Misplaced Pages

Convention: In general, there are no special naming conventions for cities, unless multiple cities with the same name exist.

Discussion, rationale, and specifics: See: Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (city names)

In other words, it states specifically that the convention at WP:NC:CITY#United States overrides the general policy in WP:NAME. Neither WP:NAME nor any of the WP:NC articles states that the only reason for "qualification" is disambiguation. In fact, WP:PLACES (the parent of WP:NC:CITY) suggests a few instances in which "pre-disambiguation" should be done to avoid (probable) multiple moves at a later time. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 23:15, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

It says there are no SPECIAL naming conventions, meaning there are none beyond the general ones (WP:D, WP:NAME, WP:NC(CN), etc.), not that there are NO conventions. I don't see how you can interpret what it says at WP:NAME#City names to mean that the "convention at WP:NC:CITY#United States overrides the general policy". Specific conventions should augment the general policy, clarifying things in a particular area that the general policy does not cover, not contradict or "override" the general policy or guidelines. It's like local and state laws compared to the Constitution - the Constitution provides the general principles and guidelines, the local and state laws provide the details. But they don't override the Consitution - that would be, well, unconstitutional. The current U.S. city naming convention is comparable to having an unconstitutional state law. --Serge 23:53, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Looking at another section, the policy on royal names amounts to a qualification convention in the absence of present or potential ambiguity, and the (number) convention doesn't have real potential for ambiguity for numbers over 1,000,000 or so. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 23:20, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Determining the most simple/common name for royalty is not a trivial matter as it is for cities. Thus, the conventions they use are arguably not qualifications of the simple/common name. No such argument can be made for cities where the most simple/common name is clearly always the city name itself. I don't know anything about the numbers naming, but, my initial reaction is that seems like an exceptional case, and, at most, is a counter-example. --Serge 23:53, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Let's forget all existing conventions for now, and just have an objective look at how everything in a title works. THEPROMENADER 23:59, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

What does that mean? What does works mean? How do we decide how everything in a title works? --Serge 00:14, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

So each subject could have its own agreed naming method and own disambiguation method. For reader comprehension it would be important that a single "name type" (say, people) always use the same (identifiable) convention and disambiguation, but it is not necessarily necessary that all "name types" use the same. THEPROMENADER 23:56, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

So every article could have it's own naming method? Or every category of related articles could have its own naming method? So you're okay with having inconsistent naming conventions between categories? Let's have cities be ALL CAPS (NEW YORK CITY, SAN FRANCISCO, etc.), animal names all be backwards (goD, taC, woC), and articles about corporations named by the CFO's mother's maiden name. Seriously, where do you draw the line? Should we not have consistency throughout the encyclopedia? Of course we should. So how do we accomplish that? What should those conventions and guidelines be? Hey, you know what? Deciding what those are is out of context for this page, and, even better, they've already been established! All we have to do is abide by them, which we currently are not doing with the U.S. city naming conventions as they stand. See WP:NAME, WP:D, WP:NC(CN), etc.... --Serge 00:14, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Of course not. "People" articles could have their own consistent naming method, and "Places" articles could have their own other. THEPROMENADER 00:26, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

This is also a style issue. So it is not unreasonable to have specific naming conventions for broad areas. The one size fits all model does not always work. If all cities follow one unified style that is slightly different then the unified style for animals is that wrong or an error? I'd argue that it is not and it can in fact make the encylopedia better. Sometimes the implementation of broad high level goals need to be modified when you actually do the implementation. Vegaswikian 00:37, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

At the high level, the broad guidelines should apply to all or they should not be accepted as the broad guidelines. If they don't apply, then they should be discarded as general guidelines. As you go lower you can get into more detail, but you should not be overriding the broader guidelines from the higher levels. Abiding by the higher/broader guidelines while adding more detailed but still consistent guidelines at the lower and lower levels leads to a consistent and rich system. The alternative is chaos, confusion and strife. --Serge 00:45, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Promenader, but even then, shouldn't there be general guidelines that apply to both? Like "use English", "use the most commmon/simple name", etc? That's what the general naming conventions are for - to establish standards and consistency throughout Misplaced Pages that transcend specific naming areas. Why should one little corner (U.S. city names) claim special status to violate the conventions and guidelines used by the rest of the encyclopedia? Augment: to fill-in details not covered by the general conventions and guidelines? Sure. But override the general conventions contrary to the rest of the encyclopedia? Why? On what grounds? --Serge 00:45, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah. Like I said earlier: for the sake of this discussion, forget existing conventions/styles/uses. Let's look just at the reader sees and understands.

For now you have two methods of "separation" - comma and parentheses. If both convention and disambiguation uses only the comma method, the reader will not differentiate which is which - he may even assume that what he sees is a proper name. The only people who (can) "define" which is which are Wiki contributors.

Parentheses, on the other hand, mark a clear separation of disambiguation from the name proper of the article subject.

I see a conflict between comma disambiguation and comma convention, and think futile an attempt to make a "subject-wide" attempt at making the two not overlap. Even if a standard be reached, it would have to be constant to be understood by the reader - thus the futility in making "one place this, another place that" rules. The only method that would remain clear to the (quite possibly foreign) reader would be a "type-wide" standard - placename, people-name, etc. THEPROMENADER 09:36, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

US additional disambiguation change suggested.

I'd like to suggest that we change the following from:

Those cities that need additional disambiguation include their county or parish (for example Elgin, Lancaster County, South Carolina and Elgin, Kershaw County, South Carolina).

to

Those cities that need additional disambiguation include their county or parish (for example Elgin, South Carolina (Lancaster County) and Elgin, South Carolina (Kershaw County)).

This change would keep the place name in a more natural form and disambiguate in a more standard form. The pipe trick, Elgin, South Carolina, would work with this format to easly display the disambiguated city name where that was appropiate for use in the article.Vegaswikian 00:48, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

That makes sense. -Will Beback 00:54, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I think (as I said above, in a lost context) that Elgin (Lancaster County), South Carolina would be more appropriate, as it's in order of size of geographic area. Testing the pipe trick below:

• current: Elgin
• Vegas: Elgin, South Carolina
• me: Elgin

Seems to work in my version. I guess I don't understand the pipe trick.... — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 01:01, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Since disambiguation is usually at the end of the title and not it the middle, your suggestion would appear to be an exception to the norm. Vegaswikian 20:44, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, very good. I don't think you'll get much objection. If a few more chime in to agree, I suggest being bold and just changing it. No need for yet another survey, hopefully! --Serge 01:03, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I would prefer Elgin (Lancaster County) since (Lancaster County) seems to be the simplest and most logical disambiguater in this case. --Serge 01:08, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

That would be a deviation from the city, state guideline. I'm trying to only change one small piece and not open up the bigger problem in another way. Vegaswikian 01:16, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree my preference would be a deviation from the current guideline, which is why I mentioned it as such and do support your proposal. I can't believe there are objections (based on false claims like "AE usage" of course). --Serge 01:44, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

edit conflict-Looks like it may be a choice between

• Elgin (Lancaster County), South Carolina (pipe trick produces Elgin)
• Elgin, South Carolina (Lancaster County) (pipe trick produces Elgin, South Carolina).

Vegaswikian 01:14, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I see no reason not to use Elgin, Lancaster County, South Carolina which pipes to Elgin. It is AE usage; the pipe trick works. Of Vegas's two choices, the one that pipes to Elgin is probably more useful. Oppose. Septentrionalis 01:17, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Elgin, Lancaster County, South Carolina is AE usage??? Let's ask google...

Results 1 - 10 of about 27 English pages for "Elgin, Lancaster County, South Carolina"

Results 1 - 2 of 2 English pages for "Elgin, Lancaster County, South Carolina" -Misplaced Pages

The two in the latter case are explicitly derived from Misplaced Pages despite Misplaced Pages being eliminated from the search results. In other words, there are only 27 references to "Elgin, Lancaster County, South Carolina" on the entire internet, and all 27 are derived from Misplaced Pages usage. It is not AE usage! --Serge 01:42, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Elgin, South Carolina is of course much more common; but we cannot use it. In its absence, Elgin, Lancaster County, South Carolina is the default. Please stop arguing with a native speaker. Septentrionalis 01:57, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

What is the relevance of you being a "native speaker"? So am I. So what? Why do you contend that "Elgin, Lancaster County, South Carolina is the default"? Why is it the default? What's wrong with "Elgin" or "Elgin, South Carolina" with "Lancaster County" as the disambiguator (to produce Elgin (Lancaster County) or Elgin, South Carolina (Lancaster County))? Why is one of those not the default? Either just Elgin or Elgin, South Carolina is much more common in AE usage than is the virtually unheard of Elgin, Lancaster County, South Carolina; in either case, the Lancaster County disambiguator is not part of the name. --Serge 06:33, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

How does someone who lives between the two Elgin, South Carolinas identify which one they mean? How about someone who lives halfway between them and another Elgin (e.g. Elgin, Texas), when talking to someone else who also is aware of the existence of all three? Of course the locals never use the state to disambiguate or qualify the names. Perhaps I should also ask how a Californian would identify which of the three he meant, when talking to someone who knows about all three, and they are equally likely to be the subject of the conversation. Secondly, if the audience is unaware if any of these Elgins, but possibly some other one closer to home? --Scott Davis 08:07, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

We do name our subjects in Misplaced Pages consistent with how they are named in "real life", but I think it's a mistake to expand that to try and mimic how particular names are disambiguated in various contexts in "real life", and, instead, use a consistent/standard method to disambiguate within Misplaced Pages. I think it's a mistake because, as you point out, there is rarely a clear/consistent answer to how names are disambiguated in real life since it depends on context. --Serge 17:25, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

One of the problems here is that the required disambiguation is often done verbally (e.g., between two South Carolinians), and we require a text-based representation. Additionally, the verbal disambiguation is different depending upon the audience. When disaster strikes in Metropolitan Los Angeles, local stations refer to specific communities, sometimes with a county identifier, other times simply by referring to a nearby geographic feature (e.g., Topanga Canyon or "Big Bear" (which could refer to Big Bear City, Big Bear Lake, California, or the reservoir Big Bear Lake). When such a disaster is reported elsewhere in the state, the county is often used, sometimes the nearby city, but rarely a canyon, valley, or mountain range. Of course, when the event is reported nationally, it is simply "near Los Angeles" or even "in Los Angeles." The disambiguation level changes depending upon who's supposed to be hearing/reading it. Likewise, in the Delaware Valley (regional identifier) (better known nationally as the "Philadelphia area"), there are at least three Washington Townships, which are disambiguated with their county (but not the state). As with the "Los Angeles" example, when these events are reported outside the region, only the region and the town name are used, but not the county disambiguator. We should consider this when making decisions, and it is probably a source of much of this strife. --ishu 13:13, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

If I can express my opinion aside from any other discussion on this page, adding anything to a placename outside of its name with the comma disambiguation will always create conflict and confusion - if not for itself, for other similarily named (even in form) articles. The only part of a placename that reamains the same (language aside) is the name of the place itself - whatever is added after (and comprehension thereof) depends on the audience. Sates (attached with comma disambiguation) may as well be part of the name as far as foreigners (and the ignorant) are concerned.

I am still divided, but as I read through this (and it's taking a while) it is becoming apparent that "cityname" disambiguated with parantheses is the best solution for universal comprehension. At least I've seen so far. At least this way you can disambiguation whatever you want (states, counties, etc) between parentheses and the "which" of the namespace will still remain clear. THEPROMENADER 16:15, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree and am pleased to see you arrive at this logical conclusion. Perhaps the main reason "disambiguated with parantheses is the best solution for universal comprehension" is because this is the one standard/consistent method for disambiguation used throughout Misplaced Pages. Misplaced Pages readers are accustomed to it, and know what it means. In Elgin, Lancaster County, South Carolina. which is the name, and which is the disambiguating qualifier? This is even a problem for Portland, Maine (whereas Elgin (Lancaster County) and Portland (Maine) are unambiguous with respect to which is the name and which is the disambiguating qualifier). --Serge 17:11, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, it took me some time to get there. Already I see little logic in any convention - unless rock-solid standardised (no exceptions) - between "name" and "name, to the, highest, administrative, entity" - the confusion between the two (which is which administrative level, and where is it?). Wiki can support the latter method, but it is too tedious and cumbersome for contributors. As for the "name-only" choice, the name must be identifiable and separate from whatever is used to disambiguate it - and, since disambiguation, often over multiple levels and separated by a comma (county, state, etc), it must be seperated from the name in a different manner - and the only other choice is using parantheses. THEPROMENADER 18:15, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

PS: As for the name of a place itself, I think it should be a "textbook naming" or "map name" that holds sway over all. THEPROMENADER 16:18, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean. What are the "textbook names" or "map names" for San Francisco and Elgin (Lancaster County)? --Serge 17:11, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Look in a textbook, look on a map and you'll have your answer. THEPROMENADER 17:56, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

PS: by introducing convention into the name you are muddling the issue - did you not understand? A city may have a "local" name that may differ from its official name - so the official name should be used - this is all I meant. THEPROMENADER 18:04, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

What I'm not understanding is why you're saying I introduced convention into the name. What did I write to make you think that? Why do you think the "official" name should be used vs. the "local" name. What's the official name of New York City? City of New York? Are you saying Chicago should be at City of Chicago? I guess I'm not understanding. --Serge 20:23, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

You're looking past the problem, Serge. What everyone sees on an official or reference map (encyclopedia, eg) should be the standard here - simple as that. Think "google maps", think "michelin." THEPROMENADER 20:53, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Some examples

I think it may be easier to discuss this proposal if we can see how the page would look (rather than just the article name). Whichever method is used, two things are clear when we see the page mock-ups:

• The lead sentence clearly identifies the name of the place as Elgin.
• The lead sentence provides context for the disambiguation.

Below are three examples:

1. The current, comma convention
2. The proposed disambiguation "method"
3. The proposed disambiguation "method" with a redirect from the comma convention page name

Elgin is a census-designated place (CDP) in Lancaster County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 2,426 at the 2000 census.

Elgin is a census-designated place (CDP) in Lancaster County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 2,426 at the 2000 census.

I would support this proposal provided that searches can be made by the comma convention notation. I know that this is already the case (as well as searches via the U.S. Postal Service state abbreviations), but I think it is important to emphasize in our discussion that comma-convention searches and links would be possible. In our discussion, we can decide whether this emphasis is only for discussion or whether it should be an explicit part of the convention. --ishu 19:34, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

If someone can fix the formatting so that the Elgins don't appear as separate sections, please do so. --ishu 19:36, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

• This proposal does not afffect how the page will look. It will stay as it is following the basic format for any US city article. Vegaswikian 20:22, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
• It took me a while, but I think you are suggesting that we use Elgin (Lancaster County, South Carolina) as the new form. This goes beyond what I'm suggesting since it would be a deviation from the current city, state format. That is a bigger issue. I just offered a proposal to clean up disambiguation within the current standard. Vegaswikian 20:38, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

And just to be clear on what the current Misplaced Pages general conventions and guidelines (WP:D, WP:NAME, etc.) dictate, this is probably what we should have:

Elgin is a census-designated place (CDP) in Lancaster County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 2,426 at the 2000 census.

--Serge 20:59, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

That is... interesting to say the least. True that an "Elgin" will lead to an "Elgin" disambiguation page in most all circumstances (save the "best known", but that is another debate), but instead of putting the full disambiguation in the title, perhaps a partial disambiguation will suffice if it serves the purpose of disambiguation and the full explanation is provided in the disambiguation page. All that is important is that each article have its own name - and namespace (thanks to a "unique" disambiguation). This smacks of "technical" and lacks aesthetic... but technically it would work.

If I was to follow my gut feeling, if the disambiguation had to be a county, I would continue that between-bracket disambiguation all the way up the chain to the country.... most probably because, if needing disambiguation in its own (English-speaking for the US example) country, it would need the same in (from) others. Yet this need only apply if it is needed - that is to say, because of two different settlements in two different countries. THEPROMENADER 21:39, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me that if you have more than one subject with name X (in this case, X=Elgin), you need to look at all the uses of X and decide how best to disambiguate them. The first priority is to use the most common name (Elgin). If we can't because that name conflicts with another use of the same name, the second priority is distinguishing from the other uses. Finally, if we can distinguish in a manner that is consistent with the way other articles in the same category are disambiguated, that's a nice bonus. But we should not sacrifice the first two priorities in order to meet the third. Hence, Elgin (Lancaster County). --Serge 23:27, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Serge, a bit of advice - don't dilute your own arguments with unneeded detail - here, abandon all arguments save those that concern most ignorant reader. The term "Common name" with them: this term only applies, as far as an encyclopedia is concerned, to a name itself and not what you (or anyone) add(s) to it.

That said, it is true that you can use any convention you want, as long as you can disassociate it from disambiguation. Disambiguation has to reserve a possiblility of messiness, as its form possibilities, circumstances for use and final form can be many and almost unpredictable. THEPROMENADER 00:29, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Additional thought - it may be possible to have two different levels of disambiguation - technical and asthetic - one for the ease of contributors (minimal disambiguation), and another (perhaps through a redirect) the full disambiguation indicating precisely (thus reason for thereof) the full disambiguation. Perhaps a case may arise where this is needed, but it certainly never be a standard. THEPROMENADER 10:07, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

This doesn't make sense to me, again. Wouldn't Elgin, South Carolina (Lancaster County) be the standardized form of disambiguation-following-convention? All these places where we throw the county in the middle of the name are even worse than the proposed "world cities/AP list" exclusion, because at least those you have a chance to remember... -- nae'blis 15:54, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Wow. That's combining the standard disambiguation method (parenthetic disambiguator) with the nonstandard one (comma-separated disambiguator). I suppose it does make sense. The , South Carolina disambiguator is used to disambiguate from all the Elgins outside of South Carolina, while the (Lancaster County) disambiguator is used to disambiguate this Elgin from the other one in South Carolina. I like it. --Serge 16:57, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

If Serge likes it, there must be something wrong with it, then.... Seriously, my reasoning for putting the county in the middle is that it reads in the normal order as a fully qualified name. Hence, my preference is in the following order

1. Elgin (Lancaster County), South Carolina
2. Elgin, Lancaster County, South Carolina
3. Elgin, South Carolina (Lancaster County)
4. ...delete article, as even disambiguation is impossible with the remaining selected choices.
5. Elgin (Lancaster County) (we don't know, nor are likely to know, if the "Elgin"s in another state are also in a Lancaster County in that state.)

