Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (settlements)/Archive 16

message: After looking at the history and page moves of these pages here, it's pretty clear that there really wasn't solid consensus for these moves-just the luck and folly of circumstance. The history of discussions on this page shows that there is no concrete definition of "exceptional" to set as guidelines for our "exceptions". Rather then promote discussion and generations of true consensus to change this guideline, the presence of Chicago and Philadelphia at their current location only encourages the silly game of "exception hunting" and trying to hopefully sneak another page move under the radar. I think we should have a serious discussion about the benefits (or disadvantages) of moving both cities back to the City, State convention. I think discussing it on this page is more fruitful then just proposing the page moves and debating it on the city page. However I will drop a note on both those pages as well as a general Village Pump note to  get more input.AgneCheese/Wine 05:11, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agne, there's  been serious discussion of changes to the conventions which would allow for some plausible rules about what cities get to be at "City" and what at "City, State."  This discussion always goes precisely nowhere, largely because those of you who want to keep everything at "City, State," well, want to keep  everything at  "City, State."  There's no actual room for compromise here, and given that there's a lot of people with fairly strong views on both sides of the question, that means there is, so far as I can tell, no room for consensus.  As such, I'd rather  keep Chicago and  Philadelphia where they are as a reminder to everyone that this issue is not settled.   If they got moved back, then all that would happen is that  we'd still not be able to agree on any general modification of  the  rule.  I.e., those of you who like "City, State" for  all cities would have a conclusive victory, achieved by the  back door.   I can see why you want to do this, but I can't imagine why those of us who want to change the rule would support it. john k 05:42, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is room for compromise, there just hasn't been compelling reasons or alternatives given yet. Furthermore, while there is maybe 6-9 "regulars" on this page, there is a larger community out there that could be swayed and convinced. You don't need to sway only us "regulars" to achieve consensus if the better interest of the community is served with your changes. Second, I'm not sure about your logic for keeping Chicago and Philadelphia where they are. There is always debate about the inclusion of blogs as reliable sources. Should we allow links to Perez Hilton.com on articles so that we can remind people that the issue is not settled? Thirdly, this is not a back door attempt to achieve a desired result. If a desired result was all I wanted then I would patiently wait till some of the City Only folks are on wiki-break or leave the project and then submit a pagemove request and hope that 5 days pass without much fan fair and sneak it through. However I respect the convention and see value in discussing the matter on the fuller scale of the convention rather then game a system or stir up a "faux" sense of consensus. AgneCheese/Wine 01:18, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

text: I'd also like to add that, whatever the consensus on those moves, it's no worse than the original consensus for the U.S. city naming guidelines as a whole, which were decided upon by a vote of 3 to 2 in 2001, or some such.  In both cases, the power of inertia seems to be the key element here. john k 06:06, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

text: No, per previous arguments. There's no evidence that these are not the primary topics to belong at these names.  -- nae'blis 06:46, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Obviously Primary Topic (just like disambiguation) is not the be-all-end-all consideration for naming conventions. Take Cheddar, Gouda, Newark and Cork as examples. AgneCheese/Wine 01:26, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

text: That template would say that "It has been proposed below that CITY be renamed and moved to CITY, STATE." Has such a proposal been made? (And doesn't all this use of the passive voice make your skin crawl?:-))--BillFlis 10:34, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

text: No.  The issue appears to be more of a question rather then a request.  My gut says that this is probably not yet a request to move.  Vegaswikian 17:00, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Your gut is right. As this is a naming convention issue I believe it is is more fruitful to have a serious discussion on the matter and its affect on the convention rather then put up a move request and hope to sneak it through. While the input of the editors to those articles is obviously valued (and sought for by my notice on their talk pages), the issue is bigger then just those two city articles and deserves a broader discussion then what a page move request can offer. AgneCheese/Wine 00:59, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move [[Chicago]] and [[Philadelphia]] back? 

