lead paragraph:

    It is the seventh largest country by geographical area, the second most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world."

    which has been in place since October 2006 be replaced by the sentence:

    "It is the seventh largest country by geographical area, the second most populous country, and the largest democracy in the world (by virtue of the size of its electorate)

  • 2. Does mention of democracy in either sentence, but especially in the latter—with its emphasis on the details—properly belong to the lead paragraph (which is about geography and population) or is it more appropriate in the third paragraph (government and economy), where it could take a more informative form, such as:

    "With an electorate larger than any other nation's, India's parliamentary democracy, has remained largely stable since its inception in 1950."

    or, in more compact form:

"With an electorate larger than any other nation's, India has proved to be a durable parliamentary democracy.

[edit] History of the dispute

Will supply later.

[edit] Ambiguity in "largest"

Claim 1: My first claim is that there is some ambiguity in the modern usage "largest X," where X is a country. In my understanding, a hundred years ago, a time when people were more aware of the Latin roots of English words, "largest country" most often meant "largest by area," whereas "largest city" meant "largest by population." The usage is buried in the words' Latin roots ("country" comes from "terra contrata" i.e. "land opposite"; while "city" comes from "citizens" i.e. "people"; so "largest country" means "largest land", while "largest city" means "largest population (among cities)"). Also, before the advent of national censuses, "largest" would not have been associated with population (for countries). Now, however, "largest" seems to be used both as a superlative applied to land area and population.

Thus, this New York Times article calls China the "world's largest country," whereas this Encyclopaedia Britannica article on Russia, begins its second paragraph by, "Russia is a land of superlatives. By far the world's largest country, it covers nearly twice the territory of Canada, the second largest." And these are two perfectly reliable sources!

[edit] Disambiguation

Claim 2: My second claim is that modern encyclopedias (painfully aware of this ambiguity) disambiguate by various devices: using qualifiers, replacing "largest" by other words, or providing contextual examples. Thus, the Britannica quote above has, "largest" occur in an appositive just before the main clause, which then provides the context, "territory" or area, in an example. Similarly, the Britannica article on India, when comparing India's population to that of other countries, says, "With roughly one-sixth of the world's total population, India is the second most populous country, after China." In other words, it uses "most populous" instead of "largest" to compare population (and provides an example as well to provide more context or information).

What about Wikipedia? The United States page disambiguates by using qualifiers, "by land area" and "by population": "third largest by land area and by population." However, with the exception of United States and Japan, the top 15 countries in Wikipedia's list of countries by population, disambiguate by reserving "largest" for area and "populous" for population. For example:

[edit] Ambiguity in "largest democracy"

Claim 3: My third claim is that there is ambiguity in the collocation largest democracy as well. The claim is based on a series of sub-claims:

  • 3a: The most complete modern dictionary definitions of "democracy," (see OED definition, define democracy to be both a form of government (OED 1.) and the country so governed (OED b.). This suggests that if one were unaware of precedent, (and some readers are) and followed dictionary definitions alone, one could define "largest democracy" to mean (especially in light of OED b.) "the largest state or country in which power is vested in the elected representatives of the people." That, in turn, could invite the query, "largest by what, area or population."
  • 3b: There is evidence that the expression "world's largest democracy" is of recent vintage: in the Google scholar advanced search for use of that expression in articles or scholarly books published between 1776 (America's independence) and 1950 (when India became a republic and had its first elections), there are only two links returned and the second is incorrect. In the following decades the literature slowly grows: 1951-60 = 2, 1961-70 = 18, 1971-80 = 46, and so forth
  • 3c: There is evidence that the phrase "the world's largest democracy" was an expression coined for India in the same way that the expression "leader of the free world" was coined for the US President during the cold war. As recently as the decade, 1981-90, with 67 Google scholar links, there are number of references that are qualified or in quotes: thus,
    • "... major reason why, despite her extreme socioeconomic contrasts between the haves and the have-nots, claims to be the world's largest democracy," or
    • "Phrases such as 'the world's largest democracy' roll off the tongue and, repeated too often, lose their force." or
    • "they were often quite critical of Washington's lack of support for the 'world's largest democracy', India." or
    • "In addition there were the political pressures, the electoral markets, of 'the world's largest democracy'." or
    • "Often described as the world's largest democracy, India in fact is a fledgling democracy on the order of Nigeria, the Philippines, or any of a score of Asian ..." or
    • "Citing the country as the 'world's largest democracy' the Americans hoped to establish India as a show-case for American-sponsored development ..." or
    • "Politically India counted for somewhat more, and the idea of 'the world's largest democracy' never ceased to fascinate American observers"
  • 3d There is some evidence (not only the last two quotes and the Google Scholar search for 1776-1950), that admiration for (or notice of) the size of a democracy was applied only to third world countries, where parliamentary democracy was not expected to survive (and was therefore more of a miracle). Thus Google search for exact expression "world's largest democracy" (India) turns up 113,000 links; the search for exact expression "world's second largest democracy" (US) turns up 25 links; the search for exact expression "world's third largest democracy" (variously Indonesia or Brazil or ... depending on the decade) turns up 2,020 links; and lastly the search for the exact expression "world's fourth largest democracy" (variously Nigeria, Brazil, ... given notorious political instability) returns 30 links, still more than that for the US.
  • 3e The expression "world's largest industrial democracies," however, has nothing to do with population, but rather means democracies with the largest industrial output and is applied to the G7 or G8 countries. Similarly India is nowhere to be found in the "world's seven largest industrial democracies", and the links that use that expression are respectable ones like NY Times, Britannica, and the University of Iowa.

[edit] Disambiguation or Awkward Neologism?

[edit] Notability for lead

[edit] Appropriateness for lead paragraph

[edit] Appropriateness for third paragraph

[edit] Conclusion