Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)/Archive 6

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WP:USPLACE for American Samoa

This discussion was speedy closed, and I was told to move it here. It seeks to answer: Does WP:USPLACE apply to AS (for example, should the village Amouli be moved to Amouli, American Samoa)? My argument (copied from move) is this:

Why are these articles named the way they are? First of all, there are some articles like Tafuna, American Samoa, that already follow the conventions listed at WP:USPLACE. Why should these articles not also be named like that? (and for the record, American Samoa IS part of the United States. They are a territory.) If USPLACE does not apply to territories, why do Puerto Rico, the USVI, Guam, and the CNMI all follow USPLACE, but American Samoa does not? Also, these village names are in Samoan. Suffixing them with ,American Samoa helps discern them from towns in Samoa, which can be hard to tell apart (as most readers of the English Wikipedia do not speak Samoan). I-82-I | TALK 22:10, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

• I would say no. Our approach to US cities is already grossly inconsistent with our approach to cities anywhere else in the world, as well as contrary to what our title policy would otherwise tell us to do. If the only justification of why a policy would apply is that the policy exists, and if all other typical approaches to the name would have a different outcome, it seems silly to expand the policy to cover it. USPLACE already has enough problems, between people asking the very reasonable question of why a city like Nashville needs disambiguation when Flin Flon does not, or users falsely claiming that US cities can't be primary topics because they always have the state in their name. Thankfully, we are given an out in that USPLACE does not demand the format for territories as it does for states, so we can instead use common sense and an approach to titling policy we would use for a city anywhere else in the world. If there are specific cities that need to disambiguated, however (whether from cities in Samoa or anywhere), then of course we should do so.--Yaksar (let's chat) 22:16, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
• This was discussed at Talk:Futiga#Requested move 17 August 2020. One of the arguments was that the format City, State isn't commonly used on the islands. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Uanfala (talk • contribs) 22:33, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
• Yes, the territory should be appended for the various reasons discussed earlier:

  Reliable published sources, both in American Samoa and elsewhere, commonly use the standard Placename, Territory form on first reference. It's the form used by local sources like the Samon News, both in lead and body.[1][2][3][4] It's favored by major news agencies like the Associated Press, Reuters, and UPI, again in both datelines and body text [5][6][7][8][9][10]. It's used by the National Park Service[11][12], the FAA[13][14], NOAA[15][16][17] and a host of other government agencies, departments, and services like the DoD, Army, OSHA, DoJ, USGS, Interior, Federal Register, SSA, EDA, Federal Maritime Commission, etc, and can be found commonly used in a great many other places[18][19][20][21][22]. (It's also common to abbreviate, but sources tend to do so only after the geographical context has been established.) The usage is demonstably Common, and as noted elsewhere, is sufficiently Natural that it may be considered part of American English.

  Further, per TITLECON and the consistency goal, a good title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles. In this case we can look to the longstanding form used by our roughly 40k US populated place articles, >99% of which attach the state or territory. More narrowly, we can also look to the form used by our 400+ US territorial populated place articles, >80% of which attach the territory.

  Also, I-82-I makes good point about the divided Samoan Islands: the Samoan placenames by themselves don't indicate whether they fall into the independent state or the American territory; it's an important distinction, and one that the current arrangement confusingly obscures. ╠╣uw [talk] 09:49, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

• AP, Reuters, UPI, etc also add what we would call a disambiguation for cities outside the US too though. By that same logic, shouldn't we also be using Leeds, England and Sochi, Russia, even when disambiguation is not required? After all, British city names don't make clear when they are in England vs. Wales, for example, so just like Samoa we'd need to make that clear.--Yaksar (let's chat) 13:12, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Quite so: if "Leeds, England" was the common form, then yes, Wikipedia would probably follow suit. In regards to this case, it demonstrably is common usage to append the state or territory to US place names (as we've repeatedly held), and that demonstrably includes places in American Samoa, so it's reasonable to give weight to that. That determination isn't based on a single source or agency, but on prevalence across a wide variety of many reliable sources. ╠╣uw [talk] 14:34, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Except, no. [[WP:COMMONNAME guides us to use the most common form, not simply any form that is commonly used. Again, it looks like "Nashville, Tennesse" brings up less than 10 percent of the Google results that just "Nashville" gives, but "Toronto, Ontario" brings up just over 10 percent of the results for "Toronto." The only reason we choose to disambiguate Nashville and not Toronto is because USPlace says to, not because of any other titling guidance. Is including a state name (or state equivalent) alongside a city name more common in the U.S. than many other countries? Yes, absolutely. But that is different than what you are saying, that it is therefore the most common form that should be used even outside of places where USPLACE is not necessarily followed by the letter of the rule.--Yaksar (let's chat) 14:43, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

No, that's incorrect on several counts:

