Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (settlements)/Archive 8

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Chicago

There is a proposed move that goes against current naming conventions at Talk:Chicago/Archive#Name_format. violet/riga (t) 19:41, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The decision made was to keep it at Chicago, Illinois, do not move to Chicago as it is an issue about naming conventions and not an individual move. Petersam 19:39, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Australian town and suburb names (again!?)

I've added the outcome of the last vote to the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (city names) page, before we go round again. This convention has been the accepted practice for the last four months, at least. --ScottDavis 14:03, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Requested move of New York City to New York, New York

A WP:RM request has been placed to move the article New York City to New York, New York. If you have an opinion on this please express by following the link Talk:New York City#Requested move and adding your missive there. Philip Baird Shearer 10:55, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

New proposal on U.S. cities

How's this for a proposal on the U.S. cities: Articles on cities in the United States that are regional centers go under [[City name]] when possible: Chicago, Illinois, New York City, New York, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. If disambiguation is needed, [[ City name, State]], is used (the "comma convention", as in Phoenix, Arizona, Washington, D.C., or Portland, Oregon). Neighborhoods, community areas, etc. will be at [[Neighborhood, City name]] or [[Neighborhood, City name, State]] as appropriate, as in Near North Side, Chicago, or Lower East Side, Manhattan. Suburbs and smaller towns will be under [[ City name, State]], such as West Allis, Wisconsin, Savannah, Georgia, and Fremont, California.

Reasoning

I submitted this rule to make U.S. cities consistent with nearly every other country. (See my list of cities that can be just [[City name]] articles at User:Dralwik/Cities to suggest changes in what cities are important enough for inclusion.) This proposal will be changed often.

The suburb rule is due to their relative obscurity outside of their respective metro areas.

Dralwik 1 July 2005 21:05 (UTC)

Support

  1. A good policy would be to name a city article based on whatever the majority of its inter-wiki links call the place. For instance, almost all articles referring to Chicago would link to just "Chicago" while smaller cities would be far more likely to link to a "city, state name" format. One reason to do it this way is because it is a good indication of what title most people would likely type into the search box for that city. Redirects might seem rather innocent at first, except you need to consider that these always get routed through the search quiry and can lead to considerable delays for people with slower connections. We should always think of the readers in cases like this, and not create needless formalities that slow things down. --Jleon 1 July 2005 23:59 (UTC)
  2. Support. See my comments in the above page. G-Man 2 July 2005 18:51 (UTC)
  3. This is late, but nothing is ever too late with software... no one ever brought up the common usage guideline of Wikipedia and how it should apply to cities and city neighborhoods. Listing Hollywood under Hollywood, Los Angeles, California is a violation of that guideline, since the most common name for Hollywood is, well, Hollywood. --Serge 23:21, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Can you please give your reasoning for this proposal? We've pretty well moved everything to the existing naming convention, so a new change would involved a large effort. There are redirects for editors who are lazy and just write Chicago. Consistency is a useful quality in an encyclopedia. Also, how would this affect neighborhoods, which are currently named [placename, cityname, statename]. Would they also drop the extra designations? -Willmcw June 30, 2005 23:45 (UTC)
  2. I concur with Willmcw. The current convention is consistent and works well. Dralwik's suggested policy change would create a massive mess across WP, especially in the neighborhood articles. I suppose that for some cities, we could rename them as follows: Westwood, Los Angeles, California --> "Westwood (Los Angeles neighborhood)." But this would promptly break down for cities like Portland, Oregon and Portland, Maine (and would result in even longer names for neighborhood pages than we already have now), which just goes to show the efficiency of the current system. Even worse, there are situations where a place name refers to a city in one part of a state and a neighborhood within a city in another part of the same state. Westwood and Los Altos are just two examples within California, and I'm sure I could easily find a few more if I had the time. --Coolcaesar 1 July 2005 00:19 (UTC)
  3. Even as amended I still don't think that Dralwik's proposal makes sense. Another problem is that it is difficult to determine which cities are noteworthy enough to justify putting the main article at the short name, beyond the 10 largest in terms of population. For example, most Americans on the West Coast know that Bakersfield refers to Bakersfield, California, but I'm not so sure if people away from here would know that. WP already gets visited by wackos all the time who try to put obscure malls (in Alabama, of all places) into the List of shopping malls article, or who add small cities like Nashville to the Global city article. The underlying problem is that most people cannot afford to do grand tours of world cities (e.g., London, Paris, Rome, or New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc.) to realize that their own local city is relatively small and unimportant. Implementing a systemwide naming policy that is based on prominence or notability of a city would only make this existing problem even worse. --Coolcaesar 1 July 2005 22:28 (UTC)
  4. The existing naming convention works well. Leave as is. —Morven July 1, 2005 22:38 (UTC)
  5. I oppose as well. More and more countries are moving towards this method. (See Japan, Mexico, Australia, and of course Canada which was with the US from the beginning on this) -- Earl Andrew - talk 2 July 2005 07:46 (UTC)
  6. Oppose. Inter-country consistency is just not valuable enough to be worth the effort; the mechanical part is comparatively easy, but the real cost is in editors reprogramming themselves, and in arguing over whether Cupertino is important (hey, being the HQ of Apple Computer makes it important :-) ). We're continually making loads of busywork for ourselves - let's cut down on that and focus on adding new content instead. Stan 2 July 2005 23:28 (UTC)
  7. I a little late to the discussion, and its already been withdrawn, but I still want to register my oppose. BlankVerse 08:44, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Comments