— Arthur Rubin | (talk) 17:17, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

As for remembering, Elgin, South Carolina would still be a disambiguation page, and Elgin (Lancaster County) should also be a disambiguation page even if there is only one at the moment, because there is little likelyhood that, if an Elgin appeared in Lancaster County, Virginia, that the creator of that article (at Elgin, Virginia) would consider the "necessity" of disambiguating also by county. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 17:22, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

So returning to the question in the previous section. Elgin, South Carolina (Lancaster County) should be the dabed form of identical US city names within a state. I'll make this change again in a while since it again appears to have support. This is being done while the broader discussion about the US convention continues to grind along. I think I just need Arthur Rubin to say yea to say we have consensus. Vegaswikian 17:42, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with my understanding of Promenader's suggestion--that all disambiguation be presented with uniform formatting, like this, in generic form:

CityOrTown (AllDisambiguation)

Not

CityOrTown, SomeDAB (MoreDAB)

I hope this is a correct interpretation of Promenader's suggestion, since we have too many proposals on the table (once again). --ishu 18:02, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Almost - that would be:

SubjectNameWithConvention (AllDisambiguation)

THEPROMENADER 19:16, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Is SubjectNameWithConvention the article title in this discussion or something else? Vegaswikian 03:30, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

At the risk of spinning this discussion out longer, SubjectNameWithConvention is not the article title, but one "flavor" of the "common name" of the article's subject. For example, SubjectNameWithConvention is like Madonna in Madonna (entertainer). The entertainer known as Madonna is not known as Madonna (entertainer). Of course, entertainer is the AllDisambiguation part. I hope that clarifies things in this discussion. --ishu 04:18, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Rationale for Changing Guideline

Please, no changes to the guideline. I think any change to mixing comma method parenthetical method will only result in confusion. I haven't responded to this discussion previously because as far as I could tell it was a set of competing solutions to a non-existent problem (or at least not a very significant problem). I think the mixing of styles will cause much confusion. older ≠ wiser 18:08, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

What, make things more confused than they already are? I circumstantially disagree. As long as a convention remains consistent and disambiguation remains clear, there will be no confusion. Start combining multi-level (yet sometimes not) comma convention with comma disambiguation, on the other hand, and you have a mess. The only people who are going to "like" a like situation are those who can already identify each element in a muliti-level article name and differentiate between them.

Anyhow, as long as you remain consistent there can be no problem. "City, State (disambiguation)" and "City (disambiguation)" work basically the same.

Lastly, remember that anything outside of a place's name in an article name is disambiguation. It would help discussion greatly if it were thought of in that way. THEPROMENADER 19:16, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely wrong. "Disambiguation", "convention", and "qualification" are three distinct things. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 19:20, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps to longtime convention cabal Wikipedians. When you build a multi-level namespace using a unique comma separation, do you really expect the reader to one of those three definitions for each element within? Not. Any name added to a "subject name" that is not the subject's own name is disambiguation. Anything outside the subject's name in a title is disambiguation of one form or another - no matter what you call it. THEPROMENADER 19:28, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Promender, do you consider the , California in San Francisco, California to be a disambiguator, even though there is no other San Francisco and San Francisco redirects to San Francisco, California? If it is a disambiguator and San Francisco, California is a disambiguation, what is it disambiguation from? Or, is , California just a qualifier that happens to not be a disambiguator? --Serge 19:45, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Arthur, yes, they are distinct, but they are also closely related in Misplaced Pages. How disambiguation is generally done in Misplaced Pages -- with a parenthetic remark -- is a convention. Disambiguation is a particular type of name qualification. Qualification of a name that requires no disambiguation is contrary to convention in Misplaced Pages. --Serge 19:45, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I'm not certain if I agree with all of Arthur's analysis, but I second his disagreement -- inconsistency is not the only cause for confusion--the new proposal introduces more complexities. While I'm not a great fan of the three-level comma forms, they are implemented fairly consistently within U.S. city articles (and this is a problem that so far is peculiar to the U.S. due both to the relatively high degree of autonomy of state and local governments in the U.S. and the popularity of using common names for places--although I wonder what sorts of disambiguation challenges we'd face if we had an article on every hamlet in China or India down to the same level that we have in the U.S.). older ≠ wiser 19:46, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

To ThePromenader: When you build a multi-level namespace using a unique comma separation, do you really expect the reader to one of those three definitions for each element within? Yes, why not. It is not such a difficult thing to catch onto. I think that I do agree with Arthur about the destinction between convention and disambiguation -- there are many possible methods for disambiguation. Using parentheses only one. Using commas for place names is another. Selecting alternate terms is another. The convention is what provides guidance in determining which method to use in particular cases. older ≠ wiser 19:46, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I can assure you that the reader, unless he is pre-informed on the subject, won't. I do agree that there are many forms of disambiguation, but what is most important is that, whatever method is used, that it be identifiable. Unfortunately our choices here at Wiki are limited, thus my preference. THEPROMENADER 20:39, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

So are you saying that the subtelties of an equally arbitrary parenthetical disambiguation is somehow more easily intuited than the comma method? I don't think so. older ≠ wiser 20:46, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

There is no arguing that parentheses are the most obvious form of disambiguation. THEPROMENADER 23:44, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Baloney! That is a patently ridiculous assertion. older ≠ wiser 01:29, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) There is indeed, no argument that parentheses are the most obvious form of disambiguation; they aren't. To a reader, who should be assumed to be ignorant of Misplaced Pages and its conventions, they are no more obvious than many possibilities, and probably less obvious than the slash. (Considering a editor, who knows WP, leads eventually to the conclusion that whatever this guideline says will be "obvious"; at least in a few months.) Septentrionalis 00:02, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. Even supporters of the comma format can't agree on whether it's a naming convention or a disambiguation/qualification of the name. With Portland (Oregon) there is no question as to what is the name of the subject of the article (Portland), and what is the disambiguator (Oregon). With Portland, Oregon it is much less clear on whether the name of the subject is Portland (and , Oregon is just a disambiguator) or Portland, Oregon (where , Oregon is part of the name). Since the primary purpose of the title of the article is specify the most common name use to reference the subject, this ambiguity in the comma format is inherently flawed. --Serge 23:59, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

On the contrary, we agree: it's both. Septentrionalis 00:02, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Still don't agree. Commas by default signify an "and then"; parantheses signify a "side comment." THEPROMENADER 00:15, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Septentrionalis, some comma format supporters see use of the comma format as both a "fully qualified naming convention" and as a disambiguation. But my point stands. There is no agreement even among comma format supporters, much less among everyone, that Chicago, Illinois, for example, is the "fully qualified" name for the City of Chicago. It's not clear. It's ambiguous. It's a problem. Thankfully, in that case, the problem was solved by moving the article to Chicago. --Serge 00:23, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

"Fuly qualified" - by who? It would help mantain a coherent course of disucussion, Serge, if you wouldn't pick arguments just for their support of your views. There is a train of thought at play here - conflict and reader comprehension - so let's do our best to stick to it. THEPROMENADER 01:05, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Promenader, my point is that the comma format causes conflict and comprehension difficulties for readers by being ambiguous with respect to whether the , state part is a disambiguator, just a qualifier, both, or what. My evidence for the confusion it causes is the lack of agreement even among comma format supporters as to what it means. --Serge 01:10, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Serge, do you have any evidence that any Misplaced Pages readers have been confused by the name Oklahoma City, Oklahoma? (That name, by the way, appears on a t-shirt purchased in OKC, but I wasn't confused by that fact.) This really is a non-problem, as far as I can tell. Using the state in the article title gives useful additional information. I have seen no evidence whatsoever that it causes confusion. (Note: I don't argue that every title should be packed with as much useful additional information as possible. I just don't see the confusion that you're so very concerned with here.) Phiwum 15:51, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Hm. Okay. Perhaps we should just say that everything outside of the placename itself, no matter how it is attached, is a form of disambiguation - as it serves as such. THEPROMENADER 01:18, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Saying it does not make it true for everyone. No matter how much we say it, some will continue to argue the , State is not a form of disambiguation. You never answered my question above on this. I will repeat it here: Promender, do you consider the , California in San Francisco, California to be a disambiguator, even though there is no other San Francisco and San Francisco redirects to San Francisco, California? If it is a disambiguator and San Francisco, California is a disambiguation, what is it disambiguation from? --Serge 01:36, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Whoo. Yes, it is a form of disambiguation - as it is a convention made with future disambiguation in mind. The fact that this has become a convention does give it a right to use the comma as a separator (as a convention), but this will work (without conflict) only if that convention remains consistant and true to its own rule. Thus if "city, state" is the standard, every city article must use "city, state" for the convention to remain identifiable and avoid conflict (of reasoning and style) with other "settlement" articles. Thus any disambiguation outside the convention must be indicated in a different manner, or conflict and confusion between articles ensues. THEPROMENADER 15:52, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

• Edit conflict. Portland is ambiguous. Are you talking about Maine or Oregon? This is not a naming convention or a disambiguation/qualification issue. It is a editoral sytle for the encylopedia. You can call it a convention but it is more significant then that. As an editoral sytle, or naming convention, it is not about disambiguation. The US naming convention as implemented reduces the need for disambiguation in place name articles. Can a well designed editoral sytle deal with reduicing future disambiguation? Yes. That does not mean it is a disambiguation policy. Vegaswikian 00:25, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Yet the US city naming convention is a form of disambiguation - this is a large part of its very purpose, as you have just so said yourself! "Future" disambiguation, "reduces the need for disambiguation" - no turn of language can change this. Please let's just treat it as such and move on. THEPROMENADER 01:05, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

No I said it is an editoral style apart of what I believe is caleld a style sheet at a newspaper. This directs how you always write certain types of things. This is used to present a consistant presentation of like information. This is not disambiguation plain and simple. A side effect of a well designed style can be disambiguation. That is a different issue. Vegaswikian 06:02, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Whether it is an "editorial style" - or use any adjective you want - or not doesn't matter: anything tacked to a name that is not the name itself must have a justifiable purpose and raison d'être. Although "future disambiguation" justifies in part the "city, State" convention, I still think it is popular because of the comfort factor - it is a common US practice to name "other state" cities in this way. Yes, this could be called a "style", but this as a style this comfort is its justification. As a disambiguation it is not identifiable as such, and will conflict with any further disambiguation using the same comma separation. Thus I like less and less the "city, state" with comma (true) disambiguation. THEPROMENADER 15:37, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict x4) Disambiguate is a Misplaced Pages term, as can easily be seen from the cross-namespace redirect. To the extent it's used elsewhere, it means something different. A naming "convention" could be anything related to names, and "qualification" is a clear from computer science. Completely different concepts. Serge is still wrong, in that the general naming convention (policy) specifically states it can (and should) be modified as needed in specific subjects. (And qualification of names not required by disambiguation or convention is contrary to policy.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 19:52, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Arthur, it would seem that you're stuck in your own definition of things. it doesn't really matter how we (no matter how educated we are) define a certain object; it's its presentation, and the composition thereof, that informs the reader. One method of separation speaks of one method of composition but the comma, in this case, is actually several. I don't see how you expect anyone, informed or not, to see the different "methods" at work here - all the reader sees (and we must assume ignorance) is a chain of places separated by commas, and only the first of these is the subject of the article. Go figure. THEPROMENADER 20:39, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Serge writes:Since the primary purpose of the title of the article is to specify the most common name used to reference the subject, this ambiguity in the comma format is inherently flawed. I just don't see this as the purpose of WP:NC. Rather, WP:NC (aka WP:TITLE) provides guidance on "how to appropriately create and name pages". The purpose of the title is to assign a unique title (identifier) for the container of information (the article). The WP policy/guideline/convention is to use the "most common" name whenever possible but that rule is subordinated to uniqueness--which brings us to this discussion. As I've noted above and elsewhere, the lead sentence is a universal place in which to specify what is the "most common" name for a place. Additionally, there are numerous other locations in an article (e.g., infobox titles) that provide additional context as to the "most common" name. The disambiguation provides uniqueness to the title, but it is unreasonable to assume that the title alone will provide 100% clarity on the "most common" name for 100% of readers who are 100% might be largely ignorant of Wiki conventions/policies/etc. --ishu 02:12, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Ishu, Serge has consistently failed to acknowledge over a long period of time that the only purpose of an article title is to provide a unique identifier for the article.

Arthur, a naming convention that requires a qualified (not fully qualified in this case) name reduces the likelihood of name clashes, and therefore the naming convention serves to reduce the need for explicit disambiguation.

Promenader, I think your suggestions for how to disambiguate multiple towns in the same state may have merit, but nobody answered my earlier question about how it's done at the local level in real life. --Scott Davis 04:26, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I tried, but it didn't end up very clear. What I meant was that local DAB tends to leave out the larger geographic distinctions (e.g., state) since those are understood locally. While there are 22 Washington Townships in Pennsylvania, in most cases, little to no DAB is typically used, since people know the local Washington Township. On local news in the Philadelphia region, the typical DAB will mention Washington Township, Gloucester County, omitting the state, as it is assumed that the audience knows that Gloucester County is in New Jersey and not Pennsylvania. (Maryland and Delaware, the other two states in the broadcasting area, do not have townships at all, so they are presumed to be excluded by the "common name" plus context.) But that's just for this one region. Other town-based, smaller states like Massachusetts don't have duplicate names in the same way.

The big picture here is that we're working on a compendium of basically local information for use by a readership that's much broader than usual for smaller places. Given the large number of articles, achieving consistency is difficult--yet even more necessary than with a smaller reference source. --ishu 05:02, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Scott and Ishu, if the "only purpose of an article title is to provide a unique identifier for the article", then why doesn't Misplaced Pages just use randomly generated identifiers for each article title? Answer: because providing a unique identifier is not the only purpose of an article title. Why do Misplaced Pages conventions and guidelines call for using the most common name used to reference the subject of the article in the title? Answer: because providing a unique identifier is not the only purpose of an article title. The primary purpose of the article is NOT to provide a unique identifier. Other encyclopedias are setup with different articles sharing the same titles; Misplaced Pages could be as well. It just happens to be setup, albeit for various good reasons, such that the title must be unique. But that's not the only purpose of the title. If it were, then encyclopedias without unique titles would not have article titles at all - because the titles would not have any purpose. So, yeah, I have not acknowledged that the only purpose of titles is to provide a unique identifier - because it's not true. However, if one believes unique identity is the only purpose of titles, I can see why he would not have an issue with using the comma format for U.S. cities. It explains much. --Serge 05:13, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Please reread what I wrote in response to your claim that "the primary purpose of the title of the article is to specify the most common name." As I acknowledged, specifying the "most common" name is one purpose of the title, but it is not the primary purpose. The guidelines clearly indicate that adding terms for disambiguation is more important than "specifying the most common name." As a procedural rule (and common-sense usage), we expect the "most common" name to be part of the title. (Often times, it is the entire title.) However, the need for disambiguation means we should not and cannot expect the "most common" name always will be clear from the article title. Consequently, "to specify the most common name" is not and cannot be "the primary purpose of the title of the article." --ishu 05:34, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Ishu, I'm sorry for addressing that last post to you as well as Scott. I was really only addressing what Scott said: the only purpose of an article title is to provide a unique identifier.

Where does any guideline indicate that adding terms to the name (as opposed to adding them as a disambiguator) is more important than "specifying the most common name?" Where do you get the idea that the most common name only has to be part of the title? The general guidelines do say things like Use the most common name and When there is no risk of confusion, do not disambiguate. If the most common name is shared by two or more articles, okay, disambiguate. But when there is only one article subject with a given "most common name" (like Oklahoma City, for example), there is no risk of confusion by definition, and, therefore the do not disambiguate dictate applies. Why do we have a naming convention specific to a tiny corner of Misplaced Pages (U.S. cities) that blatantly violates these widely followed general conventions and guidelines for no apparent reason? Canada dropped it without any problems. Have the New York City, Chicago or Philadelphia suffered? Of coure not, because there was no reason for them to be at New York, New York, Chicago, Illinois, or Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. If you're going to have an exception or specific guideline that blatantly violates general guidelines, fine, if you have a good reason. A good reason is what's missing as a basis to use the comma convention to disambiguate with state even when there is no risk of confusion with the most common name - the Cityname alone. --Serge 07:52, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

An encyclopedia article's title names the object of its content - this is its only purpose. An encyclopedia entry is not a newspaper nor magazine article: it does not need its title to serve as a summary of its storyline or content. Thus I (increasingly) find it pointless to add anything to the object name of an encyclopedia entry title that isn't the object name - unless it is for reasons of disambiguation. THEPROMENADER 15:37, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Serge: Where does any guideline indicate that adding terms to the name (as opposed to adding them as a disambiguator) is more important than "specifying the most common name?" Since the article title must be unique, disambiguation requires adding disambiguation terms to the "most common" name. That is, + = . I simply noted that WP:TITLE is clear on this point: one must add terms when disambiguation is required. My second point is that adding terms for disambiguation (by any convention) dilutes the clarity of the common name in the article title, especially for readers who do not understand the conventions of DAB, etc. I think this debate does a good job of demonstrating this loss of clarity. The clarity reduction occurs regardless of which convention is followed, since disambiguation is required with any convention (though not for all articles).

Serge: Where do you get the idea that the most common name only has to be part of the title? I didn't say that. Rather, I wrote: we expect the "most common" name to be part of the title. (Often times, it is the entire title.)

