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anki-geo / ultimate-geography

Geography flashcard deck for Anki
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Naming of the `UG::North+Central_America` tag #295

Closed aplaice closed 4 years ago

aplaice commented 4 years ago

According to Wikipedia's definitions, Northern America ≈ USA + Canada + Greenland, while North America = Northern America + Central America + Caribbean (which is also what we show on our own continental map).

Our UG::North+Central_America tag currently covers Wikipedia's Northern America and Central America.

Hence, I'd suggest either:

  1. Renaming the tag UG::Northern+Central_America and keeping its "contents" the same.

  2. Renaming the tag UG::North_America, adding it to all of the Caribbean notes and (possibly) removing the UG::America tag.

axelboc commented 4 years ago

Option 1 for me. The Caribbean notes are notoriously numerous and difficult to learn, so I'd keep them in a separate tag.

aplaice commented 4 years ago

Just in case, in 2 I'm not suggesting removing the UG::Caribbean tag, so the Caribbean notes would have both the UG::North_America and the UG::Caribbean tags. If your worry is that the "North(ern) America" tag shouldn't contain the Caribbean notes, then that indeed is a problem. It can obviously be worked around with negations (tag:UG::North_America -tag:UG::Caribbean), but for a beginner (the most likely user of the tags) that is probably too involved, so I'm now leaning towards 1 as well.

As an aside, are the regional tags (Mediterranean, South East Asia) supposed to be applied to islands (Sicily, Bali etc.) as well? (Currently they aren't.)

axelboc commented 4 years ago

In https://github.com/axelboc/anki-ultimate-geography/issues/244#issuecomment-619519349, I came to the realisation that it may be easier and more logical to just remove this tag altogether, as it is the equivalent of tag:UG::America -tag:UG::South_America -tag:UG::Caribbean.

axelboc commented 4 years ago

As an aside, are the regional tags (Mediterranean, South East Asia) supposed to be applied to islands (Sicily, Bali etc.) as well? (Currently they aren't.)

Hmm, they probably should, you're right.

ukanuk commented 4 years ago

In #244 (comment), I came to the realisation that it may be easier and more logical to just remove this tag altogether, as it is the equivalent of tag:UG::America -tag:UG::South_America -tag:UG::Caribbean.

I like this, although I'd continue and ask whether the UG::America tag is really useful? Wouldn't a UG::North_America tag be more useful?

So the Americas could get just these three (or four) tags:

aplaice commented 4 years ago

In #244 (comment), I came to the realisation that it may be easier and more logical to just remove this tag altogether, as it is the equivalent of tag:UG::America -tag:UG::South_America -tag:UG::Caribbean.

To summarise, if we are to minimise tag redundancy for the Americas, then we have the following "equivalent" (by adding/subtracting we can recreate all the same groupings of countries) sets of tags under discussion (there are obviously more options, but these are probably the most sensible):

  1. UG::Northern+Central_America, UG::South_America, UG::Caribbean.

    • + IMO they're the most likely tags that'd be individually used by a learner (North America, but without all the many Caribbean countries, South America and the Caribbean). I can easily imagine somebody wanting to use each of these, on their own. (Being able to use a single tag, rather than a combination of tags, might be convenient for a beginner, as noted above.)
    • + IMO "adding" tags is probably slightly more intuitive (for an Anki beginner) than subtracting them, so all other things being equal, tags that aren't subsets of each other are preferable. (By "all other things being equal" I mean all the sets of tags being as natural — replacing UG::Asia, UG::Middle_East and UG::Southeast_Asia with UG::Asia_but_not_Middle_East_or_Southeast, UG::Middle_East and UG::Southeast_Asia would be evidently idiotic.)
    • - The Caribbean lacks a continent tag, which feels disorderly.

  2. UG::North_America, UG::South_America, UG::Caribbean.

    • + This most closely fits the grouping we otherwise use, of having tags for each of the "traditional" continents, and then tags for sub-regions, if necessary.

  3. UG::America, UG::South_America, UG::Caribbean.

    • - We otherwise don't use "super-groupings". (We don't have a Eurasia or an "Old World" tag.)

(My focus on beginners is because I think they're likely to form a disproportionate percentage of those using the regional/continental tags — they might want to try things out without getting overwhelmed. I've read anki-ultimate-geography referred to as a gateway drug into Anki, so they might be Anki beginners as well.)

Overall, my preference is 1 ≳ 2 >> 3.

In terms of an "equitable" division of tags among the continents, 3 tags for 56 notes in the Americas (population 960 M) doesn't seem excessive. If we add West and East Africa, then Africa (62 notes, population 1.3 G) will have ~3.4 tags (Africa, West Africa, East Africa, Mediterranean (0.3) and Middle East (0.1). Asia (56 notes, population 4.6 G) has ~3.2 tags (Asia, SE Asia, Mediterranean (0.3) and Middle East (0.9)).

Obviously, this calculus might change if we cull many of the dependent Caribbean states.

Edit: Oops, I wrote this without seeing @ukanuk's slightly earlier comment. I agree about UG::America. I think UG::Central_America is a bit too detailed.

axelboc commented 4 years ago

I completely forgot that the deck follows the seven-continent system now, which was not the case when I first created the tags -- in France, we're taught the six-continent system where North and South America are a single continent.

What you are both suggesting makes total sense, then: UG::America is inconsistent with the continent notes and definitely has to go.

I'm down with option 2, so we end up with two continent tags: UG::North_America and UG::South_America, and one subregion tag: UG::Caribbean. I don't think a tag for Central America is needed.

aplaice commented 4 years ago

@axelboc had convinced me to prefer 1 over 2, but it seems the tide is changing. :)

As it seems to be (close to) a consensus, I'll implement 2.

I'm going to include Aruba, Curaçao, Bonaire and Trinidad and Tobago as part of North America, despite the controversy (in brief, Aruba, Curaçao, Bonaire and half of Trinidad (but not the other half, nor Tobago) lie on the South American continental plate), since they're listed in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_in_North_America, but not https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_in_South_America.

ukanuk commented 4 years ago

in France, we're taught the six-continent system where North and South America are a single continent.

😮 Cool, had no idea other systems even existed!

ukanuk commented 4 years ago
  • IMO "adding" tags is probably slightly more intuitive (for an Anki beginner) than subtracting them, so all other things being equal, tags that aren't subsets of each other are preferable.

100% agree with this, and IMO is the primary reason to use option 1. But if people like option 2, that also seems good to me.

axelboc commented 4 years ago

It might help a tiny bit to add some examples to the Custom study section, like tag:UG::North_America -tag:UG::Caribbean.

aplaice commented 4 years ago

I've implemented 2, but switching to 1 should be straightforward.