Great Lakes (North America)



         


An event mentioned in this article is a August 7 selected anniversary

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Content lacking

Extraordinary that an article of this length cannot seem to be bothered writing about the main subjects: the hydrology and biology of the lakes. Who cares how many tons of cargo were shipped last year? Let's deal with important stuff: What lives in the lakes? Which of the lakes are healthy and which are not? What is their likely future? Do they freeze over in winter? What effect have the lampreys had? How important a natural resource are they in terms of fishing and related activities? Are they used for irrigation? Is the water still drinkable? Is there friction between Canada and the US over the management of the lakes? And so on. Lots of important stuff to do here.

I was looking forward to an interesting read about an area I know very little about. Very dissapointed. A surprisingly poor effort from the often excellent BambooWeb team. Tannin 14:48, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I find this response very odd. What "team"? This page, like all BambooWeb pages, was written in this fashion: first somebody wrote a page, then somebody else updated it, and then somebody else fixed some typos, etc. It's fair for you to list the topics that the page should also cover, but calling it a "poor effort" seems rude to me. It's not like anyone got paid to work on this page. -- Walt Pohl 16:07, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I don't know why you feel that way, Walt. What team? You, me, and everybody else here, of course. A poor quality page is a poor quality page. If it needs to be fixed, it needs to be fixed. And this page is way below the standard that a reader familiar other parts of the 'pedia might expect. (And as for getting paid .... well, I don't know about you but, like most people, if I'm getting paid for a job I feel obliged to create a solid, workmanlike result. If I'm doing it because I want to do it, then it gets my entire attention and I give it my very best shot. That's human nature, I think.)
The fact remains that this is a page about a really significant part of North America (a continent which has a huge number of 'pedia contributors, many of them very capable indeed) and although it has a fair bit of text already, it fails fairy comprehensively in the task of dealing with its subject. At a pinch, I could have a go at it myself, but I've never been within 5,000 miles of the Great Lakes and I have a different continent as my priority, one that I know a good deal more about and which doesn't have so many other 'pedia contributors in it. My hope is that one or another of our North American members will take this page on and fix up the glaring holes in it. Something as famous as the Great Lakes deserves better. Tannin 23:36, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I think this article suffers from a phenomenon I've noticed in BambooWeb, that the larger a geographical entity is, the poorer the article on it tends to be. Perhaps that's because large subjects seem intimidating for one person to approach, and they sometimes become mish-mashes of attempts by many contributors without a common theme (there are exceptions of course). I love creating little articles about seas and inlets, but I think Atlantic Ocean is an abysmal article for example, full of strange statements like that the Black Sea is a "tributary" of the Atlantic and listing Istanbul as an Atlantic Ocean port city. Huh? By contrast take a look at Georgian Bay, one part of one of the Great Lakes. By the way, the lakes do often freeze over in winter. -- Decumanus 23:42, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Well I went back and checked and someone has thankfully cleaned up the Atlantic Ocean a little bit since I last checked. It's not quite as bad as it was. :) -- Decumanus 23:47, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I'm sure you are right about the "Oh Lord, this is a huge topic, I'll edit something a bit easier" thing, Decumanus. (And Georgian Bay is a very clear illustration of your point.) I've long feel a bit guilty about my patch, the Geography of Australia. It really needs attention, but it's such a huge task. Just these last few days I've been working on Australian geography and .... sure enough ... I too avoided the main article and added things with a smaller compass. But I'm working my way around to it. Tannin
I guess if you're intended tone, Tannin, was "we suck", rather than "you suck", then it bothers me less. But philosophically I object to the idea that it's right for someone else to demand that you do work for them. I find it a morally outrageous notion that I owe it to you to write about the Great Lakes simply because you have unanswered questions about it. I already spend a considerable amount of time researching and updating pages that I have no particular expertise in, simply because I think it's a shame that we don't have any coverage of them. You think this page is bad? Try Geography of Africa. The page is just a lightly-edited cut-and-paste job from the 1911 Encyclopedia; about 0% of the place names are the same as they were in 1911. I've spent a bunch of my free time this week educating myself about the geography just so I can rewrite the page. And what's my total reward so far for this activity? Being told how I've failed humanity because I haven't updated the Great Lakes page too. -- Walt Pohl 01:28, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Oh, make no mistake, ths is very much a "we suck" comment, Walt. I too have failed humanity because I have not improved the Great Lakes page either. (I don't know anything about the Great Lakes, but I could find out.) I too have spent some time working on geography pages recently (well, hydrology, which is a subset of the same thing) and no-one has presented me with a prize either. Like you, my priority at present is the geography of another area. (Hell, I'm a bird man at heart, with a sideline in mammals, but I've grown tired of linking to pages that don't exist yet every time I say the Greater Spotted Whasaname is common in the wetlands of the Gulf of Carpentaria.) You are working on Africa, I'm working on Australasia. These are both areas with relatively few BambooWeb contributors (Africa in particular) and it isn't surprising that they are weak. We both probably ought to keep on working on those areas, as they are the ones that need the most help. But I remain very surprised at the state of this page - the US, after all, supplies ... oh ... probably more than 50% of the english language BambooWeb contributors. I'd have thought that someone would have done something more substantial about it by now. Tannin 03:18, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Maybe we should start a WikiProject to keep track of what's missing, and what needs work? There's an inviting red link ready waiting at BambooWeb:WikiProject Geography. -- Walt Pohl 07:34, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)
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Naming