I don't mind that Los Angeles redirects to Los Angeles, California, but I think that it is highly wrong to have the CITY of Los Angeles at Los Angeles. As the Los Angeles (disambiguation) page clearly shows, Los Angeles is a city, a county, a geographical feature (Los Angeles Basin), a region with ill-defined boundaries, an airport, etc. The city of Los Angeles absolutely should not be at Los Angeles. BlankVerse 08:44, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Final consensus

For the benefit of any Wikipedians following this issue, now and in the future: Dralwik withdrew his proposal on July 3. Current naming policy for U.S. cities remains in place. --Coolcaesar 03:37, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Source of withdrawal? Theshibboleth 23:09, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
If you look at the page history, you'll see that Dralwik deleted this entire section on July 3 with a note that he was withdrawing his proposal[1]. I restored the section so that we won't have to thrash through these arguments all over again in the near future (at least for a year or two). --Coolcaesar 03:02, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Convention for Europe?

I was wondering if there was a convention for cities in Europe, as some names appear dozens of times. For example, there are many cities named Bergheim. If I were to link to one in Bavaria, should I use:

Bergheim (Bavaria) or Bergheim, Bavaria

The former is the general way we disambiguate, but the latter would fall in with US and Canada conventions for including the state name (Bavaria is a state in Germany).

-- Reinyday 23:38, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

  • In the UK it disambigs by Merton, Oxfordshire, with Oxfordshire being the county. However, there seems little standardisation amongst the European categories. I would suggest the US, Canada and UK conventions should follow, and this be made a standard. Hiding talk 19:49, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

German cities normally have a geographical descriptor to disambiguate them, don't they. Baden bei Wien, Frankfurt am Main, and so forth. Those should be used when possible. john k 17:07, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Convention for African cities

Proposal: Where possible, articles on places in Africa should go under placename. Where disambiguation is needed, they should go under placename, nation. Thus Addis Ababa but Shire, Ethiopia.

This convention follows current practice for every nation on the continent. The only exception which may need to be made is in South Africa, where some towns are disambiguated in the form x, South Africa and others by province. Warofdreams 15:11, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. - BanyanTree 16:30, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
Agree. The provincial disambiguation is presumably because there are multiple towns with the same name in South Africa. Are there no other African countries where this is the case? Greenman 20:04, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
While I've not come across any, it seems likely that there will be such cases when we begin starting articles on smaller towns and villages. In this case, I would suggest a disambiguation in the form placename, province, nation. But, regardless, this is not the reasoning for the disambiguation by province in South Africa - see, for instance, Charlestown. Warofdreams 09:24, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

I've added the convention to the policy page. Warofdreams 15:00, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Consolidating pages

Please see Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions for a discussion on consolidating Redundant or competing pages: Places, countries, etc. Maurreen (talk) 17:01, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Japanese cities

A discussion of naming conventions for articles on Japanese cities has been opened at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles). john k 17:08, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

"Neutral names"?