As a side note, can we attempt to use the word title to refer to the Misplaced Pages identifier for a subject, and restrict the word name to mean "words that people use to describe the subject?" I will try to employ this usage. --ishu 15:56, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

That is, + = .

- That is it, to a tee. THEPROMENADER 16:36, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I'll add that the policy is to use the common name in the article title, but the policy is not to specify the common name. If anything, the policy reduces clarity on the common name if and when disambiguation is used in the title. Of course, there are other more relevant places where the common name is specified, such as the lead sentence. --ishu 19:33, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Serge, responding to your comment to me: The purpose of the title is to identify the article, but life is easier for both editors and readers if it is a predictable sequence of letters and punctuation, rather than a random string. It's not that the purpose of the article title is to specify the most common name of the subject, but it is the convention that the name of the subject be used in the title of the article. --Scott Davis 11:42, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Scott, we're in agreement: it is the Wiki-wide convention that the name of the subject be used in the title of the article (which the U.S. city guideline violates). See my concession immediately following that the purpose of the title is not to specify the most common name. However, I also explain why common name specification has turned out to be a very useful side-benefit of titling articles with the most common name. To this extent, each title specifying the most common name of the subject of its respective article has become a useful secondary purpose of the Misplaced Pages title. --Serge

Ah, so when it suits you, having a secondary benefit to a naming convention is a good thing. But when it is something you dislike, the secondary benefit is simply a violation. older ≠ wiser 17:10, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Benefits of standard parenthetic remark dab over inconsistent comma dab

Ishu, okay, your reason and logic have convinced me that saying that the purpose of the title is to specify the most common name of the subject of the article is inaccurate. However, because the title is supposed to be the most common name when DAB is not required, in at least those cases the title does serve to specify the most common name used to refer to the subject of the article. Would you agree that specifying the most common name is a very useful and helpful side benefit of the title in those cases?
Now, if we look at the titles that are disambiguated using the standard parenthetic remark method, don't you think in the vast majority of cases it is obvious to even a novice that the parenthetic remark is a qualifier that is distinct from the common/primary name? For example, consider a novice encountering the article, Hair (film). Do you agree that it is obvious to the vast majority of readers that the article is about the film named Hair? Now, how many (if not just one) similar encounters do you think the average Misplaced Pages user has to have to figure out that the standard method for dabbing here is the parenthetic remark? Consider the reader who gets to Hair (film) via the main page on Hair, where he clicks on the second link in this phrase at the top of the page: Hair is also the name of a musical; see the stage production and the movie.
My point is that the parenthetic remark method, like it or not, is consistent, standard and very intuitive. Plus, when used, such as in Hair (film), it clearly distinguishes the common name part from the disambiguator in parentheses. Thus, the very useful and helpful side benefit of titles specifying the most common name applies not only to articles with titles that don't require ambiguation, but also to those that are disambiguated with the standard parenthetic remark method.
Finally, following the dab guidelines consistently means not disambiguating a title except when there is a risk of confusion which achieves the additional side benefit of telling the reader that any article with title Name is either the only or primary usage of Name (if it's not the only usage there should be a dab link right under the title). But if the title is of the form Name (disambiguator), then that immediately tells the user that there is at least one other subject whose most common name is also Name. All this communication about the most common name is lost with U.S. cities because of the use of the comma convention, especially because it is used contrary to WP:DAB: even when disambiguation is not required.
For example, whether you're at Morgan Hill, California or neighboring Gilroy, California, from their titles, the reader has no way of knowing whether there are any other Morgan Hills or Gilroys. However, if the titles were formed in accordance to WP:TITLE and WP:DAB, it would be obvious, for we would have: Morgan Hill and Gilroy (California), clearly indicating that Morgan Hill is unique and that there is at least one more Gilroy. That's useful and helpful information that we lose because of the current naming convention to always use the comma format. Of course, this information would also be true if the comma convention were only used when dab was required, so we would have Morgan Hill and Gilroy, California. But, in that case, for Gilroy, whether the name of the town is Gilroy or Gilroy, California is unclear. --Serge 21:39, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

First of all, in case you missed it, I have stated my general agreement with the dab-in-parentheses convention yesterday and the day before. I have stated elsewhere my willingness to depart from the comma convention as well.

Serge: Would you agree...common name... side benefit? Yes. I do not recall disagreeing.

Serge: don't you think... obvious to novice... parenthetic remark... distinct from common name? We should not assume this is true, and it is beside the point, since we agree there is a benefit for non-disambiguated titles.

Serge: the reader has no way of knowing whether there are any other . It cannot be proven or disproven, but I doubt that people scrutinize a title to establish whether there is another place sharing a name. There are enough compelling reasons to place all disambiguation within the parentheses without presenting weak reasons. --ishu 02:11, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Serge, you can't fix yourself on a target and call a halt to all reasoning to dig up and expose every argument possible in favour of it - in ignoring all else - this won't make you many fans, especially when it seems that your not even reading what others write. Anyhow.

I'm almost fully convinced that, if there is a city state convention, it was built around the "comfort" of typical US "talking from one state of another" common usage. If there isn't - well, it's popular for the same reason. US wikipedians may be the majority on English Wiki, but this technique, for all its faults and potential conflicts if not abided to the letter in its own identifiable form, is a rather "narrow" point of view on a world scale. There is no reason at all why entire Wiki can adopt a "Name (disambiguation)" method, and the "US convention" is one of the only things stopping it from doing just that. THEPROMENADER 09:10, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Except that, you know, there are several other country-specific conventions that use the comma method for disambiguation. I'm sure that the substantial number of UK and Autralian contributors could have adopted the parenthetical method. But the comma method was chosen. I don't know how they arrived at such a convention, but I suspect it was not out of any desire to emulate the U.S., but rather because that convention was familiar in those countries. older ≠ wiser 14:10, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Or rather could it have been because the comma is a more natural form of ambiguation adapted to everyday oral and writing habits? With your suggestion, I'm sure it was some of all of these. Anyhow, such practices don't seem very adapted to article titles/encyclopaedia entries. Especially when they need further disambiguation. THEPROMENADER 14:57, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

No, to be honest I don't really see that there is much of a problem with using the comma method for disambiguation. It may be slightly less intuitive for completely clueless nubies. But is is familiar and consistent (for the most part) and is powerful and extensible enough to uniquely designate a place with minimal confusion. With the parenthetical method, there is ALWAYS discrepencies as to what disambiguating term is used. Look at just about any categorical domain in Misplaced Pages where parenthetical disambiguation is used and there is a considerable variation in the disambiguating terms that are used. IMO, this makes such an approach less consistent and less user-friendly. Beyond that, there is the problem of confusion with geographic landforms. Under such a system, would Indian River (Michigan) refer to a city or a river? Would Green Lake (Wisconsin) be a city or a lake? There are hundreds of such ambiguities between landforms and populated places. As it is presently, parenthetic disambiguation is applied to landforms to help distinguish them from populated places. Granted, this is completely artificial, but it is pretty easy to pick up on with a minimal amount of cluefulness. older ≠ wiser 15:56, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

(Grin) now you're doing the same thing as Serge - cherrypicking in the opposite direction : )

With the parenthetical method, there is ALWAYS discrepencies as to what disambiguating term is used.

...that's another problem - what disambiguation terms to use -but with parathenses at least you know what is the name and what is the disambiguation. There is absolutely nothing wrong with disambiguating using (example) Indian River (waterway, Michigan) - if the need be. Once the disambiguation is identifiable you can disambiguate with whatever you want. Thanks for the rare example. THEPROMENADER 17:26, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Except that it isn't so rare. There are hundreds of such place names in the U.S. And as a personal opinion, ugly neologisms like Indian River (waterway, Michigan) are not an improvement. older ≠ wiser 17:43, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, fine, but with such examples, with comma disambiguation alone, you're going to have even more problems. Excuses, but ugly != doesn't work. THEPROMENADER 23:45, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

No, not at all. Indian River, Michigan is the town; Indian River (Michigan) is the stream. Green Lake, Wisconsin is the city, Green Lake (Wisconsin) is the lake. It is pretty simple to understand, and for the long run a much better alternative that making a determination at each and every instance what form to use. older ≠ wiser 02:54, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Indian River, Michigan is the town; Indian River (Michigan) is the stream.

In what way is this intuitive? How is it clear to the reader that one is a river and the other a town? This is only clear only to the informed Wikipedian. Bad example, my friend - this is in fact another problem completely. When's a river not a river? When you don't say it is! THEPROMENADER 05:32, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I didn't say it was intuitive--but it is pretty darn easy to figure out because it is applied relatively consistently. older ≠ wiser 11:57, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Ishu and Promenader, I did read what you wrote. What makes you think I was arguing with anything you wrote? Did you read what I wrote? I started this section to eat some crow and then explain some of the advantages of using standard parethetic dabbing over comma dabbing. If you agree, great. I asked some questions to confirm. So, okay, we may differ on how significant we think some of these benefits are, that's fine. But there is no need to get insulting.

Well, when you treat issues in your answers in ignoring others who have done the same in their replys to you, one only has to wonder. I'm sure you can understand the doubt, and no it's not insulting. The point of this remark was to show the desire for a clearer method of argument - thus a shorter talk-page. THEPROMENADER 05:32, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

As to older ≠ wiser who writes, Under such a system, would Indian River (Michigan) refer to a city or a river? Would Green Lake (Wisconsin) be a city or a lake?, the answer is... with all due respect... who cares? These questions presuppose that one should be able to identify the type from the article title. This is not true for any article in Misplaced Pages. This is not a goal of disambiguation for which the only purpose is to distinguish a title from all others uses of the same name. His entire argument is a red herring. --Serge 17:39, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Who cares?, well I guess fair number of those who have previously opposed your extremist propositions. older ≠ wiser 17:43, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

How is calling for any and all naming conventions specific to any small corner of Misplaced Pages to be consistent, and not violate, the broader/general naming guidelines that apply to all of Misplaced Pages, extremist? That's like labeling someone who claims the U.S. Constitution should protect the rights of all citizens in all states to be an extremist. In case you don't know, I'm making the identical arguments aout TV episode naming over at Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (television), and arguments similar to yours here are made there in response, primarily by Elonka. --Serge 18:27, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Serge writes: What makes you think I was arguing with anything you wrote? Your tone and questions sound to me like you believe I disagreed with you. Specifically, after agreeing with me (by name) in sentence one, the next word is however, followed by five leading questions whose apparent purpose is to convince me in favor of the parenthesis convention that I'd already agreed with. First you call the question/answer format an "explanation," but then say it's "confirmation."

Later, you wrote:

My point is that the parenthetic remark method, like it or not, is consistent, standard and very intuitive. Plus, when used, such as in Hair (film), it clearly distinguishes the common name part from the disambiguator in parentheses.

The expression "like it or not" generally connotes that the other party does not like "it," and then you pile on additional reasons why I should buy into the parenthesis convention. Please let me know whether I'm being overly sensitive here, but this all comes across as an effort to convince me of something I'd already agreed with.

When I wrote There are enough compelling reasons to place all disambiguation within the parentheses without presenting weak reasons, it was to suggest that we focus on the strongest arguments for this (or any) convention, rather than get bogged down discussing weak (and unsupportable) reasons. Speaking only for myself, I intended no insult nor do I see any in what I wrote, and I apologize for not being clearer. --ishu 18:46, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I am really sorry for botching this. I switched from addressing you specifically to "you" in general gradually and unclearly. The first sentence and paragraph is addressed to you specifically. Most of the rest refers to "you" in general... meaning anyone who is reading it. I know I really botched that. Sorry! --Serge 19:01, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Answer this question

The following question was posed at Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (television).

This is directed at those who do not want to follow the standard "disambiguate only when necessary". So far it has been ignored every time I have asked this question. What makes the articles on "Lost" or "Star Trek" special compared to other TV series on Misplaced Pages? What makes a TV episode article special compared for a mometo any other Misplaced Pages article? If these questions cannot not be answered, then you have no point. You cannot call for a "common sense exception" when no special case exists. Please also note that the question is not "What makes the editors special?" The fact that the editors have handled the articles differently does not make the article special. Jay32183 20:18, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it, slightly modified, is an interesting question here too. Here it goes:

This is directed at those who do not want to follow the standard "disambiguate only when necessary". What makes the U.S. city articles special compared to other city articles on Misplaced Pages? What makes a city article special compared to any other Misplaced Pages article? If these questions cannot be answered, then you have no basis for disambiguating even when not necessary. You cannot call for a "common sense exception" when no special case exists. Please also note that the question is not "What makes the editors special?" The fact that U.S. city editors have handled the articles differently does not make the article special. --Serge 18:34, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Serge writes: ". What makes the U.S. city articles special compared to other city articles on Misplaced Pages? I'm half inclined to borrow his words to me previously "the answer is... with all due respect... who cares?" But I might also point out some exaggerations: 1) The convention for Australian and Japanese cities is to use city, province by default (with some exceptions. (And although the Canadian convention allows cities to be at the simple name if unambiguous, only dozen or so have been moved) 2) The comma convention is not strictly speaking ONLY a matter of disambiguation--it is a naming convention; disambiguation is just one aspect of it. 3) The fetishization of the Use Common Names guideline has resulted in it being distorted and extended far beyond the original intentions. Its principle purpose had been to place well-known persons or things at their common name, such as Bill Clinton rather than William Jefferson Clinton. Once we leave the arena of the well-known, it become much more difficult to say what "common" really means. I don't think that it is necessarily the simplest form of the name. 4) There are already other areas of Misplaced Pages where a longer, more precise name is used in preference to the simplest name, such as for naval vessels and for royalty and for U.S. state highways. There may be other areas as well. It is not merely a matter of disambiguation, but naming convention. older ≠ wiser 19:43, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

older ≠ wiser argues that the "Use Common Names" guideline has been "distorted and extended" beyond the supposed original intent to place well-known persons or things at their common name, such as Bill Clinton. Funny that since there is no mention of the "well-known" factor in the statement of the guideline itself,

Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things.

nor is the term famous (or well-known) mentioned anywhere on the page describing the rationale and specifics for the common names guideline. In fact, that page even says things like:

In cases where the common name of a subject is misleading, then it is sometimes reasonable to fall back on a well-accepted alternative.

The implication is that where the common name of a subject is NOT misleading (you know, like Oklahoma City or San Francisco or even Carmel-by-the-Sea), it is not reasonable to not use the most common name and fall back on a well-accepted alternative (like Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, San Francisco, California and Carmel-by-the-Sea, California). Yet falling back on a well-accepted alternative is exactly what adhering to the comma convention for cities without ambiguity issues is, without any reasonable basis whatsoever. Being famous or well-known has nothing to do with it. It's all about disambiguity - not being misleading or confusing. I will say that for certain subjects "the most common name" is simply not clear. That is arguably the case for ships, aircraft and even all but the most famous royalty, and, hence, why the common names guideline is not that helpful in those areas. But for cities, where the most common name is clearly the name of the city itself, older ≠ wiser's excuse does not apply at all. --Serge 21:25, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Official names notwithstanding, why isn't Carmel-by-the-Sea, California the redirect and Carmel, California the article title? Surely the Google test would validate that usage? --ishu 21:36, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

That's an issue for the talk page of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. To some locals referring to Carmel-by-the-Sea as Carmel is akin to referring to San Francisco as Frisco... unacceptable. This is actually a case where In cases where the common name of a subject is misleading, then it is sometimes reasonable to fall back on a well-accepted alternative may apply. --Serge 21:40, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

What older ≠ wiser and all comma naming convention supporters do is make all articles comprising an entire class of articles (U.S. Cities), not just individual articles on a case-by-case basis, exceptions to the Use Common Names guideline. On what grounds? What makes U.S. cities so special? --Serge 21:47, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not even sure why I even bother attempting to engage Serge in dialog. It's like the person who complains that his head hurts when he bangs it against the wall and the doctor says, "Well, why don't you stop?".

In a sense, I agree with Serge. It is almost an exercise in futility to expect consistency or orderliness on Misplaced Pages, so one might as well give in to what appears to be the endemic, chaotic nature of Misplaced Pages and simply allow things to be named in whatever manner happens to be in vogue at that instant in time. There is nothing "special" about U.S. cities other than that they are all within the U.S. and happen to have a very simple and familiar method for describing them, which happily also happens to disambiguate them as well. In the very same way that a bunch of editors discussed things early on and arrived at the Common Names guideline, which you happen to find so very dear, not much later editors also discussed how to name U.S. cities and came up with the U.S. naming convention, which you happen to despise. One you seem to see as the supreme guiding principle, the other apparently, by your interpretation, was some sort of aberration from the natural order of the wiki way. I obviously disagree. I don't see any conflict between the common names guideline and the general sense of the U.S. city naming convention (or at least no more than the typical discord amongst the weltering multitude of policies/guidelines/conventions developed and continually modified ad hoc to address ever changing circumstances). I support making allowances for those U.S. cities that genuinely have a "common name" to have the article at that title. But I do believe that the common names guidance has been turned into something more than what it was originally intended to be. The topics discussed and the examples used were such things as Bill Clinton vs. William Jefferson Clinton. Interesting side note, the common names guidance developed in part as a response to the deprecation of the use of subpages (which in a way combined aspects of disambiguation with categorization). There is some meaning to using the "common" name of something that is well-known. But talking about the common name of obscure entities is somewhat oxymoronic. Where there are multiple names for obscure entities, there is benefit is using a naming convention that encodes additional information into the title. older ≠ wiser 04:11, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Aside: Really, Serge, with all due respect: I would not want you on my debating team. By turning this into an "us vs. them" issue by singling out (through your targeted questions) those who do not agree with you, you are almost obliging your targets to draw a line; others will simply leave the debate rather than discuss in that tone. Both dilute the process of a) discussing the issue through to a logical and mutually accepted conclusion with a b) comfortable consensus.

Everyone else: even though Serge's "debate practices" are not the best, this is not a reason to say he is wrong when he isn't. Please remain objective when picking through arguments.