message: Watching this discussion over the past  (year?) has been both a frustrating and troubling experience. If everyone based their discussion criteria/motives on reason, it would be very possible to come to a quick and unanimously accepted solution. Yet this page is filled with arguments that are not based on reason, rather motivated by a personal preference whose motives, to date, only I seem to have tried to discern. Anyhow, meaning no offence for the term, the more dishonest "dead-ender" arguments/methods of argument I've observed are the following:
* Biased 'fact'-finding. Namely finding any and every reason supporting a pre-selected "preferred" methodology (and the opposite for all opposing methods) - this is quite the opposite of reason.
* "Interpreting" pre-existing yet irrelevent Wiki rules as "proof" for the above. Many here are citing Wiki conventions that were never written with "City, State", "City", or even naming conventions in mind. This is both pointless and obscure - if the rule already specifically applies to the topic one is discussing, its language will already make this clear for all.
* Mis-'naming' practices. Anything outside of an article subject's proper name is not its name. Anything outside an article's name is... normally pointless in the title, unless it is disambiguation. Yet a few would insist that their title add-ons are not disambiguation! Is the add-on the name itself? Then why is it there? This is a key 'around the bush' log-jam of an argument.
* Narrow self-interest. Few wikipedians contributing to articles about the places where/near where they live seem to understand that the articles they are titling are not only for the eyes of their own countrymen.
The only solidly-reasoned arguments I have seen to date are:
* Too many articles already use this convention (linking). Mind you, this is an "is it worth all the work" argument, and not one for a convention itself per se.
I don't want to be cynical, but unless we get around to some real and honest reasoning, it's going to be "majority rules!" that rules the roost on this convention - and it may just end up that way anyway. It's obvious that if a majority of English-speakers use something similar to "city, state" that it will become a standard - but the explanation of this is more reasons of comfort than anything else. 
What's silliest in all this is that every country (save the tiniest) in the world uses some sort of "local" disambiguation, but only English articles are disambiguated (though argued "not") in this way. This is very narrow-minded - and perhaps even a tad xenephobic (or xene-ignorant) - from my point of view, and perhaps also that of any other "English-foreigner". THEPROMENADER 10:07, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why this discussion is going in circles 

message: :Article names should reflect the correct Chilean spelling, however, it may be advisable to include a redirect page using the common English spelling of a name to aid users in searching. For example in writing about the city of Pucón, the article would be named Pucón, Chile and have a redirect page of Pucon, Chile or even just Pucon (without the accents) which are not used in English.
This, as phrased, is contrary to policy: 
Name your pages in English and place the native transliteration on the first line of the article unless the native form is more commonly recognized by readers than the English form. (WP:NC#Use English words) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:14, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contrary to policy 

message: The current Chilean policy includes this:
:Give preference to naming articles about settlements as City, Chile to help telegraph to readers that the article is:
:* about a settlement and,
:* in the country of Chile.
Shouldn't unique Chilean city names not be disambiguated with , Chile? --Serge 18:23, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chile 

message: I suspect that many editors are not commenting on this discussion or trying to forge a new consensus.  If and when the discussion gets moving please post a clear announcement under a new heading so that everyone knows that something productive is happening.  If anyone thinks there is a consensus to change anything, follow the above suggestion.  Lack of participation in the discussions on this page right now do not mean consensus or support for anything.  Vegaswikian 00:15, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Precisely. I've seen nothing new in any of the proposals and have little interest in rehashing the same old tediously tendentious arguments. older ≠ wiser 00:20, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've done my best to inject a wider reasoning into the discussion, but even that has been buried under loads of garbled and disorganised cruft. Let's see what the coming weeks bring. THEPROMENADER 07:55, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

text:  Bkonrad, if someone makes a proposal, it's hardly fair to claim insufficient interest to make the effort to note your disagreement, but then go ahead and support a revert due to an alleged "lack of consensus".  Silence implies consent.  You can't have it both ways.  My proposal was posted and discussed for a week before I made a single change. Very little of the commentary indicated opposition to the change.  What few comments that were made, were addressed by myself and others. Then, days after the change was already made, there were new changes being implemented, without any effort to propose/discuss on this take page, directly on the project page. Regardless what our differences in views may be, surely you do not defend such blatant disregard for basic Wikipedia process.  --Serge 20:13, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Many editors are tired of reading the same discussions over and over so they have tuned out.  They are likely supporting the current consensus stalemate.  So they need to know if something is actually at the point where a change might happen.  So if changes are made from discussions buried in the above voluminous repetitive discussions, these editors must know about it.  Expect changes that do not get a strong consensus to be reverted. Vegaswikian 20:20, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