User:Owain has been moving some articles on Welsh towns to "netural names" - i.e., names which do not mention the county. For instance, Bethesda, Gwynedd has been moved to Bethesda, Wales and Talybont, Barmouth, Gwynedd to Talybont, Barmouth. While these names are uncontroversial in the sense that it is universally accepted that they are accurate, they differ from conventions applied across the UK and are therefore unpredictable. We could change the convention for Wales so that all place in the principality are disambiguated in this new fashion. Does anyone have any opinions on this? Warofdreams talk 16:57, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

(discussion copied from User talk:Owain I see you have had an idea of some "neutral names" for places in Wales. While I haven't had time to give any thought to whether this is a good idea or not, would you please propose these at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (city names) for discussion as they presently go against agreed policy. thanks, Warofdreams talk 14:09, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I had another look at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (city names) and some of my original points listed on that page! :) I don't think we ever got to an agreed position regarding the actual naming of the articles in contentious cases, but in conjunction with the current "Neutral naming" thinking on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (places)#Neutral naming I was bold and extended it to the naming of the contentious articles themselves. I have noticed that various other articles don't use the "Town, county" format, such as Lancaster, England, Perth, Scotland, &c, so my changes shouldn't be controversial. Owain 14:41, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
I can see your thinking, but it doesn't look like there was ever agreement on the "neutral naming". As you point out, there wasn't agreement on which counties to use, either, but it was agreed to use counties - which is in line with the practice across the rest of the UK, so it'd be good to discuss changes to this policy on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (city names). I'll copy this discussion there. Warofdreams talk 16:57, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Category:Washington, District of Columbia as conventional category name

I initiated a Category rename of Cat:Washington, D.C. to Cat:Washington, District of Columbia to resolve the issue of the proper category name for that city. Participants in this project may find the supporting list of naming conventions useful. (SEWilco 06:43, 15 September 2005 (UTC))

guideline

I've added the guideline tag because it looks like discussion has died down here, and also, being a guideline doesn't remove the fact that discussion can be ongoing. Hiding talk 13:26, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Neighborhoods

Should neighborhoods in major cities be named as:

  1. Lower East Side, Manhattan
  2. Lower East Side (Manhattan)
  3. Lower East Side - in this case, disambiguation isn't really an issue and this could work.

When there is issue of disambiguous names, then we need to use #1 or #2. I primarily use style #1, as that's what I most often see used, but sometimes there is inconsistency (see: Category:Washington,_D.C._neighborhoods). Before moving articles such as Logan Circle (Washington, D.C.) and Chinatown (Washington, DC), I want to make sure there is consensus about the naming styles for neighborhoods. In the case of Lower East Side, Manhattan, I'm tempted to move it to just Lower East Side. ---Aude 15:21, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

I would suggest that moving to an non-disambiguated name should only be done after a bit of research to see if any other city has a Lower East Side, or equivalent. Neighborhood names have a habit of being re-used. Of course, if one usage is so much more prevalent than the other, then perhaps primary topic disambiguation is warranted. —Morven 17:45, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Districts and neighborhoods of American citites

The standard of [city, state] has been well-established. However there does not seem to a comparable standard for neighborhoods. In Category:Los Angeles neighborhoods we moved all such places to [district, city, state]. This seems like a logical extension of the city convention. I had recently gone through some cities and moved articles into this format, ones which had been a variety of different formats - [district], [district, city], [district (city)], [district, state], and [district (city, state)]. Even within a single city many variations were present. Though this standard seems logical and desirable to me, some editors have raised questions about this naming. Is there any reason it should not be a formal convention? -Willmcw 01:04, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I , for one, do not see any. I agree with you that the most logical format is [district, city, state]. --Coolcaesar 01:39, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

district,city,state violates common name guideline

I totally and completely disagree with the proposal of the [[district, city, state]] convention as it totally violates a governing convention of Wiki naming to use the most commonly used names for article when possible. Hollywood, Los Angeles, California? Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, California? La Jolla, San Diego, California? These are totally contrived and completely uncommon. This convention is a terrible idea and I suggest that all articles that were changed to conform to this contrived standard be changed back to refer to their common names (except when there is an actual conflict and the name in question is an actual disambiguation page, of course). --Serge 23:15, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