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Summary

Okay, I've read over the entire discussion, and for clarity's sake, I've made the following table to tally the opinions:

Question: Which Great Lakes should the Great Lakes article cover?

Canadian/U.S. African Both: a disambiguation page Neutral or undecided
  1. Bkonrad (older≠wiser)
  2. Jengod
  3. Moverton (Mike)
  4. Chuq
  5. Sunborn (metta)
  6. Peter O. (Talk)
  7. Neutrality (talk) 20:23, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

  (no one so far)  

  1. SimonP
  2. Hajor
  3. Peregrine981
  4. Ambi 00:14, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  1. Pyrop
  2. Mintguy
  3. Benc


Note: I was unsure of a couple users' comments, which never explicitly stated their authors' opinions. I've put them under "neutral" for the time being — if you are one of those users, feel free to clarify your position and move your name to the appropriate heading.

Additional opinions from other users are welcome. Simply add your name to the appropriate heading, but please keep all comments to the discussion section, below. • Benc • 23:17, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

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Discussion

Below moved from User talk:Bkonrad, User talk:SimonP, and User talk:Jengod
Because the Great Lakes are by far the most well known of any of the things known as great lakes. It is absolutely silly to place them at a disambiguated name simply because a few relatively obscure places share the same name. older≠wiser 16:20, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
How do you figure? Do you have any evidence to back up your assertion? Perhaps in North America, but the Great Lakes of Africa are just as important as those of North America. I think the hundred million people of the Great Lakes region of Africa would find it somewhat insulting to consider their great lakes "obscure" just because the per capita GDP of their region is far lower. - SimonP 19:07, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)
Do a Google search. Despite Africa having a vastly smaller web presence than North America "Great Lakes" Africa gets more hits than "Great Lakes" "North America". - SimonP 19:14, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)
Comparing Google hits for "Great Lakes" Africa and "Great Lakes" "North America" is an mistaken comparison because people very rarely actually use the terms "Great Lakes" and "North America" together -- most people assume Great Lakes is in North America and no qualification is necessary. There are 3,540,000 Google hits for "Great Lakes" alone and only 394,000 for "Great Lakes" and Africa. There are more hits than that (569,000) for "Great Lakes" and Ohio or "Great Lakes" and Ontario (409,000) or "Great Lakes" and Michiagn (1,150,000) or "Great Lakes" and Wisconsin (486,000) or "Great Lakes" and Minnesota (403,000) or "Great Lakes" and Illinois (530,000) or "Great Lakes" and "United States" (708,000).