By "common form" I do indeed mean that the form is most common, as the policy states, but it's wrong to suggest that we determine this just by raw Google counts. For one, most sources normally truncate or abbreviate names when repeated after first use, or in cases where the context has already been specifically established, thus almost always making the shortest form the most numerically frequent, but that's not the basis we use for determining an article's title. (If it were, we'd immediately have to move Barack Obama to Obama, and hosts of others likewise, for similarly wide Google spreads between common and shortened forms.) For another, your Google searches will necessarily return many more instances of "Nashville" than "Nashville, Tennessee" because there are many more things that use the name "Nashville" than just the city in Tennessee, such as movies, TV shows, other communities, etc. Further, the frequent repetition of placenames in the US means that the majority of our US place articles would have to have the state/territory added regardless of USPLACE — which is another reason that for consistency we've chosen to apply a single title form.

That said, I think we should remember that the purpose of this thread is not to debate the merits of USPLACE in general but to decide if it's right to apply it to places in American Samoa. On that point, and based on our conventions, guidelines, policies, and evidence from reliable sources both in AS and elsewhere, I see no reason (beyond IAR) why we shouldn't. Leaving American Samoa as an unexplained gap in the application of a major, longstanding title convention will likely just lead to more undiscussed moves, more move requests, and more unnecessary debate. ╠╣uw [talk] 17:50, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

But that those other subjects use only the city name only strengthens the point. That reliable sources say Lake Placid Olympics rather than Lake Placid, New York, Olympics or a book is titled History of Nashville rather than History of Nashville, Tennessee, simply demonstrates how much more common it is to refer to a city by just the city name, as with pretty much any city in the world. And to your other point, it's true that it's common for sources to use a short form after the first mention, but that doesn't affect search results like that -- if a New York Times article says Barack Obama once and then Obama 30 times, that doesn't mean the exact same story is going to show up 31 times in a google search.--Yaksar (let's chat) 18:51, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

1. Barack Obama=122M, Obama=333M. Retitle the article to the latter? (No.)
2. Non-places are named in many different ways. What we're considering are places, and specifically those in American Samoa. ╠╣uw [talk] 19:38, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Yep! And because USPLACE does not specifically require us to apply it to territories, we instead look to our normal guidelines for city titling, which are clear that, unless disambiguation is required, the city name alone is the proper title. If your issue is inconsistency, then perhaps the question we should be asking is why our standard for a city like Nashville or Pago Pago is inconsistent with the rest of the world, not why we should create even more inconsistencies that run counter to our title policy.--Yaksar (let's chat) 19:51, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, but nope: TITLECON doesn't say that users should base a title on what all other articles do; it directs editors to consult the "topic-specific conventions that are relevant to a particular article," which in this case is USPLACE (since AS is a US place). It's within the local context of that topic-specific convention that we would primarily gauge consistency — and it's within this context that the current American Samoa arrangement is oddly inconsistent and confusing.

You certainly don't have to take my word on that. The various recent AS moves, move-backs, and debates are a good indication that the current arrangement — an unexplained IAR departure both from the US geographic convention and from common usage — causes confusion and unnecessary disruption, and will likely continue to do so for as long as it remains. ╠╣uw [talk] 20:32, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Based on how this overall discussion seems to be trending towards a consensus (or at the very least, against a consensus to expand USPLACE), if your argument is that American Samoan cities should not be treated differently from mainland U.S. cities, then the approach looks like it would have to be changing USPLACE rather than expanding it to apply to American Samoa.--Yaksar (let's chat) 20:47, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

USPLACE wouldn't need to be modified for AS to follow the convention since AS is a US place. It could be modified to specifically exempt AS — but again, my guess is that an IAR exemption contrary to reliable sources, common use (both local and national), and title consistency guidelines is unlikely to be stable or successful. ╠╣uw [talk] 21:03, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

• No. Absolutely no need to append the name of the territory unless disambiguation is required. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:26, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
• I'm inclined to say No don't apply a highly exceptional and confusing rule for U.S. states to places that don't need the rule. By comparison, Category:Populated places in Guam show that territory also does not follow this rule as does Category:Populated places in the Northern Mariana Islands while Category:Populated places in the United States Virgin Islands and Category:Municipalities of Puerto Rico do follow the convention. older ≠ wiser 19:15, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Mayan placenames in Mexico: diacritics

The page Edzna was moved from Edzná in 2007 because placenames originating from Mayan do not require accents in English, even if they are official in Mexico. Is this policy still valid?--Carnby (talk) 09:56, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Surely being official in Mexico is irrelevant? Roger 8 Roger (talk) 20:52, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, what do you mean?--Carnby (talk) 10:29, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Naming convention for articles on the Provinces of Nepal