Concerning the comment just above: It seems that there is some confounding of "common name" and "disambiguation". If it is a common practice to disambiguate a name with another, it does not make the combination into a "common name" - it is still disambiguation. The "common name" convention targets only the "language and form of the base name"; it was not made to encompass common disambiguation practices. I don't see the utility of compiling and comparing conventions to justify another - conventions are guidelines for their own issues, not those of others. THEPROMENADER 11:20, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

older ≠ wiser writes: talking about the common name of obscure entities is somewhat oxymoronic. This comment points to the real "problem:" U.S. places (in Misplaced Pages) are different because hundreds (if not thousands) of otherwise non-notable places (e.g., Indian River, Michigan) now have articles. Our options include:

1. Submit multiple deletion requests to eliminate non-notable places
2. Agree upon a standard or convention that is consistent with existing naming conventions.
3. Agree upon a standard or convention that may deviate from other conventions but is internally consistent.

I think it is much better to keep these articles, since the alternative is to have hundreds of inconsistent articles created, one for the birthplace of each celebrity to merit a new article, for example. It is certain that these articles will be completely different from one another--much as they were before Rambot. So we're left with (2) and (3). Older/Wiser correctly notes that the naming conventions weren't intended to deal with "obscure" (i.e., non-notable) places. The existence of these articles already deviates from article creation conventions, hence our problem. So I think it makes sense also to depart there's a case to be made for departing from the article naming conventions. I don't think that other countries have been article-ized to the extent that the U.S. has. If that's not correct, please let me know. --ishu 13:55, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

The proposition of destroying articles for the sake of maintaining a status quo is pretty silly I must say - I take it that it was made in jest : ) One of the beauties of Wiki is its ability to have articles on anything and everything - but it has to be prepared for it, and this no matter the "type" of article. THEPROMENADER 14:32, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

The deletion option was presented in the name of completeness: Unless we are willing to remove non-notable places (not just a silly idea, but bad idea), then we must recognize that the U.S. is different because of the large number of "obscure" places. The U.S. has the largest number of "obscure" places (and articles about them) because it

• has the third largest population in the world
• has nearly 4x population of Germany, 5x of the U.K., 10x of Canada and 15x of Australia
• is by far the most populous country that also has a "significant" population of wiki editors (in any language)

and because

• Rambot created articles for most of these places

If we are to have so many articles, it only makes sense to organize them in a coherent fashion. --ishu 17:57, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Ishu, arguing that a particular category (U.S. cities) needs to be organized in a coherent fashion (that is inconsistent with Wiki-wide conventions and guidelines) is an example of bottom-up thinking. See below for what I mean by this in more detail, and the problems with doing so. Paris is an exception to WP:DAB because it is so famous; this is why it is at Paris. And because Paris is at Paris, Paris, Texas of course can't be at Paris, and therefore must be disambiguated. Now, whether we put it at Paris (Texas) or Paris, Texas is a matter for Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (settlements), so that those cities that are disambiguated, are disambiguated consistently. But to define a naming convention for cities whose name does not require disambiguation is going beyond the scope of this or any category-specific naming convention. This argument is why the convention to predisambiguate TV episode names (with the name of the TV series in paretheses) is in the process of being reversed. See Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (television). --Serge 16:11, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Serge, there is a huge difference between the television series naming issue and places names (and you continue to conveniently regard this as a U.S. only matter, when Australia and Japan have similar conventions and Canada, although allowing for renaming, the vast majority of place names remain at the full city,province title, even where there is no ambiguity). With the preemptive parenthetical disambiguation of television series, you have a title that very few people would be likely to look for, without prior knowledge of the convention. With place names, the city,state convention is familiar and widely used throughout the English-speaking world. City,state is an alternate common name for these places, that also happily, has the side benefit of disambiguating the names. BTW, Paris is not an "exception" to WP:DAB, it exemplifies one of the principles discussed in that guideline, primary topic. older ≠ wiser 17:21, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Serge writes: Ishu, arguing that a particular category (U.S. cities) needs to be organized in a coherent fashion (that is inconsistent with Wiki-wide conventions and guidelines) is an example of bottom-up thinking. In this remark, I did not argue whether it should be organized in any particular way. Please try to keep the context in mind. When you write comments like this, it sounds like you don't care about any coherent organization. Disambiguation-when-necessary isn't a coherent fashion at all--particularly for places that are "obscure" or "not well-known" or non-notable--unless you favor deletion of all articles for non-notable places. If we decide to keep them (as most of us seem to want), then we have to deal with them. I and others believe "obscure" places should be organized coherently. Coherent organization does not need to conflict with any basic policies, principles, guidelines, or conventions. Of course, it may conflict, in which case we need to find a coherent, logical way to resolve the conflict--which may include modifying guidelines, conventions, policies, or principles. --ishu 17:02, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

• See Communes of South Tyrol for another list of places, many of them not particularly notable; I know about this because the names of all 116 of them are disputed <sigh> but not actively, this week. I think a massive deletion of US places would be very unfortunate: all of them contain information, almost all of them contain something more than the census; and any of them may be linked to at any time. Most events are in places, some of them obscure places, and these, which have been worked over, are better than redlinks. Septentrionalis 17:17, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, as far as wiki is concerned anyone can make an article about their hometown as long as there's something informative to say about it - I think it best that we prepare for that eventuality. Imagine that every city in the US has its own article - there's going to be two and even three level disambiguation, and possibly even more when it comes to disambiguation-needed names shared with places in other countries. Wiki thinks large; so should we. THEPROMENADER 01:17, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Our tone sounds like we (Promenader, Septentrionalis, me) disagree. But I don't think we do. Am I correct? --ishu 05:03, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Apologies for my tone then - perhaps we're all a little exasperated at the chaotic nature of this discussion. So many details have been thrown in that simple don't need to be. The problem in itself is simple, and so is the solution.

Yes, it seems that we do agree. Are we all for a "ProperName (allDisambiguation)" method? Side note: this is much ado about nothing, actually, because it would seem that most of Wiki already operates this way. THEPROMENADER 09:04, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I was referring only to the issue of whether we should delete articles for "obscure" places. I'll agree on the disambiguation for the following reasons:

1. "ProperName (allDisambiguation)" is relatively wiki-wide.
2. For the reader, the lead sentence is the most meaningful statement of what is the subject of the article. Any confusion from "ugly titles" (and some might be quite ugly) can and should be clarified by a well-written lead sentence. If readers are confused by the title, a likely first step is to scan the text of the article. (All articles should have a well-written lead sentence anyway.) I can't think of any issues related to "ugly titles" that aren't aesthetic, although I'm willing to hear the case for non-aesthetic problems.
3. Well-written disambiguation pages should also relieve reader burdens posed by complicated disambiguation schemes.
4. If Rambot can create all these city,state pages, then another bot should be able to handle the conversion.
5. Redirects can solve many other search problems.

I think that covers it. --ishu 13:12, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Yep. Agreed on all points here. I didn't even consider the "deletion" proposition as a serious one, so missed the point there. No of course we should not delete anything. THEPROMENADER 14:08, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

But as for the "ProperName (allDisambiguation)" method: no, I absolutely oppose it. It's not necessary; it's not useful; and it makes leads of the form: "The Something in Portland, Oregon..." significantly harder to write. Septentrionalis 18:44, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

1, "ProperName (allDisambiguation)" is relatively wiki-wide, Yes but it is not the sole method of disambiguation and the comma form is in common use for places. Unless you are proposing that ALL places for ALL countries MUST use the parenthetical method, I don't see any point to discussing replacing a familiar and consistent method with a less familiar and likely less consistent one (less consistent in that the there will likely be greater variation in the terms used to disambiguate, if other uses of parenthetical disambiguation are any measure).

2, True enough. My concern about "ugly titles" is NOT confusion -- rather, IMO, any system that disregards aesthetics is doomed. I think there is a tendency for humans to prefer more elegant and less "ugly" solutions. I see no basis for rejecting a simple, familiar method for one which is less familiar and unnecessarily increases the "ugly" factor. Aesthetics alone would not be a very significant factor to consider, but considering that, IMO, the alternative is inferior on other grounds, it is a factor to consider.

3, is a truism whichever schema is in place.

4, also true, but you had better be certain there is widespread support -- and, as with #1, that this applies uniformly to ALL comma-separated place names, not only the U.S. ones.

5, also a truism whichever schema is in place.

So, I do not support switching over to a parenthetical method for names of settlements. If there turns out to be a groundswell of support for this -- and it is applied uniformly across all countries, then I wouldn't stand in the way. older ≠ wiser 15:29, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Now that Serge mentions it, I hate current policy on most television show episodes. When I see an episode title all by its lonesome, I have no idea the context until I click on the link. Terrible. It's as if Misplaced Pages expects us to recognize what show the title is associated with (or that it's associated with some show at all). For the same reason, I like the current US city name guidelines. That way, I can see that Nowata is a city in Oklahoma without clicking on its link in the "See also" list. Phiwum 17:16, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Does it also bother you when you run across an article name like Ernesto de la Guardia Navarro? Does that mean we need to add more context to the article name to have Ernesto de la Guardia Navarro (President of Panama)? Or Ernesto de la Guardia Navarro (former President of Panama)? Bringing context into the article name is useless. How is it that you're finding television episode names and not seeing any context around it? —Wknight94 (talk) 17:45, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Phiwum, for the "city, State" convention, the context is in your own mind: you already know what the states are. Can you assume everyone does? THEPROMENADER 19:31, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Wknight94 makes a decent point and perhaps it applies to cities. But frankly, I find it less applicable to the titles of sitcom episodes. Since this talk page isn't about sitcoms, let's let it pass. Promenader's point is entirely lost on me. Yes, I know the name of fifty states. But if I wasn't raised in Oklahoma, then I sure as heck wouldn't know where Nowata was. Phiwum 20:06, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Wiki-wide consistency and orderliness

older ≠ wiser, you wrote:

In a sense, I agree with Serge. It is almost an exercise in futility to expect consistency or orderliness on Misplaced Pages, so one might as well give in to what appears to be the endemic, chaotic nature of Misplaced Pages and simply allow things to be named in whatever manner happens to be in vogue at that instant in time.

If I understand this correctly, what you're saying is that the alternative to having a consistent naming convention for U.S. cities is the "endemic, chaotic nature of Misplaced Pages" where we "simply allow things to be named in whatever manner happens to be in vogue". In essence, you're saying that naming in accordance to WP:NAME and WP:DAB is simply allowing "things to be named in whatever manner happens to be in vogue". If that's not what you're saying, please correct me.

The thing is, contrary to what you're saying, I do expect consistency and orderliness on Misplaced Pages. Naming in accordance to general conventions reflected by Wiki-wide guidelines like WP:NAME and WP:DAB, along with disambiguating when required on a case-by-case basis depending on the particular ambiguity issues that are relevant in each case, does lead to consistency and orderliness. The reason the current U.S. city naming convention drives me nuts is precisely because of my expectation of consistency and orderliness: because it is inconsistent with the consistency and orderliness that exists at Misplaced Pages. In particular, the vast majority of Misplaced Pages articles are named in accordance with WP:NAME and WP:DAB. Putting aside the comma vs. parenthesis issue, all U.S. cities with city names that require disambiguation are also named consistentently with WP:NAME and WP:DAB. The ones that are inconsistent and out of order are the U.S. city articles with city names that do not require disambiguation, but are never-the-less not located at the city name (e.g., San Francisco, California, Los Angeles, California, Houston, Texas, Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, etc.).

I think the problem is that you're looking at this bottom-up, and I'm looking top-down. The common ground we share is seeking consistency and orderliness. But you want to see it from the bottom looking up, and I want to see it from the top looking down. I don't know why you favor the bottom-up view, but I favor top-down because that allows consistency throughout Misplaced Pages, rather than islands of consistency that are inconsistent with each other, which is what you get with the bottom-up view. For example, because the U.S. city naming convention is constructed from a bottom-up consistency POV, U.S. cities are named inconsistently not only with the vast majority of Misplaced Pages articles, but also inconsistently with most other cities in the world.

Using a top-down approach, you have general guidelines at the top that apply to all Misplaced Pages articles, and more specific guidelines as you go down to particular areas, but those guidelines must remain consistent with the higher-level guidelines. That's how you achieve consistency and orderliness throughout Misplaced Pages. Achieving Wiki-wide consistency using the bottom-up approach, where lower level guidelines trump higher level guidelines, is practically impossible.

Your comparison of the guidelines in question is very revealing. You write, In the very same way that a bunch of editors discussed things early on and arrived at the Common Names guideline, which you happen to find so very dear, not much later editors also discussed how to name U.S. cities and came up with the U.S. naming convention, which you happen to despise. One you seem to see as the supreme guiding principle, the other apparently, by your interpretation, was some sort of aberration from the natural order of the wiki way. Here I believe you're implying that the two guidelines should be given equal weight since they were arrived at "in the very same way". But here's what you seem to be missing. The higher-level guideline, common names, simply reflects a convention that was naturally adopted in Misplaced Pages. Using the most common name to name an article is how people naturally name articles, not because of some guideline; the guideline does not dictate the convention, it reflects it. The U.S. city guideline, on the other hand, was arrived at for whatever reason (seeking consistency from the bottom-up, and not reflecting a convention that was naturally adopted by editors), and then imposed mostly through a bot. There was no convention established for any significant period of time to name all U.S. cities per the Cityname, Statename format before the guideline was written to say it must be so just because. To give both guidelines in question equal weight seems preposterous to me. And, of course, you don't give them equal weight anyway. I'm open about my position: in the name of Wiki-wide top-down consistency and orderliness, when there is a conflict between guidelines, the Wiki-wide guideline trumps the category-specific guideline. You seem to pay homage to the idea that the conflicting guidelines should be given equal weight, but your position indicates you're viewing this bottom-up: the category-specific guideline trumps the Wiki-wide guideline.

Finally, your view about what constitutes "common name" remains, well, original, if I may. You've backed off saying it applies only to the "well-known", now that I've pointed out there is no mention of that term per se in the guideline, but you continue to cling to the underlying concept: ...talking about the common name of obscure entities is somewhat oxymoronic. What you're ignoring is that if you click on Special:Random any significant number of times, what you'll find, with few exceptions, is articles named in accordance with the common names convention (the one reflected by the guideline), regardless of how "obscure" the subject may be. There is nothing oxymoronic with talking about the common name of "obscure" entities. First, all subjects in Misplaced Pages are supposed to be "notable", and, therefore, we arguably don't have any truly "obscure" topics anyway. But if what you mean by "obscure" is "the typical reader doesn't know about it, doesn't recognize the name, until he encounters the article", or something like that, there is still nothing oxymoronic about it having a common name. The whole concept of a common name only applies to the context of those who know about it; those who don't know the subject are not relevant to the determination of the most common name. There are many technical articles in Misplaced Pages, for example. Articles about "obscure" mechanical parts to the names of "obscure" Unix commands like Uniq. Note that Uniq is not at Unix command-line command for filtering out duplicate lines. It is not even at Uniq (Unix command) or even Uniq (Unix). This is not a Misplaced Pages exception, it is the quintessential example. To claim that talking about the common names convention and guideline applying to "obscure" topics in Misplaced Pages is oxymoronic is, frankly, a weak attempt to dismiss an argument built on reason and cemented with logic.

You concluded with, Where there are multiple names for obscure entities, there is benefit is using a naming convention that encodes additional information into the title. First, we're not talking about obscure entities. We're talking about incorporated cities in the United States, and notable unincorporated towns, every single one of which is sufficiently notable to be in Misplaced Pages by definition, or it should be deleted. Second, we're not talking about anything that has multiple names. Carmel-by-the-Sea, California is not an alternative name for Carmel-by-the-Sea, it is the name qualified with additional information about the subject that belongs in the article, not in the title, unless perhaps disambiguation is needed. The "California" in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California is not part of the name of the town, it is location information about the town. Whether there is "benefit" in having more informative titles is irrelevant to the question of whether Misplaced Pages articles in one little corner of Misplaced Pages should have more informative titles. What's relevant is whether having more informative titles - beyond the clear and obvious common name in cases where that name has no significant ambiguity issues - is consistent and orderly with respect to the rest of Misplaced Pages. And, it's clearly inconsistent and not orderly with the rest of Misplaced Pages to have these more informative titles. --Serge 06:26, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

what you're saying is that the alternative to having a consistent naming convention for U.S. cities is the "endemic, chaotic nature of Misplaced Pages" where we "simply allow things to be named in whatever manner happens to be in vogue". In essence, you're saying that naming in accordance to WP:NAME and WP:DAB is simply allowing "things to be named in whatever manner happens to be in vogue". If that's not what you're saying, please correct me.

What I'm saying is that despite your torturing the point, the U.S. cities naming convention is internally consistent and familiar. The parenthetical method is less familiar for place names (at least in the U.S., and apparently also for the many other countries that also use that method, although not necessarily as the prescriptive canonical form) and is less consistent in that there will likely be greater variation in the disambiguating term used in the parentheses, if existing usage of the parenthetical method is any indication. As I've said many times, I don't agree with your basic premise that the U.S. city names convention is in conflict with WP:NAME and WP:DAB. The city,state name is a common name for these places, and it happily also disambiguates and is very familiar to most native speakers of English. I agree that for some places it makes sense to have them at the simple name. But I don't see any advantage whatsoever and plenty of disadvantages to making that the default canonical form.

I'm not sure what you're getting at with top-down vs bottom-up. Yes, U.S. place names are internally consistent, for the most part, and that is a good thing, IMO. So are place names in Australia and Canada and New Zealand and Japan and many other places that use the comma method. Granted many of those do not require the city,state form, which appears to be your main objection, but my comment about inconsistency was primarily directed at the use of the parenthetic method, not whether the name is city,state or simply at cityname. I regard your statement U.S. cities are named inconsistently not only with the vast majority of Misplaced Pages articles, but also inconsistently with most other cities in the world as untrue and merely an example of your polemics.

