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::*I should also note that Serge is begging the question: single-named American cities, whether one or five or twenty, will be always be exceptions against a great mass of places named ]. They must be; the majority of American place names are ambiguous, and adding the state is the idiomatic way to disambiguate them.] <small>]</small> 00:25, 21 October 2008 (UTC) ::*I should also note that Serge is begging the question: single-named American cities, whether one or five or twenty, will be always be exceptions against a great mass of places named ]. They must be; the majority of American place names are ambiguous, and adding the state is the idiomatic way to disambiguate them.] <small>]</small> 00:25, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
:::*Nothing I said contradicts the point that single-named American cities will always be an exception (whether it's true or not) relative to all articles about American cities. The context of the <i>without exception</i> phrase was with respect to the list of cities in the proposal which clearly proposed moving <i>all</i> of them. --] (]) 00:34, 21 October 2008 (UTC) :::*Nothing I said contradicts the point that single-named American cities will always be an exception (whether it's true or not) relative to all articles about American cities. The context of the <i>without exception</i> phrase was with respect to the list of cities in the proposal which clearly proposed moving <i>all</i> of them. --] (]) 00:34, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
:::**No one except Serge, in his various incarnations, supports moving ''all'' American cities, or even the minority of unambiguous ones. ] <small>]</small> 00:42, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

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/Is comma convention in conflict with other guidelines? (November 2006)
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India

The following proposal was included within the naming convention. Since it is still under discussion, I have moved it here to the talk page. Skeezix1000 (talk) 15:57, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

This is a proposed addition to the naming convention, for which there has not been any clear consensus established.

Articles on places in India go under ]. When disambiguation is needed, articles go under ] (e.g., Bilaspur, Himachal Pradesh). For cities that shares its name with other countries (e.g., Hyderabad) the disambiguation style preferred is Hyderabad (India).

This is another proposed addition to the naming convention, for which there has not been any clear consensus established.

Articles on settlements in India follow the dab-layout rules used by all other settlements around the world, i.e. use comma not brackets. When disambiguation is needed, articles go under ] where Specifier can be "India", a state name or a district name.

Divisions and districts

I have seen a few redirects from "... District" to "... district" (and/or Division > division) but seen no clear resolution supporting such a policy. I'm in favour of it, despite having a lot to do with United States county names, which seem to be uniformly "... County, ...". If there's a policy statement or discussion, I would like a link to it. Robin Patterson (talk) 13:13, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Here is the link: WikiProject Indian districts/Naming. Regards, Ganeshk (talk) 21:49, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Consensus to move Seattle?

I'm not seeing any here or at Talk:Seattle but it was moved anyways. Agne/ 04:41, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind. The situation was corrected. Agne/ 04:43, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
There has been a move request started at Talk:Seattle,_Washington#Requested_move. --Bobblehead 05:21, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, if you read said discussion, there was absolutely zero consensus reached. So the move was done improperly and without valid reason. The article needs to be moved back immediately. Dr. Cash (talk) 19:01, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I strongly concur with Dr. Cash's position and I also would support an immediate ban on the user who proposed the move (User:Remember the dot). I also believe that there was insufficient consensus to begin with for adding an exception to the traditional city, state guideline and the users who forced through that exception should also be banned for acting in bad faith. --Coolcaesar (talk) 06:43, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
One would hope you are saying this in jest... anyway, there was consensus for the move. It is also under review at Talk:Seattle. --Ckatzspy 09:37, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Just a note, please watch the vandalism accusations and check who actually removed something. :) rootology (C)(T) 15:29, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

San Luis Obispo, Anaheim

A user has just moved San Luis Obispo, California to San Luis Obispo after a 12 hour discussion period. The same person aslo put a WP:SPEEDY tag on the redirect at Anaheim with the apparent intent of moving Anaheim, California too, although he hasn't asked for comment there yet. Rklear (talk) 14:52, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Clearly San Luis Obispo, California's move is not supported by the naming convention and should be reversed. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:20, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Please explain. "San Luis Obispo" need no disambiguation. It is a unique city name. As such, according to this policy, it should be named San Luis Obispo. If "San Luis Obispo" warranted disambiguation then this document would have it correctly as San Luis Obispo, California. —  X  S  G  01:12, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
The U.S. city naming guideline has been a contentious issue for years now. There are two extreme view points. One is to have a uniform "city, state" name for any and all U.S. places. The other is to use "city" and disambiguate only as needed. The current guideline to allow for the possiblity of about 20 or so exceptions is a compromise position that resulted after a series of long and heated discussions. The two cities you refer to are not on the list of possible exceptions. --Polaron | Talk 01:16, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Boston, MA

Yet another attempted exception to the City, State convention. Phiwum (talk) 15:58, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

It's not an exemption: "Cities listed in the AP Stylebook as not requiring the state modifier may be listed at City if they are the primary topic for that name. Cities that meet these criteria are: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Honolulu, Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York City, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle. No other American city should be listed at City." rootology (C)(T) 16:00, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Proposed fixing of the convention for US cities

If we look at what's happening in the past two months, Seattle was moved from Seattle, Washington to Seattle, and New Orleans was just moved today, and Boston is looking very likely. Rather than voting on all these individually, let's just vote on moving all of the aforementioned cities over to the 'city' article name instead of 'city, state' name. My rationale for this is that, if we're going to follow the AP Stylebook, we should follow it in its entirety, rather than debating and voting on exceptions every few weeks or so. Cities not listed by the AP Stylebook should remain with the 'city, state' naming convention. Dr. Cash (talk) 16:07, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