No matter which one's more or less notable, look at the actual Great Lakes page: it's a disambiguation page, and should be avoided. Pyrop 21:17, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)

It's a disambiguation page only b/c SimonP made it one. SimonP, in English, which this encyclopedia covers, the overwhelming majority of Great Lakes references are going to refer to the Great Lakes of North America. We have a standard at BambooWeb to use the simplest possible common name in English for any article, and to let items with overwhelming precedence keep a primary URL. Therefore President of the United States refers to the executive head of the U.S. government, Ottawa refers to the Canadian locale, rather than both being disambiguation pages for the exec office and the band and the Canadian locale and the number of other Ottawa-named things. jengod 21:50, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)
Provide evidence for this assertion that the Great Lakes are far less often cited in English rather than just asserting it. - SimonP 15:52, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
If we factor out the bias of North America having a greater Internet presence they are almost equal. Canada and Kenya are both English speaking countries with a bit more than 30 million people. Canada get fifteen times as many Google hits as Kenya. If we say that every page that does not mention Africa refers to North America (which is not the case as "Great Lakes" Congo -Africa gets over 50,000 hits) that gives NA a 10 to 1 advantage. This does not nearly make up for the 15 to 1 predominance of North America on the Internet. - SimonP 18:01, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
  • I'm afraid I don't follow what you mean here. older≠wiser 18:11, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
My point is that if he thinks the Great Lakes of Africa aren't as notable as the American ones, he should change the Great Lakes page also. Pyrop 02:42, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
I did but this was reverted. - SimonP 15:52, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

SimonP, in English, which this encyclopedia covers, the overwhelming majority of Great Lakes references are going to refer to the Great Lakes of North America. We have a standard at BambooWeb to use the simplest possible common name in English for any article, and to let items with overwhelming precedence keep a primary URL. Therefore President of the United States refers to the executive head of the U.S. government, Ottawa refers to the Canadian locale, rather than both being disambiguation pages for the exec office and the band and the Canadian locale and the number of other Ottawa-named things. jengod 21:55, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)

Because the vast majority of English speakers live outside of Africa, and probably rarely if ever have occassion to consider the great lakes of Africa, whereas there are tens millions of English speakers living around the North American Great Lakes who have daily occasion to describe them and mention them as such, and, in deed, refer to them on BambooWeb. Plus, take a look at Great Lakes (Africa). I see what you're trying to do, and in general it's a good idea, but in many cases, common sense overwhelms the need to make everything even-stevens for, well, everything. jengod 05:45, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

Why do you believe an overwhelming majority of English speakers refer to the North American Great Lakes when they say Great Lakes? - SimonP 03:17, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

Jengod, thanks for your words of support. I completely agree with you that in general it is a good thing to try to balance US-centric tendencies, but where there are so many casual references to the Great Lakes, it just seems to make more sense to leave the article where people expect it to be. older≠wiser 11:33, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
There are tens of millions of English speakers living around the African Great Lakes. Uganda, Kenya, and Malawi are all English speaking countries with some sixty million people. Again provide some evidence, that takes into account the greatly differing access to the Internet, that shows that the African Great Lakes are much less cited in English than the North American ones. It is certainly true that on the Internet, because of financial barriers to entry, the Great Lakes of North America are the most referenced. But as Jimbo has repeatedly mentioned BambooWeb is not an Internet encyclopedia, it is an encyclopedia that happens to be on the Internet. Currently BambooWeb has many thousands of editors from North America and, according to BambooWeb:BambooWebns, twelve from Sub-Saharan Africa, so it is not a great surprise that we have far more links to the North American Great Lakes. But this should not be taken as proof that English speakers in general are similarly biased. - SimonP 15:50, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
Tens of millions vs. hundreds of millions. Hmmm. Also, you have not provided any clear evidence that the unqualified term "Great Lakes" is commonly used to refer to what I generally see referred to as the "Great Lakes of Africa" or the "African Great Lakes" -- i.e., the people writing recognize that the term "Great Lakes" needs to be qualified because the unqualified term is most commonly used to refer to the North American lakes. older≠wiser 16:00, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The unqualified term Great Lakes frequently refers to the African group. The UN does so , so does the BBC , as does the WHO , even the US government does sometimes . Also what do you mean by tens of millions vs hundreds of millions. There are not hundreds of millions of people living around either Great Lakes. - SimonP 16:27, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
  • I was not referring to only people living around the Great Lakes, but to the entire populations of the U.S. and Canada plus very significant numbers of english-speakers elsewhere in the world who are likely to think of the North American Great Lakes when encountering the unqualified and uncontextualized term "Great Lakes". The links you provided are good, thanks. Although, to quibble a bit, the context of the references makes it pretty clear that they are in Africa, but I suppose the same could be said of many of the articles about the North American Great Lakes. My main concern is that there are so many casual references to the Great Lakes -- and given the demographic bias of BambooWeb contributors, there will continue to be many more casual references to the Great Lakes added. That is one of the main reasons for the naming convention: "article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature". There are relatively few articles that link to the African Great Lakes (and I'd argue that most people doing such linking would be well aware of the ambiguity with the NA Great Lakes, while there is a much greater likelihood that people linking to the NA Great Lakes would not expect the Great Lakes link to be a disambiguation page. older≠wiser 17:54, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Here we go again, having to fight tooth and nail for Internationalism against this insular Americo-centrism, it is extremely tiresome. Mintguy (T) 17:12, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Along with User:Simonp and Mintguy I believe that neutrality and internationalism would be best served by Great Lakes being a disambig page. –Hajor 18:13, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