Curiously, your description of the top-down method is somewhat at odds with objections you made much earlier to the effect that the U.S, convention was "authoritarian". Here you seem to advocate a rather authoritarian top-down process. While you find the Common Names convention to be very near and dear, and have a peculiar notion that it is somehow the supreme law of naming conventions, and further use an extremely narrow interpretation of it to conclude that the U.S. convention is in flagrant violation of your interpretation. I disagree. Your abbreviated history of the U.S. naming convention again betrays more of your bias in the matter than the truth. But, beyond that, I simply don't agree that there is any fundamental contradiction between the general sense of the U.S. naming convention and the use common names guideline.

Regarding the common name of obscure entities being somewhat oxymoronic, obviously we disagree yet again and you've said nothing to change my opinion. "all subjects in Misplaced Pages are supposed to be "notable", and, therefore, we arguably don't have any truly "obscure" topics anyway." LOL. That is a good one. I hope you realize how patently ridiculous that statement is.

What I mean, in regards to place names, is that city,state IS arguably the most familiar common name for many obscure places. There is nothing wrong with using such a recognizable and familiar alternative name. Your discussion of uniq is beside the point. There is nothing else known by that name, nor is there likely to be anything else by that name. With U.S. city names, there is a very high probability for many of them that there is some other place with that name. Even despite Rambot's adding place names from the U.S. Census, there are thousands of place names in the U.S alone for which there are no articles yet. The USGS Geographic Names Information Service contains a multitude of such place names, not only for populated places, but other geographic features. Having a convention in place that easily allows for the addition of more places with a minimum of renaming and disambiguating seems to me a good thing. older ≠ wiser 17:02, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

It should also pointed out that no one other than Serge seems to be claiming that the United States, Australia, and Canada city naming conventions are contrary to WP:NAME and/or WP:DAB. I'm beginning to think that this section should be closed under WP:SNOW. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 18:27, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Is comma convention in conflict with other guidelines?

It has been established that Serge has reframed the poll question again. There's clear consensus that the "present" United States, Australia, and Canada city naming conventions are not contrary to WP:NAME and WP:DAB. Moving doublly reframed poll to subpage. I agree that Serge is not the only one, but the there would have been consensus that Serge was wrong in his statements if he hadn't reframed and closed the poll. Removing the voting (but not discussion) to Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (settlements)/Serge reframed poll —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Arthur Rubin (talk • contribs) 22:33, November 20, 2006 (UTC)

I've moved that to the less biased title Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (settlements)/Is comma convention in conflict with other guidelines?. I'm not sure what poll question you're claiming that Serge reframed; the question he was asking was whether there was a consensus that the comma convention is not in conflict with WP:NAME and WP:DAB. There was a majority saying that, but I'm not sure I'd call it a consensus. The discussion below is ongoing.

Now, perhaps Serge shouldn't have closed the poll with the explicit reference to your comment at the bottom of the previous section, but I'm not sure that constitutes "reframing". What is clear to me is that as a poll, the archived material was unhelpful; but as Misplaced Pages:Straw polls points out, when a poll generates further discussion that is not a failure, but a success. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 22:46, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Point of clarification (not that it makes much of a difference in such a botched mess as this naming issue), when Serge started the poll , it was titled Strawpoll: do current U.S. city guidelines violate WP:NAME and/or WP:DAB? and the questions were agree/disagree that "U.S. guideline is contrary to WP:NAME and/or WP:DAB". This was how it was framed throughout the abbreviated voting and discussion period. The discussion has been reframed by Josiah as Is comma convention in conflict with other guidelines?. Not exactly the same question. Many conventions and guidelines "conflict" in that there may be some degree of overlap and different interpretations as to which guideline or convention takes precedence. To assert that one convention is "contrary to" or "violates" other guidelines is a much higher standard. older ≠ wiser 14:25, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Survey - Voting is evil

1. We're actually voting on a fact here. That's not really helpful. The discussion section below is more useful. (Radiant) 15:53, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

   I think we need a vote to determine if we're voting on fact above!  :) Seriously, this whole section is turning out to be kind of useless. I'm sure all of these opinions have been stated somewhere in the endless mire above, right? —Wknight94 (talk) 16:38, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

2. I concur. It is question that asks for a "yes or no" answer to something that be answered neither yes or no.
   1. The "City, State" convention is not a name. The only real name in an article title is the subject of the article itself - anything added is disambiguation. So this is another problem than "common name" and is not "contrary" per se.
   2. Most disambiguation is done with parantheses, but there are guidelines allowing for comma disambiguation too. I cannot see how this is "contrary" to dab - what is odd is that some say that "City, State" convention is not disambiguation when it most obviously is. THEPROMENADER 17:28, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

      I absolutely disagree with the claim that the "City, State" convention is "disambiguation". — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 18:16, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

      Sorry, but pre-disambiguation is still disambiguation. A state's name is not at all that of every placename within, so adding it such to cities is indeed disambiguation. THEPROMENADER 18:38, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

      Indeed, the recognition that city naming varies according to context seems to me an acknowledgement that using the state is a form of disambiguation. If you're in Virginia, you'll refer to Fredericksburg, Virginia as "Fredericksburg". If you're in Texas, you'll say "Fredericksburg, Virginia", to distinguish it from Fredericksburg, Texas. That much is clearly disambiguation, since by its very nature disambiguation is not necessary when context makes it clear. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 18:54, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

      But, no matter where I am, I'm going to refer to "Seattle", not "Seattle, Washington". Whether we all know which state Seattle is in is somewhat immaterial. Most of us know what city we're referring to and the rest can click on the link to find out - just as is the case in any other category of article subjects. (Hell, in this case, the "Washington" part isn't even disambiguating - according to Seattle (disambiguation), this is apparently the only Seattle city in the world.) —Wknight94 (talk) 20:21, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

3. I agree that this poll isn't very helpful, and said so below. I somewhat regret casting a "ballot" in it. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 18:32, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
4. Even I agree it's not very helpful to the overall discussion. However, it does help establish that I'm not the only one who sees that titling articles per the current U.S. city naming guidelines creates article titles that are in conflict with Wiki-wide naming conventions and guidelines. Just above the survey, Arthur threatened to invoke WP:SNOW to shut down the discussion based on the assertion that I was the only one making this claim. Now that this survey has established that Arthur's assertion is incorrect, I'm all for closing it. Any objections? --Serge 18:55, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
   • But it does establish, fairly clearly, that Serge's viewpoint is a minority, even here. It does have WP:SNOW chance of being consensus unless enough time passes for there to be a new set of views. Let's set a time limit on Tariq's proposal, and see if it is consensus; and then leave this for three months. Septentrionalis 19:04, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

   • This poll was open for only a few hours and so established nothing other than what it was intended to establish: I am not the only one holding that particular point of view, which is but one of many reasons to seek change in the current guidelines. Currently, a majority of participants are in support of Tariq's proposal, which was never officially opened. Note that the note at the top of the voting, This is for later use; but if anyone has decided, fine. was never removed. I would support taking a week or two off, and I'll probably do that anyway, but we need to create an official well-publicized comprehensive survey that allows participants to assign preference priorities among several proposed changes, including sticking with the status quo before we can conclude that there is currently no consensus to change the current guidelines. --Serge 19:16, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

'It is important to note that these are conventions, not rules carved in stone. As Misplaced Pages grows and changes, some conventions that once made sense may become outdated, and there may be cases where a particular convention is "obviously" inappropriate.' So when editors believe that we have a more appropriate solution, you use it. Vegaswikian 19:56, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but that's not the question above. Is the current U.S. city naming convention contrary to WP:D? To me, the answer is yes. —Wknight94 (talk) 03:37, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

The U.S. convention is not, strictly speaking, about disambiguation, it is a convention for naming the articles. If there were no risk of confusion with anything else named "Houston", then why is there Houston (disambiguation) and a note at the top of Houston, Texas with a link directing readers there? Mentioning this as evidence demonstrates a faulty understanding of disambiguation. While there may be some rationale to moving Houston, Texas to Houston as a primary topic, both "Houston, Texas" and "Houston" are "common names" for the place. Which is the "most" common, and whether one is so overwhelmingly more common than the other so as to override the naming convention is a different sort of argument than simply asserting that the U.S. guideline is in contrary to either WP:NAME and/or WP:DAB. older ≠ wiser 19:57, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

To me, if the choice is between "Houston, Texas" and "Houston" and folks feel they are equally common, then you go with the simplest which would be "Houston". Frankly, I disagree with the assertion that "Houston, Texas" is as common as just "Houston" but that's another story. —Wknight94 (talk) 03:37, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I didn't assert that it is "as common", only that both are common names for the place. I explicitly left it open for discussion as to whether one was more common than the other. I support loosening the convention to allow extremely well-known cities to use the simple name as the title. IMO, the flaw in the convention is not that it is contrary to either WP:NAME and/or WP:DAB, but that it is too inflexible. older ≠ wiser 04:15, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Lookit, who cares if 'this practice' "breaks" 'this other convention' - this is completely besides the point and after the fact. The question should be: does the practice work or does it cause problems, and it is based on that study, discussion and experimentation and eventual consensus that conventions are made. I a~l~m~o~s~t went into "full caps" mode there.

I say we trash this entire page and start from scratch. Getting lost in the details is getting us nowhere. THEPROMENADER 20:36, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm for archiving most of this page at least. It's impossible for anyone to weed through anyway. —Wknight94 (talk) 03:37, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I just finished reading the entire page. (Whew!) I got a bit lost in the middle, when the conversation veered into a rather abstract discussion of the difference between disambiguation, clarification and qualification, but I did make it through alive. After reading it all (though not the extensive archives) it seems to me that participants in this conversation are losing sight of the purpose of article naming, which is twofold: first, to provide a unique identifier for the article; and second, to label it in a way that is as short, clear and intuitive as possible.

It seems quite obvious to me that the comma convention for U.S. cities is an exception to the general naming pattern supported by WP:NAME and WP:DAB. However, the question that needs to be answered is whether it is a justified exception. I'm not at all certain that it is.

That said, I feel obliged to point out that voting is evil, and I doubt that this particular poll is likely to be helpful in this discussion. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:02, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

All due respect but it seems a little like folks are ducking Serge's question here by saying, "What does it matter?" and "The convention can have exceptions". —Wknight94 (talk) 03:37, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Which question is that? And are you saying that no convention can have exceptions? Or only certain ones? And who said "What does it matter?" older ≠ wiser 04:15, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Serge's question is the section header, "do current U.S. city guidelines violate WP:NAME and/or WP:DAB?" I'm not saying no convention can have exceptions, I'm just saying that Serge's question was a yes-or-no question, not a "there can be exceptions"-or-"it doesn't matter" question. My "What does it matter?" was in reference to ThePromenader (talk · contribs). Granted, his exact words were "who cares", but my still point still holds. —Wknight94 (talk) 04:29, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

The difference between an exception and a violation is in how seriously you take the guideline being excepted or violated. I would suggest that any exception which is unjustified is a violation, and I'm not clear on the justification for this exception. However, if other editors feel that the exception is justified, it's appropriate for them to say that the convention isn't being violated. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:02, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

My "who cares" is a reflection on the real use of this section's question in this discussion. Convention is there for contributors seeking guidelines; if contributors see problems with the guidelines, they discuss them on the talk page. We're already doing that here! I think this question was an attempt to boost participation and herd opinion into one camp or another. Not the straightest line to a reasoned conclusion.

The question should not be about "what conventions does the US comma disambiguation "break" (or not)", the question should be: "is the practice compatible with the rest of Wiki?".

Myself I do see problems: an incompatibility with the "rest of the world" articles, an incompatibility that destroys the pattern (set by the rest of Wiki) of precognitive recognition from one article to the next - this incompatibility is easily discerned and interpreted only by the reader already familiar with the US, its States and its habits. Secondo - the form if disambiguation used - in this case, the comma - is only easily identifiable as disambiguation to the same "US-informed" readers. With all due respect, the "qualification" argument is not even worth considering: adding a second name to that of an article's subject is still a form of disambiguation, no matter what you call it; it was an argument made with wikipedians, not the reader, in mind.

So there you have what comma disambiguation "breaks". It's not even a question of names or places: for the sake of Encyclopaedia-wide consistency, disambiguation must be recognisable as such. THEPROMENADER 09:29, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

precognitive recognition Say what? Is there evidence or is this just fancy clothing for a POV? this incompatibility is easily discerned and interpreted only by the reader already familiar with the US If this were true, then why has the city, state/province from been used for articles in so many other countries other than the U.S.? older ≠ wiser 17:51, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

In the case of Japan, one of the reasons the proponents of the current convention used to justify the comma convention was that this was the convention the US cities were using. I'll have to dig up actual quotes from the enormous amount of debate about how to disambiguate Japanese city names later. Also, just noting that comma disambiguation is much rarer in other language Wikipedias. --Polaron | Talk 18:05, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Most Wiki disambiguation is done with parentheses. Go figure! THEPROMENADER 18:03, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Ah, and for the "city, State" convention - who's to recognise which is the city and which is the state? You're right though, I suppose it doesn't matter much, as only the base name (the subject of the article) counts. There's also thoughts about conflicts between "city", "City, State" and "inCityPlace, City" articles (such as my Paris streets project or articles such as La Jolla, San Diego, California) in that comment . You can keep the POV accusations though - it's quite obvious that mine is anything but set in stone. THEPROMENADER 18:10, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Incompatibility with the "rest of the world" articles: Most of the articles about communities are about communities in the United States (or Canada or Australia); if we wanted Misplaced Pages to be consistent, we'd have to go to the clearly rejected comma convention.

And it is not disambiguation, any more than the royalty, numbers, or highway conventions are disambiguation. (Well, numbers and highways are "pre-emptive disambiguation", but numbers greater than one million clearly don't need disambiguation from years.) In regard highways, Ontario does have pre-emptive disambiguation with the Kings highway naming: See Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Canada Roads#Naming conventions for the Ontario Kings Highway designation. I see no evidence that there are any other "Kings Highway nn" around.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 18:16, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Re:King's Highway. I don't know who created that convention, but the articles have been for quite some time now at "Highway X (Ontario)". Somebody must have just changed the Wikiproject text. --Polaron | Talk 18:28, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Pre-emptive disambiguation is still disambiguation. I didn't say "all commas are disambiguation", I said that "anything added to the name that is not that of the name itself" is disambiguation. Commas have other uses as well, granted - namely for attaching secondary titles (such as "King of Spain" or "King's highway" as per your examples) - but these are still the article subject's own name. A state's name is certainly not also that of every city it contains. There is place for conflict with placenames there, too. I am beginning to see logic in getting rid of comma disambiguation altogether. THEPROMENADER 18:31, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

In re Kings Highway, the WikiProject text has been the same since it was inserted in Juny 2006. There's just a disconnect between the project and the articles names. I should have checked.... And the comma convention is common IRL for English language place names, so why shouldn't it be used in Misplaced Pages? — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 22:20, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Context determines meaning. It's fine to use the comma convention in a context where we are clarifying where a city is located in Misplaced Pages as it is done in IRL. It is something else again to incorrectly imply that the clarifying location information is part of the name of the city, rather than just a disambiguator, which is what happens when you specify location information using the comma convention in a city article title rather than in the standard parenthetic remark disambiguator. If the , Statename is not part of the name, then using it when not necessary for disambiguation is predisambiguating and contary to WP:DAB. If the , Statename is part of the name, then that's just wrong, because the name of Carmel-by-the-Sea, for example, is not Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. --Serge 22:41, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I've about had it. Serge, if you keep up with the "on this side, against that side, according to this former decision, against that former decision", then we're never going to get around to making new decisions. No-one is going to take any legitimate points seriously under that context. THEPROMENADER 23:14, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Are you contending that we should not be referring to Wiki-wide conventions and guidelines like WP:DAB in our arguments for change? If we are to ignore established Wiki-wide conventions and guidelines, then on what grounds would any new decisions for U.S. city article naming be made? U.S. city guideline writers ignoring established Wiki-wide conventions and guidelines is how we got into this mess in the first place. --Serge 19:24, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

You make rules based on a logic; you do not build a logic based on rules. Constructive and credible discussion is based in the former context, not the latter. THEPROMENADER 08:16, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

How do we like the ones changed so far

I was curious how people felt about the few cities which have been renamed so far, Philadelphia, Chicago, and whatever others I may have missed. Have they caused problems? Have they improved things? Any other comments? —Wknight94 (talk) 16:43, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, they're still very nice cities. : ) THEPROMENADER 18:13, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Walked right into that one, didn't I?... Any serious feedback?!  :) —Wknight94 (talk) 18:29, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know of any problems the moves have caused whatsoever. It is an improvement because these articles are now named in accordance to WP:NAME and WP:DAB, whereas before, their titles were contrary to those general Wiki-wide conventions and guidelines. Also, it is now clear that each is at least the primary topic for the respective name, if not the only topic. The old titles made it unclear as to whether that was the case, and even implied that they were not the primary topic for that name. --Serge

I don't think the moves have helped anything, nor have the tens of thousands of words that have gone into arguing over a non-problem. This entire effort is counter-productive and a waste of editing time. -Will Beback · † · 21:47, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

There are still a few bad links pointing to Chicago which meant the play or the film. More to the point, there is now no way to check all the links systematically, because there are so many. We'd need to work from a database dump. If all the links to the city were to be changed to Chicago, then the fewer links directly to Chicago could be checked in a few days work. That being said, I haven't heard of any more problems then would be expected by a formerly featured page being renamed. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 22:43, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Archiving

Can someone please archive a good part of this page? It took me three cups of coffee just to get down here.