  • Support per Derek Cashman:
  • "Cities listed in the AP Stylebook as not requiring the state modifier may be listed at City if they are the primary topic for that name. Cities that meet these criteria are: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Honolulu, Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York City, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle. No other American city should be listed at City."
  • Lets do it right, so that there is nothing else to fight about. We either should follow our own rules and the AP style guide or scrap it all absolutely. It's not about being right, it's about whats best for Misplaced Pages. rootology (C)(T) 16:11, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose. It's not obvious that they're the most common use for the name. At best, even the AP specifies they're the most common city with that name. Specific opposition to Los Angeles, and opposition to any moves without a specific link in the talk page of each city to this discusion, and a block move at WP:RM. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:09, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Support per nom. Good idea from Derek et al. Majoreditor (talk) 17:10, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Support I would even support a more generic change of say, if a city is 500,000+ pop and has a unique name, then it can be moved. Just as an example. Charles Edward 17:29, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose I see no reason this would settle anything, except for the time being. As soon as those 25 cities are moved, we will see a renewed push to change the rules so that more cities qualify for a page move. The only sensible policy is a rule without exceptions and that treats all US cities in the same manner, which is what the City,State policy did. At least before it was "City,State unless it's one of these 25 cities". Now, I understand that this is the new rule, but I cannot see what good would come of moving those 25 cities in one swell foop. The debate would continue. Phiwum (talk) 17:41, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
    • Well, of course the debate will continue, because the root problem is not being addressed. The root problem is that convention has never been allowed to form and evolve naturally and organically in the area of U.S. city article naming. Instead, the "convention" for U.S. city names has not been a convention, but a dictated guideline automatically implemented by a bot. The only way you're going to solve this is to let go and let the editors of each article decide whatever they want to do for a few years, and then come back and see what conventions, if any, have naturally evolved, and then let the guidelines reflect that. As long as we continue to try to dictate convention top-down, the problem will be perpetuated. In fact, I'm now thinking we should just wipe out the U.S. city guideline entirely and simply state that there is a (2 or 3 year? moratorium) during which conventions will be allowed to naturally form and evolve on a per article basis. I know this idea probably horrifies the control freaks among you, but there it is. Let go. --Serge (talk) 18:26, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Right. What is the point of guidelines anyway? Who needs consistency? Good rebuttal, that. Phiwum (talk) 20:19, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
I don't think the sarcasm is helping. More to the point, being consistent with a system just for the sake of that system, when there are advantages to the alternatives, suggests that consistency is hindering, not helping. Exceptions are not always evil. So if you have some argue as to how the consistency helps, by all means make it, but don't assume others will consider it self-evident.  :) —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 23:33, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
If consistency was the basis for establishing the U.S. city naming guidelines, then the guidelines would be consistent with the primary Misplaced Pages naming convention: use the most common name unless disambiguation is required. That fact that the so-called comma "convention" (it's not really a convention since it was not developed by consensus, but was imposed by fiat and a bot) is inconsistent with this primary naming convention is why all this is so controversial. Anyone for whom consistency is really important would oppose the comma "convention" so that U.S. city articles could be named consistently with cities of other countries, not to mention to be consistent with how the vast majority of Misplaced Pages articles are named. How's that for a rebuttal? --Serge (talk) 00:36, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Conditional support It may well be that all of these cities should be moved, but it's a bit much to assume all are as clear cut as Chicago or Philadelphia. That being said, if is already directly piped to these cities, I would support a mass move. That way, there's very little argument for competing usages.--Loodog (talk) 17:44, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong support As an editor of several of the city pages mentioned, I feel this has always been the Consensus and needs no further discussion. davumaya 17:54, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Support but make sure the primary topic is indeed the city. A good indication is if the unqualified name already redirects. If such a redirect is deemed invalid, we should propose moving the disambiguation page to the unqualified name. --Polaron | Talk 18:00, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Support (reluctantly). Personally, I want to see all cities (not just those on the AP list) that don't have disambiguation issues at City, and this move would be a step in that direction, so a big part of me hopes it passes. However, I am inclined to oppose it because I realize it's more important to the integrity of Misplaced Pages to allow conventions to develop bottom-up, organically, from the grass roots article level, than be dictated top-down from guidelines created by policy wonks. The guidelines should reflect what the conventions are (and adjust as conventions change) - guidelines should not dictate what the conventions should be. The reason this whole issue is so contentious is because no convention in this area was ever allowed to naturally evolve. Instead, in the early days a small handful of wonks made a top-down policy decision and implemented it via a bot that automatically changed the names of thousands of U.S. city names from City to City, State. This proposal appears to be based on making the same kind of top-down authoritarian error, except it is also based in large part in recognizing that the convention is changing (at least for cities on the AP list), and seeks to reflect that change in the guidelines. So, with the understanding that we're seeking to reflect rather than dictate convention here, I support it, though reluctantly because I think it's a bit premature. --Serge (talk) 18:04, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Phiwum and Arthur Rubin. While the solution may appear attractive on the surface, it creates problems. At the present time, the category structure is easy to understand, pending some more cleanup that has nothing to do with this discussion. With this proposed change, editors will need to know what cities are on the exception list to create categories or the category names should not follow the article name for clarity. This change also works on the assumption that the city is always the primary use. However we know that the primary name is often used to encompass the metropolitan area as well. For many readers they are not aware of that difference. This is being pushed more as a status issue then as something that the encyclopedia needs. Uniformity and clarity for an encyclopedia are overriding aspects for a quality encyclopedia. How many readers, and editors for that matter, are confused by place names that give them no idea what or where the place is? While one would think that all of these places are well know, comments from readers in many parts of the word indicate otherwise. Finally the list here is smaller then 30 since the other cities were dropped for various issues. Making this change is not helping anything. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:13, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
    • Is there some policy saying the category name should always follow the article title? Also, in most cases, the metro area is in the same state as the city. So adding the state name doesn't really distinguish between the metro area and the city. Finally, whether the administrative city is the primary topic or not should be the main focus of discussion. --Polaron | Talk 18:18, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
      • I believe that it is a guideline. There are exceptions for good reasons. Metro areas are usually include metropolitan area in the name, so at the article level there is disambiguation. The question is what it the primary usage. The thread here seems to be that it is the city by default. However that is not always the case based on how the phrase is used by visitors. So while the city may well commonly go by city, city may not always be used to describe the city proper. The best example of this is the US postal service which tags the name of the major local city onto mail for the suburbs that are not incorporated. Another example is the average GPS which also appears to use the primary city to locate streets in areas adjacent to the major city. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:25, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
    • The arguments of Phiwum and Arthur Rubin have been addressed and refuted above. Cities that are already at ] don't have the problems with categories that you're hand-wringing about, and you've provided no reasons for anyone to believe that there would be ill effects for these other cities. Making this change is helping in that it will more closely reflect what the editors of each article would have probably naturally named their article had they not been ambushed by policy wonk control freaks using a bot establishing an artificial "convention". I'd prefer to see each article change on its own organically, but this en masse change is okay though probably a bit premature. --Serge (talk) 18:38, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
    • Point in response to Vegaswikian: One of your points seems to assume that ] as the article page title is inherently more clear to the reader. I'm not sure that's a given. If people are unfamiliar with US geography, they are likely going to need the introduction or infobox in the article to orient themselves. It seems to me we can rely on same (intro/infobox) to help the reader understand the article's subject, without worrying about the page title. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 23:46, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Support: per nom. Frankly, I'm unsure what titanic work and effort some of the Oppose proponents expect there to be, or that like as with everywhere else on Misplaced Pages, those who feel like doing it will, and those who won't won't. We're talking some redirects and ten minutes worth with AWB. Beyond that, Serge is absolutely right: the point of our naming conventions is to reflect reality, not to create it. When English language users use the unadorned terms "Boston" or "Los Angeles," very few people are under any delusions that they don't mean the cities in Massachusetts or California.  RGTraynor  18:26, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Support: It's a good move that should be done. These cities are the best-known cities with their names. Listing their corresponding state is redundant. --Comayagua99 (talk) 19:29, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • support For reasons given by the nominator, but really this dispute is getting really lame. It doesn't matter that much overall whether a few cities have their state names and a few don't. I'm mainly supporting this because I hope it will make this conflict go away. JoshuaZ (talk) 19:41, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Then you will be disappointed. As Serge has already made clear, as soon as this move has been accepted, he and others will push for other articles to be moved. The conflict will not go away by adding exceptions to the original rule. The compromise of AP guidelines was never the end goal for certain editors. Phiwum (talk) 20:19, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
My point was that the "push" is inevitable because editors will naturally be inclined to have articles named according to the most pervasive naming convention in Misplaced Pages: use the most common name for the subject of the article. For cities, this means Cityname only, unless there are issues of ambiguity with that name. That's a simple fact, and that's why there will be no end to the efforts to rename city articles accordingly. The Cityname, Statename comma-convention is fundamentally flawed because it is inherently inconsistent with this most important and best-known naming convention in Misplaced Pages. You can't blame anyone or anything for this, except those that imposed this inherently conflicting artificially constructed guideline top-down on U.S. city articles in an authoritarian manner, rather than allowing convention to naturally evolve, and those that continue to support this. --Serge (talk) 00:23, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Support per nom. Cheers, Rai•me 19:48, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Support moving the cities on the AP list (and only those). It feels a bit funny that we should let our usage be dictated by one organization, but it's a lot better than chaos. I also don't buy the LA argument: we should not use Los Angeles, California to disambiguate it from other things that are also in California. That might be close to official usage, but it's very counter-intuitive. If Los Angeles the city is not the primary topic, then it should be at Los Angeles (city) or possibly City of Los Angeles (although the latter might cause confusion as it looks like an official name and I don't think that's the official name of the city). I would have no objections to making Los Angeles a disambiguation page, but there's no need for any state disambiguators to do that. -- Jao (talk) 20:40, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Support The AP Stylebook actually has a pretty good reason for that list and other "virtual" encyclopedias such as World Book online, bring those cities up under their individual names when they are searched. Vertigo700 (talk) 21:53, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Support for stated reasons per the AP Stylebook. Grsz 22:08, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Support as a Journalism student, the Stylebook is my bible. These cities are very well known. HoosierState 23:54, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Very weak oppose (edit conflict): I can see arguments for both "sides" here, but I see no obvious, objective conclusion. Ultimately, I think debating page titles like this is counter-productive. If the page title works to identify the article, then it works. The intro paragraph and/or infobox should serve to orient readers. Redirects and dab pages can point people in the right direction if needed. Worrying about this is bikeshedding. That's where my oppose comes from; this is effort better spent elsewhere. But now I'm arguing about the arguing; that might be worse. And I don't suppose people will actually stop debating or worrying about page titles just 'cause I say so. Sigh. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 23:55, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Support In the early days of Misplaced Pages - around 2002 or so - there were pretty good reasons for keeping all articles at "City, State". At that point, the Ram-Bot began the lengthy task of adding demographic information for every article about a U.S. settlement/municipality recognized by the Census Bureau. With the guidance of a straw poll involving a handful of users, the bot used "City, State" with no exceptions whatsoever (even the New York City article was at "New York, New York"). Since there is no longer a technical need for a universal "City, State" format, and since consensus has clearly changed since Misplaced Pages's infancy, the virtually inflexible "City, State" convention is no longer necessary in regards to major cities that are the primary topic for their title. The perennial arguments for sticking with mandatory "City, State" are utterly unconvincing, and amount to "those are the rules because those are the rules". We're a wiki. We should embrace change instead of strictly adhering to rules that have long outlived their purpose. szyslak (t) 02:38, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Support I've read most of the arguments here and at a few other talk pages, and I frankly have yet to see a good argument as to why naming major cities in the US should be any different than naming major cities in the rest of the world. The AP guide mentioned above would be a good way to keep less well-known cities from doing the same type of move as larger ones, and I'm satisfied that all of the cities mentioned in that list are (by far) the most common meanings for those terms. AlexiusHoratius 02:42, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
  • I would support making all US city articles and categories to be in the 'city, state' naming convention. I would support doing the same for the rest of the world's cities also. The 'city, state' convention is what makes the US naming structure so much easier to handle in articles, categories, etc. And it certainly does NOT harm the reader of WP. Hmains (talk) 02:54, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
We're not proposing to move all worldwide articles conform to the 'city, state' format. With all due respect, I don't think that would stand a snowball's chance in hell of passing. This proposal is also not proposing any changes to the vast majority of US city article names -- we're just trying to strengthen the exceptions that have already been granted for a handful of cities by applying it to the AP Stylebook's guideline, so that we have something concrete to go by for handling these exceptions. Currently, the exceptions to the 'city, state' format go by a vague and undefined guideline that is up to the whim of several ongoing debates. Dr. Cash (talk) 03:14, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
