Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (settlements)

Past discussion

Read the discussion contained in the archives:

Talk:Durham

Open issues

As noted before, two issues have been decided, but these leave lot of room for discussion.

The issue of using normal disambiguation rules should be clear; articles on cities get that name unless there are other topics with the same name.

Next, it has been decided that the "comma notation" ([City, Something]) is used for city names in stead of the parenthesis format. That still leaves the following possibilities:

Disambiguation is done at the necessary level. That is, if there are two different cities with the same name in two different countries, we use [City, Country]. If the two cities are within the same country, use the common local disambiguator for that nation in English language, or for that country if none available. If there are two cities within the same state (f.e.), use the common local disambiguator for that state in English language, etc., etc.
Define a natural disambiguator for each country and use it all the time.

The first option would give Sydney, Australia and Sydney, Canada, and Las Vegas, Nevada and Las Vegas, New Mexico (assuming both city names are equally common in use). The second option would give Sydney, Australia and Sydney, Nova Scotia.

I myself have no preference for either option. The latter may be easier to remember, but shows less consistency. However, since in many cases there will be many US cities and some foreign ones with the same name, that one seems the best and most logical option.

In either case, it should be investigated and listed what the standards for disambiguating nationally are per country. For the USA and Canada, these have already been established as being [City, State] and [City, Province]. For others this still has to be decided. A remaining question is whether to use the natural disambiguator for a country (be it in English language or not) should also be used if it doesn't have the comma notation. I'd say yes here - if Malta's (example) English language convention is to use City-Province, I'd say we should use that.

The last issue is the so-called "Paris" problem. As we're following "normal disambiguation" rules, it states that when one of the disambiguated articles has priority, it gets to stay at the main article (Paris, in our example). If none of the articles has priority, they're all disambiguated. The current disambiguation rules also state this decision must be made on a case-to-case basis. I think that solves our problem here. In case we decide (no matter how) that the French city has priority over the Trojan and all the other spots on the map, we put its article at Paris, and put a block-format disambiguation at the top. If we decide the city hasn't got priority, we use the normal disambiguation article. I don't see any other possibilities, but I may be wrong.

Summarising, we need to decide on :

the way to use the comma notation for disambiguation (I say always use the country-specific one)
whether to also use natural disambiguators without a comma (I say yes)
what to do with the Paris problem (I say use the normal disambiguation rules)

Jeronimo

IMOH some vote results were prematurely moved to archives.

Please let's not introduce another format as in [City-Province]; that can only promote more argument. It could also make things more difficult for the average searcher who will become confused about how to search for things.

With the parentheses format retained for non-cities we can know that [Paris (hero)] is not a city, and [Paris, Ontario] is a city.

I accept using [Paris] for the French city as long as it includes a disambiguation block at the beginning of the article.

"Has priority" needs some definition. To me this does not mean the historical priority that British cities of Boston, Perth and Halifax may have The criterion should be one of overwhelmingly common usage. The aqverage people in Paris, Kentucky can reasonably be expected to have heard of Paris, France, but the average people of Paris, France cannot reasonably be expected to have heard of Paris, Kentucky.

Eclecticology 11:16 Aug 18, 2002 (PDT)

I think "has priority" is "defined" at disambiguation as the most commonly associated meaning of the name, if any. For some, this is difficult to determine, but for a city like Rome, it is pretty clear that this one should has priority. Jeronimo

Archive 4 came from here.

Right now, I'm in the middle of a revert fight with Mintguy. I'm asking for comments on this.

When there is a multiple-place name, there are several different ways they are handled. Usually, a disambiguation page is found under Cityname. When there is a major city of that name, the disambiguation page is under Cityname (disambiguation). In that latter case, the Cityname page at least has a link to the Cityname (disambiguation) page. In a few cases (also major cities) the disambiguation information is on the Cityname page itself. There are some cases where there are redirects, and the Cityname page redirects to the Cityname, Countryname (or Cityname, Statename) page; even there the page that the redirect sends you to has a link to the Cityname (disambiguation) page, so you can get back. (I'm not very fond of using redirects in these cases, because if you happen to be looking for one of the smaller places, it can take you a lot of time to get where you're going.)