Your input is sought at the multi-page move discussion currently underway at Talk:Bagmati Pradesh#Requested move 7 October 2020. Regards! Usedtobecool ☎️ 05:00, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Names of places in Chechnya

Many articles for villages in the Chechen Republic, have names translated out of Russian language, for example, article called Tolstoy-Yurt. In 2020, a law was introduced that traditional local names of geographical objects (names of settlements, rivers, lakes, streets, squares, administrative territorial units...) which have historical and cultural value, are carefully preserved, that the assignment of place names in the Chechen Republic should be in the Chechen language, in order to ensure uniform and sustainable application (approximate translation). Therefore, the correct name of the settlement Tolstoy-Yurt, is actually Devkar-Evla (the most 'friendly' translation from Chechen to English). The same case applies to other settlements of the republic. Should the names of places be translated to Chechen in article names? Another problem rises - I don't know about any official transliteration of Chechen into English on Wikipedia, which creates another problem, for example - аь could become a, ä, e, depending only on what the writer prefers, if there is no transliteration. If renaming articles to the Chechen name is approved then it is a good idea to create a Wikipedia transliteration for Chechen and English. Borz (talk) 04:28, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Finished MOS:DIACRITICS merge from MOS:CAPS to WP:MOS

FYI

For details, please see: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Finished MOS:DIACRITICS merge.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:00, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

"Mountains in" vs "Mountains of"

Hello. Is there a current agreement on whether to use "in" or "of" for landforms? For example, "Mountains in" vs "Mountains of"? Same for waterfalls, caves, etc. I was going to do a mass rename to "of", but then thought it may be wiser to discuss this first after realising both variants are used quite extensively. Thoughts welcome. Rehman 05:06, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Note: This naming variation also exists in categories. It would be nice if we could standardise all. Rehman 07:05, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

• Mountains in gets my vote. Laurel Lodged (talk) 14:17, 24 October 2020 (UTC)
• There is an important semantic difference; one-size-fits-all approaches do not work. It depends on the case. Our categorization system, along with our article titles, have been properly dealing with this for years already, and it matters for reader comprehension. See WP:INVSOF for a summary.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:12, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  Thanks for your comment, SMcCandlish. I was looking for a page like that, but correct me if I'm wrong please; the page doesn't say why we cannot standardise articles series like "List of mountains in Country" and "List of mountains of Country" right? Rehman 05:46, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  Sure, it's not a rule (policy/guideline). It's just advice urging semantic caution. For any given case, I would think hard about whether the foo in "List of foo in/of Country" is something that is almost always going to be entirely within one country (true generally of towns and cities, so of makes more sense; but not so much with rivers and mountain ranges, where in is apt to work better).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:50, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  Surely "List of mountains of [country]" needs a "the" before "mountains", no? Primergrey (talk) 09:09, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  Why? We don't do that with any other subject. I just picked three at complete random: List of fossiliferous stratigraphic units in the Falkland Islands, List of villages in Hong Kong, List of Roman Catholic churches in Bohol. You're not going to find "List of the" in the titles of any such articles, unless there are a few obscure stragglers that need to be moved. The only "the" in these examples is "the Falkland Islands" because that's a convention in English; no one writes or say "in Falkland Islands".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:48, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Serbia village name format

It occurs to me that the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Serbia/Archive 8#WP:SRBPLACE didn't actually result in anything in many years now, so I made this edit to explicate the fact that we don't actually have an air-tight consensus on whether to use commas or parens there. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 19:02, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

@Joy: I would say that we do have a consensus to switch to comma, but nobody could be arsed to move several hundred pages. For my part, I used comma for the ones I moved in the last couple of years, but those are just a small percentage of the total. No such user (talk) 09:24, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

No such user Oh, okay. I guess we could start with filing a bot request for someone to compile a list of e.g. all articles in the main namespace that are underneath any of the categories of Category:Populated places in Serbia and match the regular expression /\(.+\)$/, and then redact the list to make sure we don't have any false positives or negatives, and then put that up to... Wikipedia:Requested moves#Requesting multiple page moves at Talk:List of populated places in Serbia or something like that? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 17:48, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Posted at Wikipedia:Request a query#identifying a list of toponym articles using a specific title format. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 07:22, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Should one use 'is' or 'are' when referring to a territory with a plural name?

