Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (settlements)

message: I have proposed moving Harrisburg (disambiguation) to Harrisburg, which at present is a redirect to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  Discussion of this proposal is on Talk:Harrisburg.  --Una Smith (talk) 22:24, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Harrisburg disambiguation 

message: There is as difference of opinion concerning the interpretation of rules on the place name Duffield. This page used to be at Duffield but was moved to Duffield, Derbyshire when a disambiguation page was created at Duffield. This broke all the existing wiki links. As a compromise I have created a more complete Duffield Disambiguation page at Duffield (disambiguation) and pointed the empty Duffield article at the Duffield, Derbyshire page. Is this correct or should the disambiguation page be at Duffield even though this would break a number of links which would then need to be repaired.? Victuallers (talk) 14:25, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a matter for WP:Requested moves to determine by consensus whether the Derbyshire Duffield is the primary topic. Aside from that, it probably would have been better to move the disambiguation page that had been started at Duffield to Duffield (disambiguation) and then expand that to keep the edit history, but as there were so few edits there is little harm done. Unlike US city naming conventions, I believe UK city naming conventions would not support leaving Duffield as a redirect to Duffield, Derbyshire. So in any case, either  Duffield, Derbyshire should be moved back to Duffield if it is determined to be the primary topic or else Duffield (disambiguation) should be moved to Duffield. I wouldn't worry too much about repairing existing links -- those can be adjusted accordingly depending on the outcome. older ≠ wiser 15:20, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for your prompt advice - oh and nice tag! cheers Victuallers (talk) 15:27, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Any advice? 

message: There is an underlying reasonable assumption that is made about naming conventions, especially about those that are specific to some area of articles (like this one is with respect to U.S. cities), and that is this: naming conventions specify where articles are supposed to be.  The implied corollary to that is that articles are not supposed to be at places other than where the naming conventions dictate.
When we apply this reasoning to this case, we see that the VA city is supposed to be (according to this guideline) at Norfolk, Virginia and is not supposed to be at Norfolk.  How can we argue with that?
At the same time, the county in England is supposed to be at Norfolk, unless it conflicts with some other relatively significant use of that name that is also supposed to be at Norfolk (which the city in VA is not).
Even though they don't state it exactly like that, that is essentially what those who discount the claim of conflict with topics that must be predabbed are arguing, and understandably so.  It's a very practical and reasonable argument that is given credence solely by the existence of specific guidelines, like this one, that mandate predisambiguation.
And, because articles subject to predisambiguation are "supposed to be" at their predabbed titles, and are not "supposed to be" at their plain names, editors of these articles naturally pay less attention to how the article topic is represented at the plain name (making sure the plain name redirects to the article, or the article is linked in a hat note or on a dab page at that plain name) than they would if the article was "supposed to be" at the plain name.  
This is one of the reasons I oppose predisambiguation in any guideline in general, and in the U.S city guideline in particular.  --Born2cycle (talk) 02:21, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  My point here in a nutshell 

message: This page seems to deal exclusively with the question of disambiguation and similar tags, not with the naming of settlements in general (which is dealt with at WP:Naming conventions (geographic names). We ought to either merge the two pages (my preference; possibly with some of the country-specific stuff moved to separate pages), or at least rename this one to indicate its actual topical scope.--Kotniski (talk) 11:41, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think I've successfully merged this with NCGN. If people prefer to keep the disambiguation topic separate, then I think the pages ought to have more transparent names, like "NC (geographic name disambiguation)".--Kotniski (talk) 10:49, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge or rename