Acceptable clues

• From: grapesmoker <no_reply_at_yahoogroups.com>
• Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 20:35:04 -0000
• Message-ID: <b74kho+d8g8_at_...>

I'm no expert on Finnish composers (or ice shelfs or Herzsprung, for 
that matter), but I'm curious as to what people would consider an 
acceptable clue for lesser known Finnish composers or ice shelfs or 
whatever. For example, would a question that ended, "FTP, identify 
this compatriot of Sibelius, composer of work X, Y, and Z," be 
acceptable? Or something like "located north of Coats Land and X 
miles from the Ross shelf, FTP, identify this Antarctic ice shelf." 
This would effectively eliminate the recurring problem of the "name 
this Egyptian river" clue, as well as help to uniquely identify the 
answer.

For the record, there are 5 other "named" ice shelfs in Antarctica. 
While the Ross shelf is the largest of all of them, the next largest 
is the Ronne, followed closely by the Larsen, the Filchner, the 
Amnery, and the West shelves. While I would tend to agree with the 
crowd on the Finnish composers, it is much harder to make the same 
distinction regarding geography, as the now-infamous Mt. Townsend 
question demonstrated. I would tend to agree with Matt Lafer that 
it's difficult to decide which geographic features are "important" 
and which aren't. Is the Dniepr "more important" than, say, the 
Dniestr or the Elbe? Maybe, maybe not. It's hard to tell. So while I 
agree that "this Finnish composer" had better indicate Sibelius 
(unless you take the precautions described above), I would advocate 
greater leniency for geographic clues. "This ice shelf" ought not to 
be seen as a 1-to-1 clue.

Jerry