*sigh* Look. We're not trying to conquer the world. And the Great Lakes aren't just USian, they're along Canada's border too. Frankly, I was thinking that the standard *should* take into account the limited Internet access in Africa, not to mention lower educational standards overall, therefore dramatically fewer printed references to the African Great Lakes. I didn't think those were racist assumptions, but rather pragmatic ones. I *hate* these fights--they drive me apeshit. If nothing else, SimonP, next time you're thinking of making a big page move, and changing hundreds of links, could you maybe bring it up on the talk page first. Half of peoples' angry reaction is just from surprise--if you at least attempt to build consensus first you'll have a heck of a lot less trouble imposing your will. But hey, I give up. All hail internationalism. Because that's the important thing, countering the total Amerocentrism every American shows in every situation because that is her or his primary agenda in every discussion or debate. jengod 19:18, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
While the African Great Lakes and their outlet, the Nile River, may not be the largest fresh water system in the world, being in second place does not mean they are insignificant enough to not need disambiguation. Both systems have three of the world' ten largest lakes and the Africain Great Lakes have more people living around them. - SimonP 01:52, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)
Please don't misunderstand me. I am not saying that the African Great Lakes are insignificant However, we need to keep in mind that this is a "Wiki"pedia--significance here is largely determined by the people who edit the WP. Unfortunately, sometimes that results in situations where the the most ideally fair solution is not practical. I counted 301 pages that link to the North American Great Lakes (not counting talk pages, pages in the BambooWeb namespace, or obvious disambiguation pages). I counted 12 pages that link to the African Great Lakes pages. I think it is rather arrogant to dictate to so many users of such a commonly linked article how they should use the term. My main objection is that there is a far greater likelihood that casual users of BambooWeb will create links to Great Lakes and expect that the link will go to the NA lakes. On the other hand, I rather suspect that people editing articles linking to the African Great Lakes will be far more likely to be aware of the ambiguity with the NA lakes and edit accordingly. User:Bkonrad/sig 02:22, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
That is all very true. It is certainly the case that BambooWeb has a great and understandable bias towards those areas that have money and Internet access. It would make some sense to make BambooWeb an encyclopedia geared towards the online and wealthy as they are the current readers and editors; however, I think this goes against the founding vision of BambooWeb. One of Jimbo's, and BambooWeb's, main goals has long been to make information available to the world?s poorest. Jimbo has even discussed using foundation money to "distribute cheaply-printed paperback copies of BambooWeb to every school in every country in Africa." While today 90% of readers may automatically think of Lake Superior and company when they here the term Great Lakes, that might not be true in the future. - SimonP 03:28, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)