This question is prompted by a recent edit/revert on the Falkland Islands page. When referring to a territory with a name that is a plural (eg Falklands Islands, Seychelles, Maldives, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Marshall Islands) it seems usual to refer to them in the singular, as the territory is a single entity. (eg 'the Falkland Islands is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean'). If the context of the sentence is a reference, not to the whole territory, but the constituent parts then it seems usual to use the plural 'are' (eg 'The Falkland Islands are all beautiful except for Bleaker Island'). The Wikipedia entry Collective_noun goes into a bit of detail on this, though is by no means clear-cut. Sometimes common usage makes use of the plural 'seem right' to the reader/listener, even when not strictly grammatically correct. That is the nature of language. Is there a Wikipedia policy on this? If not, should there be? If so, where should I have looked? By the way, Bleaker Island is actually very nice. PatLurcock (talk) 14:58, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Treatment as a singular certainly seems the current trend, but it wasn't always the case and I wouldn't create a policy/guideline on it. The best course for any particular entity is check what the general trend is in current sources. Appreciate the question, brings to mind "The Philippines are your country". CMD (talk) 16:33, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

There is a consensus on t/The Falklands article to use the singular when refering to the territory but plural when to the islands themselves, ie singular unless the context states otherwise. I think the same should apply to other territories. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 19:35, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Can you point me to that consensus please Roger?

[23] This is the edit in question, if you refer to Collective noun and Metonymy this is correct in British English. Falkland Islands can refer to the BOT but can also be a metonym for the archipelago. As such the verb agreement can take either singular or plural verb forms depending on context. Currently the opening sentence is in fact incorrect and should be "are" rather than "is", since it is actually a mentonym for the archipelago and not the territory - but I haven't changed it waiting for some evidence of that consensus. WCM_email 22:56, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

RfC on whether name used by less than 1% of the local population should be in the first line of the lede

I've started an RfC on whether a name used by less than 1% of the local population of Bar, Montenegro, should be in the first line of the lede: [24]. Khirurg (talk) 22:45, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

MOS re linking to places

This is more MOS than place naming, but somewhat related: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking#Seas of blue, if anyone would like to opine. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 07:25, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Disambiguation of street names by city

Many towns have streets with the same name. Is there particular format for article titles in this case?

I am asking because I run into a full town of streets named "Nnnn Street in Yyyy": Category:Streets and squares in Bydgoszcz (not to say "apples and oranges" type category I will discuss elsewhere). It struck me as a non-standard, but before I go on a major renaming spree, kind of Bernardyńska Street in Bydgoszcz->Bernardyńska Street (Bydgoszcz) I would like to have a "mini-consensus" and possibly an addition into this guideline. Here are the following options:

1. Leave as is; no big deal
2. ->Bernardyńska Street, Bydgoszcz
3. ->Bernardyńska Street (Bydgoszcz)

Lembit Staan (talk) 18:55, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

minipoll

• My preference is no.3, because IMO most commonly the streets are mentioned in the context of the corresponding cities, and the text Bernardyńska Street, Bydgoszcz would look redundant, so you would want to hide the city name. And of two options to do this, [[Bernardyńska Street (Bydgoszcz)|]] vs. [[Bernardyńska Street, Bydgoszcz|Bernardyńska Street]], the fist way requires less typing effort for an editor. Lembit Staan (talk) 18:55, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

The pipe trick works on comma qualifiers too. Daß Wölf 15:23, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

• I'd move that particular article to Bernardyńska Street per WP:PRECISION. In case of ambiguity, it seems there are precedents for both Option 2 and 3, see e.g. High Street (disambiguation), Main Street (disambiguation), First Street (disambiguation). It seems to me that Option 3 is more prevalent, so my !vote goes to that. Daß Wölf 15:23, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
• Disambiguate with city name in parentheses (brackets), but only if necessary. —В²C ☎ 20:31, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
• Use a comma when necessary otherwise don't disambiguate, local preferences per ENGVAR may change this though. Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:30, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
• Follow the sources. If there are no sources to follow, use AfD. For foreign topics, if the quality sources are all foreign, defer to the titling style of the native language Wikipedia article. For the example, look to pl:Ulica Bernardyńska w Bydgoszczy. Transliterated titles may look funny, but that's OK. Styling the title of foreign topics to make them sound like natural English means abandoning to principle of following the sources. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:44, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
• B2C says parens, and Crouch says comma, and Smokey says follow the sources (but there won't like by any that do either). I'd say leave it alone. It works either way. If had to pick a way, I think I'd go with parens (even though I hate to agree with B2C!). Dicklyon (talk) 03:03, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Are USA states recognizable as such?