text: *And Serge is likely to hear silent consent where there has in fact been vocal opposition, as with his latest sentence about Chicago and Philadelphia. It was immediately opposed by Vegaswikian, after which the whole question of having exceptions at all was re-aired for a new set of ears. This included Scott Davis's elqouent justification for the present system; and his arguments would in fact support the prohibition of exceptions. Serge, please pay some respect to what actually happened; it is, after all, still on this page. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:28, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  That sort of predjudice serves no constructive purpose. Same as making a "choice" and finding any and every argument/means to make it stick - what counts most is the reasoning behind that choice. You're both guilty of leaving reasoning behind in favour of your own pet preferences. THEPROMENADER 22:17, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

text:  PMAnderson, Scott Davis's "elqouent justification for the present system" was a non-sequitur to the proposal I made.   It doesn't even address the proposal, much less state an objection to it.  It's still there if you want to read it.  --Serge 22:26, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wake us up if something happens to move towards a compromise 

message: We seem to be encountering a lot of the issues raised here at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (schools). The current proposal is that school names which require disambiguation should follow the format of these naming conventions guidelines, in other words in case of doubt check the article name to see how the place was named. This method seems to work well for most countries so far. With US schools the normal disambiguation method would therefore be Any High School (White Lake Township, Michigan). (hence my earlier interest in the name). However, if we follow the US article names we get some very odd discrepancies. We'd have Any High School (Los Angeles, California), but Any High School (Chicago) and Any High School (New York City). Some further input on this issue would be most welcome at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (schools).  Dahliarose 10:13, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Places in disambiguated US school names 

message: Well; I think the default for human-named settlements, in or out of the United States, should be that they should include a disambiguator or qualifier, because people tend to name places after other places.  I'd accept country-specific guidelines for exceptions to that guideline.  I don't have a clear guideline to that effect, or I'd propose it.  Probably the best I can do is: All settlements should have a disambiguator or qualifier, unless there is a clear consensus that the settlement is the most common use of the name and that it would be surprising if a more common usage occured.  The type of disambiguator used should be country-specific.  In the United States, Canada, and Australia, the disambiguator used is the comma convention with the state or province.  (In the United Kingdom, settlements are merely left ambiguous, as they are in common usage.)  — Arthur Rubin |  (talk) 19:43, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: (De-indented Arthur's proposal; hope you don't mind) I would support this for the United States only, as it seems more clear than the current US guideline, but I can't support it for the entire world. The default use of disambiguation is completely at odds with the rest of Wikipedia. Λυδαcιτγ 19:57, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And  Arthur's global proposal does raise problems for, say, Germany, where there is a perfectly standard method of disambiguation, but one which does not generalize. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:04, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: (edit conflicted too many times to count) At this point my personal preference is still to maintain the status quo. The naming scheme currently in place for US city articles is acceptable, and changing it to better match more generic naming schemes hasn't got any more tangible benefit beyond "consistency for consistency's sake". I think consistency is good - which is why, if consensus believes we should change it I am willing to work to help conform to a new standard - but when that's the only argument it doesn't feel real compelling to me. Really all I want would be to have some conclusion on the matter, whether we will maintain the "disambiguate by default" scheme or move to a "disambiguate only when necessary" scheme. All I really object to is having a scheme which leaves the door wide open for a broad interpretation of exception to the scheme. If there are exceptions, they should be few and the justifications for them should be narrow. ɑʀкʏɑɴ 20:05, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I hadn't realised that my innocent suggestion would invoke such a frenzied response! From a UK perspective can I just say that most people will have heard of all the main US cities but won't necessarily know which state they're in. To make it easy for people to find these articles it makes sense to me to use a simple easy-to-find and easy-to-link-to format. If I type Boston into Wikipedia I would expect to be directed to the American Boston as it is by far and away the largest place of this name. At the moment if I type in Boston the page is automatically redirected to Boston, Massachusetts, which seems completely illogical. There might well be a case for smaller US place names to follow the town/city, state format, but I see no reason for big cities to do so. It is also impossible to set a worldwide guideline as local usage varies so much. There are many UK places which simply wouldn't conform to the normal town, county format (the nearest we have to the US city, state format). You would end up with all sorts of peculiar combinations such as Manchester, Greater Manchester; Bristol, Bristol (Bristol is both a town and a county), etc, which are quite artificial and aren't in common usage. London places would be a complete nightmare. If Manchester needs differentiating we simply say that it's in England and the same with Bristol. In any case both these cities are large enough not to require the additional disambiguator. Dahliarose 20:28, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