That is not a part of the proposal, but clearly that is the intention for some of those supporting this change. So to say it is only limited to the above cities, while technically correct, ignores the continuing fallout if this change happens. It is clear from some comments that this is what some editors plan to try and make happen. So if this change is made, then the guideline should be changed to make it more difficult for changes in other settlement names. I believe that in looking at most of the support votes, this change would not in any way be contrary to what they are supporting. In fact one could argue that without this issue being clearly discussed, this discussion should not result in any change to the guideline. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:32, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Support with the strong reservation that we should not go farther than this: as long as we're basing this on a specific well-recognised authority (which this manual of style surely is), and as long as we make this a firm stance against extending it to any other cities and communities in the country. I would prefer to see everything (including New York, New York) with the state name, but it's reasonable to do (for example) as the Australians have done, removing the state names from a few leading cities and requiring it for the rest. Nyttend (talk) 03:33, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Looking at the list of cities at the top, I don't think that any of them would conflict with major non-US cities. (There are a few such as Boston and Los Angeles that do exist outside the US, but the US cities are much larger, to the degree that a search for 'Boston' or 'Los Angeles' already goes straight to the US city.) AlexiusHoratius 05:51, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Conditional support (change of vote). Agree that the list quoted above (Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Honolulu, Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York City, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle) poses no problems. But I don't think that, if the AP list changes in the future, we should automatically follow that change.
Which unfortunately raises another issue I hadn't thought of... are we infringing copyright in using the list in this way? Andrewa (talk) 09:10, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Absolutely not. If that were true, we'd be violating copyright every time we cite a source. Besides, an untold number of publications use the AP Stylebook as their house style guide. Are they violating copyright, too? szyslak (t) 04:48, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
Don't think that the AP list would create a bias in any way. If anything the various settlement conventions creates an anti US bias in place names. Vegaswikian (talk) 06:31, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Interesting thought... care to elaborate? How? Andrewa (talk) 09:10, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
I assume you mean about the anti US bias. Currently if a US city is considered to be the primary topic, the discussion will occur on the talk page for the city outside of the US that is currently located at city. Of course the editors involved in the editing of the current holder of the city name space will oppose the suggested move. Commonly any suggestion that the current city is not the primary topic is ignored. Every other reason under the sun is used to keep something that is not the primary use at the main name space. I think part of the reason for this is that editors view the main name space as some kind of a holy grail. It is almost as if having to give that up somehow makes the city less important. Clearly this puts US cities at a disadvantage in these discussions. A commonly used point is that the other naming convention says that the current city is mandated to be at the unambiguated name. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:24, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Yes, Worcester is an example of this; see Talk:Worcester#Requested move (again). Cheers, Rai•me 22:54, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I'd support this if I thought that Cashman's assertion, that it would put an end to debate, were true. But not long ago I supported the current compromise because thee assertion then was that it would minimize debates. The naming convention works and there is little reason to mess with it. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 05:57, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Will, you remind me of an arsonist who complains about the fires he sets. If you and a few other comma-convention stubborn diehards did not oppose every proposed move to Cityname as change in the naming conventions follows its natural and inevitable change in course, then there would be no debates, and the process would go much more smoothly. For Misplaced Pages's sake, let it go. --Serge (talk) 06:44, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Quite persuasive, that. The "natural" tendency is to throw the original convention away and follow the proposal Serge advocates. Anyone who differs with this opinion is an obstructionist. When you put it so clearly, what right-minded person would oppose this change? Please, Serge, treat opposing views with respect. Phiwum (talk) 20:36, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Questions: how does systemic bias come into it? Do you mean a US-centric bias that our cities are more special, hence moves to Seattle, Boston, New Orleans? That doesn't square with systemic bias if so, because what about the bias for Portugual, with Porto instead of Porto, Grande Porto or Perm (surely a common phrase in English!) instead of Perm, Perm Krai? Or did you mean something else? As for the busy work, like has been said a few times, it's nothing a trivial use of AWB in the background of someone's PC couldn't fix with about 10 minutes of setup (if it even took that long). rootology (C)(T) 13:23, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Support. Per various arguments above. There is no surprise to people when they type these names into the search box and find that the city is indeed named "Boston" or "Seattle", etc. OTOH some people outside of the U.S. may be confused by seeing unfamiliar state names after the familiar city names. It can make them think that they may have found the wrong page. There's more chance for astonishment with the state than without, etc., etc. —Wknight94 (talk) 19:37, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Support - Oh heavens yes. CL — 17:45, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Support all except Cleveland. Cleveland is also well-known as Grover Cleveland's last name. Georgia guy (talk) 17:46, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Cleveland currently redirects to Cleveland, Ohio, and has for years as far as I can tell. If Cleveland being Grover Cleveland's last name is significant enough to prevent the city article from being at Cleveland, then it should be significant enough to not be a redirect to the article about the city either. If that's what you believe, then you should try to get consensus on this point at Talk:Cleveland and make Cleveland a dab page (or a redirect to one). But barring success at achieving that, the only reasonable assumption to make is that there consensus does not exists for this view. --Serge (talk) 18:14, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Support I tried this once for St. Louis, but the vote didn't pass. Grey Wanderer (talk) 18:00, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose This move is not needed. Why should we follow the Associated Press's guide to journalism in the United States; English is not just spoken there but England, Australia, Canada... the pages should stay city, state just like all of the other ones because it is the most uniform. There should be no exceptions. I also think that if your going to bring up this kind of page move each discussion should be on its individual page not all as a whole. Oklahoma City's talk page has had 5 move request that have all failed. If it aint broke don’t fix it.--CPacker (talk) 18:00, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
  • The consensus is (and has been for a long time) that there should at least be some exceptions. Let's move on and figure out which ones. --Serge (talk) 18:14, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
    • False. The consensus is that there may be exceptions. The other consensus is that this should be decided on individual pages; the cases for and against most exceptions depend on local circumstances: What unrelated things have the same name? What local things have the same name (as with Los Angeles (City, County, Greater LA...)? Is New York, New York the city? (no, it's New York County, which is Manhattan) etc. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:37, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
      • Yes, the consensus is that there may be exceptions, which means the consensus is NOT that there should be no exceptions, which was the basis of CPacker's comment. This move only affects names which have been "vetted"; that is, in each case ] has been a redirect to the city article for years, so consensus that that is the primary use of the name is clearly established by implication in each case. --Serge (talk) 21:14, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
(To both 25or6to4 and Pmanderson) By that general rationale, pretty much every major city in the world should go to a dab page. (Does London mean the city or Jack London? Does Paris mean the city or the son of King Priam of Troy? Does Berlin mean the city or the guy who wrote White Christmas?) AlexiusHoratius 20:01, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
Indeed, this reasoning is so lame that votes based on it should arguably not be counted. The primary use issue of the name has been resolved in each case by the fact that ] has been a redirect to the city article in question in each case for years. If that doesn't clearly establish consensus, nothing does. --Serge (talk) 21:19, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Superfluous. This meets no tangible need and provides no real improvement or benefit, so why do it? There is a standard formal way US cities are addressed, and we should not deviate from that. The AP stylebook suggests dropping state names for certain well known cities because, in the most general sense, the purpose of a news article is to deliver information in the most concise and simplistic way that still tells the story clearly. We are an encyclopedia, so in the case of our naming guidelines, this is not compatible: Misplaced Pages articles need to be titled for the fullest and most descriptive common name of their subject. Okiefromokla 18:51, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
  • No. I'm advocating the fullest, most descriptive common name. "City, State" is the common formal way to address an American city. "City, county, state, country" isn't. Okiefromokla 19:39, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Well that's the issue - what is "common". I don't commonly refer to Chicago as "Chicago, Illinois". The post office does, but I don't, and neither does anyone else I know. And I go a step further and say that someone from Thailand may be downright confused at "Chicago, Illinois". They might say, "uh-oh, is there some other 'Chicago'?! What the heck is an 'Illinois'?!" It's pointless and could be confusing. —Wknight94 (talk) 19:50, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Now we're getting into the nasty gray area of this issue. For instance, people on the west coast might not feel right about saying "Reno, Nevada," or "Bend, Oregon", but people on the east coast would probably prefer it, not being familiar with those cities. Likewise, people in India, Australia, or South Africa might not feel comfortable simply saying "Atlanta", regardless of the AP stylebook's standards. While "City, State" may or may be not be the most common name for any given city in everyday speech (depending on where one lives or how familiar one is with that city), it is the most common and universally accepted formal name for all American cities, is it not? Okiefromokla 20:15, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Reno and Bend aren't in the AP Stylebook list anyway, so they would not be affected. CL — 04:00, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Support I don't think we need to follow AP guidelines, just some sensible guidelines like are followed for all other world cities. If the place name is unambiguous and is the primary usage of the name, then it should clearly be present at that location. No need to restrict ourselves to the AP; they are not the style gurus of the universe. -epicAdam 19:27, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Then you're not really supporting the existence of a list of exceptions to this guideline-level exception to the "no pre-emptive disambiguation" rule, but rather supporting doing away with that entire exception? You would want to move Kennebunkport, Maine to Kennebunkport, for example? I'm not saying it's a bad idea, just that it's far from what is suggested here. -- Jao (talk) 19:47, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Rather looks like oppose to me. The suggestion is that we make the exceptions granted by the AP guidelines and no other exceptions. Phiwum (talk) 20:38, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
  • I read the restriction to apply only to the scope of this particular move, though I do believe that reflects current consensus, and I accept that. --Serge (talk) 21:05, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Support, per nom and lots of others above. --Friejose (talk) 23:13, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Very strong support. This should have been done a long time ago. bob rulz (talk) 06:29, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The editors who originally proposed the insertion of the AP stylebook exception should have been banned for acting in bad faith and failing to obtain an actual consensus (they took advantage of a period when the more experienced and mature editors like myself were too busy with professional and social obligations). As any properly educated American writer knows, you write city and state in formal written English aimed at a general audience. This poll is trolling (see WP:TROLL and WP:POINT) and amounts to beating a dead horse as this issue has been exhaustively debated many times over. --Coolcaesar (talk) 07:49, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
Great argument. I'm more mature, exprienced and educated than the vast majority who support the proposal, therefore I'm right and they should shut up.--Kotniski (talk) 08:06, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
WP:Consensus can change, and please--you gotta stop with these comments of extreme bad faith that you've made more than once. Consider this a warning. rootology (C)(T) 15:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment. While this makes good sense on the surface, articles may wind up with a bunch of disambiguation at the beginning, that might have been unecessary originally. Also, there is always a bunch of "media" c---p that creeps in - some "musician" has recorded a song about the place or a similarly named place, or there is a game reference which collects ad infinitum until one of us gets sick of it and deletes them. This is harder to do (collect) when the cities are clearly disambiguated as they are now. Student7 (talk) 12:13, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
Of course we all remember that the reader is the priority. The difference in opinion here is how to best serve the reader. Do try to remember that well-meaning and well-informed persons may disagree on how to do this. Phiwum (talk) 13:37, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Support, Thought of proposing this myself. Most searches for major cities are by the simple name, Detroit, Boston, Miami, and so on. They are universally recognized by their simple name. Also, it is desirable to have more consolitated page view article traffic statistics. When looking at the page view article traffic statistics, which can be accessed on the revision history page, one has to look under the redircted simple name, Detroit, Boston, Miami, etc. and add those article traffic statistics to thoe the ones for city, state name to see how many times the article is viewed. The sub articles use two sets of names, creating two sets of traffic statistics. Would be best to just use the simple hame for all the major cities in order to have more consolidated viewing traffic statistics. It appears that the city, state hits are created within using inconsistenst city, state approach while some have the simple names. It would be better to have just simple name use for major cities. Placing the names for major cities under the simple name, Detroit, Boston, Miami, Atlanta, etc, as suggested above consolidates the statistics for major cities. Minor cities with similar names are searched with city, state anyway, so it should not be a problem to use the simple name for all major US cities. This is a good idea which I strongly support. Thomas Paine1776 (talk) 15:48, 18 October 2008 (UTC)Thanks
  • Support, and suggest even further evading the 'cityname, statename' formula. 'cityname, statename' should be used when there is a need for disambiguation. There is no real need to have Buffalo Soapstone, Alaska as Buffalo Soapstone is quite enough. The 'cityname, statename' wording is highly US-centric, its a wording not used internationally. Since we don't have the same formula overall for placenames when there is no need for disambiguation, i think the US cities shouldn't be an exception. --Soman (talk) 20:49, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Support - and go further. All US cities should follow the naming policy. Unless there is potential for confusion, the simplest and most common name is the best for an article. That is in line with the naming policy: "Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature. This is justified by the following principle: The names of Misplaced Pages articles should be optimized for readers over editors, and for a general audience over specialists. Misplaced Pages determines the recognizability of a name by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject." Reliable sources use the name Boston: . SilkTork * 19:33, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Support - I hate ambiguous guidelines. The current guideline essentially says that no one can oppose following the AP style guide for those 14 cities and no one can use only a city name in the United States for any other city, yet way too many people have misinterpreted an ambiguous guideline to mean I don't have to follow the AP style guide. 199.125.109.99 (talk) 00:58, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
    • Is this another of Serge's socks? The present guideline may indeed need clarification: it is intended to mean that, for the listed cities, you may follow the AP stylebook, but you don't have to. That's not ambiguous; that's allowing scope for local opinion and local circumstances. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:21, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
      • One more personal attack and I will report you. If you think I am using any socks, much less another one, then report it. Good luck with that. --Serge (talk) 20:05, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Room for compromise?