Thanks. THEPROMENADER 21:45, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Just from the last couple days that I've kept track here, it sounds like the whole issue should be shelved indefinitely. I think we'll just need to live with city naming conventions that are not consistent internationally and get on with our lives. Although I disagree with Will Beback (talk · contribs) regarding the current methodology, I have to agree with him that this is going nowhere fast. As much as I'd like to see American cities represented here in the same vein as international cities - i.e., clearly recognizable just by name instead of name and state - it's obviously not worth the time that's being spent. —Wknight94 (talk) 22:43, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Tariq's proposal (at the top of this talk page) is still open. It is currently being approved by 55% to 45%. The majority clearly wants a change, but we'll never get it if we stop pushing. Let's not give up yet, please! --Serge 22:54, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

That survey has been going on for far over a week. It does not show anything close to a consensus. It's time to close it. -Will Beback · † · 22:56, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

People are still voting. There was a vote today. Closing now would be very premature. It takes time to get the word out about stuff like this. I would give it at least a month before closing it. --Serge 23:16, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

#Strawpoll: do current U.S. city guidelines violate WP:NAME and/or WP:DAB? was opened and closed by you in about 24 hours, so I'm not sure what your precedent is. Preivious surveys on this page have lasted a week. Why drag this one out longer? -Will Beback · † · 23:22, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

It shouldn't be closed because it is still a very active poll (3 votes today) and is a poll about the guidelines that are supposed to be discussed on this talk page. My strawpoll was something else entirely intended to resolve a relatively minor side issue, which it did and so I closed it. --Serge 00:06, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Regardless of precedent, Will is correct in that the survey has been going for a relatively long time and does not show anything resembling a consensus. It serves no purpose to keep it open any further, and we should fall back on discussing the issue rather than voting on proposals. (Radiant) 11:45, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Here's the thing - it was never widely advertised anywhere. The reason we never get anywhere with any of these polls is that we never try to get the opinion of anybody except the people already watching this page. A real survey would be one where we actually advertised it. As it stands, it's obviously impossible for pretty much any proposal to get a consensus. john k 14:21, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

• That is incorrect. I've seen several proposals get accepted in the past month. The point is that (1) most proposals do fail period, but that's because people don't like them, not for lack of input; and (2) it is not necessary (and often, not desirable) to hold a vote, poll or survey on a proposal. (Radiant) 14:44, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

A few suggestions for how to proceed. First, one major drawback to previous votes/surveys/polls is that many of them were shoot-from-the-hip questions tossed out by individuals, usually reflecting that individual's bias (or the frustrations of the moment). Before commencing any new voting, I think there should be a period to discuss how to frame the issues in the poll as well as thresholds for acceptance. Second, I think the initial question/issue is determining whether there is consensus that the current U.S. convention needs to be changed (deliberately staying far away from what the specifics of any change might entail). Until we can demonstrate that there is a consensus that the current convention needs to be changed, any discussions of specific changes simply get bogged down with factional infighting between various camps, with the net result that nothing changes. Depending on the outcome of this first question, we'll either discover that there really is no consensus support to change and we'll have to agree to live with the current convention or we can then proceed to Phase II and begin discussion about how to frame the issues of what to change. I think there may be some merit to using a consensus polling sort of process (sorry I don't have a link for this handy anymore--it had come up before and Serge attempted his own interpretation of the process, though I think that exemplified the problem of having only one individual framing the questions). As I understand how that process works, there is an initial period of discussion during which the proposal on the table is fluid and can be re-framed and modified until it reaches an initial threshold, after which it is frozen until it reaches a second threshold for acceptance or the set time limit expires. Part this initial phase is also determining the thresholds for participation and acceptance (things like, the proposal remains on the table for X number of days, if it doesn't gain acceptance or proceed to the next stage by then it is withdrawn; a minimum of X number of people must participate; acceptance is X% of the vote, etc.). Although I don't think it would be enforceable, I also like to see participation in the process contingent on accepting the outcome, even if the result might not be exactly what you would have preferred individually. older ≠ wiser 15:14, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Great suggeestions. For sure it would be best to get discussion into a solid framework with solid goals - Juggling issues just leads us in circles and leads to exasperation. THEPROMENADER 15:25, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Not to get too parliamentary about things, but it might be a good idea to hold a "quorum" straw poll to measure only the intent-to-vote, especially if we use a minimum number of votes standard and/or a longer poll period. Some of these recent polls suffered from low vote counts. Given the potential scope-of-impact for a convention change, I think it would be a good idea to ensure a "meaningfully large" vote before undertaking the vote. The "quorum call" would last only a few days at most. Feel free to let me know that I'm being overly pariamentary. --ishu 16:08, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Excellent idea, Bkonrad. The multiple polls (all changing per the respective proponent) are confusing at best. As for ishu, I'm not sure about a "quorum call", except on the appropriate Misplaced Pages-wide survey question, although some WikiProjects should probably be pinged (again). — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 16:12, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Is asking people to come here multiple times productive? How about working towards consensus among us regulars for one big survey. How about letting participants choose, in order of preference, say 1st, 2nd and 3rd, from some number of choices of guidelines. Each 1st choice would get 3 points, 2nd choice 2 points, and 3rd choice 1 point. One of the choices would be status quo. The other choices would be formed here by consensus before the survey is opened. Something like that? --Serge 17:26, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I think that a big problem with determining whether there's a consensus for change is that one side has been treating it as though what the guideline page currently says is that there are to be no exceptions to the "City, State" format, and thus argue that there is no need for a change. This is not, however, would the guideline currently states at all. At present, the guideline is entirely incoherent, and doesn't say anything useful at all. I think we all actually do agree that there needs to be a change (although there is wide disagreement over what the change should be), but one side wants to pretend that the current formula supports their preferred version. john k 05:55, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm trying to address all of this at Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (settlements)/U.S. convention change (November 2006). Your assistance would be appreciated. --Serge 06:21, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

All naming conventions are guidelines, and all guidelines have exceptions. That's implicit in every guideline in Misplaced Pages. Other than that, the current convention on U.S. cities is very clear. That's a good thing. -Will Beback · † · 06:29, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

My opinion

I think that it should ALWAYS (in North America, including Mexico, at least) be City, State (or City, Province). The current rules should remain in place for US cities and it should be standardized across the board. In other countries, it should be City, Country (or City, Sub-national region if preferred) but that should be debated later. All current situations where such does not exist (especially in Canada) should be moved to its new location. If two communities or municipalities with the same name appear in the same state, then disambiguate by adding the county name (as it is now). As for redirects and naming conventions, that is a judgement call. If a city with a specific name clearly stands out among the rest, then the redirect for just that name should go to the city it shifts to. If it is not clearly a standout, then the sole name should be the dab. CrazyC83 00:21, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

CrazyC83, what you propose used to be the guideline in Canada and it was fought tooth and nail. When they changed their guideline to allow Cityname only (without , Province) where disambiguation is not required, all the warring ended. Why would you want to bring back that kind of conflict to Canada, and perpetuate it for the U.S. (no comment/knowledge about Mexico)? Let's end it already. If Canada can do it, so can we. --Serge 02:12, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I think simplicity is best; don't dab unless necessary. Serge has a good point about the Canada resolution. (Radiant) 10:18, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Naming conventions are about more than just disambiguation. They also address consistency within a group of articles. Consistency is a benefit for readers and editors alike. -Will Beback · † · 10:37, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

• That begs the question whether consistency should be applied to the group of articles about cities in the USA, or the group of city articles as a whole. (Radiant) 11:39, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

We do what we can. This project will never be perfect. I favor pragmatic approaches to solving these problems. U.S. place names have already been estabished, and the reasoning for changing them appears dogmatic. Why change them? The U.S placenames form a sufficiently large contingent that we should think of them as a cohort and treat them consistently. -Will Beback · † · 12:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Your "pragmatic" view, Will, is bottom-up... achieving consistency within one specific little Wiki corner according to naming guidelines that conflict with the rest of Misplaced Pages can only achieve titles that are inconsistent with the rest of Misplaced Pages. The reason to change them is pragmatic - to end the resulting conflicts and warring (e.g., despite the recent consensus change of Chicago, Illinois to Chicago, you yourself encouraged others to propose changing it back just yesterday). There is nothing practical about having hundreds if not thousands of articles at names that confuse countless readers who wonder, "Since Cityname redirects here, why is this at Cityname, Statename instead of Cityname alone?"

For articles with subjects that lack a clear "most common name" (royalty, ships, aircraft, etc.), no such confusion can occur, and it makes sense to have a naming convention that is used consistently in those areas. But there is nothing pragmatic about extending this approach to articles about cities that clearly do have a most common name (the Cityname alone). There is nothing pragmatic about being blatantly inconsistent with the rest of Misplaced Pages. --Serge 17:14, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

There is nothing practical about having hundreds if not thousands of articles at names that confuse countless readers who wonder, "Since Cityname redirects here, why is this at Cityname, Statename instead of Cityname alone?" Is there any evidence that this hypothetical confusion is an actual problem or merely a rhetorical phantasm manufactured by some editors to support their opinion? There is nothing pragmatic about being blatantly inconsistent with the rest of Misplaced Pages. This also represents nothing more than an opinion, as recent discussions have clearly shown opinion is clearly divided about just how "blatantly" inconsistent the U.S. convention is with the rest of Misplaced Pages. older ≠ wiser 17:32, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

The primary evidence for the confusion is the repeated and never-ending move requests and inquiries on the city article talk pages that have been going on for years. Of course, there is no way to know for sure how many more folks are confused and frustrated but don't bother to make the inquiries or move requests, but the fact is that when there are move requests, usually close to half (though often not enough to warrant a consensus because usually so many regular defenders -- the "experts" -- of the U.S. city guideline participate) vote to make the move, and many are newcomers who express confusion and frustration in their comments. You may not care about them, but I do, probably because I used to be one of those newcomers wondering what the heck was wrong with U.S. city and community naming. Now I know. As far as the current guidelines creating article names that are "blatantly inconsistent with the rest of Misplaced Pages", okay, maybe I shouldn't state that as fact despite how obvious it seems to me. But this issue is at the heart of the matter, and we should probably discuss it in a separate section at length. --Serge 18:45, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Of course it can be perfect. If the system is consistent across the board, it will be, and complicated disambiguation situations can be dealt with. But - introduce two different types of disambiguation, take one select corner of Wiki (namely US placenames) that chips out their "own" type of disambiguation (that does not treat it as disambiguation), split this between two different "levels" of treatment, mix this with a third level of comma disambiguation and you have... this situation. Not to mention other country placenames copying the same.

It is never "too late" to homogenise any situation. Yet the strongest argument existing for the "City, State" disambiguation/convention to date seems to be "We like it like that. Leave it be". THEPROMENADER 13:49, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

• We don't do consistency for the sake of it as yet, and a consensus would need to be built to make that the case. We use the most common name possible, and we don't disambiguate unless we have to. So just use city where it is appropriate. Steve block Talk 11:53, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Scientists can't define planet: A lesson for us?

Given the recent multi-day vote of the International Astronomical Union, it seems that astronomers can't agree on the definition of planet with any unanimity. Perhaps the disorder in conventions is simply the order of the universe. --ishu 20:58, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I think you're confusing the process with an inability. Today it looks like an inability to agree. 100 years from now (perhaps much sooner) they will look at today's process as brilliance. Sometimes, it just takes time to work it out... --Serge 21:12, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

In any case, the lack of consensus (either way) indicates there is more work to be done... --Serge 21:14, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

No-one has even discussed anything in any organised manner yet. What are you two going on about? : ) THEPROMENADER 21:52, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

New page to construct/evolve a new comprehensive survey by consensus

I started this page to begin the process of constructing/evolving a new comprehensive survey through consensus. The first draft "strawman proposal" is posted. --Serge 23:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Why not just have it here on this page, where the other surveys have occured? Is the survey at the top of the page still active? -Will Beback · † · 00:28, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I put the new draft of the survey on a subpage because it is "a work in progress" (not an active survey), and I didn't want to confuse things on this page, particularly with Tariq's proposal at the top which is still active. The intent is to move it to this page when it's done, assuming the rest of this current page, assuming Tariq's proposal, is closed and archived. Someone, if not me, should incorporate Tariq's proposal into the new draft, by the way. It's currently not one of the proposals. In fact, I would like to see John's proposal in there, and perhaps several other "hybrid" proposals where we attempt to define which cities are "well known" and do not require predisambiguation. --Serge 00:38, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

The use of a multi choice survey is a bad idea. It always leads to a wide spread of opinion and no option getting clear consencus. The only way the everyone is going to aggree to a change is by 66% being achieved and this will never happen with your proposal. I don't hold out to much hope of the "convention" ever being changed. The one by one article moving seems to be the most effective. As more cities get changed over to the international convention it should lead to more people saying "if X gets to name it that way why not our city". josh (talk) 01:18, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Copying this to, and responding at, Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (settlements)/U.S. convention change (November 2006) --Serge 01:52, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

So just to clarify, it's not a survey and has no bearing on anything? -Will Beback · † · 05:00, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

For now, it's not a survey open for voting. It's a first draft of a survey-to-be. It's a starting point that needs to be expanded and edited by consensus. The intent is for the final version to be copied to this page, opened as a survey, for at least a month, and well publicized. For your sake, we should probably have an option for a "no exceptions" guideline that would put New York City at New York, New York. --Serge 05:09, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

There aren't any "no exceptions" naming conventions. They're just guidelines. -Will Beback · † · 06:26, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

One week after wide advertising should be long enough for any poll/survey. Anybody who doesn't find it in a full week is either not a regular editor, or it wasn't properly advised. --Scott Davis 09:23, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

• Given that there have been (by my count) seven votes/polls/surveys on the subject already, and none of them had any consensus, what makes you think that this one will? (Radiant) 10:06, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Are you asking me or Serge? My answer (in case you are responding to my "one week" comment): Several (most/all?) of those have not been widely advertised outside of the regulars who follow this page. If we can come up with the ultimate poll (which requires the regulars to at least agree on the question!), and advertise it suitably widely, then I don't believe that three more weeks would increase the chances of consensus beyond what one week would achieve. --Scott Davis 13:33, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

• I was talking about holding a poll period, not about how long to run it for. If I understand you correctly, you're saying that even if we make an ultimate poll and run it for three weeks, we still wouldn't have an increase chances of consensus. In that case, let's not bother with a poll at all. (Radiant) 13:47, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes - I'm saying that if we create the ultimate poll and get a wide audience to participate, the result won't change significantly between the end of week 1 and the end of week 4, so we might as well keep it short enough people can remember having voted when the results are announced. I'd still rather reach consensus by discussion, not voting, if that were possible. --Scott Davis 22:22, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Well, there's two ways to go about it. One would be the page-by-page discussion/move to "single-name" status (and hope it sticks long enough to become generalised); another would be to a massive "call to discussion" (more an upturned hat than a poll) around a proposition to make disambiguation consistent across the board. And I don't mean a call to only "nameplaces" boards, I mean all of Wiki. The Village Pump no less. Serge, wait: let's formulate the question here before asking it there please.

How I see it from here, those in favour of a "single name drive" and a homogeneous Wiki-wide disambiguation technique will be shooting themselves in the foot, as the "comfortable majority" will opt for the "comfortable practice" that is the "city, state" disambiguation. I'm one of those, so I hope I'm wrong. THEPROMENADER 16:33, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I understand and share your concern. That's why I want to take time to really think this through. If we're not happy with whatever we have a few weeks from now, we can scrap the project. It has been suggested to include mini-arguments for each option. I'm thinking maybe we need a preamble that explains - in a manner that we agree by consensus is fair - the key issues, and relates to the various options. Again, all this is a work in progress, nothing is definite, and, if this survey ever sees the light of day (i.e., posted on this page), it won't be for weeks from now. In the mean time, let's keep sharing our concerns and seeing if we can come up with solutions to address them. --Serge 17:28, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

First, I want to keep the "revising period" open for a few weeks. Let's get everybody involved with making sure the survey has all reasonable options available. Get real consensus on format and content of survey before we open it here on this page. We've never done that before, and I anticipate that alone may take a few weeks. Second, once that is done and the survey is open, I want to keep it open for a few weeks. Why not? What harm can come from keeping it open a few weeks. Tariq's proposal is still getting votes well over a week three weeks after it was opened. --Serge 16:25, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I have been watching this debate for a while now, so I just thought that I'd add my thoughts on the matter. Regarding the arguments against the proposal:

1. The fact that we already have New York City, Chicago and Philidelphia at the Cityname format already makes a nonsense of the 'consistency' argument, we already have (sensible) inconsistancies. It makes no logical sense for these to be at Cityname whilst major cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco et al are still at the City, State arrangement.
2. As for the 'it would lead to endless arguments about which cities are major' argument. True, but the present 'convention' is proving to be a major source of argument already, how exactly could it be any worse then it is at the moment? Surely it can't be beyond the common sense of wikipedians to work out which cities should enjoy primary name status.
3. Practically every other country has articles about it's major cities at the Cityname format. Therefore Ammerica is inconsistant with everywhere else. Seem as there is a snowball in hell chance of anyone agreeing to move Paris to Paris, France or Berlin to Berlin, Germany for example. I think it far more sensible for America to adopt the international standard, rather than the very slim chance of the rest of the world adopting the U.S standard.

G-Man * 19:22, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, "...practically every other country..." is wrong. Practically every English-speaking country has a significant modification of the city name policy; Canada's allows major cities to be at ], but Australia has a specific list of cities which may be at ]. (Almost all cities in England require disambiguation of some sort, so the situation is completely different.) There may be justification for changing to the Canada policy, but the default being ] is completely unsupported (IMHO). — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 22:37, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I didn't say that the 'default' position, was to use Cityname. What I meant was that most countries have adopted a more flexible and pragmatic system whereby cities or towns which require disambiguation are, and those which have a unique name, or are clearly the primary topic get to have the Citnyname to themselves. Which IMO is far more sensible than rigidly sticking to some scheme even when it is clearly not sensible and counter intuitive. With regards to the UK, some towns and cities are disambiguated and others are not Bristol, Coventry, Leicester, Glasgow are examples which spring to mind. G-Man * 17:00, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

No one here advocates "sticking to some scheme" which is "clearly not sensible and counter intuitive". The question is whether CITYNAME, STATENAME is clearly not sensible and whether it is counterintuitive. Certainly, it is not counterintuitive to me. I often see cities referred to as, say, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and Topeka, Kansas. This is pretty darn common in my experience. And I don't see that it doesn't make sense either. If anything would confuse me as a Misplaced Pages user, it would be the exceptions to this simple rule. Of course, some folks here just want to increase the list of exceptions since their attempts to change policy have failed. Once they have enough exceptions, I imagine they'll justify changing the rule in order to bring consistency to Misplaced Pages (which consistency they're currently working to break at Talk:Anaheim, California). Phiwum 19:14, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, as the majority of English-speaking Wikipedians come from English-speaking countries, it is only logic that the majority of English Wiki's articles will be on English-speaking places with English-speaking habits, and the most of these, I repeat yet again, are most likely from the US. I would argue that the "City, State" form is quite common for a speaker speaking of a city in a state other than the state he is speaking from, but this, true, is a practice common to other English-speaking locales, especially Canada.