Mintguy has been replacing the Exeter disambiguation page by a redirect to Exeter, England. That is to me a pernicious thing, and I've been repeatedly reverting it when I find it. Exeter, England is hardly a major city in the category of London or Paris; it's a small place with about 100,000 people that nobody outside the UK is likely to be interested in. It certainly seems to me that this is comparable to other cases where one city may be larger than the others, but not so significantly large that it deserves the redirect treatment.

I want to see what the majority thinks. I think I'm being the neutral one, but I hate to spend my time reverting Mintguy's reverts. -- BRG July 10, 2003

What you say sounds reasonable, BRG, though I'd like to hear what Mintguy has to say before commiting too firmly to a position. He's a pretty reasonable guy, except when it comes to soccer. :) Tannin 13:45 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

With 2000 years of history, Exeter is one of the oldest settlements in Britain. The name Exeter for the other placenames is directly derived from the original Exeter. We have a long established convention that where ever one place name is predominantly associated with with one location, we use that and create a placename (disambiguation) page. With its long history the vast majority of references required for Exeter mean the British town. BRG seems to be under the impression that a town with a population of 100,000 is insignificant. This only show a mis-understanding of the demographics of Britain (which is understandable). As such Exeter is as insignificant as Cambridge, Oxford, St Albans and Canterbury. Mintguy 13:49 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hmmm ... Now I feel persuaded the other way. Guess I'll go play with the fauna articles again :) Tannin

I have no problem with someone's putting a note on the Exeter disambiguation page to indicate that Exeter, England is the original. Some other places have that kind of note. What I find to be offensive is Mintguy's (and some other Britons') attitude that some little town of 100,000 is major just because it's in Britain. Certainly a city like Syracuse, N. Y. (population much more than that) doesn't get the kind of treatment that he wants for Exeter. BRG July 10

You are still failing to get the main point which is not so much about populations as to what the majority of people in the world (not just the USA) associate with a particular name. Boston, in England is relegated to make way for the one in USA. Do you have a problem with that also? Mintguy

BRG. Now you are just getting nasty. I'm sure Brighton famous enough, even in the USA to have its own page. Please revert your change. Mintguy 14:25 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

To me I think it is clear that the only places in England that deserve to be under "Cityname" rather than "Cityname, England" are London, Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham (and perhaps not the latter, because Birmingham, Alabama is a pretty big city!) I think that we nood to think of the world outside the UK, as you talk about the world outside the USA. --- BRG

Look we had this discussion over Durham (population 87,709) a long time ago and a convention was established. See the talk page for Durham (disambiguation), and now you want to upset the applecart. Exeter is equally if not more historical than Durham with a larger population, an International airport, an historic cathedral, a large university. It is also the administrative centre of Devon. It is NOT (as you persistantly and insultingly phrase it) a "jerkwater town". Mintguy 14:33 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Rockville, Maryland is the administrative center of Montgomery County, Maryland, which has a population of 800,000 (not much less than Devon's million). I would hardly call Rockville a major city, though it is important to _me_ (as I live in Montgomery County). So when I call Exeter a "jerkwater town" I am not insulting; I'm stating a fact. NO city of less than half a million deserves to be called major; Exeter's population is less than a quarter of that half-million figure. -- BRG

The "Town, State"-phrase is for me a marker of USA-ishness. When used for locals outside of the US, I would believe also a lot of other readers than me get confused. I am sure it would be sufficient to use the "Town in Country"/"City of Country" notion when the context isn't enough to avoid ambiguities. It does also ought to be important in respect to style of prose. (Personally, I would most certainly prefer [[Town (in Country]] as page-titles, which would not have the unwished influence on writers of referring texts inducing them to employ the US-style for towns otherwhere.) The discussion above has a very bad taste of Nationalist cock-length-competition, which I think is unworthy, and an unfortunate consequence of the Town,Something-convention, which maybe ought to be reconsidered. -- Ruhrjung 14:47 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Quite right, Britain has a small cock in this argument, our towns arn't as big as American ones, but there are more per square mile than the US (so our balls hang lower). The demographics of the countries are different. (Apologies for the vulgarity).