Do we always need to add USA or such when talking about a "city, state" in the US? Aren't such things recognizable enough, or clarified enough by the link for those who are unsure? And why do people so often pipe the "city, state" link to the city and separately link the state? Isn't that extra complication just overkill/overlinking? Dicklyon (talk) 03:00, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Agree with Dicklyon's point, and have removed the 'USA' or 'United States' in the past from articles without complaint. Since this is English Wikipedia the state names seem enough, if that. And yes, lots of overlinking with this topic. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:03, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Also agree. It seems to have been customary 15 or so years ago to use [[Place, State|Place]], [[State]] instead of the simpler [[Place, State]] for reasons I never understood. It seemed silly to me, as the state was always linked very near the top of Place, State articles. If a reader clicked on the latter part of a [[Place, State|Place]], [[State]] link, thinkingit was a single link, they would be taken to the article about the state, rather than the article about the place. As for using "US" after such links, there are a few more or less ambiguous state names, namely Georgia, Maine and Washington, but only Georgia and Washington are disambiguated in their titles. I can see appending "US" to "Georgia", and, maybe, "Maine", in certain circumstances, when context does not provide a clear disambiguation, but otherwise I believe appending "US" is unnecessary. - Donald Albury 14:24, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

OK, then should we have a guideline about that, or expand WP:USPLACE? Maybe a new shortcut for use in edit summaries to explain changes, e.g. WP:STATELINK? Dicklyon (talk) 17:59, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes we do need to sate it, stating the country is standard for all places though it doesn't need to be mentioned multiple times in an article. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:02, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Is there a guideline somewhere saying that stating the country is "standard"? WP:USPLACE (which is about tites, not necessarily what I'm asking about) says: A United States city's article should never be titled "city, country" (e.g., "Detroit, United States") or "city, state, country" (e.g., "Kansas City, Missouri, U.S."); that is contrary to general American usage. But if that's contrary to general American usage, we'd probably also not want it in the lead sentence. Unless there's a consensus that the rest of the world really needs it. So, that was my question. Dicklyon (talk) 19:43, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

I can't fine anything probably because its just common sense. Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities/US Guideline#Sister cities does have "United States" in brackets after Washington, D.C.. So if its needed in a link to another place within the US then I don't see why it wouldn't be appropriate in the lead especially for well known places like Chicago that may be better known than their state Illinois. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:59, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Sound like we need a poll, as several above take the opposite position. Dicklyon (talk) 20:52, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

We should probably collect a few contexts to discuss, in case the answer differs between them. I'll start with a typical lead sentence: Dicklyon (talk) 20:57, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

• "This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Hansford County, Texas, United States of America."

except Georgia, of course. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 22:17, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

@Sbmeirow: Another township heard from. I tried to put "United States" in what I thought would be a better simpler place, but got pushback based on consistency. I find this "consistent" pattern to be rather unnatural, with a more bloated lead sentence, but I thought some might prefer to still see "United States" near the top. Maybe I'm just wrong? Dicklyon (talk) 15:00, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

I changed it back for consistency across 1000+ community articles of Kansas. Continued to my comment below. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 21:46, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

• Comment—in various FACs for articles on highways in Michigan it was suggested to add that the subject is in the United States (except of course for something like "U.S. Route 41 in Michigan" where the title alone provides that context). The rationale is that readers from outside of North America wouldn't necessarily know that Michigan is a state in the US.
  For overlinking reasons, I convert [[City, State|City]], [[State]] to [[City, State]] under the idea that we should point our readers to the most specific topic and not confuse people with adjacent wikilinks. Imzadi 1979 → 15:43, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

1) In an intro section, though "United States" after the state name may sound a little klunky when an American reads the first sentence, it may not to a non-American. Just a reminder that all english readers aren't American, and what may be obvious to an American may not be obvious to other english readers of the world, per WP:OBVIOUS. 2) In the intro, "U.S." / "US" / "USA" / "United States of America" should be converted to "United States" in most situations. 3) Also, "United States" should not be wiki-linked (per some wiki "rule" about country names I remember seeing, but I can't remember which guideline said it), which means we should be removing wikilinks for countries as we come across them. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 21:51, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

By "all english readers aren't American" I understand you mean "not all English readers are American". I get that, hence the section title I put in above: "Are USA states recognizable as such?" In many, perhaps most, cases, I think we can assume that US state names are recognizable as such by the vast majority on our readers, if not all, including those who are not American. Maybe I'm wrong. That's why I asked. Dicklyon (talk) 00:25, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

• It's in the Manual of Style; WP:OVERLINK. - Donald Albury 22:41, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

What contexts do people have in mind? Is it about the first sentence in articles about places in the US? Des Moines, Iowa for example begins with something like: Des Moines is the capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Iowa.. The mention of "US" here is obviously needed: an article about a place should mention which country the place is in. Probably all American readers know that Iowa is in the US, as do many in Britain or Australia. But that's not necessarily known beyond (about half of our readership comes from non-English majority countries).