So your suggestion is that every place name be decided upon independently - that La Jolla be just La Jolla, that Hollywood be just Hollywood, and that other places are fought over place by place, with no consistent plan? How do we decide, place by place, whether one name is more common than another? The lack of a convention leads to anarchy, which is what we've had in some place names. See above. -Willmcw 23:25, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
If there is a conflict, then there is a conflict, and the name with the conflict should be a disambiguation page. That's a standard way for dealing with conflicts in Wikipedia for all articles. For example, in the case of Brentwood, there should be a disambiguation. And, there is! In the case of Hollywood, there is no dispute. The CA one is clearly much more famous then the FL one, which hardly anyone has heard of. Hence, the Hollywood page redirects to the CA Hollywood. That's a done deal. No conflict. All I'm saying is it should just be named that, and Hollywood, Los Angeles, California (Jeez that is cumbersome!) should be the redirect. Nothing else changes. In the case of La Jolla, there is no conflict whatsoever. It's a contrived convention for the sake of itself and creates more problems than it solves. --Serge 23:28, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I concur. The main problem is that there are simply too many names which have been reused throughout the United States for neighborhoods and cities. Maybe one could say that Hollywood, Los Angeles, California deserves to be at Hollywood because it is the most famous Hollywood, as opposed to Hollywood, Florida, but that will not work for neighborhoods and cities that are of equal or reasonably debatable notability. For example, Los Altos is both a well-known city in Northern California (Los Altos, California) and a well-known neighborhood in the city of Long Beach in Southern California. Plus it's the name of two places in Mexico and a former state in Central America. Putting the Long Beach neighborhood at Los Altos would simply confuse people looking for the well-known Northern California city or the Central American state.

After looking around my own map software (Microsoft Streets and Trips 2005), I've noted several other major examples of significant neighborhood names that are used in several cities or are also the names of cities:

  • Five Points (neighborhood in both San Diego and Denver)
  • Uptown (both Minneapolis, Albuquerque, and Denver)
  • Midtown (both Atlanta, San Jose and Phoenix)
  • Capitol Hill (Portland, Oregon; Washington, D.C., and Denver)
  • Riverdale (neighborhood in Edmonton and New York City, plus used as name of numerous cities)
  • Englewood (neighborhood in Jacksonville, Columbus, Chicago, plus used as name of numerous cities)
  • Hyde Park (neighborhood in San Juan, Tampa, Los Angeles, Chicago, Cincinnati, Boston, etc.)

There are many more names like this, of course, but I think these are enough to show the pattern. The point is that Willmcw is right: Developing a consensus on the significance of specific neighborhoods versus specific cities versus other specific places on a place-by-place basis would take way too much time and energy. Imagine the three-ring circus you would get putting editors from those various cities I just mentioned against each other! The better solution is to simply disambiguate with the [district, city, state] system already in use for many neighborhoods. --Coolcaesar 01:19, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Put the articles in [district, city, state] and quibble over redirect pages. And I'll use "Springfield" as my example of fame fighting multiplicity. (SEWilco 05:08, 5 December 2005 (UTC))
And that solves what? You still have the squabbles (so it doesn't solve that), and it creates names for famous places like Hollywood to be something contrived and cumbersome like Hollywood, Los Angeles, California (a new problem). Hmm, solves nothing, and creates clunky names for pages that get the most visits. What is the point? --Serge 23:28, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
The point is to avoid situations like these: Category:Oklahoma City neighborhoods, Category:Cincinnati neighborhoods, in which each place's title uses a different form. -Willmcw 00:06, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Also, let's not re-write the guideline until we've finished discussing the matter here. Thanks, -Willmcw 00:10, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I did not re-write the guideline. I only updated it to reflect the consensus that has actually been achieved here, rather than to leave the false impression that there is a consensus to use the contrived and cumbersome convention even for city names that have no conflict. I am going to revert your revert of my update. If you feel it's not an accurate assessment on the status of this issue, then improve its accuracy, but please do not simply remove it again. Thanks. Also, your last update to this page reverted corrections I made to my own comments. Please be careful. Thanks for that too. --Serge 00:30, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Where exactly do you see a consensus for the change that you made? olderwiser 00:58, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Sorry about taking out Serge's corrections, the software has recently changed how it handles editing from a diff, making it easier to inadvertently revert a recent change when making an edit. -Willmcw 01:00, 6 December 2005 (UTC)