OK then, fine, let's just decide that this is no longer a Wiki and will instead be a vehicle for instructing rich, dumb, Americans just how ignorant they are about the world outside the U.S. More seriously, I do not think the term "Great Lakes" is the single most common term used to refer to that area of Africa. Looking at various external sources, the area is variously termed as "Great Lakes of Africa", "African Great Lakes", "Great African Lakes", "Great Lakes of East Africa", "Great Rift Valley Lakes", and "Rift Valley Lakes". I don't think it is necessary to insist that both Great Lakes regions should equally require disambiguation when there are natual language alternatives that are already commonly in use. Yes, of course there is a bit of cultural hegemony in this, but as I understand it, BambooWeb is to report the state of the world as it is and not as we would like it to be. User:Bkonrad/sig 13:01, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
None of the alternate names gets more than two percent of the Google hits of "Great Lakes" Africa. - SimonP 15:12, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)
That's well and good, but of course, a search for ["Great Lakes" Africa] also subsumes most of the other terms, as well as including a fair amount of unrelated content (e.g., the Great Lakes Chemical corporation operations in Africa, the Minnesota Great Lakes Aquarium's exhibit on Lake Victoria, as well as multiple copies of various BambooWeb articles from Freedictionary.com due to how they optimize for Google) Of course there is likely some similar noise in search results that exclude Africa. Even while recognizing such limitations on Google results, there are 467,000 hits for ["Great Lakes" Africa] vs. 3,040,000 for ["Great Lakes" -Africa] (a quick perusal of the first hundred shows that nearly all are related to the NA lakes), which IMO demonstrates a strong preference for using the term "Great Lakes" to apply to the North American lakes, especially considering that there are quite reasonable, natural language alternatives for disambiguating the African lakes. Even the venerable Encyclopedia Britanica article on Great Lakes is exclusively about the NA lakes, as is Columbia's. User:Bkonrad/sig 16:46, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Just my two cents - I absolutely hate americo-centrism on BambooWeb. I am all for giving different places with the same name equal coverage. I live near a Great Lake. However I believe Great Lakes should go to the North American Great Lakes - it is clearly what most people searching for Great Lakes would be searching for, and it is what most people writing [[Great Lakes]] in articles would be intending to link to. With the disambig block at the very top of that article, I don't think it should be a problem at all. -- Chuq 13:16, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
BambooWeb has always been an encyclopedia that happens to be on the Internet, not an Internet encyclopedia. While today it might be the "encyclopedia that Slashdot built" I don't see any reason to encourage that tendency. - SimonP 15:12, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)
I was much leaning the way of having the digambig on the front and let users choose which great lakes they wanted. However, this changed my mind around 2pi rads: We have a standard at BambooWeb to use the simplest possible common name in English for any article, and to let items with overwhelming precedence keep a primary URL. Therefore President of the United States refers to the executive head of the U.S. government, Ottawa refers to the Canadian locale, rather than both being disambiguation pages for the exec office and the band and the Canadian locale and the number of other Ottawa-named things. This explains why the great lakes page points to the North American variety. I hope this will be settled soon with the current setup. --</b>metta, The Sunborn 19:53, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