If, on the other hand the context has already been established as being the US (see for example the mention of Nebraska at the end of the first paragraph of the Des Moines article) then of course, it's not necessary to specify that Nebraska is in the US. – Uanfala (talk) 23:51, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Personally, I find "the U.S. state of ..." to be much more natural than appending "United States" to a comma-separated list of place names. That's also why I moved United States as I did in the revert under discussion. I understand consistency, but testing the waters on changes is a good thing, too. If we can agree it's better, I'll happily fix the thousands of others. Dicklyon (talk) 00:21, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

Oh, I hadn't noticed that revert. Personally, I try to avoid the comma-separated format altogether, but I don't think it's necessarily wrong. I don't see any problems with Lincoln Township is a township in Butler County, Kansas, United States. Somebody can even say it's crisper than Lincoln Township is a civil township of Osceola County in the U.S. state of Michigan. I don't think it's a good idea to mass-change from any one format into the other. – Uanfala (talk) 00:49, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

I would expect that an overwhelming majority of English speakers will recognize the names of the US and Australian States, the Canadian Provinces, and the county names in the UK and in Ireland. They may not be able to place them on a map… but they know what country they are in.

For the few that don’t, half the fun of Wikipedia is following the links and learning new things. So… when reading an article about an event that happened in Bangor, Maine one can click a link and quickly discover that Maine is a State in the US, or when reading about a building in Foster, Victoria one can quickly discover that Victoria is State in Australia. Blueboar (talk) 02:39, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

Czechia / Czech Republic

Good morning! Over at the Hockey WikiProject, we have a current dispute running regarding the name of the country: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ice_Hockey#IIHF:_Czechia,_not_Czech_Republic. Do you kind folks have any guidance on the issue, or is it still at sixes and sevens? Ravenswing 16:32, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

If I may, more precisely the name of the country's IIHF teams, starting in 2022. GoodDay (talk) 16:58, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up, I've posted on the project page. A discussion on the name of the national hockey team, and the name of the country itself, should probably separate; the two don't have to match. See Great Britain men's national ice hockey team/United Kingdom, or Chinese Taipei men's national ice hockey team/Taiwan. 162 etc. (talk) 17:07, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

The IIHF uses the short form. The "Team GB" comparison is a good model to extrapolate from. Wikipedia uses the 'common name in English' for the name of the country in running text, but the team name is what the team says it is unless there is a convincing reason to do otherwise. IMO, obviously. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:19, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

The general rule is MOS:GEO. A place should generally be referred to consistently by the same name as in the title of its article. As the name of the article is Czech Republic, you should generally use Czech Republic.

The exception is if there is some good reason in this specific context to use Czechia instead. It is not sufficient to get consensus that Czechia is more appropriate in general, because the place to argue that is Talk:Czech Republic. You need consensus that usage in hockey contexts favours Czechia in a way that does not also apply in the general case. I have no idea whether this is true or not, but it is far from impossible as per the examples above.

If you do want to argue the general case at Talk:Czech Republic, you should note that there is a moratorium on move requests on that talk page until 11 August 2022. Kahastok talk 17:27, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Nobody (to my knowledge) is interested in seeking changing the name of the country. GoodDay (talk) 18:52, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Move USPLACE to its own page?

WP:USPLACE has quite a bit of complexity and I was wondering if there is any opposition to moving it to a separate subpage in order to enhance the readability of its own content as well as the greater WP:PLACE page, which is quite a beast. Perhaps it could be moved to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic_names)/United States- Headphase (talk) 18:49, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose Shortcuts are pretty much being used as intended here. – The Grid (talk) 19:23, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

WP:PLACEDAB and disambiguating by state/province

Looking for comments on the list of countries where the disambiguation for cities is always City, State or equivalent rather than City, Country. Currently the list is as follows:

• Argentina
• Australia
• Brazil
• Canada
• China
• France
• India
• Ireland
• Italy
• Japan
• Mexico
• Federated States of Micronesia
• Nigeria
• South Africa
• United States
• United Kingdom
• Edit The Philippines is also an exception, see MOS:PHIL
• Edit Germany has its own system, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany/Conventions

How did we arrive at this list, and does it actually improve clarity? Is Acebal, Santa Fe a better title than Acebal, Argentina? How about Degema, Rivers vs. Degema, Nigeria? State or equivalent names are a good, natural way to disambiguate two cities in the same country, but pre-emptively disambiguating by state or equivalent would seem to go against WP:PRECISION, which states that "titles should unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but should be no more precise than that". Thoughts? 162 etc. (talk) 22:20, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

I would agree, and I would also note that WP:RECOGNIZABILITY would support Acebal, Argentina over Acebal, Santa Fe. However, there is also an argument to be made in the opposite direction, on grounds of consistency. By using City, State or equivalent over City, Country, we ensure that almost all cases are in the format City, State or equivalent, rather than having most in the format City, Country and a smaller, but significant number, in the form City, State or equivalent or equivalent. BilledMammal (talk) 04:20, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't think the list arrived from anywhere, it simply evolved. In 2012, there were a bunch of per-country rules, presumably added haphazardly. Regarding the entries: US/Canada/Australia/China/India make sense as the states/provinces are well known and there are a lot of cities (and thus a lot of name collisions within the country). The UK/Ireland issues are slightly different, but also make sense. I doubt there's a reason why the rest are included as they are: why Brazil and not Russia? Why Nigeria and not Indonesia? Why Italy and not Spain? Why do we list the Federated States of Micronesia at all? User:力 (powera, π, ν) 04:30, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Not sure that's true for Canada/Australia. Going off this list, there is only one collision (Sainte-Catherine) in Canada, while Australia has just two collisions (Burwood and Epping). I assume these lists aren't complete, as 400 cities/towns seems a little low, but it does give us an indication that the problem isn't wide spread, at least in those countries. BilledMammal (talk) 04:44, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