Again, I'll repeat it. The point is whether or not the name is predominatly associated for one thing or not and with Exeter in Devon, this is the case. 2000 years of history throws up an awful lot of references you know. Mintguy

Eden (the town in New South Wales) has a population of about 2000. In Eden, there is a rather nice garden. Obviously, I better write it up, as the place in the Bible called the Garden of Eden had a population of only 2. Clearly, the garden in the town of Eden on the south coast of New South Wales is vastly more important than that other, jerkwater so-called Garden of Eden

(PS - don't take my population of Eden as gospel. I've never been there so I just made the number up. But my argument stands as we can be absolutely certain that Eden's population is more than two. Tannin 15:00 10 Jul 2003 (UTC))

BRG, by your definition Edinburgh is a "jerkwater town", Zurich and Geneva are "jerkwater towns", Lisbon is a "jerkwater town", Cork is a "jerkwater town", Lyon, Nice and Toulouse are all "jerkwater towns", Mintguy.

Mintguy, when Exeter becomes a national capital (like Lisbon), a regional capital (like Edinburgh; some would call that one a national capital too!), the headquarters of a major UN agency (like Geneva), or the like, I will withdraw the "jerkwater town" characterization. The real equivalent is New Haven, Connecticut, a city a little larger than Exeter, with not just one but two universities, one of which is of national reputation, corresponding to Oxford in your country, an airport, a rail junction, etc. We do not see "New Haven" alone for that city. So we shopuld not see "Exeter" alone for the English mini-city.-- BRG July 11

The population (or other arbitrary significance measure) of a place is not relevant to this discussion: the important thing is the "what links here" list. When somebody creates a new link to the name, is it likely to be referring to one place in particular? ( 14:38 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Precisely. But New Haven isn't 2000 years old with all the relevent history and and neccesary links to go with it. New Haven wasn't the site of a battle 1000 years ago, it wasn't occupied by the Romans. It isn't the place that was the centre of power for Alfred the Great. It isn't the place Danile Defoe called 'large, rich, beautiful, populous and was once very strong' It isn't the place that in the 18th century it was the 6th largest town in England. It isn't the place where civil war between king and parliament began. Exter is all of these. Mintguy 14:42 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

New Haven, Connecticut has a decent number of links: the disambiguation can probably be skipped for this one too. ( 14:50 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

New Haven is not 2000 years old; nothing in the USA is. It is over 300 years old, which makes it very old by US standards. Exeter may have been the 6th largest town in England in the 18th Century, but New Haven is currently the third largest town in Connecticut (or perhaps the second)! And none of these great distinctions of Exeter is recent, while New Haven was until the 1960s the headquarters city of the biggest railroad in New England and is currently, as I mentioned, the site of one of the three most umportant universities in the USA. - BRG July 11

The point is not how Exeter compares to New Haven, but how it compares to the other Exeters. And I'm sorry on that it wins hands down. This isn't the case for plenty of other towns in Britain which are disambiguated, but Eexter, like Oxford and Cambridge AND Colchester(which is also one of the first Roman settlements in Britain) is one of those exceptions. Mintguy

This seems fine to me, I fixed New Haven ( 15:04 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

"The point is not how Exeter compares to New Haven, but how it compares to the other Exeters." My point is that just as we put New Haven under "New Haven, Connecticut" we should put Exeter under "Exeter, England" or "Exeter, Devon" or "Exeter, UK" (your choice), not just under "Exeter." And the same for Brighton, Colchester, and all other cities in England except perhaps for two or 3 of the largest. -- BRG July 11

Ok if that's what you think. tell my why you think that? What is the logic behind your position? Mintguy 15:24 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

What I actually would want would be for every article whose title is the name of more than one city to be a disambiguation page so you don't run into the sort of thing where an article means to refer to one and you get to the wrong one. But I was overruled on that many months ago; it was felt that for places like London and Paris there woulkd be almost no chance that someone really meant London, Ohio or Paris, Kentucky. So I am simply making a compromise. It is not so logical because I have had to accept the consensus that for major cities the majority do not want to go all the way. -BRG

Major or not is irrelevant. Major is just a convenient way of expressing how many links can be expected for particular ariticle. That is what the convention is. You might want to note that since you changed all of the links for Exeter to Exeter, England. Two more links have been created for Exeter, both of which mean the one in Britain. Mintguy

One of those, Fosse Way, was done by your partner in crime, G-Man, who undid my change.