I notice that some of the opposition above is based on a concern over the possibility that the cities on our "AP exemption list" are not sufficiently primary in use to warrant the move, and that's fine. In an attempt to address their concerns more directly, perhaps we can err on the side of caution by saying that any city for which a good-faith concern has been raised in the section below (regarding potential exceptions to the exception) will not be moved prior to achieving consensus on those individual points, but that the rest of them simply be moved in accordance with the naming convention?

To put it more simply, we've had about a week to address potential problems and only a small handful of cities have been identified. Since they do not seem to fall within the subject of concern, do we have enough consensus to move those that have not been mentioned? Specifically, there have been no direct objections to moving Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Honolulu, Houston, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York City, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Salt Lake City, San Francisco or Seattle, so do we have enough consensus to move these at least and continue discussing the potential issues with the rest? Shereth 20:35, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Of course we have consensus for those cities, we have consensus for the entire list. Can someone explain how one, two or three people questioning whether any one city is not "sufficiently primary" -- despite the fact that the name in question has redirected to the article in question for years -- somehow invalidates the votes of the vast majority who clearly have established consensus for Supporting the move of every city in the list, without exception? --Serge (talk)

Summary

Just a quick summary here. I currently count 49 registered editors weighing in, and one anonymous IP (which I am not clear if it is a sockpuppet or not?). Of the 49 registered users, 36 are in favor of the move, or 73%; 13 are opposed to the move, or 27%. Most of the opposition at this point cites that either (a) it's unnecessary and a waste of time, (b) the AP list covers names of cities and towns, and the naming conventions should take into account other uses (names of people, other cities outside the US, and so forth), or (c) if we move these, there would be a renewed push to move other city names.

The following exceptions to moving were brought up during the debate:

  • Los Angeles (there appears to be consensus that Los Angeles refers to the city)
  • Cleveland (objection raised, but withdrawn)
  • St. Louis (little discussion thus far)
  • San Diego (little discussion thus far)
  • San Antonio (little discussion thus far)
  • Miami (little discussion thus far)
  • Boston (objection raised, but there is also a clear consensus in its own proposal to move the article to Boston; a proposal which began before the "mass move" was proposed).

Dr. Cash (talk) 22:49, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Review of convention for US cities

I wasn't around during the crafting of the convention. Could someone explain to me why the policy is to treat about twenty-five cities differently than all others? Because of their size? What makes sense to me is to either all go with "City, State", or to go with "City" unless disambiguation is needed, which would essentially open up the can of worms for many, many other communities. At the moment, I'm not asking to change things, I just want to know if someone can either explain (or point me to an explanation of) why things are as they are right now. —  X  S  G  16:23, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

It's because of the AP style guides we based most of this on, and because it's kind of silly to make exemptions for nearly all non-American world class cities, but not for American ones of similar caliber and notability. This would just get the whole thing in line and synchronous and eliminate tons of constant and pointless drama and fighting. rootology (C)(T) 16:25, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
That makes sense, but then why do some other, larger U.S. cities which need no disambiguation not get exempted, like, say, Austin, Texas? Would it perhaps have made more sense in crafting the rule to set some threshold over which a city can consider changing its name? For example (just throwing it out there) cities with population > 500,000 in the most recent official U.S. census? This is still not an official proposal, just trying to see if these things were considered. —  X  S  G  16:30, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Rather than making up and debating our own rules regarding which cities are exempted and which are not, the proposal is to simply take the list from the AP Stylebook (AP = Associated Press), which is a published source available widely, and follow the same guidelines that they use for newspapers following AP guidelines. The AP Stylebook is a widely used document for formatting of many things, not just city names, but is definitive, and commonly accepted. If we leave this up to our own debating over these rules for exceptions, we could easily have to go through like 20 more votes on each city in the next year or so. Dr. Cash (talk) 16:36, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
(ec) The "Cliffs Notes" version : There was a long, drawn out, contentious debate regarding whether or not to allow certain cities - New York City for example - to be at "City", or whether to force all of them to be at "City, State". Numerous ideas were floated as far as which cities to allow to use the "City" convention, including size, but they were all rejected as being insufficiently objective and too arbitrary. In the end, the use of the AP Style Guide's naming convention concerning cities and states was selected as a reasonable and objective compromise. Note that the AP provides for 30 exemptions, while we only allow for 25. This is due to the fact that Phoenix, Arizona meets the AP exemption, for example, but shares its name with the mythological bird and is not sufficiently "primary" in terms of the use of the word. Shereth 16:28, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Thank you. I think my questions have now been sufficiently answered. It sounds like the AP Style Guide is somewhat arbitrary at specifying only 30 exemptions. —  X  S  G  16:32, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
The AP is probably a bit arbitrary in their selection, yes, but I think it was selected as an acceptable compromise due to the fact that it is a published, accessible list and at the very least, we aren't the ones responsible for its arbitrary nature. Kind of passing the buck :P But it did have the effect of settling what was a rancorous debate. Shereth 16:35, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Yes, the cities on the AP list are of course arbitrary, because any such list must be arbitrary. That is, there is no one clear and obvious characteristic that distinguishes which cities are definitely best known by City alone, and those that aren't. Even if you did it by population, the choice of what population number you would select would be arbitrary. But the point is that our choice to follow the AP list was not arbitrary - we're simply acknowledging that whatever the list is, it will be arbitrary, and we might as well follow what the pros are doing, to the extent that it makes sense within Misplaced Pages. By the way, the fact that any such list is arbitrary is one of the reasons that I'm in the "don't disambiguate except when required" camp. --Serge (talk) 17:26, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Serge understates his role. He is the "don't disambiguate except when required" camp; if it were not for his persistent and single-purpose disruption, we would have settled, probably on something resembling the present compromise, much faster and with less rancor. I note that he has already attempted his usual tactic of responding to almost everyone who disagrees with him; if this continues, I suggest dispute resolution. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:47, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
Note that this page suggests that he is User:Born2cycle, for example. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:27, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
What!? I'm surprised he hasn't been banned already for sockpuppetry. But then, considering his consistent pattern of trolling behavior, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that he has a second account.
As for the rest of Septentrionalis's analysis above, I agree. Serge is the sole editor who keeps beating this dead horse every year. He needs to get a life and focus on making valuable contributions to Misplaced Pages like the rest of us, rather than wasting other editors' time trying to build a consensus in favor of his crazy position. In contrast, practically every American editor who writes code or prose for a living supports the city, state convention because they recognize how logical and simple it is (as well as reflecting normal conventions in formal written English). Otherwise we will have hundreds of nasty edit wars as every local partisan asserts that his little city should be the default for a particular city name (Portland, Los Altos, Toledo, Claremont, Menlo Park, Levittown, Pleasantville, Compton, and Eureka are among the more obvious battlegrounds). For example, as an American, I've always felt that Brisbane, California should be at Brisbane (since Brisbane is one of the most prominent commercial centers in Northern California and is home to several prominent American companies with nationwide name recognition like Monster Cable, bebe stores, IGN Entertainment, and Wal-Mart.com), but obviously, such a page move would anger a lot of Australians.
In short, the city, state convention avoids such issues. --Coolcaesar (talk) 08:18, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
The above analysis would look a little less bizarre if the proposal weren't drawing clear majority support (or are all of the people voting in favour alleged to be Serge puppets?) We have already rejected New York, New York; why not reject other city, state combinations that are almost equally odd-looking? It's not just a matter of aesthetics; there are good reasons (in terms of not confusing readers) why we have our primary-topic naming conventions, and they apply equally well to American cities as cities anywhere else.--Kotniski (talk) 08:32, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
  • The standard used to be for all U.S. cities to follow the convention. The AP list was adopted as a compromise with those who didn't want states included except on a case by case basis. Adhering to the convention has resulted in a remarkable lack of debate. Opening up this issue to be decided individually for every one of the thousands of places in the U.S. is a recipe for endless debate and wasted time. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 19:08, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Actually for clarification the AP list isn't entirely arbitrary. Here is what is written in the Stylebook itself about the selection of the cities: "The norms that influenced the selection were the population of the city, the population of the metropolitan region, the frequency of the city's appearance in the news, the uniqueness of its name and experience that has shown the name to be almost synonymous with the state or nation where it is located." That comes from the 2004 version of the AP Stylebook available through some searching on Google books. Vertigo700 (talk) 21:50, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
I don't think anyone has argued that the AP list is entirely arbitrary. The point is that where exactly they draw the line is necessarily arbitrary. Whether it's population, frequency of appearance in the news, its uniqueness, etc., the particular threshold selected is necessarily arbitrary. Not that there is anything wrong with that... But more to the point, where we (Misplaced Pages editors) draw the line is what is relevant here, and if we draw that line at the well-defined AP list, there is nothing arbitrary about that (no matter how much arbitrariness is a factor in how they determine whether a given city is on the list). --Serge (talk) 18:21, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