The conflicts are in the cities with ~1000 people. Note Hamilton, Clyde, or Waterloo as three examples of frequent names. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 04:49, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

That makes sense. Although at that level, we would likely see as many or more collisions in countries like Italy, Nigeria, and Brazil, given the respective population levels, although in those cases the states/provinces are less well known. BilledMammal (talk) 04:52, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

• Comment Administrative divisions in countries like Nigeria and Indonesia are less known than their capital or/and largest cities. Disambiguating by state for a country like Nigeria makes the title look unfamiliar to a non-Nigerian reader.

Josedimaria237 (talk) 09:36, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

• Comment I propose this convention which disambiguates cities by province should exclude all African countries except South Africa especially if the city has a population of over 100,000 or is one of the ten largest in its country. They look misleading with this current convention.

Josedimaria237 (talk) 10:14, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Update and proposal It seems like the comments so far agree that for many of these countries, the disambiguation by state or equivalent is not ideal. I therefore propose that the following countries be removed from the list:

• Argentina
• Brazil
• Japan
• Mexico
• Federated States of Micronesia
• Nigeria
• South Africa

These countries would therefore by default use City, Country, and only use City, State or equivalent when disambiguation requires it. All in favour? 162 etc. (talk) 18:19, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

• Seems reasonable to me. I'd also like to note that some argue in the case of U.S. cities including the state in the article title is no more disambiguation than is including someone's surname in the title of the article about that person—that is, the state name is part of the name of that city. I don't agree with that, but just noting that it's not universally agree that including the state name, at least in the U.S., is disambiguation. That's how including the state, even when disambiguation is not required, is justified. --В²C ☎ 18:26, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
• Many countries listed as an exception from using the country if sufficient are those where using the state is common usage (or otherwise the normal way to identify places) or otherwise have a large number of duplicate place names in their country anyway (meaning it normally wouldn't be sufficient anyway). In the US (and to a lesser extent Australia and Canada) its is apparently common usage (rather than disambiguation) to add the state so disambiguating by country would go against this. The US anyway has such a large number of duplicate names that it would not be possible anyway such as Springfield, Illinois though Chelmsford, Massachusetts could go to Chelmsford, United States as far as I can see. While for England its not common usage to append the country it is still the usual way people identify places and while some such as Norwell, Nottinghamshire are unique in England meaning Norwell, England (or Norwell, United Kingdom) would be possible most such as Linton, Cambridgeshire require disambiguation from another place in England. For Scotland the likes of Westhill, Aberdeenshire require disambiguation in Scotland namely Westhill, Highland anyway but many more than England are unique in Scotland such as Port Charlotte, Islay. Also many countries listed are English speaking so mostly people of the place's country are the ones looking for the places so we should use the qualifier most common to them, in contrast other language WPs may use the country such as fr:Port Charlotte (Écosse) since readers of the French Wikipedia are far less likely to know the lower unit than natives. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:05, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

@Crouch, Swale: Countries like Nigeria, The Federated States of Micronesia and South Africa hardly have cities with duplicate names.

Josedimaria237 (talk) 14:35, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

But apart from perhaps South Africa those are primarily English speaking meaning its likely most readers looking for those already know the country. Crouch, Swale (talk) 14:44, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

@Crouch, Swale: Are you trying to say a reader who comes across cities like Aba, Gombe and U already knows the country they are in. Even if that's true, how many Abas can you find in Nigeria?

Josedimaria237 (talk) 18:04, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Probably yes if they are looking for them on this project. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:06, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Well, WP:PLACEDAB initially stated that cities should be disambiguated by their countries if sufficient and can only be disambiguated by province if disambiguating by country would make it look ambiguous, I think the addition of the countries 162 etc. listed was by mistake because disambiguating Aba by Nigeria would not lead to ambiguity.

Even I familiar with Nigerian cities is surprised that Nigerian cities are disambiguated by state.

Josedimaria237 (talk) 18:21, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

• Support - Update and proposal.

