Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (places)/Archive 2

message: Hm, I was looking for discussion I half remember about cities and towns in the USA being placed with their state names, eg "Chicago, Illinois". I recall seeing some other articles about naming conventions about specific subjects that seem not to be linked to here. They probably should be. -- Infrogmation 15:30, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It's at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (city names). The two pages need merging. By the by, both pages have a "not a formal policy yet" tag... and the tag is probably inappropiate in both cases! Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 15:37, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Links to other naming conventions 

message: I propose that in disputes over the correct name for a place in the English Wikipedia, those who are not native English speakers be prohibited from voting, though encouraged to advise on the history involved. Reason: native English speakers are more likely to know the native English usage and less likely to have partisan interests. Jamesday 20:36, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: This sounds like a very good guideline to me. Martin 20:57, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal for disputed places

message: Is a Unitary Authority outside its former county?
As a county borough Sunderland was entirely independent of Durham County Council, but remained part of County Durham until the 1974 reorganisation placed it in the new metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear.
Darlington was recently created a unitary authority.  The convention seems to say it must now be described as "formerly part of County Durham".  But surely it is still part of the county, but entirely independent of the county council.
The first unitary authorities in effect were the metropolitan districts after their county councils abolition.  For such authorities to be outside their counties would mean the counties have been abolished in wikipedia, despite 
the convention saying otherwise.
Surely the terms are
"Sunderland, a city in the metropolitan County of Tyne and Wear" and
"Darlington, a unitary authority in County Durham"  garryq 21:25, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The policy is self-contradictory in many places. However, until it can be modified, it is acceptable to say "Darlington, a unitary authority in the traditional county of Durham", which conveys the necessary information accurately. One can also accurately say "Darlington, a unitary authority in the ceremonial county of Durham". However, one cannot accurately say that Darlington is in the (administrative) county of Durham, because it isn't! Neither traditional nor ceremonial counties are used in administration, so if the term "county" be taken solely to mean "administrative county" then all one can say is the terribly enlightening fact that "Darlington is in Darlington"! 80.255 22:00, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: You can blame the government for that one. In their nonsensical local government terminology MK is both a borough and a county of itself. See http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1995/Uksi_19951769_en_2.htm
Constitution of new county of Milton Keynes
  8.—(1)  Milton Keynes shall cease to form part of Buckinghamshire.
     (2)  A new county shall be constituted comprising the area of
          Milton Keynes and shall be named the county of Milton Keynes.
Obviously, this only applies in the narrow field of local government. In ordinary parlance MK does not cease to form part of the traditional county of Buckinghamshire and there is no such thing as 'the county of Milton Keynes', but the current mess of local government terminology makes this extremely difficult. Owain 12:50, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

text: Therein lies the disagreement as to what people think is important and what isn't. To use the Cardiff example, stating 'The city of Cardiff is in the county of Cardiff' is no use whatsoever as both entities are the same thing. Stating 'Cardiff is in the traditional county of Glamorgan' is useful as it places the city in a specific geographical area. The fact that that grographical area has no administrative functions shouldn't be an issue because we are trying to explain where the place is geographically, not administratively. Owain 13:02, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is a "Unitary Authority" 

message: It's legal status is a Borough, the Borough of Milton Keynes.  See Milton Keynes (borough).  The term County of Milton Keynes is complete misnomer.  The same is true of "County of Swindon".  --Concrete Cowboy 23:44, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You can blame the government for that one. In their nonsensical local government terminology MK is both a borough and a county of itself. See http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1995/Uksi_19951769_en_2.htm
Constitution of new county of Milton Keynes
  8.—(1)  Milton Keynes shall cease to form part of Buckinghamshire.
     (2)  A new county shall be constituted comprising the area of
          Milton Keynes and shall be named the county of Milton Keynes.
Obviously, this only applies in the narrow field of local government. In ordinary parlance MK does not cease to form part of the traditional county of Buckinghamshire and there is no such thing as 'the county of Milton Keynes', but the current mess of local government terminology makes this extremely difficult. Owain 12:50, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Whose idea was the nonsensical "County of Milton Keynes"? 