City Name Proposal

I have actually wondered for a while why the standard is not something more international; like country/state/city - which would eliminate ambiguous link issues and cities that have duplicate names. I hesitate to point out, living in Idaho, with 'Moscow', 'Atlanta', 'Ontario' (OR)...Which certainly are not "metropolitan" areas, but certainly would eventually deserve a reference in an encyclopedia.
Single word pages like 'Denver' would have so many disambiguations as to be silly. (See Omlette, etc)
Mjquin_id (talk) 06:21, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Because that's not English. We are not here to rewrite the English language, which uses both Atlanta and Atlanta, Georgia, but not Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Perhaps it should; but this is not the place for that reform. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:10, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
All due respect, what does it have to do with English. It should be for encyclopedic reasons. I was also hoping it would be more international; I.e. NOT related to the English language, but related to world geography (but using English names). Would it be easier to translate?
Think of a heirarchy:World -> {CountryName} -> {StateName} -> {province/County} -> City -> neighborhood?(i.e. Bronx, etc)
If I understand, we are discussing "physical" structure of pages. The physical page would be located at United States:Georgia:Atlanta, but you could point to it from whatever disambiguation pages you wanted. The key point being that it would work for all countries in all languages...Mjquin_id (talk) 01:56, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
Sometimes what some see as obvious is far from obvious for other editors. I think a common naming convention would be a good thing. But I'm afraid that is a minority opinion. Vegaswikian (talk) 02:16, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
Do not use an article name that suggests a hierarchy of articles would probably be relevant here. -- Jao (talk) 11:26, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Next step: what US cities should NOT be on the US city exemption list and why?

Please create a subsection and give evidence of why, so we can sort that out easily. I'll start with Los Angeles, for Arthur.

Cities listed in the AP Stylebook as not requiring the state modifier may be listed at City if they are the primary topic for that name. Cities that meet these criteria are: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Honolulu, Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York City, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle. No other American city should be listed at City.

Give facts, for this, of why a US city shouldn't be in the AP exemption listed. The full list is above. It would be nice for people to leave links to the appropriate subsection on the talk page of whatever city article. :) rootology (C)(T) 18:08, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Some questions:
  • If there are facts of why a US city shouldn't be in the AP exemption list above, then should those facts also support the argument that ] should not redirect to ], ], but be a dab page?
  • Should the issue of whether ] should redirect to ], ] for a given city be discussed not here but on the respective city's talk page?
  • If consensus is achieved on the talk page of a given city that ] should not redirect to ], ] but to a dab page, would that fact be sufficient to eliminate the respective city from the AP exemption list above, without any discussion here?
  • If the answers to the above questions are all in the affirmative, should this entire discussion in this section be closed on the grounds of being out of scope for this page?
--Serge (talk) 07:16, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Should Misplaced Pages have naming conventions for consistency between similar articles, or should every article title be based purtely on current Ghits? We have naming conventions that cover many fields. Sometimes they result in article titles that may not be the top result on Google. For example, we don't have articles at Princess Diana, Prius, or Spruce Goose, because of naming conventions on roylaty, cars, and planes. Naming conventions make sense. Consistency is a desirable quality in a reference book. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 02:43, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Sure, naming conventions are good to have and follow - but not the blind "city, state" convention. This isn't the post office. —Wknight94 (talk) 02:56, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Of course naming conventions for consistency between articles are good to have, which is why it's good to be consistent with following the most widely adhered naming convention in Misplaced Pages: use the name most commonly used for the subject of the article, unless disambiguation is required. There are some categories of similar articles that are special cases and adhere to special naming conventions even when disambiguation is not required (royalty, cars, aircraft), but these are special cases and there are good reasons to have naming conventions for those categories. If nothing else, the naming convention selected in each case most often coincides with the most commonly used names in the respective categories anyway (or if it doesn't, the most commonly used name isn't important enough for anyone to care). Perhaps this is best illustrated by the fact that while there are specific naming conventions for royalty, there are not for other famous people, which are each named according to the name by which they are most commonly referred (unless disambiguation is required) so the article about President Carter is at Jimmy Carter, not James Earl Carter, and the article about Madonna is at Madonna (entertainer), not at Madonna Louise Ciccone Ritchie. So the issue here is whether the category of names of U.S. cities is a special case like royalty or aircraft, or is it a normal case likes names of people. The consensus now established is that the U.S. cities on the AP list are famous enough to be treated like the normal case (disambiguate only if necessary), while all other cities are more of a special case in which predisambiguation is called for. Now that I've answered your question, are you going to answer mine? --Serge (talk) 17:13, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Los Angeles

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The strawpoll held here shows that the consensus is that the primary usage for Los Angeles is the city --Serge (talk) 17:01, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment "Los Angeles" already redirects to the city article, implying it is the primary topic. Unless there is agreement to move Los Angeles (disambiguation) to Los Angeles, I don't see what the issue is. If you're going to argue that the unqualified name refers to the metro areas or a higher containing region, the same is true for a lot of cities, e.g. Madrid, Osaka, Rio de Janeiro, Lagos. Note that the articles at those locations refer to the administrative city and not the metro areas or containing administrative division. Why would the situation in the U.S. be different? --Polaron | Talk 18:14, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment. As noted above (and it the previous discussion removing Las Vegas from the list), the redirect from Los Angeles to Los Angeles, California is clearly faulty. We had previously Los Angeles as a subdisambiguation page, which I believe was summarily changed to a redirect. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:28, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
      • Why not have it as a full disambiguation page then? --Polaron | Talk 18:30, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
        • That would be, for some, the cleanest solution since it addresses the ambiguity of the current use. It would take a lot of work to clean up the incoming links, but on the flip side, this is about the only way we will be able to correct the links that should be pointed to something other then then city. The amount of work needed is not an issue for or against moving. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:24, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
          • I don't agree that a redirect to the city is faulty. For Los Angeles, it seems very apparent that readers are seeking the city when typing in "Los Angeles"; creating a disambiguation page would only cause more confusion for readers. The county is "Los Angeles County", and there is no evidence to suggest that the primary usage for L.A. is the metro area and not the city. Cheers, Rai•me 21:10, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Los Angeles currently redirects to Los Angeles, California. There is a redirect link at the top of the article to alternative uses. Dr. Cash (talk) 18:32, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Los Angeles is complicated because of the important county of the same name. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 19:04, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
The article about Los Angeles County is and should remain at Los Angeles County, California. When people refer to "Los Angeles", they are referring to the city. Dr. Cash (talk) 20:27, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm hearing the words of Jack Webb at the beginning of each episode of Dragnet: "This is the city - Los Angeles, California..." Wikipedians, of course, are much wiser than successful television show producers. Baseball Bugs 20:41, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
This has been raised several times at talk: Los Angeles, California and always rejected. A few folks debating here shouldn't override the existing consensus. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 21:03, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
If this were 1951, when Dragnet first aired, I think your point would have been valid. Back then, Los Angeles wasn't nearly the city it is today. I'm very glad that Wikipedians at least question traditions, especially half-century-old ones that no longer serve their original purpose. —  X  S  G  00:43, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Everyone knew what Los Angeles was. It was a matter of pride to add the state, like Texans who add ", Texas" when they talk about whatever city there. There's no good reason to be selectively stripping away the states from city names. Baseball Bugs 03:39, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
I'll try this without any snark.
  1. Thank you for pointing out how things were back in 1951. Some things have changed since then, and we should properly evaluate this. Historical context is useful but not directly relevant.
  2. If I draw your argument that Texans like to add ", Texas" to city names as a matter of pride to a logical conclusion, I would expect to hear about "UT Austin, Texas" and the "Dallas, Texas Cowboys". These are things that Texans certainly have a great deal of pride in: a fine educational institution and a football team. And yet, they don't go out of their way to add ", Texas" to these things in which they have a great deal of pride. This exception does not disprove your argument, however it might point out that not everything is as you would lead us to believe it is.
  3. Naming Misplaced Pages articles in a particular manner because it is a show of pride bespeaks of peacocking and POV. Such an argument has no place in Misplaced Pages.—  X  S  G  04:09, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm thinking that LA should one of the exemptions to the exemptions, as it was, agreeing with Will & Arthur's points. rootology (C)(T) 22:40, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