Yet even this is besides the point, as such practices - not suited to any encyclopaedia, and rarely - if not never- used outside of disambiguation purposes for the same - are open not only to people speaking from one state (province) to another, but for one country to another - this makes this form of cross-board pre-disambiguation moot, especially to those unfamiliar with US geography who will have to read to the text anyway to find the city's complete locale. This "carving out a local-practice method comfortable for locals" is "thinking small" in my books, and paying almost no thought at all to the rest of Misplaced Pages.

Much of my work lately has been revolving around GIS data, and most all data libraries indicate their map locales with a "city, state, country" disambiguation. This solution, although fine for a direct list of data (or whatever), is cumbersome for the inter-linked media that is Wiki.

I really see the "city, state" disambiguation as an ass between the above two chairs. You either go "all the way" with a fully indicative disambiguation, or you go with a "only when needed" disambiguation that is used only for the sake of disambiguation itself. Think Big. THEPROMENADER 19:45, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Straw poll: Do we need more polls?

Do we really need another poll?

The last thing we need is a suspicion that one viewpoint has polled and polled and polled until they got their way. I'm not suggesting this suspicion is correct; it may be more damaging if it's wrong. Septentrionalis 06:48, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes; let's have another poll.

No; let's leave this alone until we have more eyes on the subject.

1. per discussion above Septentrionalis 06:48, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
2. I would love to see this tabled till after the New Year. The most recent poll is no where close to consensus and the Anaheim move was pretty soundly defeated. No matter which way you look at this, we're deadlocked. Let's take a break on this, enjoy the holidays, work on other areas of the encyclopedia and maybe come back with a fresh perspective for 2007. Agne 07:02, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
3. This may be the most-polled topic in WP in 2006. Let's take a break. -Will Beback · † · 07:25, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
4. If we're having a poll on whether to have more polls, we're having too many polls. Let's also try to have one poll at a time. I think Serge's effort to have a consensus on the content of the poll is a good idea, even if the current effort includes everything but the kitchen-sink. --ishu 13:33, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
5. - There has to be some other way to go about this than running the same old questions through the same old participant list until their numbers thin enough to leave the winning "most tenacious". This is not a wear-'em-down game, and this issue needs exposure to a much wider audience; this concerns all of Wiki, actually. THEPROMENADER 16:03, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
6. are we actually having a poll about whether to have more polls? We clearly need more eyes to look at this. Having more half-baked polls is not the way to do this. It might be best to table this for a month or two, and then come back and really do it right. john k 17:48, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
7. I'm thinking of having the survey in March 2007. Open it March 1 and leave it open through March and April. That gives us over 3 months to get it right. The first week of March would be devoted to publicizing it. The problem is that while we have not yet been able to find a change that is supported by the consensus, clearly there is no consensus to leave the guidelines the way they currently are either (Tariq's proposal alone shows this with a majority currently supporting it). --Serge 19:08, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
   • <sigh>I hate to reopen discussion, but I disagree; see below.Septentrionalis 22:43, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

discussion

Tariq's proposal is clearer than the present wording; but it has the same force, and supports present practice. That's why I support it. Therefore I cannot agree that there is consensus against the present guideline. Septentrionalis 22:43, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Tariq's proposal encourages that certain well-known U.S. cities do not have the state in their titles. That's substantially different from the current wording where, in each case, having no state in the title, even for New York City, is a clear exception. --Serge 23:46, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

20-16 in favor, as the vote now stands, is a slim majority, with deeply held opinions from many divergent perspectives--that's nowhere near sufficient to declare that it indicates anything resembling consensus. older ≠ wiser 00:21, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Bkonrad, did anyone declare or even imply that the slim majority indicates anything resembling consensus? If yes, where? If no, why did you feel you need to make this point? What it does clearly show is a lack of consensus to stick with the status quo. --Serge 23:07, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Comments you made just a while before the above edit, which I may have viewed as a diff encompassing the entire range, contained the phrase clearly there is no consensus to leave the guidelines the way they currently are either (Tariq's proposal alone shows this with a majority currently supporting it). older ≠ wiser 23:19, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Right. I said "there is NO consensus ...". Why are acting like we have a disagreement? Are you trying to say you feel there IS a consensus to stay with the status quo? --Serge 23:47, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict; not handled by system) The polling on Tariq's proposal doesn't "clearly show" much of anything, including whether there is a consensus for either Part without the other. Some editors support status quo and Tariq's proposal; some support Tariq's proposal and oppose the status quo; and the opposite is doubtless also true. It is therefore compatible with the sort of supermajority for the present system which is WP:CONSENSUS. Septentrionalis 00:00, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Huh? Anyone who votes for any change to the status quo is obviously not in favor of no change to the status quo. Now, whether there is a consensus for any particular change to the status quo is yet to be determined. --Serge 00:11, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Bosh. Anyone may find both the status quo and a relatively small change acceptable, and favor whichever tends to consensus; I do. Another may find both the small change and a much larger change acceptable. Neither is inconsistent. Septentrionalis 04:43, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. Would you agree that it is fair to say that the voting on the Tariq proposal establishes that we don't have a consensus that supports no exceptions to the comma convention for U.S. cities? --Serge 04:52, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the "Fair Enough". Yes, there is no consensus for that (which is not the same as a consensus against it). But that is not the status quo either in practice or on this page, which expressly acknowledges exceptions. Septentrionalis 17:40, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Yet whenever someone proposes an exception, there are inevitably a number of opposers who state that the guideline should be changed if you want an exception. So I, for one, would like to see the guideline to be clearer on this point (that exceptions are allowed whenever a consensus is formed in favor of the exception). --Serge 19:39, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

To be frank, well-intentioned as it is, I find Tariq's proposition a half-baked compromise that will cause even more disambiguation problems. Instead of getting into that one I propose to forward a wide (wide!) open proposition to standardise a single form of disambiguation for all of Wiki. We're talking Village Pump here. I don't see any definite solution short of that - and anyhow we'll be going there sooner or later. THEPROMENADER 00:44, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

The comma, as a "separator" between a city and its state, should be retained in the article title--but only as explicit disambiguation. So commas should be used only when necessary as disambiguation.

• The main reason why the comma should be retained in the article titles is because the comma is frequently-used (in the U.S., anyway) to separate cities from states in postal addresses (on letters as well as in address books and other places such as certain data feeds), and in news reports and other sources where place names are used.
• The comma should be preferred as disambiguation for U.S. cities because of this common usage, but also because (1) the comma already is used in Misplaced Pages for disambiguation, and (2) there are no alternatives that would be universally recognized by people outside the U.S. (Without a universally-recognized disambiguation scheme, the disambiguation should defer to clarity for U.S. readers as an overall benefit.)
• To restate: The comma should be used only when necessary for disambiguation so that the comma will have a clear role (in titles) only as a disambiguator.

--ishu 17:57, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, there are two things wrong with that. Commas also have other uses than disambiguation (secondary titles, proper names), and it is wrong to pander to the habits of one select audience - Wiki is not for US-only readers, and there is no call to state it "preferred" to speak a language only they understand. Again, this contributor preponderance (and tenacity of habit) has the contributors themselves in mind, not the readers - it is not a coincidence that most contributing articles about a locale live in or near the place they are writing about.

It is policy to use American English in articles on American subjects or those originally written in American; these are both. Septentrionalis 00:08, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

"Universally recognised disambiguation scheme" - now that's closer to the mark. This is exactly why I suggested taking this to the Village pump. THEPROMENADER 22:58, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Commas also have other uses than disambiguation (secondary titles, proper names) True, but typically not in the names of settlements.

it is wrong to pander to the habits of one select audience - Wiki is not for US-only readers

this contributor preponderance (and tenacity of habit) has the contributors themselves in mind

If we invent a scheme of universal disambiguation that corresponds to no other naming/disambiguation conventions, it will be universal, but not necessarily recognizable. How does that help a reader who, (we are assuming) knows nothing in particular about WP conventions? So instead of a comma-based system of disambiguation that is understood by a sizable "chunk" of EN-WP readers (i.e., U.S.--and a fair share of Canadians, too), we should opt for an idiosyncratic system that is understood by only a small group of readers?

Again, I'm calling for using the comma only when necessary for disambiguation--mainly for the sake of retaining it in the name of familiarity--which is considerate of a considerable number of EN-WP readers. --ishu 03:46, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Ishu, the reason the parenthetic remark is the standard method of disambiguation in Misplaced Pages is because its semantic purpose and function is recognized by anyone literate in English. One does not need to know anything about WP conventions to understand that information after a name inside parenthesis is additional clarifying information. This is as true for clarifying location information for place names as it is for anything else. The fact that people have seen Portland, Oregon countless times does not mean they won't recognize the meaning of Portland (Oregon). The argument that such a disambiguating naming system would be understood "by only a small group of readers" is absurd. --Serge 03:57, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Does Serge really deny that Portland, Oregon is the normal way to do this in American English? Septentrionalis 04:43, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Not at all. Did you read what I wrote? My point is a simple counter-point to Ishu's claim that parenthesis would not be understood: Despite the fact that Cityname, Statename is a normal way to reference a city in American English, the argument that disambiguating with parenthesis would be understood "by only a small group of readers" is absurd. But to expand on your point: Because Cityname, Statename is a normal way to reference cities, using it in article titles makes it unclear whether the name of the subject is Cityname, Statename, or whether the name of the subject is Cityname and Statename is disambiguating/clarifying information. This problem is resolved if we use Cityname (when dabbing is not required), and Cityname (Statename) (only when dabbing is required), because in both types of cases it's clear in no uncertain terms that the name of the subject is Cityname, period. --Serge 17:02, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually a side trip to the seal of Portand is interesting at this point. The name there is City of Portland, Oregon. So in at least one offical source some form of the name using a common is also used by the city itself. Vegaswikian 06:05, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• "Commas also have other uses than disambiguation (secondary titles, proper names) True, but typically not in the names of settlements."

To one not knowing any better, who's to tell that what he is looking at is a place and not a name? "One rule here, another there" circumstances should be avoided, especially where there is no discernable dividing line - especially to the ignorant - beween "here" and "there".

• "If we invent a scheme of universal disambiguation that corresponds to no other naming/disambiguation conventions, it will be universal, but not necessarily recognizable."

No need to invent anything - Wiki already has two disambiguation schemes, and parentheses are used in the overwhelming majority of disambiguated article titles. I don't see how anyone can say that parentheses will not be recognised as disambiguation.

• "How does that help a reader who, (we are assuming) knows nothing in particular about WP conventions? So instead of a comma-based system of disambiguation that is understood by a sizable "chunk" of EN-WP readers (i.e., U.S.--and a fair share of Canadians, too), we should opt for an idiosyncratic system that is understood by only a small group of readers?"

The above is based on the logic of the argument above it. Parenthesetical disambiguation is "an idiosyncratic system that is understood by only a small group of readers?" ? I think not at all - et au contraire!

The use of the comma as disambiguation in place names was invented, discussed and maintained by contributors, not by readers. Again, it is not a coincidence that most (all) of the same wanting to maintain the comma disambiguation already use it. Please remain objective in your arguments - study the method and its effect from all angles and uses, then conclude. THEPROMENADER 10:16, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

How can you meaningfully distinguish between contributors and readers? By what powers are you able to divine the preferences of readers who are not contributors? As has been pointed out numerous times, the comma convention for place names is NOT unique to the united States and it most certainly was NOT invented by Misplaced Pages contributors. Although I don't object to using parenthetical disambiguation where appropriate, it is nonetheless completely artificial--that form is in fact more an invention of Misplaced Pages contributors than the comman convention. older ≠ wiser 17:08, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Contributors serve, readers read what they're served. Every publication has its own disambiguation method - Wiki unfortunately has two. Of course the comma disambiguation in its use by this publication was invented by its contributors. This "speaking from one state to another" form of disambiguation is common in the US, but it is not used in any encyclopaedia - with reason. THEPROMENADER 08:30, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Contributors serve, readers read what they're served. And so what are we to make of that? Does it provide any useful method for discerning the preferences of readers who are not contributors? And there are quite a lot of things that Misplaced Pages does which no other encyclopedia does. Simply saying that no other encyclopedia does it this way doesn't really mean much when so much of what Misplaced Pages is about has no correlation with the practices of other encyclopedias. older ≠ wiser 13:57, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

What is there not to understand? One looking for information will search until they find what they're looking for; contributors provide the information. It's the job of the latter to facilitate the quest of the former, preferrably with as few "huh?"'s from the same as possible.

You are still avoiding (or simply not understanding) the question. How do you propose to meaningfully discern what the preferences are of readers as distinct from contributors. older ≠ wiser 23:26, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, most encyclopedias don't disambiguate at all if you want to know the truth. This is fine for paper media - read down till the text describes what you are looking for. Wiki articles must be disambiguated, because two articles with the same name is an utter impossibility. Think to the media when thinking to the method - that's all I'm saying. THEPROMENADER 22:06, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree with you that the current situation actually causes any demonstrable problems for readers (or at least not any more than any feasible alternative). older ≠ wiser 23:26, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

The fact that in Wiki the comma has other uses than disambiguation is a reason in itself to change. THEPROMENADER 09:20, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Parentheses have other uses besides disambiguation too. So what? older ≠ wiser 11:08, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but which case had more "exceptions" where it the use of the method is not disambiguation - commas or parentheses? Go figure. THEPROMENADER 19:53, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

There should be no question that whether the title is Portland, Oregon or Portland (Oregon), the meaning is clear: we're referring to the city in Oregon. That is not the issue.

What is unclear from Portland, Oregon is whether the most common name used to refer to that city is Portland or Portland, Oregon, while from Portland (Oregon) it is clear: the name is Portland, period. Yes, I know that City of Portland, Oregon is the official name, but we don't name our city articles by the official name of the city, we use the WP convention: use the most common name, which, in this case, is Portland. If the title of the article is Portland (Oregon), that makes it clear that the most common name is Portland; if it is Portland, Oregon, it is not clear. Why continue using a convention that results in such ambiguity when it is so easy to avoid it? --Serge 17:41, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Except that such ambiguity is, IMO, a completely hypothetical strawman. Show me real people (with a functional level of fluency in the English language) who are genuinely confused in distinguishing what "Portland, Oregon" means. older ≠ wiser 19:10, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Talk about strawmen. I never said the ambiguity is a confusion for what "Portland, Oregon" means. To the contrary: see the first parapraph in the post to which you are responding. What part of the meaning is clear do you not understand? --Serge 19:43, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

And the first line of the article is (and I quote) "Portland is a city at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon." This is a non-problem. Septentrionalis 19:34, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

But is it a guideline or even convention for the first line of an article, like it is for the title of a WP article, to always use/specify the most common name of the subject? If the title is Portland, Oregon and the first sentence says Portland is ... how is the reader (planning a visit, from, say, South Africa) supposed to know whether Portland or Portland, Oregon is the most common name used to reference the subject? On the other hand, if the title is Portland (Oregon) and the first sentence says Portland is ..., there is no question. Why must we muddle matters with the ambiguous Portland, Oregon format (and, no, by "ambiguous" I don't mean readers won't know what it means; I mean this form is not clear about what is the most common usage, and, in fact, incorrectly implies that the most common use is Portland, Oregon, which is not the case - except maybe in Maine and its vicinity). --Serge 19:58, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

This supposed confusion about the common name is what I meant by a completely hypothetical strawman. Show me real people (with a functional level of fluency in the English language) who genuinely experience difficulties in using Misplaced Pages because of the naming convention. older ≠ wiser 20:12, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

A strawman is a mischaracterization of another's position. Whose position am I mischaracterizing? And what position is that? You, on the other hand, are most clearly using a strawman argument. No one has ever claimed that the inability of Misplaced Pages, given the current U.S. city naming convention, to clearly specify the most common name used to refer to a U.S.city, creates difficulties in using Misplaced Pages. That is your claim, and it is a strawman. --Serge 20:19, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

wikt:straw man: An insubstantial concept, idea, or endeavor. If you agree that No one has ever claimed that the inability of Misplaced Pages, given the current U.S. city naming convention, to clearly specify the most common name used to refer to a U.S.city, creates "difficulties in using Misplaced Pages", then why are you so doggedly determined to overturn the convention? And FWIW, I disagree with you that there is in fact actually any inability of Misplaced Pages, given the current U.S. city naming convention, to clearly specify the most common name. This supposed inability that you postulate, is precisely what I believe is a completely hypothetical exercise in inventing a problem where none has been demonstrated to exist. older ≠ wiser 20:30, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Pardon me for assuming you were using the term strawman in the context of what it means in a debate. You disagree that there is any inability of Misplaced Pages, given the current U.S. city naming convention, to clearly specify the most common name. Well, then, please tell me the the most common name use to refer to each of San Francisco, California, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, Seattle, Washington and Chicago, and tell me how, if you didn't know, you would determine that from the names of the articles in question. --Serge 20:42, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

The most common name for these would be San Francisco, Hollywood, Seattle, and Chicago. And I'd be fine with these cities being at those names (although personally I think with Hollywood it's debatable whether a primary topic can be clearly distinguished between the place and the movie industry). The problem appears to arise for you arises because you seem to insist that the title of an article must always be the most common name and that any deviation from this is a cause for The Sky is Falling commotion. Since when is it necessary for any reader, including readers unfamiliar with the comma convention, to be able to discern the most common name from the title alone? WP:NC(CN) provides some general guidance about how to title articles, but is not the inviolable supreme law of Misplaced Pages. The convention itself allows that there may be exceptions defined by other guidelines. The U.S. convention is one such exception. While I'd be fine with allowing some greater flexibility in interpreting the city naming convention, I don't see that it actually poses any significant problem for readers of Misplaced Pages. San Francisco, California, Seattle, Washington, and Chicago, Illinois, are all also common and familiar names for those places, and whether such internationally familiar cities use one name or the other is a pretty minor stylistic difference. Hollywood is a bit different -- I think extending the convention to city neighborhoods was a mistake. For neighborhoods, I think something like Hollywood (Los Angeles) would have been a better approach. older ≠ wiser 21:23, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

And why should it be necessary to tell, from the title alone, what we're disambiguating? Henry the Lion doesn't have that property; it is merely unambiguous, and expressly approved of by a guideline and by consensus. (And in fact, Portland, Oregon does disambiguate both from Portland, Maine and from Springfield, Oregon; just as Henry disambiguates both from Henry of Navarre and Leo the Lion, or William the Lion.) Septentrionalis 04:39, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Hollywood District would be a more "common-usage" article title than Hollywood (Los Angeles)--except that Hollywood District is taken by what might be called Hollywood District (Portland, Oregon)--or would that be Hollywood District (Oregon)? At least people in Southern California sometimes refer to the "Hollywood District". I don't think it's at all common to use Los Angeles to disambiguate Hollywood as a part of Los Angeles. --ishu 04:57, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Can anyone provide an example of any place name in which the comma is part of the name of the place, exclusive of a larger subdivision? --ishu 04:26, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Don't mix common practice and common name - the state is not part of the city name. There's no point in going on about this - Locals have ported their "local practice" to Wiki, but this practice is not suited to this publication, namely because of the comma's other uses here. Of course the locals are going to defend their local practice, but think of Wiki in doing so please. THEPROMENADER 08:40, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Please reread my question:

Can anyone provide an example of any place name in which the comma is part of the name of the place, exclusive of a larger subdivision ?

