Ok, thanks for the answer. So "Western Europe excl UK" is actually "Western Europe excl UK and Southern Europe" :)

How about this as a proposed breakdown:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmufGoZ--XWedHF...

Please don't put Switzerland in Scandinavia. It is not the same as Sweden.

Also, please don't put Finland and Iceland in Scandinavia.

Scandinavia = Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

The Nordic Countries = Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Faroes, Greenland, Svalbard and Åland Islands.

I agree with you! But read the original poll choice:

  Scandinavia (incl. Finland and Iceland)

Now we're getting into semantics, but the point is, it says "including", and you can't "include" Finland and Iceland into Scandinavia. That would be like saying "North America (including Brazil and Chile)".

You could, however, say, Scandinavia PLUS Finland and Iceland - but that's not what OP wrote.

I agree with you! I'm just dealing with the data we've been given.

If you mean the British Isles (Ireland and the UK) then say the British Isles. UK is not shorthand for British Isles. Clue is in the name: United _Kingdom_ = monarchy, Ireland is a republic.

Even that might be controversial http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles_naming_dispute

Ireland is not in the UK.

Corrected.

What's the rationale for breaking UK out from the rest? Population? Size? France and Germany are both larger.

Don't ask me, ask the OP who invented this crazy breakdown. I'm just trying to make sense of the insanity.

(One rationale might be propensity towards English as a first language, which does represent a strong influence to Hacker News readership.)

Looks like a fair solution, but the problem remains with the OP - I'm from Italy, if I see "Western Europe excl. Uk" I tick it, but then I would also need to tick "Southern Europe" ;)

I used this as a basis (but had to shuffle around Northern countries to achieve a clean Scandinavia break):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_geoscheme_for_Eu...

I expect this will skew results.

Germany, France etc. will be turned-off or even insulted by the grouping and feel less impulse to represent than the named countries where a little nationalistic pride will be a motivator.

The reason for this turn-off is somewhat justified by your language - bother, pile, tedious etc. You must be American - jk!