  • Comment Perhaps I am missing something, but here is my take on this issue: there are a few major things that editors have expressed as possible notable meanings of "Los Angeles", including the postal address, the county, the metro area, and the city itself. So, the consensus seemed to lean toward a disambiguation page to sort out this issue. However, this brings up a very important issue that was raised at Talk:New York when several editors (myself included) advocated for a disambiguation page due to the ambiguity surrounding New York. However, some editors brought an argument which I found to be very valid: if only a few items are being questioned (here, likely the city, metro area, and county, as no article on the postal address exists to the best of my knowledge), is it really appropriate to redirect all readers to the wrong article (a dab page) as opposed to a portion of the readers, who can then reach intended articles via hatnotes? I still firmly believe that the city is the primary topic; I highly doubt that most readers will define their definition of Los Angeles based on a postal zip code. As for the metro area, all major cities have this issue, but what evidence indicates that the metro area is just as notable a topic as the city? When most readers think of Los Angeles, I have a feeling most will think of LAX, Hollywood and entertainment, Downtown, Venice Beach, etc., all of which are located within city limits and are covered in the Los Angeles, California article. Perhaps an even more ambiguous case is London, which also involves the articles City of London and Greater London. All of these are major topics for "London", but the city as a whole, not the small region within it or the metro area, is the primary meaning. Thus, just as the whole city of London is located at London, I see no reason why the city of Los Angeles, California cannot be located at Los Angeles. Keep in mind also that per some above comments, "Los Angeles, California" is just as ambiguous as "Los Angeles", so a disambiguation is just as unhelpful in that regard. In the end, having the city at "Los Angeles" with prominent hatnotes seems like a much better solution than a dab page. But anyway, I suppose the best way to solve this issue is to open up yet another discussion at Talk:Los Angeles, California regarding the nature of the redirect Los Angeles. I do apologize that this is so long-winded :-) Cheers, Rai•me 00:50, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment. As I said before, locals use most of the definitions I mentioned before, and sometimes use "Los Angeles" for downtown Los Angeles. I would say, in order of size:
      1. Downtown Los Angeles
      2. communities in the city of Los Angeles which aren't primarily known by their neighborhood designations (approximately Template:Dmoz)
      3. the United States Post Office recognized area
      4. Los Angeles, California
      5. Los Angeles County, California
      6. Los Angeles Metro Area (approximately Los Angeles and Orange counties)
      7. The Greater Los Angeles Area
    • As to which one is meant, it obviously depends on context, too much so that I could say that one predominates. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:22, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
      • But for the vast majority of readers who do not live locally in or near Los Angeles, the city is the primary topic. The downtown region and neighborhoods are all covered in the Los Angeles, California article, so they aren't really issues. In short, Los Angeles is no more ambiguous than the name of any major city city in the world, which can apply to downtown regions, city propers, metro areas, etc. I don't see how a disambiguation page would be any more useful to readers than a hatnote, especially considering that of the 7 items listed above, 2 are described in detail in Los Angeles, California and 2 do not have articles. That would easily allow for the city to be located at "Los Angeles", with two prominent hatnotes for Greater Los Angeles and Los Angeles County. Cheers, Rai•me 01:30, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
        • No. The vast majority of readers who do not live locally do not know nor care which is meant. I can't see how you'd say they'd mean the city; I mean, everyone knows Encino Man was from Encino, not Los Angeles. (Look at the links to see that what everyone knows ain't so.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:39, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
          • I don't really understand how that reference proves that the primary meaning of "Los Angeles" isn't the city. The same argument could be made about any subdistrict of a city, but that doesn't affect the primary usage of the city name as a whole - the second largest city in the U.S. and the center of the world entertainment industry is most people's image of "Los Angeles", and the Los Angeles, California articles covers this. It seems very likely that most non-locals would have this impression. The image of "New York City" for most people is Manhattan, but that doesn't mean that it would be beneficial for readers to make New York City a dab page clarifying between articles about Manhattan and the 5 Boroughs as a whole. Cheers, Rai•me 01:51, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment: We've established that there's more than one use for the term "Los Angeles". However, that alone does not merit a disambiguated title for the article about the city. It's clear to me there's only one primary topic for the title "Los Angeles". Why is it that the concept of the primary topic applies everywhere but on U.S. city articles? szyslak (t) 07:30, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Exactly. And the opposing arguments are rendered even more absurd by the fact that all these other "entities" are in California as well, so the dab tag they are so keen to retain, ", California", doesn't even do its job of providing the desired dismabiguation. Even if a tag were needed (which it isn't), a dab tag that fails to dab is even more pointless and misleading than no tag at all.--Kotniski (talk) 08:35, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
To the extent there is a primary topic, it's probably the metro area (which doesn't actually have an article), rather than the city. The "princple of least surprise" suggests that, if the city is considered primary, that at least downtown, the Post Office definiton, the general area, and the metro area should have separate hat notes. If that were done, I would have little objection to the move. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:13, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
But again, topics which may be considered to mean "Los Angeles" by locals (most notably the Post Office definition and downtown) would likely not be considered "Los Angeles" by the vast majority of readers, so a link to a dab page for those topics would be fine. I don't agree that the metro area is the primary topic here for most readers, but of course a hatnote would be warranted. Cheers, Rai•me 20:50, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure any hatnotes besides Los Angeles (disambiguation) and L.A. (disambiguation) would be necessary. I'd imagine far fewer users would want to look up Greater Los Angeles Area than the article about the city. And if they do, I think they're smart enough to either click on the Los Angeles dab page or the link to the Greater L.A. article in the lead. szyslak (t) 21:17, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Yes, you're probably right. A hatnote would be warranted if consensus determines that the metro area is also a very significant meaning of "Los Angeles" for a great number of English Misplaced Pages readers and not just L.A. locals. However, I find this situation unlikely and agree with your sentiments. Cheers, Rai•me 21:51, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

New strawpoll at Talk:Los Angeles to determine this

***NOTE: *** I believe the issue of whether Los Angeles should be on the above subset of the AP list should be determined by whether there is consensus to make it a dab page, which should be decided at Talk:Los Angeles. To that end, I have created a strawpoll there for the purpose of determining whether consensus exists on this issue. Your participation is appreciated. --Serge (talk) 17:14, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

The strawpoll results indicate that there is consensus that the city of Los Angeles is the primary topic for Los Angeles. --Serge (talk) 18:51, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Note. The strawpoll was actually closed as no consensus. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:10, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
Yes, the strawpoll as a whole was closed as no consensus, but Serge is correct in stating that "the consensus is that the primary usage for Los Angeles is the city". There just was not clear consensus for one option over the three others, but as Shereth said in closing the poll, the majority prefer a/b (redirect or article move to "Los Angeles") to b/d (dab page). Cheers, Rai•me 19:19, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
No, Serge is wrong, as usual. There is not a clear consensus for the false statement that the city is the primary meaning. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:30, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
And how exactly is Serge wrong? There is a consensus; while this isn't a vote, it is fair to point out that you and Vegaswikian were the only editors arguing that Los Angeles should be a dab, as opposed to 8 arguing that it should be a redirect or the name of the city article and 1 who is uncertain. You may disagree with consensus, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Cheers, Rai•me 20:42, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
The flaw with the strawpoll is that it was not worded in a way to directly assess the question of "primacy of use" of the term "Los Angeles". It can be inferred (and indeed, I believe it to be the case) that the way votes were cast indicates a majority believes "Los Angeles" primarily refers to the city, but this was not the question being asked. The fact that there is some interpretation involved means that invariably someone will object that there was not, in fact, any consensus achieved. In my opinion it is little more than wikilawyering, but really the strawpoll should have been clearer on that issue. Shereth 20:46, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
Good point. I think the best option now is to start a move request at Talk:Los Angeles, California to move Los Angeles, California → Los Angeles separately from this mass move. After all, that is really what this proposal is concerned with. Cheers, Rai•me 21:08, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
Shereth is right, such an objection would be little more (I would say nothing more) than wikilawyering. In the section directly above the strawpoll the intent was clearly stated:
It is not at all clear that there is anything close to having a consensus about Los Angeles needing to be a disambiguation page (or a redirect to a disambiguation page). But the strawpoll below should establish this one way or another. So far you're the only one who seems to feel this way, and if Vegaswikian participates I'm sure he'll agree as well. But I'm really curious whether there is even one more editor who agrees with you two, much less enough to establish something close to consensus.
Indeed, the strawpoll confirmed that Arthur Rubin and Vegaswikian were the only ones who supported the choices consistent with believing that the city was not the primary topic. More importantly, every one one of the Support votes for the mass move supported the move of every city on the list, including Los Angeles. Now, if there were a significant number of Support votes who said they supported the mass move except for Los Angeles, there would arguably be a reason to not move that city. But that is not the case. Not including Los Angeles in the mass move at this point would be going against the consensus clearly establashed by all those who voted Support for moving the entire list, without exception. --Serge (talk) 22:04, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Cleveland

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
I withdraw my objection to the inclusion on the list. The following discussion indicates my concerns were unwarranted :) Shereth 22:02, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

If any of the above should not be on the exemption list, it is this one. Cleveland is a common and notable last name, particularly in the case of US President Grover Cleveland. The name is also used by fictional characters. I would have to challenge the notion that the primary use of the word "Cleveland" outside of the United States is for the city. Shereth 18:16, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

