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Improving Mindat.orgAscension Island and other far-off places

15th Jan 2006 15:57 UTCJolyon Ralph Founder

I noticed that we are inconsistent with the way we handle places such as Ascension Island and other far-flung dependencies:

With Ascension Island we have

.. , Ascension Island, UK

With the Falkland Islands we just have

Falkland Islands

Now... do we want to tie in such places to the political parent (ie UK), or not? The advantage of saying "Yes" is that we don't have to make special cases for places that we would normally want to combine in with the political parent (such as Hawaii). The advantage of saying "No" is that it makes more geographical sense to not group in places that are the other side of the world with their political parent. We also nicely avoid any political disputes (such as with the Falklands) if we don't have to determine political ownership for every piece of rock in the ocean.

What do you think?

Jolyon

15th Jan 2006 16:42 UTCMarco E. Ciriotti Manager

The current political/administrative status is inconfutable:

Ascension Island is a dependency of St. Helena which is an overseas territory of the UK;

Falkland Islands is an overseas territory of the UK.

In my opinion the current polical/administrative status is the one to be used.

15th Jan 2006 17:15 UTCJolyon Ralph Founder

I personally think it would be more "natural" to take 'UK' off of 'Ascenscion Islands' and leave them as the top level. I don't think it causes any confusion.

But, the 'Hawaii' issue would mean we were being inconsistent.

I'm open to suggestions!

Jolyon

15th Jan 2006 17:26 UTCAlan Plante

No, I don't think the Hawaii case indicates an inconsitency. Hawaii (and Alaska) are actually States of the Union. So they need to be treatd like all other States.

Puerto Rico, on the other hand, is just a U.S. Territory. Like the Falklands are/were to the UK. I would not end the hierarchy for PR with "USA" because of this.

If India were still a UK "protectorate" (or whatever it was... :~} ) would you feel compelled to end all Indian localities with "...India, UK"? Probably not.

Alan

15th Jan 2006 17:36 UTCJolyon Ralph Founder

Alan,

You are right, as always.

I'm going to change Ascension Island now.

Jolyon

15th Jan 2006 22:21 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

We might ruffle some feathers if we try to apply the same policy to Reunion, Martinique and other French overseas departments, which are presumably analogous to the Hawaii situation. Just as we have a universal "hazard" disclaimer for all mineral species, perhaps we need a universal political disclaimer for all locality names: "Mindat is a site devoted to mineralogy, not politics. Attribution of territories in Mindat's locality classification is made for mineralogical convenience and does not imply any opinion whatsoever on our part with regard to political ownership of any territory." (I'm sure Jolyon can edit this to something that sounds more legally concise and literary.)

Cheers,

Alfredo

15th Jan 2006 23:40 UTCJolyon Ralph Founder

Neither Reunion nor Martinique are listed as "France", so they look fine to me as they are currently listed.

16th Jan 2006 12:35 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

Exactly. So far, no one from France has complained but, technically, they could, since those are parts of France, and their populations can vote in french elections. I personally don't care whether we add "France" to the locality string or not, as we all know where those islands are; I think we just need to make clear to the outside public that such decisions will be made based on Mindat's needs and not for any political reason.

16th Jan 2006 16:27 UTCAlan Plante

I think it should be pretty clear that Mindat uses geopolitical boundaries to augment purely geographical ones to pin down a site's location - that the intent is to locate sites *geographically*, not geopolitically. "USA" added to Guam or Puerto Rico does nothing to locate them better; in fact it might confuse some people...

:~}

Alan

16th Jan 2006 16:43 UTCMarco E. Ciriotti Manager

Alan,

with this system the Canton Ticino is geographycally Italy and not Switzerland!!!

I think that this is more confused...

16th Jan 2006 18:29 UTCDavid Soler

A deep subject for discussion!

What about Faroe islands and Greenland? The first are listed under Denmark, but the second doesn't. Geographycally talking, they are both far-off territories of Denmark and shouldn't be listed in that different way. Do they have the same geopolitical status? If not, the current distinction would have sense. If yes, why Faroe are linked to Denmark and Greenland isn't?

Moreover, if we adopt geographycal criteria for listing territories, what is the minimum distance a territory should have from the parent one to be considered separately? If we adopt geopolitical criteria, what is the level of political autonomy? Catalonia probably has much more political autonomy than Martinique, and we (catalan people) probably would love to have an own category in the localities index of Mindat, separated from our "parent" state, ho ho ;)

David

16th Jan 2006 22:19 UTCAlan Plante

This discussion started out about ISLANDS. I was responding to that, primarily. Perhaps my mention of Alaska muddy things - shouldn't have done it...

I do not think it is necessary to add "Denmark" to Greenland or Faroe Island localities for the reasons stated above.

I think that in cases were the name of the country that "owns" the island/territory/whatever has been added here at Mindat it probably does no harm - but is superfluous.

If any particular nation is highly indignant at the idea of Mindat not recognizing their "property" as theirs, I guess then Jolyon has to duke it out with them - or ignore them - whichever he chooses. I just know that there are very few Americans who would object to "USA" being left off for localities in places like Guam and Puerto Rico. (And I would ignore those who might raise a hue and cry myself. - If they don't "get it" from this site's context, they probably never will...)

I still think the geographic position is the impotant thing - hang the political fluff!

:~}

Alan

17th Jan 2006 15:13 UTCDavid Soler

I agree with Alan. Let's leave political stuff to politicians!

After all, one of the many good things mineral collecting has is that you learn a lot about geography (Mindat being a great tool for it). And the important question at the level of our collections is to know what corner of the world comes from our loved, unique specimen of somewhathite...

Cheers :D

David

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