How many links are expected depends on who is writing articles. A lot of my articles are disambiguation pages that refer to tiny little places that have the same name as others -- BRG

Normally New Haven, Connecticut would be at New Haven. But it comes under the special exception for USA cities (see the main article) ( 15:25 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

BRG I'm not going to discuss this any further. You are in a minority of one and this page is getting too big. Mintguy 16:15 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

How am I in a minority? It seems like it is you against me. Nobody else is expressing an opinion! BRG

Exeter in England should be at Exeter. For Americans who can't conceive of placenames written without commas, we can have Exeter, England as a redirect. Exeter (disamb...) can list the others. -- Tarquin 16:28 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Ditto. Tannin

Didittotto. :-) Physical population is often an artifact of local politics (the most famous part of Las Vegas, Nevada, the Las Vegas Strip, is entirely outside the city, and deliberately so), and so the "population" that really matters is the number of references from within the encyclopedia. Stan 18:08 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It's strange. I can see plenty of expressed opinions above.

The important thing is that an article on a British or European town shall not have comma+nation, nor comma+country. (On the other hand, I'm actually disturbed over the redirect from Frankfurt am Main to Frankfurt, it ought to be the other way round. :-)

-- Ruhrjung 11:24 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I agree with Tarquin, Tannin, Stan and Mintguy. BTW I absolutely hate the use of commas in city names. It is phenomenon unique to American english and makes wiki articles sound as though they are written by Americans for Americans. We do have to be careful to avoid creating linguistic structures that seem exclusive to any one group on wiki, whether it be British people, Irish people, Japanese people, American people or whatever. Using (disambigulation) where we have to disambigulate seems far more neutral and acceptable to all forms of english used on wiki, whether it is British english, Australian english, Hibero-english, American english or whatever. FearÉIREANN 19:16 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Certainly Canadians and Australians use commas too. I've seen "Clayton, Victoria" and "Vancouver, British Columbia" in postal addresses emanating from those countries. BRG July 12

Oh, yeah, right, duh. That's what a postal address is - a list of geographical locations, ordered from most-specific to least-specific, sperated by commas or new lines. Tannin

The commas are a response to the unusual situation of a large country composed of quasi-independent states each with a very large number of small towns. I'm sure Russia, India, and China must have the same problem, dunno how they solve it though. Stan 20:32 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Alternatively, one can see the commas as the result of the massive immigration. One reason is that many US place names are copied from the original lands of the immigrants, and duplicated names became not unusual. At the same time, the immigration led to a great flux of people, differently than in other parts of the world, and hence people in the US needed to keep track of places all over USA. -- Ruhrjung 11:24 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Yeah I understand. Certainly in Europe saying things like Paris, France, Dublin, England, London, England are seen as distinctly American and have long been describing as "annoying" by english speakers in Britain, in Ireland and elsewhere. How we solve the problem I don't know but there is a problem there. FearÉIREANN 21:43 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

The convention is we put all cities in the US and Canada as [City, State] or [City, Province], but in the rest of the world we use [City], unless there is a disambiguation page in the [City] namespace, in which case the format is [City, Country]. Therefore unless Exeter is a disambiguation page, it should be used for the city in Devon, with Exeter, England redirecting there. I think the rule of thumb should be if a place is (A) significatly larger & (B) significantly older than any other of the same name, than it should occupy the main namespace (which is curtainly the case for Exeter in England). However, his does not mean that a place that is larger but younger can't occupy the main namespace if it is prodominet enough (eg Boston which does and should redirect to Boston, Massachusetts). - Efghij

I thought that this was the general rule of thumb that was agreed some time ago, and that instances are reviewed on a case by case business, but this doesn't appear to have been written up on the meta page. Can we please do this so we don't get new occurrences of users like User:BRG trying to upset the applecart with their perceived interpretation that this rule applies to few cities other than London and Paris. Mintguy 08:03 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)