message: It occurs to me that the naming conventions for British counties need to be applied in ways that don't breach other guidelines. In particular, it might be unreasonable to include details of historical counties in the lead section of an article. This is meant to be a concise summary and include only the most major points. If an article mentions these details it should do so in the main body, not the lead section. See the guide to writing better articles, look under the heading 'Lead section'. Chris Jefferies 30 June 2005 19:07 (UTC)
::Therein lies the disagreement as to what people think is important and what isn't. To use the Cardiff example, stating 'The city of Cardiff is in the county of Cardiff' is no use whatsoever as both entities are the same thing. Stating 'Cardiff is in the traditional county of Glamorgan' is useful as it places the city in a specific geographical area. The fact that that grographical area has no administrative functions shouldn't be an issue because we are trying to explain where the place is geographically, not administratively. Owain 13:02, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Addendum: Bear in mind other Wikipedia policies

message: Some place names are replicated for entities of differing levels of geographic significance. For instance, Georgia is both a country and a US state; Luxembourg is a country, a district of the country, a city and a province of Belgium; the name Limburg is used for provinces in both Belgium and the Netherlands. A consistent approach should be taken when disambiguating place name clashes, as some places are more important than others.
The hierarchy that should be followed is as follows:
* Country (e.g. France)
** Region (e.g. Canadian Maritimes)
*** Province, county (UK) or state (e.g. Bavaria)
**** County (US) or local district (e.g. Humboldt County, California)
***** City or town (e.g. Oslo)
****** Submunicipality (e.g. City of Westminster)
When disambiguating identical names, priority should be given to the highest-ranking place. Therefore Luxembourg the country takes a higher rank than the province or the city; the hierarchy for disambiguation is as follows:
* Luxembourg (the country)
** Luxembourg, province of Belgium
*** Luxembourg (district)
**** Luxembourg (city)
-- Anon.
*In some countries, city can be larger, smaller, or same size as county. So the above county > city thing doesn't work globally. --Menchi 21:51, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Hierarchy of place names and disambiguation guidelines