text: (edit conflict) A possible fly-in-the-ointment is the use of "uniqueness" as a measure. If uniqueness is the mere non-existence of another WP article on a place with the same name, then we're setting up a bit of a homesteading or domain name snatching scenario. Because the existence of articles is heavily biased towards the "first world", similarly named places in Latin America, Asia, and Africa will be relegated to the dab position regardless of whether they are bigger, more important, or whatever - just because they were created second, third, etc.  I think that a more holistic approach must be taken. For most European places, we don't dab unless necessary, even municipalities with a few dozen people are at "name" (e.g., Martisberg, Switzerland, 24 souls). Nearly all U.S. places are City, State or City, County/Parish, State, even where the place is the (by far) most notable of the name or even when there's no aparent need to dab (e.g., Anaheim, California).  Perhaps a more flexible approach would be that everywhere gets put at "name" unless a need to dab is present; redirects all round.  As to where gets preference in a dab, usually this is obvious, for a few places it isn't and choices will get made, and if all else fails "name" becomes a dab (e.g., Guadalajara). Carlossuarez46 20:44, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably not as much of a problem as one might think. The reason for the American English habit which our convention reflects is that names like Springfield or Madison Township occur in several states; but neither of them occurs anywhere outside the United States and the other English speaking countries. There will be some Spanish-named places in the Southwest and Florida, but not that many. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:56, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm glad that you clearly admit that the U.S. convention is understandable only to U.S. citizens. Now, how about thinking about the rest of the world looking for U.S. places? THEPROMENADER 01:31, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I regret disappointing you; but I did not say, and do not believe, that the U.S. conventions are intelligible only to U.S. citizens. (The UK conventions are a different matter.) I said they were American English; which it is only reasonable to use on American subjects. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:42, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  ...to be read only by American readers? Again, this is more than a question of language - it is a question of knowledge. THEPROMENADER 17:47, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, it's a straw man. No one has suggested that Springfield, Illinois be read only by American readers; it can be read by Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders... The national  dialects of English are mutually intelligible.   Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:16, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Arthur Rubin

message: I do find it strange that, while we are attempting to open a "world convention" debate, that the "U.S. - only" question resurfaces in ignorance of the same. Yes, I understand the point of your exigences/questions, but their timeliness seem to deny/waylay any possibility of a world convention. Patience, perhaps? THEPROMENADER 22:44, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Timely re-opeining of the "US" issue?

message: Suppose a reader wants a Cambridge in the United States, but doesn't know which one. First of all, since we have articles on at least seventeen of them, excluding Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania, if that's all he knows, there's a limited amount we can do for him. 
But solvitur ambulando; if he searches on Cambridge, he will get to that article, which is about Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, which he will immediately see is in England. He will see two links: one to Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is the most well known (and so most likely to be what he wants. The other link leads to Cambridge (disambiguation), which has a list of the American Cambridges.
If the name of the state means nothing to him, his only way of finding the article he wants is to plow through the list (or invent other search terms, depending on what he knows about the  American Cambridge). That is true no matter what system of nomenclature we invent. We at least give him the list.
*Some might call for moving the dab to Cambridge, and the English Cambridge to Cambridge, Cambridgeshire. I could live with that, or without it.
*Some might call for making Cambridge, United States a redirect to the dab (also Cambridge, Canada; Cambridge, Australia; Cambridge, England which are also ambiguous). I have no problem with this either; but actually examining them shows that one points to a particular town (as primary usage, which it probably is), one does go to the dab, and one goes to a dab for that country only. If anyone feels like straightening this out for every ambiguous placename in the world, more power to them; let us know what method you're using. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:49, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Cambridge