The question does not refer to the state--or any practices, local, Wiki, or otherwise. --ishu 14:17, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Not off-hand. So what? --Serge 16:01, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

In this entire discussion, I don't recall a single example offered of a place in which the comma is part of its common name. Assuming it is rare to have a comma in a common name, there is little to no chance of any "confusion" over comma-delimited disambiguation for place names, provided there is no pre-emptive disambiguation. While commas are used in other ways, those ways are not applicable to place names, and contextually there would be no conflict between comma usage as DAB and non-DAB. --ishu 03:03, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Ishu, concluding that "there is little to no chance of any 'confusion' over comma-delimited disambiguation for place names" is not only assuming "it is rare to have a comma in a common name", but it is also assuming the reader knows that it is rare to have a comma in a common name for a place in the U.S. I suggest it is unreasonable to expect a reader to know this, particularly a reader who is unfamiliar with U.S. place naming conventions and meanings. Considering that the parenthetic remark is the standard mechanism used for disambiguation in Misplaced Pages, how is someone unfamiliar with U.S. conventions for referencing places supposed to know that the the , state is just a disambiguation? --Serge 06:31, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

john k already mentioned royalty. Princess_Madeleine, Duchess of Hälsingland and Gästrikland, Luitpold, Prince Regent of Bavaria and Albert, Prince Consort for example. I would say that the added title is indeed a form of disambiguation, but the added title is still the subject's own name. Since the name of a state is not the name of the city it is added to, it is pure disambiguation, and should be presented as such - or not at all if it is not needed. Like the rest of Wiki. THEPROMENADER 09:44, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Promenader: Please reread my question:

Can anyone provide an example of any place name in which the comma is part of the name of the place, exclusive of a larger subdivision ?

Serge: Assuming any form of confusion arising from any disambiguation convention assumes a lot of things that nobody has any actual evidence to support.

We are asking too much of the article titles.

• The article title's main purpose should be disambiguation from other articles, although it should conform closely to the common name so that readers may find the articles.
• The first sentence of the article is the most appropriate place to specify the common name of the topic. It is also the most likely place where a reader will look to find the common name of the topic. (I assume that readers read the articles for information. Isn't that more plausible than assuming the reader will first exhaust all efforts to parse the title before reading the article itself?)
• The comma already is used for disambiguation in Wiki.
• Parenthetical disambiguation already is confounded by common names such as Pride (In the Name of Love) and Was (Not Was).
• It appears to be uncommon (if not nonexistent) to use commas in the common names of places.
• Assuming commas are used only for disambiguation, the risk of confusion appears to be minimal. --User:Ishu 14:17, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

There's no point in singling out only placenames - this segregation from the rest of Wiki is actually the base of the fault. When devising a system one cannot rely solely upon reader knowledge to identify the subject for what it is. Parathentical disambiguation is not at all confounded (with anything) - in every case, excepting placenames, it is identifiable for exactly what it is - disambiguation. THEPROMENADER 13:52, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

The parenthesis cannot serve all purposes, since it is already used in non-disambiguated article titles that are not place names. While most common in articles about art works--especially songs like 1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?), (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, and Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)--parentheses are also used in other article titles such as Bank of China (Hong Kong) and Communist Party of India (Marxist)--both of which are the common names for these entities. If parentheses are part of the common names of topics, then parentheses cannot be "unambiguous disambiguators." The main purpose of the article title should be disambiguation from other articles. The first sentence of the article is the most appropriate place to specify the common name of the topic because it is the most likely place where a reader will look to find the common name of the topic. Any "confusion" that arises from the title is made clear in the first sentence of any well-written article. --Ishu 14:27, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I was wondering when someone was going to point out that parenthesis are sometimes part of the name. There is even one city name whose name has parenthesis. But, practically speaking, these are all very rare exceptions that most people are not aware of or thinking about most of the time. So, yes, technically, even the parenthetic remark is not a perfect "unambiguous disambiguator," but it is very close to it, and, much closer to being a perfect "unambiguous disambiguator" than is the comma-separated disambiguator. Plus, of course, the parenthetic remark is arguably the standard form for disambiguation, and the more we are consistent with using it such, the closer to being a perfect "unambiguous disambiguator" it is (conversely, the more we use alternatives the more ambiguous all of our disambiguators become).

As far as the first sentence clarifying the most common name, that is often not the case. To the contrary, the convention used in many WP articles is to specify the most common name in the title, and to use the full/formal name in the first sentence. Per this convention, the article about San Diego, for example, should be at San Diego and the first sentence should say, The City of San Diego ...", and the article about Portland should be at Portland (Oregon) and start with the sentence, "The City of Portland, Oregon is ..." --Serge 17:03, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

You are right about the name in the first sentence. However, my main point is pretty logical: If readers become "confused" by (reasonably formed) article titles, most (if not all) will begin to read the article itself--which is the best place to learn about all names of the subject, common, formal, and nicknames.

We are asking too much of the article title--it cannot convey all this information about the name of the subject. This is true whether we disambiguate with parentheses, commas, vertical bars, emoticons, or whathaveyou. The article title's main purpose should be disambiguation from other articles, although it should conform closely to the common name so that readers may find the articles.

Problems with comma-based disambiguation are also presented by parentheses-based disambiguation. --Ishu 17:57, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Ishu, the title's main purpose cannot be to disambiguate from other articles. If it were, then we could just assign random meaningless but unique strings of letters and numbers for each title. In fact, WP could just assign such a random/unique title any time anyone created a new article. Providing a unique identifier is a purpose of the title, but it is not the main purpose. It is WP policy to Use the most common name in an article title. And it is convention to disambiguate that common name, in articles where disambiguation is required, usually with a parenthetic remark. You claim that Problems with comma-based disambiguation are also presented by parentheses-based disambiguation. Explain this to me, then. Currently, the title of the Portland article is Portland, Oregon. The official name of the city (per the city seal) is City of Portland, Oregon (perhaps because it was named after the Portland in Maine). How is a reader supposed to know from all this that the common name is, simply, Portland. Further, would this fact not be very effectively conveyed with a title of Portland (Oregon)? Perhaps not perfectly conveyed, but certainly more effectively than how it is currently done. No? --18:19, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Of course the main purpose is to disambiguate. WP recommends the common name for the title because in most cases the common name needs no disambiguation, in which case the title serves the dual purpose of disambiguation and identifying the common name. But disambiguation in titles takes precedence to using the common name, so the main purpose of the title is to disambiguate.

When the common name is shared by other subjects, disambiguation is requred. Places are different from most other topics because there are many places that are named after other, existing places (as you note).

The best way for a reader to know the common name for any city of Portland is to have a sentence in the lead section that states "The city is commonly known as Portland." This is the only universal, unequivocal way in which readers will know what is the common name of a place.

I am claiming that any scheme of disambiguation is inherently ambiguous to some extent, so we should not expect the title alone to resolve the meaning of the disambiguation. The title distinguishes the article from other articles with similar common names. Once we append disambiguators to the common name, we should not expect the title to be self-explanatory anymore. --Ishu 20:15, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Concrete proposal

Serge wrote "Yet whenever someone proposes an exception, there are inevitably a number of opposers who state that the guideline should be changed if you want an exception. So I, for one, would like to see the guideline to be clearer on this point (that exceptions are allowed whenever a consensus is formed in favor of the exception)."

This is a concrete proposal, which I applaud. I have no objection to adding some form of words like and some other exceptions to the present three examples, if it will end this. The point is already stated in the {{guideline}} template. Septentrionalis 19:54, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure it's concrete unless more specific wording is provided. I would like it to say something to the effect of exceptions are made whenever a majority of the editors agrees the most common name of a given city is clearly the name alone (and, of course, the primary use of that name is to refer to that city). --Serge 20:09, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

This new request is the same proposal Serge has failed to get consensus for already. Enough. Septentrionalis 21:02, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps my mind is going, but I don't recall ever having a survey that rejected this proposal before. --Serge 21:08, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you're thinking of the proposal to adopt the Canadian guidelines, but that did not include the whenever a majority of the editors agrees ... aspect that is key to what I'm thinking here (to be clear, I'm not actually proposing anything). --Serge 21:12, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm. It's not exactly the same proposal of Serge's that was rejected, but it seems to fit nicely between two rejected proposals, so it's probably safe to say it would be rejected. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 22:15, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Which is why I'm not proposing it. I was just saying what I would like the guidelines to say. --Serge 22:30, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Well I was thinking about removing the two cities added to the guideline. While they did get consensus in WP:RM to be moved, that was not a vote to change the guideline. Vegaswikian 23:21, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

There was no vote to mention that New York City was an exception either. The fact is, the listed cities are actual exceptions. It's a statement of fact. Why would there have to be a vote to make a statement of fact in the guidelines? --Serge 23:36, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

There should be consensus to modify the guideline. Consensus to move an article is not consensus to amend the guideline. So, maybe all exceptions should be removed from the guideline pending consensus to add any. Vegaswikian 00:21, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

But voting is not required to establish consensus. Being bold and making uncontroversial changes is with consensus and legitimate. The exceptions have been listed for months, and you are the first one to mention anything about it. Even you have yet to even express an objective reason for not having them listed. Are you simply trying to be disruptive, or do you actualy have a point to make? --Serge 00:27, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Disruptive? Sorry. Maybe I just need to ignore this entire conversation and process since discussion is not wanted. Vegaswikian 00:44, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Vegaswikian that there's no need to list exceptions in the guideline. Every guideline may be overridden with cause, but those exceptions aren't typiclaly listed. -Will Beback · † · 01:02, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

But other guidelines have the {{guideline}} tag, which explicitly makes that point. We should have one or the other. (I can see why we don't; we don't need a parade of little boxes; but I could go either way.) Septentrionalis 04:28, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

New York has been mentioned as an exception to the guideline for years and years. And the other two have been there without protest for months now. The changes were not considered controversial at the time, and I don't see why they should now need retroactive "consensus." of course, the current formulation is completely incoherent, but that's the result of the fact that we don't agree. john k 05:48, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

However the fallout from those last changes has been controversial. Small changes may appear to be innocent at first but over time you can see how they are not. Vegaswikian 19:37, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Vegas' comment sparked "light bulb" moment and in looking at some of the archived discussion this page you really see a BIG jump in activity (about the US) occur follow the "Chicago Exception" and increasing as the "Philadelphia Exception" came and so forth. I have to admit finding humor in that due to Serge's assertion about the "peace" that it would bring if City, State convention was junked. It seems like the use of "exceptions" to start deviating from the convention is the cause of more unrest and turmoil on this page then anything else. Agne 19:47, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Current guideline - mark as disputed?

While we don't yet have a specific alternative to the current U.S. city naming guideline that a consensus or supermajority will support, a small majority (21 vs 18) does support Tariq's proposed change at the top of this page. That doesn't justify a change, but isn't that voting result, plus all the discussion on this page (not to mention the archives), enough to justify placing a disputed tag on the current guideline? I think placing it there might be helpful to motivate everyone involved to work towards a guideline that is supported by consensus (or at least a supermajority). --Serge 17:18, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

No. There is no evidence in that discussion that a majority finds the present guideline unacceptable or disputes it. We do not need a dispute tag every time somebody gets substantial support on an improvement of wording. Septentrionalis 18:09, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Survey: do you agree the current U.S. city guideline is in dispute?

I've suggested (above) that the current U.S. city guideline be marked "in dispute" because support for Tariq's proposal along with discussion here indicates that it is in dispute. This has been challenged per the salient argument that support for a change does not necessarily imply a dispute with the status quo. Because I feel it's important to mark the current guideline in dispute (in order to motivate folks to work towards wording that is supported by consensus), I think it's important to establish this point. Hence, unfortunately, the need for another survey, albeit a simple one.

QUESTION: Do YOU agree that the current U.S. city naming guideline discourages use of the most common name -- the city name alone -- as the article title, for even well-known and unique city names like Seattle, Houston and San Francisco, and that so many people feel that because of this it contradicts Misplaced Pages-wide policy, guidelines or conventions, that the best option here is to declare the current U.S. city naming guideline to be in dispute?

Vote YES (U.S. city naming policy should be marked in dispute)

Vote with "# '''YES'''. Optional Comment. --~~~~

1. YES. --Serge 18:39, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
2. G-Man * 19:05, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Vote NO (U.S. city naming policy should NOT be marked in dispute)

Vote with "# '''NO'''. Optional Comment. --~~~~

1. NO. I add another option, with which I also agree. Septentrionalis 18:50, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
2. Umm, Tariq's proposal was essentially clarification of what is an exception which (unfortunately) is already in the current the guideline. What Serge disputes is the City, State aspect that Tariq's proposal still allowed but wrapped around subjective "well known vs not so well known" language. It's twisting a few branches to try and get a slim majority for Tariq's proposal to equate to a disputed view of the City, State usage. Plus agreement with the second option. Agne 19:05, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
3. The current guideline is not in dispute. There is an ongoing review of the guideline, but a majority of editors seem to think the basic premise that "CityName, State" is the naming convention, with some exceptions, is acceptable. The only clarification needed is how these exceptions are defined and that's not enough to throw the disputed tag on the entire naming convention. --Bobblehead 19:22, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
4. The current guideline is not in dispute. Serge's good faith is now in dispute, in his faulty interpretation of what has been said as the guideline being in dispute. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 19:29, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
   • Please do not violate WP:AGF, Arthur. The same use-the-common-name arguments are used, successfully, with other naming conventions as well. They are presented here as well in good faith. If I was adding the dispute statement to the guideline, then I could see having a problem with what I'm doing. But I'm just trying to establish whether there is consensus to do something like that. Is that not what a talk page is for? --Serge 19:50, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Serge has started enough polls.

1. Enough. This is a continuing campaign by one or two users. Any poll begun by Serge before March should be summarily closed. Septentrionalis 18:50, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
   • Exactly how many polls do you think I've started, and where are they? And how many is "too many"? --Serge 19:54, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
2. Yet another strawpoll....The sad thing is that users feel force to participate because if you ignore it, someone may take a token consensus to mean they can go around slapping disputed tags on things. Agne 19:07, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
3. I agree with Septentrionalis, but I think it needs an article or user WP:RfC to put that into effect. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 19:35, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
4. Too many strawpolls. -Will Beback · † · 20:11, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Do we need mediation or an RfC?

It seemed like the consensus in previous discussion was that of fatique and a desire to take a break from this discussion. However, it seems like that might not be possible with the continuation or more polls and more activity to try and overturn this convention. Maybe we should consider some of the Misplaced Pages:Resolving disputes steps if we hope to see any progress or get a reprive from the constant polling. Agne 19:19, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, something is needed. This is getting a tad ridiculous. --Bobblehead 19:29, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I would like to think that we don't. The discussions are pointing out the problems with the current proposals and the existing guideline. It may in fact be that the consensus is to leave the guideline as it was before the changes that really caused this discussion to grow. However if we keep having a vote of the week before there is any indication of consensus or a clear need for a vote to help establish a direction, then we need to do something. Vegaswikian 19:32, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

This is pretty funny. The same folks voting that the guideline is not in dispute are calling for an RfC. If the guideline is not in dispute, what is the dispute over which we would be requesting comment? --Serge 19:57, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Well there is certainly not a "dispute" to extent that you are suggesting or implying that there is consensus backing of. However, there is disagreement among the "regulars" on this page to the point that it seems like "Poll warfare" is taking place--keep polling till the other side gets tired and doesn't participate. Then declare a win. If we are at that point, then maybe we need mediation or if this "poll warfare" is improper conduct then maybe we need a RfC. Agne 20:08, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) :: I think it was suggested earlier that the discussion itself become structured in some way. This going around in circles will lead to nothing and makes it easy to miss the point - even when it is convenient to do so - resulting in even more circles and polls. Just what are we discussing here? THEPROMENADER 19:59, 4 December 2006 (UTC)