message: There are a few important factors to consider when clarifying/qualifying and disambiguating names.
# Ease of use by wiki-editors.
#* Will most editors naturally link to the right article in their writing?  How difficult will standard written usage of the term be?
# Ease of use by readers.
#* Will the disambiguation and/or clarifications be clear?  Will readers be confused by seeing one article rather than another?  Will they know where to go to find the information they want?
#* Will special-focus readers be able to find what they want, if one of the conflicting terms is only used in a narrow context?
# Conceptual/field-related importance; Propriety, Justice, Fairness
#* How should the various articles be named, in an ideal world (where no writer or reader is confused)?
Three common dab situations are:
# A common, important term conflicts with an uncommon, niche, or derivative term
# A common term conflicts with a specific, important term in a different context
# Two important terms in similar context conflict with one another.
(There are other combinations of these situations, but let's start with these.)
In the first case, we agree the common/wide-use term should get "term", the other terms should get "term (clarif)", and the main "term" page should have a note on it pointing readers to the other pages:
* the note is generally at the top, unless the other uses are really minor in comparison; in which case it is at the bottom. 
* for one or two dab terms, the note can look like "For the clarif-1, see term (clarif 1).  For the clarif-2, see term (clarif 2)".
* for two or more dab terms, create a dab page at "term (disambiguation)" and have a note like "for other uses of term, see term (disambiguation)". 
In the second case, both editors and readers in one context may not be thinking of the use in the other context, and may therefore be quite confused to be directed to the wrong page (or may regularly link to the wrong page).  consider polish.  There is agreement that visitors to polish should see a dab page, but I think it should be via a redirect to polish (disambiguation) -- that makes it crystal clear, before one gets past the first H1, that this is not the final page any reader was looking for.  
In the third case, I think the shared context and the magnitude of any popularity/population difference is key.  When the context is almost completely shared by the different terms (as with Luxembourg (country) and Luxembourg (city), or as with the various Fame articles), it makes sense for the original name/event (the country; the film) to occupy the unclarified name, and link to the others.   When the context is only partly shared (as with Georgia (country) and Georgia (U.S. state)), I prefer an explicit (disambiguation) page, with only a redirect at the unclarified name.  +sj+
: I must confess I was the one who moved "Fame (movie, TV series, and theme song)" to "Fame", and I want very much to be able to move that to "Fame (disambiguation)"... but until there is some consensus on what to put at the unclarified Fame, I'm leaving it as is. +sj+ 07:33, 2004 May 18 (UTC)
Applying this proposal to the above examples:
* Luxembourg is closely related to Luxembourg (province of Belgium), Luxembourg (district), and Luxembourg (city); they all share the same name origin, and none greatly eclipses the country.  So we can use the above-suggested hierarchy to assign the unclarified name to the country.
* Fame (movie) is closely related to Fame (television), Fame (musical), and Fame (song) -- the latter three all named for and derived from the first.  The other common use of fame is a dicdef which doesn't have its own article.  So we can assign the unclarif. name to the film.
* Georgia (country) and Georgia (U.S. State) are linguistically unrelated and in somewhat different contexts, though both are placenames.  People can be divided fairly neatly among those who first think of the country and those who first think of the state when they hear the name.  The articles do not mention one another.  As a result, a dab page is created at Georgia (disambiguation), and the unclarified name is redirected there.
* Cambridge, England, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and other places named Cambridge (disambiguation):  all are cities, all were named after the old and renowned city in England, and none vastly eclipse the original in size or popularity, so the original city gets the unclarified page.
* Santiago de Chile, Santiago de Compostela, and other places named Santiago: all are cities, all were named after Santiago the patron saint of Spain, but Santiago de Compostela was by far the first.  However, unlike the case above, the original Santiago (population 100,000; capital of an autonomous region) is in some ways eclipsed by Santiago de Chile (population 5,000,000; capital of a country).  So neither gets an unclarified article title (and the current page at Santiago should be redirected to Santiago (disambiguation)).
* Azerbaijan, and the Iranian provinces West and East Azarbaijan:  All are named for the same thing, in the same part of the world.  The country is higher on the heirarchy up above, and larger and better-known than the provinces.  It should clearly get the unclarified article name.  Since the Iranian provinces are related, their articles should be linked-to from the main article.  (I just added a dab mesg at the top of Azerbaijan; before that, there was no mention of Iranian provinces on the page. +sj+ 08:22, 2004 May 18 (UTC))
: (Who wrote that? User SJ? Never heard of him.) But I am sure I will hear more of you, SJ, as when it comes to city names, common sense is a most uncommon quality, and your examples just above are full of it. I hereby nominate you to be our Tsar of place name confusion. Tannin 09:40, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another proposal 

message: Is there a convention for referring to a geographical location at a historical moment, now in a different nation-state than at time of the event in question?  For example, the List of earthquakes makes reference to places as being in the United States, not being incorporated into same at the time.  Is this as per the convention, or ought they to refer to Spanish Empire, Mexico, etc, or flag as "in present day", or some such formula? Alai
:For clarity, maybe both should be indicated. Maurreen 06:15, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, where both are relevant, both should be mentioned. For an article about a modern place, the current name should be used. But if the article has a history section, the previous name(s) should be mentioned there. If the article is about an historical event or person it should use the name that was current at the time but should probably also say 'currently in xyz'. Chris Jefferies 14:02, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Historical places

message: There's a discussion on standardization of country names in titles (at least for categories) on Wikipedia:Categories for deletion which may be of interest. -- Beland 02:30, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Country names in category titles