You know, I keep seeing comments from Europeans that "City, Country" looks strange to them, including one person's comment that "people in the US are used to seeing things like 'Durham, NC' but people in Europe are not used to 'Durham, England.'" This makes me wonder what they do. Certainly in the UK it is not necessary to put "UK" in any more than it's necessary to put "USA" in addresses of letters mailed here. But suppose you're sending a letter to Bergen (the name of a city in Belgium as well as one in Norway). How do you make sure it goes to the right one? Don't tell me you use "Mons" instead of "Bergen." The city has two names because Belgium has two languages, and the Flemings have as much right as the Walloons to have their name for the city used. And suppose you're sending a letter to a place small enough that the postal personnel in your own country may not have heard of it. If you are in England and you want a letter to go to Heidenreichstein, do you expect the postal sorting fellow to know that it's in Austria (and not Germany or Switzerland)? Now of course there are postal codes, but I mean of course before they started using codes prefixed by A, CH, or D. -- BRG

Postal addresses still have the name of country on it; the American peculiarity is to use "Durham, NC" as a normal equivalent of just "Durham". I think things are being overstated on both sides; ordinary Americans are just as likely to say "Durham" or "Durham NC", the comma thing being partly something promoted by government to make it easier to control us :-), and I have plenty of British covers with addresses like "Wankers Corner, Countryshire", although the "England" will usually be on a separate line, thus finessing the use of a comma to separate. Stan 17:34 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)

in addresses, there's a line break between city name and country / state / county / whatever. In speech and writing, in the UK we'd use "in", if context was not clear. "I'm going to Heidenreichstein in Austria." -- Tarquin

Kingston is one of the most common placenames in Britain some of them are disambiguated thus:

Kingston upon Thames,

Kingston upon Hull, (usually just Hull)

Kingston near Lewes

Kingston-by-Ferring

Kingston by Sea

Kingston on Soar

Kingston on Spey

Mintguy 21:38 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Question: How does our policy of [Town, County] apply to towns in Cornwall? Cornwall is, strictly speaking, part of England, but most towns seem to be in the format [Town, Cornwall] rather than [Town, England]. Is this inconsistent with our policy, or is this some kind of exception? (And if the later, could some one right that somewhere obvious?) - Efghij 05:40 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It seems to be a bit of an open question, Efghij. Similarly, should we have Launceston (Australia) or Launceston (Tasmania)? I'm not sure if there is a policy on these things yet. Tannin

I think that falls into the [City, Country] catigory; therefore it would be Launceston, Australia. - Efghij 16:28 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Cornwall, has a small (some would say insignificant) independence movement. According to some members of this movement, Cornwall has never officially been part of England and any claim that it is, is illegal. On Wikipedia this opinion is held by User:sjc. A number of attempts to modify articles on Cornwall and places in Cornwall, describing it as being in England have met with opposition from sjc and others. We've ended up compromising over Cornwall. Mintguy 10:07 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Another thing about commas. New York, New York doesn't bat an eyelid for Americans, but at first sight it looks strange for the rest of us. We would not expect to see "Durham, Durham", which I think looks bizarre and makes me think of an 80s band rather than a place in the north of England. Mintguy 12:06 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

For this American, New York, New York sounds like something out of a song, or a TV ad telling me where to write for my free Ginsu knife that slices, dices, and make Julienne fries. :-) These days "New York" almost always means NYC, and one says "New York state", as in "I'm going to Albany next week" "Where's that?" "New York state" or "upstate New York". If one just answered "New York", the response would be "never heard of it - is it like a neighborhood of Manhattan?". 1/2 :-) Stan 13:46 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Then why not New York City, New York so as to match Oklahoma City, Oklahoma? And why are we using commas for disambiguating city names in places where commas are not commonly used (such as in the UK)? IMO when there is a title conflict in non-US/Canadian/Australian cases we should use standard parenthetical disambiguation. So instead of Durham, Durham we get Durham (Durham) or something similar. Otherwise the use of commas is confusing because it implies that preemptive disambiguation is also the rule for those nations (like the UK). --mav 20:04 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)