In that case, shouldn't we be proposing moving Cleveland (disambiguation) to Cleveland? --Polaron | Talk 18:19, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Probably, and I would support such a move. Right now I'm just focused on the current proposal at hand :) Shereth 18:21, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
"I would have to challenge the notion that the primary use of the word "Cleveland" outside of the United States is for the city." (emphasis mine) So stipulated, but the point of the naming conventions isn't what slice of the en-Misplaced Pages readership isn't American. It's whether a particular name is the overwhelming default of the whole readership. That there are historical and fictional characters with the name just mean one of those "This article is about the city in Ohio. For other uses, please see Cleveland (disambiguation)" tags. Oh, look, there already IS such a page.  RGTraynor  18:29, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
I understand that - my rationale is that the name is only primary in the US, and even then a bit on the shaky side. Just because the disambiguation page exists as such currently does not mean it is the ideal solution. Shereth 18:33, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
I agree with RGTraynor on this issue. Consensus has already determined that the primary usage of "Cleveland" is the city in Ohio, as evidenced by the redirect. The only other Cleveland that could really be compared is Cleveland, England (I doubt that readers would expect to find Grover Cleveland when typing in "Cleveland", just as they would doubt to find George Washington when typing in "Washington", but that is my opinion), a now-abolished county in England, but article traffic statistics indicate that the Ohio city is the clear primary usage of "Cleveland". This situation is probably similar to that of Salisbury. Cheers, Rai•me 21:21, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Or Wellington, etc. I fully agree, "Cleveland" means the city. -- Jao (talk) 21:34, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

St. Louis

Not sure about this one as one would have expected that St. Louis should redirect to the non-abbreviated form Saint Louis. I don't know how common the city usage versus the saint usage is but I'm throwing this out here for a fuller discussion. --Polaron | Talk 18:33, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

It appears that currently, the St. Louis, Missouri article uses the "St." (abbreviated) form, while Saint Louis is a disambiguation page which refers to all possible variations. I would think that the status quo here would imply moving St. Louis, Missouri to St. Louis, which wouldn't have any effect on the disambiguation page at Saint Louis. Dr. Cash (talk) 18:38, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
The city's own web site is titled "City of St. Louis Community Information Network". If they don't bother spelling out "Saint Louis" themselves, I wonder if Misplaced Pages should. Rklear (talk) 18:49, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • St. Louis, Missouri article name should not be changed and this city should be removed from the exception list. This 'city,state' name is clear and unambiguous for the editor and reader of WP. When writing another article that links to this one, only one link needs to be made; when reading the link, there is no question what is being talked about. Remember WP is for a world-wide audience with varying levels of knowledge; giving readers help they may need is better than not doing so. Hmains (talk) 21:31, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

San Diego

Looking at San Diego (disambiguation), the city is not the primary use, but the name is. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:16, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

This argument is patently false. Dr. Cash (talk) 19:22, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
The argument is patently true. It may still be incorrect, but we need to reach a consensus at the disambiguation page first. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:02, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
This issue is so not controversial, that there is not even a talk page at Talk:San Diego (disambiguation) and no comments at Talk:San Diego since 2006. The undisputed (for years) redirect from San Diego to San Diego, California is in and of itself evidence that consensus has been reached on this point. That does not mean that the issue cannot be raised, but it needs to be raised there, not here. --Serge (talk) 23:59, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
As this is English Misplaced Pages, and not the Spanish version, it seems to me that Saint James is the name that the overwhelming majority of users would seek if referring to the Catholic saint. No native English-speaker would think San Diego = Santiago = Saint James, indeed, "San Diego" in English usage clearly references the city in California. Same thing could be said for San Francisco; if an English-speaker was thinking of Saint Francis of Assisi, they would use that name, not the Spanish language equivalent. --Friejose (talk) 14:57, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
Not to mention the fact that Santiago is the primary usage in Spanish, and even Spanish speakers wouldn't be looking for the saint at San Diego. I find it hard to accept the argument that any other use of San Diego approaches that of the city in terms of primacy. Shereth 15:10, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
  • San Diego, California article name should not be changed and this city should be removed from the exception list. This 'city,state' name is clear and unambiguous for the editor and reader of WP. When writing another article that links to this one, only one link needs to be made; when seeing the link, there is no question what is being talked about. Remember WP is for a world-wide audience with varying levels of knowledge; giving readers help they may need is better than not doing so. Hmains (talk) 21:40, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

San Antonio

Looking at San Antonio (disambiguation), the assertion is that the US city is the most commonly used. That is different then the primary use. Looking at the list, it would appear that establishing the city as the primary use may not be justified. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:19, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

This argument is patently false. Dr. Cash (talk) 19:22, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
The argument is patently true. It may still be incorrect, but we need to reach a consensus at the disambiguation page first. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:03, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Just as for San Diego, evidence that consensus has been reached on the point that this city of San Antonio in Texas is primary and most common use of San Antonio is the long undisputed redirect from San Antonio to San Antonio, Texas. Again, if anyone feels that consensus needs to be challenged, then they need to propose changing that redirect. --Serge (talk) 00:04, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

The San Antonio (disambiguation) page says, "San Antonio most commonly means the city of San Antonio, Texas." I don't see how anything could be more direct than that. Dr. Cash (talk) 00:44, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

  • San Antonio, Texas article name should not be changed and this city should be removed from the exception list. This 'city,state' name is clear and unambiguous for the editor and reader of WP. When writing another article that links to this one, only one link needs to be made; when reading the link, there is no question what is being talked about. Remember WP is for a world-wide audience with varying levels of knowledge; giving readers help they may need is better than not doing so. Hmains (talk) 21:50, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Miami

I am aware that Miami is currently a redirect to Miami, Florida, but there are several other prominent subjects which Miami denotes: for example, the Great Miami River and the Miami tribe. I make the patently true argument that the disambiguation page improperly asserts that "Miami" usually refers to the large city in southeastern Florida. Nyttend (talk) 03:35, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

See if you can achieve consensus on this point at Talk:Miami in order to change Miami to redirect to the dab page rather than to Miami, Florida. --Serge (talk) 06:18, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
An excellent reason why supporting #Review of convention for US cities is not a sound move. If things need to be reviewed, then they should not be batch nominated. Vegaswikian (talk) 06:28, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
They don't need to be reviewed. There is no serious doubt at all that the city Miami, Florida is the primary meaning for Miami by normal Misplaced Pages standards. The same with all the other cities on the list. There would not be the slightest argument about it if it weren't for the existence of a zealous band grasping at any arguments they can think of to protect their beloved "always city, state" convention (which is pointless now anyway since several exceptions have already been adopted).--Kotniski (talk) 08:30, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Indeed. If no one has even tried to change the ] to ] redirect for a given city to be a dab page, much less achieved consensus to do so, it's reasonable to assume that the consensus is that the primary usage for the name in question is to refer to that city, and that no review is necessary. --Serge (talk) 17:17, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Only in Serge's perfervid imagination. It is far more reasonable to suppose that few have noticed the redirect and no one has bothered to object. This is fundamentally a tempest in a teacup; although that is no reason to throw out the perfectly good cup of tea we now possess. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:17, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
If no one has noticed that ] redirects to ] (and thus doesn't redirect to name3, name4 or anything else), or they noticed but weren't bothered by it enough to object, then that constitutes consensus by default. In any case, for the 2 or 3 of who believe that ] should not redirect to a city because usually if not always the city per se is not the primary usage of that Name, nothing prevents you from trying to achieve consensus on that point. The argument that a given city should not be on the exemption (exempted from the comma convention) because the city is not the primary usage of the name of the city is absurd when the name in question has been a redirect to the article about the city for years, which is the case for every city on the exemption list. --Serge (talk) 19:58, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
The fact that ] has been a redirect to ] for any length of time is not conclusive "evidence" for the statement that "B must therefore be the primary use of A". Just because something has been a certain way for a certain time does not make it correct. Shereth 20:39, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Miami, Florida article name should not be changed and this city should be removed from the exception list. This 'city, state' name is clear and unambiguous for the editor and reader of WP. When writing another article that links to this one, only one link needs to be made; when reading the link, there is no question what Miami is being talked about. Remember WP is for a world-wide audience with varying levels of knowledge; giving readers help they may need is better than not doing so. Hmains (talk) 21:59, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
    • Yes, Misplaced Pages is for a worldwide audience, but the "city, state" standard isn't going to help worldwide readers when it comes to defining global cities like Miami. If a reader is unfamiliar with Miami, then are they any more likely to be familiar with Florida? When it comes to extremely well-known cities comprising the above list of exceptions, using the "city, state" convention is more confusing for readers, as the format is inconsistent with almost all other major cities of the world which use the simple "city" naming format. Cheers, Rai•me 15:46, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
      • There may be something to this statement. Granted, my experience is hardly authoritative on the subject but when I spent time in South America, there were numerous people who believed Miami to be one of the 50 states, and not merely a city .. and in fact used Miami to refer to the Florida area as a whole. It may well be that these particularly well-known cities are in fact more well known than their parent state. Shereth 15:18, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Boston

The city in Massachusetts is far larger than any of the places on that list. (There are also numerous places named London, Paris, and Berlin, looking at those disambiguation pages.) The 'original' argument has never really worked for me either. Our primary focus should be ease of use for the reader. 95% of our readers, when they search for 'Boston', are looking for the city at the center of a metropolitan area of several million people, not the city that happened to be founded first. AlexiusHoratius 05:55, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
You're not thinking fourth-dimensionally. Boston not only refers to the town, but to an extremely successfull band. I would say maybe 60% are looking for the city, and a good 20-25% are looking for the band. Does this qualify the city as needing the direct link? 25or6to4 (talk) 18:43, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
Keep in mind that there was already a discussion at Talk:Boston, Massachusetts to move the city that started before this mass move proposal began, and there seems to be pretty clear consensus there that Boston, MA should be moved to Boston. Since consensus has already been individually reached, this probably shouldn't even be listed here. Perhaps a hatnote is warranted for the band, but a dab page is certainly not a good solution here. Cheers, Rai•me 01:19, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
I concur with 25or6to4. A lot of people when they think of Boston will think of the rock band as well as the city. It's kind of like how many people think of Chicago the band or the Chicago Transit Authority when the city of Chicago is mentioned. So that's why I've always thought that Boston and Chicago should be disambiguation pages. --Coolcaesar (talk) 06:39, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
But again, the current requested move at Talk:Boston, Massachusetts shows clear majority support for moving "Boston, Massachusetts" to "Boston", indicating that there is clear consensus among editors that Boston, MA is the primary usage of "Boston". Of all of those proposed exceptions listed above, this is clearly the one that should be moved above all, as there is already consensus for it to be individually moved on the talk page. But on another note, Boston is no more ambiguous than London, Paris, and Berlin and is much less ambiguous than Worcester, Salisbury, and Plymouth. Unless we plan to turn all of these topics into dab pages, it makes no sense to have much stricter standards for determining primary usage for American cities. Cheers, Rai•me 15:40, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
Also, when I hear Boston or Chicago (well, maybe not Chicago) and think of the band, I think, "yeah, the band named after the city". What's next, a dab page for Vida Blue because there is a Vida Blue (band)? —Wknight94 (talk) 15:49, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Linking to places with disambiguation modifiers

Hi,

If, for example, you wish to refer to somebody born in Falmouth, Cornwall, do you link to both Falmouth and Cornwall? I have always assumed that the correct format would be

"MDCollins (born 1984 in ], ] is a wikipedian."

