User:Cool3/Ireland

At the poll Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ireland Collaboration/Poll on Ireland article names, it has been suggested that it would be best if two (or three) pages could all share the same name. It is, of course, impossible to have two pages that actually have the same name, but it is quite possible for more than one page to display the same name.

Technical approach

By using DISPLAYTITLE combined with <span style = "display:none"> ... </span> it is possible for the title of any page containing the word Ireland (e.g., "Republic of Ireland" or "Ireland (state)") to display to the reader as simply "Ireland." The code is as follows, and has been tested in the article: [1]

{{DISPLAYTITLE:<span style = "display:none">Republic of</span> Ireland}}

It is also possible, by modifying Mediawiki:Pagetitle to change the HTML title of the page (which is displayed in the top bar on most browsers) to "Ireland". It is believed that the following code would work, and a similar approach succeeded on another wiki. Nonetheless, testing on test.wikipedia.org or similar would be required before implementation.

{{#ifeq|{{PAGENAME}}|Republic of Ireland|Ireland - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia|$1 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia}}

Effects

Under this approach, the Republic of Ireland (or Ireland (state) or whatever other technical title is agree upon) article would appear to readers to be named simply "Ireland". "Republic of Ireland" would not be shown anywhere, although a hatnote would probably be needed to tell the reader "For technical reasons, this page is actually located at Republic of Ireland (or whatever other name, the exact choice is almost entirely irrelevant).

Typing Ireland into the search bar of following a link to Ireland would of course still take you to whatever page is actually named Ireland, whether that should be a disambig page, the article on the island, or a picture of a baboon. To link to the page on the state known as Ireland, you would have to follow a link to Ireland (state), Republic of Ireland, or similar.

Pros

If would eliminate the Wiki reader being presented with "Republic of Ireland" as the name of the sovereign country. Which it obviously isn't. And worse it is an essentially British pov. Sarah777 (talk) 22:21, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
If is the option supported by the majority of Irish editors. Sarah777 (talk) 08:36, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Cons

. If would eliminate the Wiki reader being presented with "Ireland" as the name of the article. Which it obviously isn't. And worse it goes against the result of the vote. Kittybrewster ☎ 07:01, 16 August 2009 (UTC)