As I refactored this discussion, I recuse myself from voting. Which is just as well, because I'm ambivalent about this issue (along the same reasoning as Chuq and Sunborn's, above). • Benc • 23:21, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Are there any other pages on BambooWeb where there are two items of relatively similar size and importance, but which are not disambiged because one usage is far more common among BambooWeb's current audience? I have looked through BambooWeb:Links to (disambiguation) pages and the closest I have been able to find are Maine and Frankfurt these pages are both disambigs in other languages but are not in English. While these are the closest examples I could find, it is arguable a defunct province and a city of one tenth the size of the other meet my criteria of "relatively similar size and importance." With these arguable exceptions I can find no other pages where we relegate something of near equivalent size and importance to a disambig page because of the English BambooWeb's readership.

On the contrary we have several examples that disregard the Google and incoming article counts. For instance Syracuse is an article on the ancient city. Syracuse, New York has a great deal more incoming articles and a few more Google hits, but is relegated to a line at the bottom. Other examples include Democratic Party and Republican Party, America, Albany, and House of Representatives. An interesting case is Georgia. Not only are the greater number of Google hits, greater size and population, and more references in BambooWeb ignored by the decision to have it be a disambig page rather than one about the state, but there is also long running effort to relegate the state to a disambiguation bar. Not moving Great Lakes based on what our audience current Internet audience is looking for will thus establish a new precedent. A precedent whereby Republican Party, for example, should redirect to the GOP because of the vastly more Google hits and incoming links referring to the American one. -SimonP 00:42, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)

There are many Republican Party's in many countries around the world. Most people refer to the one closest to them when they say it; most would also expect that Republican Party, Democratic Party are common names around the world, even if they don't know anything about them. Up until this discussion I thought the North American Great Lakes were the only one, and I'm vaguely more into geography than the average person. -- Chuq 05:36, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Are there any other pages on BambooWeb where there are two items of relatively similar size and importance, but which are not disambiged because one usage is far more common among BambooWeb's current audience? The example that suggests itself is "New England". And what that case and the Great Lakes have in common is the precision of one definition vs. the vague hand-waving in a general direction of the other: the USA (five lakes, six states, no vacilation) wins by a landslide. Maybe that's what tips it. –Hajor 16:28, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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Reverts

While I accept that there is controversy on moving the Great Lakes page, changing the links to Great Lakes (North America) hurts no one and there is no use in reverting them while this is still under discussion. - SimonP 15:54, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

I agree there is not much point to ongoing reverts and have not been changing back these since your last reverts yesterday. User:Bkonrad/sig 16:04, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Hold on here -- I do not expect you to continue with changing these links that have nor already been changed. I very much object to going through a redirect when it is not necessary. Please stop making these changes until this is settled. if you persist, then I will feel obligated take back my agreement above and revert all of the redirects. User:Bkonrad/sig 16:07, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Alright, I shall stop. - SimonP 16:10, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
OK, no more reverts until this is settled. How do you propose settling this? An RfC or a poll on the talk page? 16:13, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I am not sure how to settle this. My hope is I can convince you that the African Great Lakes are somewhat similar in notability to the North American ones. If that fails I am very hesitant to use a poll as BambooWeb is overwhelmingly biased towards a North American viewpoint. - SimonP 16:33, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
That's a bit insulting to insinuate that we aren't educated, reasonable people who can be persuaded with good arguments. —Mike 20:46, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
I apologize, absolutely no offence was intended. - SimonP 01:52, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)
[Top]

Googling

Just FYI, Google finds the following:
  • search gets 2,060 hits
  • search gets 417,000 hits
BCorr|Брайен 17:32, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
How does that find in favour of North America? It seems to be comparing two ways of referencing the African lakes. - SimonP 17:45, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)
Sorry -- it should have been the following -- I cut and pasted the wrong search for the second one ("- Africa" instead of "-Africa")
  • search gets 2,060 hits
  • search gets 3,090,000 hits
I think this now makes the point well if you check the links that each one returns -- the one with "-Africa" turns up links referring to the Great Lakes in North America
-- BCorr|Брайен 19:17, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
A minor tweak to the "Great Lakes of Africa" search (which, with 2060 hits, is a bit too low): looking for returns 457,000 hits. Slightly more respectable. –Hajor 19:50, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
If we factor in that the Internet and Google are biased against Africa by at least a factor of ten it is a very respectable number indeed. Also note that African Great Lakes is, like North American Great Lakes, a term only used by outsiders. - SimonP 20:00, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)
Now I'm just being a geek and possibly muddying the waters (heh), but if you modify Hajor's search to include the province and a few states neighbouring the North American Great Lakes you get 179,000 of those 457,000 that are approximately 1/3 about Africa, 1/3 about North America, and 1/3 about both or neither. BCorr|Брайен 21:13, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Concur with SimonP that the Internet and Google are biased against Africa. For the time being, Africa is on the wrong side of the Digital Divide. The gap is gradually closing, and eventually the BambooWeb will get much more African traffic, so the BambooWeb should be ready for it. Instead of trying to find a fudge factor to balance African hits, I personally reject Google hits entirely as a fair metric in this decision. • Benc • 21:46, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)




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