But recently, I have come across edits, where somebody has edited links such as these to

"MDCollins (born 1984 in ] is a wikipedian."

Is there any style/convention here, and is this the place to ask? I was going to revert some of the changes, but couldn't find anything in the MOS or Style Guides as evidence, so let it go. The former, although more cumbersome to write, does allow the reader to click to either Falmouth or Cornwall, something which would be very useful with far less common places. Any thoughts please?–MDCollins (talk) 00:03, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

{{City-state|Falmouth|Cornwall}} expands to the forumer, if you just want to avoid typing. I don't know what the convention is or should be. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:08, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Linking to places whose name has changed

Hi again,

Just thought of another question. When referring to somebody's place of birth, is it ok to use the name of the city at the time, provided that it is piped link to the modern name? For example:

"Sunil Gavaskar (born 10 July 1949 in ], India)..."

rather than

"Sunil Gavaskar (born 10 July 1949 in ], India)..."

–MDCollins (talk) 00:06, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

As I edit an article where the country, rather than the city, is in question, the answer would seem to be ] if it redirects to Mumbai or has a sensible article of its own. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:02, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Bombay is actually a disambig page, so providing that the link points to the correct article, which says Mumbai formerly known as Bombay (or similar), I can link to ]?–MDCollins (talk) 01:08, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
OK, in that case, I'd use the piped link. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:10, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Or Bombay, India. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:56, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Are Individual City Move proposals Appropriate now?

I see that User:Born2cycle seems to be managing discussions/votes for a good number of cities to move them from <city,state> to <city>, even as this discussion about a systematic policy change is in progress. It that appropriate? Should this editor be asked to hold off for a while? The cities he is working can be seen at his User page, which seems to be devoted to this effort. Pzavon (talk) 01:20, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

The only individual move discussion that is active right now is for Boston. The Los Angeles discussion is not about a move, but trying to establish whether there is anything close to a consensus about Los Angeles not being primary usage for the city. --User:Born2cycle (talk) 01:24, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
Which, of course, only matters in determining whether or not to move it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:19, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
Actually, it matters in determining whether Los Angeles belongs on the list of cities to be moved as part of the large move. --Serge (talk) 04:23, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
As for the question at hand: individual move proposals (for the twenty major cities listed on the guideline page) have always been appropriate, in either direction. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:17, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Boston

It appears that there is pretty clear consensus at Talk:Boston, Massachusetts#Requested move to move the article to "Boston" per a move request that began before the above mass move request began, and the survey has had no new opinions or discussion in two days. Building on the above, would it be acceptable to move this page now, before the hypothetical mass move takes place (which could take awhile, given the disagreement about which cities should be exceptions), or would it just be better to wait? Cheers, Rai•me 15:53, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Granted I'm biased, but I think the objective thing to do is just do it. Consensus for Boston was achieved independent of this big move proposal, and should happen regardless of whether the big move happens. And if the big move happens too, it's one less move to deal with then. --Serge (talk) 18:11, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
This single-purpose account wouldn't know the objective thing to do if he fell over it. Please learn to shut up when you've made your case, such as it is. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:16, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
Please, no personal attacks. --Serge (talk) 20:01, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
Ah, I see: this reasoning is so lame ... is not a personal attack. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:32, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

So, do we have consensus?

So, do we have consensus for the move all the cities listed above in the AP list?

Here is the tally so far:

Support (no exceptions edit: no exceptions with respect to the list referenced in the proposal)

  1. Rootology
  2. Kotniski (cites two possible exception but assuming that will be pointed out if it is the case, which it has not been)
  3. Shereth
  4. EdJohnston
  5. XSG
  6. Dr. Cash
  7. Majoreditor
  8. Charles Edward
  9. Loodog (conditioned upon each name in question already directing to the city article in question, which is the case)
  10. Davumaya
  11. Polaron
  12. Serge
  13. RGTraynor
  14. Comayagua99
  15. JoshuaZ
  16. Raime
  17. Jao
  18. Vertigo700
  19. Grsz
  20. HoosierState
  21. szyslak
  22. AlexiusHoratius
  23. Nyttend
  24. Andrewa (support is listed as "conditional", but clearly states "the list quoted above poses no problems")
  25. Wknight94
  26. UL
  27. Grey Wanderer
  28. epicAdam
  29. User:Friejose
  30. User:Bob rulz
  31. User:Foogus
  32. User:Hexagon1
  33. User:Thomas Paine1776
  34. User:Soman
  35. User:Joowwww
  36. User:SilkTork
  37. Special:Contributions/199.125.109.99


Conditional support

  1. Georgia Guy Supports move of every city on the list, except for Cleveland. But he's the only one who opposes the move of Cleveland.

Opposed

  1. Baseball Bugs
  2. Arthur Rubin (opposes mass move especially because of Los Angeles which he and Vegaswikian alone believe is not primary use of the name)
  3. Phiwum
  4. Vegaswikian
  5. DragonHawk
  6. Hmains
  7. Will Beback
  8. Stifle
  9. CPacker
  10. PMAnderson
  11. 25or6to4
  12. Okiefromokla
  13. Coolcaesar

Even if you don't count the IP address, the vote is 36 in support of moving every city listed without any exceptions, vs. only 13 against. That's pretty overwhelmingly one-sided, especially for issues on this page. I don't think it would be reasonable to seek to achieve more consensus than this. --Serge (talk) 23:26, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Your analysis is incorrect. You cannot assume that someone who posted an unqualified statement of support is making a statement desirous of support sans exceptions. I, for example, supported the notion without making any specific conditions, but I also support the notions that exceptions to this rule be allowed. You are habitually presuming to expand upon the meaning of statements that are not yours - you should avoid this sort of behavior. Shereth 23:33, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
How much more consensus do people want? I count almost 3/4 in favor of the mass move. Dr. Cash (talk) 23:53, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
(ec) I would agree that the move has gained sufficient consensus - I am just objecting to Serge's characterization of the consensus to do so without exception. There is no such thing as without exception on Misplaced Pages, and while there are good-faith objections to moving individual cities, the consensus to update the wording of the naming convention should not supersede individual discussions for individual articles. Shereth 23:56, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
Shereth, I'm sorry, but the proposal made by Dr. Cash was clearly stated as, "let's just vote on moving all of the aforementioned cities over to the 'city' article name instead of 'city, state' name". If you (or anyone else) voted in Support of that proposal, without mentioning any caveats, what else can we presume but that you support "moving all of the aforementioned cities" (i.e., without exceptions)?
If we are to interpret every Support vote to possibly imply some possible exceptions, then how are we to fairly decide which on the list constitute exceptions? What has happened is that mostly those who oppose the entire move have raised objections to individual moves as well. You say you "support the notions that exceptions to this rule be allowed". Which rule, exactly, do you mean by "this rule"? What should the exceptions be? How should they be decided? It opens up a whole can of worms that this proposal was specifically put forward to avoid. Perhaps you did not understand that and so voted incorrectly in support of it? If so, I urge you to change/clarify your vote accordingly.
By the way, I support exceptions too. And I do think that's implied for all support votes. But one or two people (especially if they are in the minority opposed to the proposal) "raising questions" is nothing more than filibustering. It appears to me that the only conceivable legitimate individual exception (that is assuming you're not opposed to exceptions to the comma convention in general, but correct me if I'm wrong) is when the city in question is not the primary use of the name, and that issue should be dealt with on the city's talk page, starting with proposing that ] not redirect to the article about the city (which I agree it shouldn't if it's not the primary use). But there is no evidence that there is anything close to consensus on this point for any city on the list. Am I missing something? --Serge (talk) 23:59, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Several of us who oppose have given samples of our objections; Geometry Guy may well be one of these (and I think, and have said, his specific objection on Cleveland is not unreasonable). In any case, he opposes a universal move, and should be so counted. That makes the total support, even counting the IP, about 73%; that is not consensus, and never has been, especially for a massive move like this. (A closing admin should also consider the arguments; this is not a matter where civic pride should be considered, because using Boston, Massachusetts or Portland, Maine says nothing either way about "world-class cities".) This should be done, and should have been done, as a series of requests at the individual talk-pages, where such questions as the ambiguity of Los Angeles can be considered as necessary. This would presumably result in moving some of these and not others, but we cannot yet see which; let us see who is dogmatic enough to object to such a settlement. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:11, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
  • I should also note that Serge is begging the question: single-named American cities, whether one or five or twenty, will be always be exceptions against a great mass of places named City, State. They must be; the majority of American place names are ambiguous, and adding the state is the idiomatic way to disambiguate them.Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:25, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Nothing I said contradicts the point that single-named American cities will always be an exception (whether it's true or not) relative to all articles about American cities. The context of the without exception phrase was with respect to the list of cities in the proposal which clearly proposed moving all of them. --Serge (talk) 00:34, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
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