Although countries that have less or no cities with duplicate names should be excluded from the current convention; however I still support the use of province, city as disambiguating tags for smaller or less known cities in those countries, only large, important or cities that meet a notability or recognizability criteria should be disambiguated by 'country'. Local usage must be considered however. Josedimaria237 (talk) 18:51, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

• Edit I've struck Japan from the proposal, as this would contradict MOS:JPPLACE. I'm not aware of any guidelines regarding the other proposed countries; if I've missed something, please comment below. 162 etc. (talk) 22:08, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

• Looks like Wikipedia:WikiProject Mexico also has a naming conventions section which specifies "City, State". Not exactly a guideline, but established consensus, so I took it out as well. 162 etc. (talk) 22:15, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

• Support: So I was thinking about notable places that had the same name in Nigeria, but I couldn't count up to 5 (Egbeda (one in Lagos, one in Oyo and another in Osun) was the first that came to my mind). I think it makes more sense to be consistent and disambiguate with countries then if such rare situation comes up we handle that by some other means. HandsomeBoy (talk) 12:40, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support. There's no particular reason to disambiguate by province in countries where provinces are not widely known, and cases where there are two same-named towns in the same country are rather rare. No such user (talk) 14:03, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
• Done. I see a consensus to make the proposed change, and have updated the policy page. Unless further disambiguation is required, articles should use this format: City, Argentina; City, Brazil; City, Federated States of Micronesia; City, Nigeria; and City, South Africa. 162 etc. (talk) 17:26, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

• Query. I support this change (coming from a South African context where the use of provinces for dismabiguation has often seemed a bit surprising) but I do wonder what the rationale is behind the list of countries which remain exceptions. I understand the reasoning for using states/provinces for disambiguation in federal countries - Australia, Canada, India, Mexico, United States - but why do China, France, India, Ireland, Italy or Japan remain on the exception list? - htonl (talk) 10:08, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Original proposer here. I agree that the remaining exceptions can be discussed. To comment on your list:

China - Disambiguating by province is a way of avoiding edit wars, using "China" can be contentious when it comes to PRC and ROC related articles

France, India, Italy - No real reason, other than there are a LOT of city/town/etc. articles for these countries, and going through it all would be a lot of work. See WP:BROKE

Ireland - Should probably be consistent with the United Kingdom (ie. Northern Ireland)

Japan - Per Wikipedia:WikiProject Japan/Districts and municipalities task force.

162 etc. (talk) 19:39, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Contesting Recent WP:PLACEDAB changes for South Africa

There was recently a change on WP:PLACEDAB saying that articles on South Africa should no longer disambiguate between South African provinces but only South Africa itself. Despite claims that South Africa rarely has repeated city names, many South African cities are not even on Wikipedia. I see no reason why this change should take place when provinces are recognizable to most people familiar with South Africa. I urge editors to remember this is not a website for one part of the world, but rather for all English speakers. South Africa is an English speaking country with unique, geographically, linguistically, and ethnically diverse provinces. In my opinion, this makes absolutely no sense. A town in the Western Cape is much different than a town in Limpopo. Can someone explain why Ireland can disambiguate by county/subnational division but South Africa cannot? I oppose this change strongly. This also applies to Nigeria. How can a place not be notable enough in countries that are this massive, diverse and English speaking?. This seems like a case of systemic WP:BIAS. We cannot dismiss these articles because they don't meet some vague notability criteria. These are real places with millions of people. It especially makes no sense given the fact that specifying provinces has been the norm on Wikipedia for more than 15 years without issue as far as I can tell. Desertambition (talk) 14:58, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Most articles about places in South Africa are already named with just the name of the place without any disambiguation phrase, for example Ga-Rankuwa or Mthatha. Only when the name is ambiguous, i.e. shared by other places elsewhere, does the additional suffix become needed. The change in those cases is to use "South Africa" as the disambiguation suffix instead of the province. So, for example, the article Clanwilliam, Western Cape will be renamed to Clanwilliam, South Africa. In cases where there are multiple places with the same name within South Africa, then the province will still be used in the title - for example Middelburg, Mpumalanga and Middelburg, Eastern Cape will remain as they are. If there is a town in the Western Cape with the same name as a town in Limpopo, those will remain separate articles. No article is being dismissed or diminished. - htonl (talk) 15:14, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

That doesn't explain why South Africa cannot disambiguate provinces by default while Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom can. South Africa has more people and towns than every single country listed except the United Kingdom. I certainly cannot name any French, Irish, Italian, English, or Japanese provinces off the top of my head. Maybe you can but the point is most people can't. Why the vastly different guidelines for countries? Desertambition (talk) 15:28, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

I raised essentially that question higher up on this page (at the end of that section). I am in favour of the change to country-based disambiguation for everyone. But the change as applied to South Africa doesn't affect the quantity, quality or accessibility of the articles on South African places, so I see no reason to object to it. - htonl (talk) 16:34, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure if there is a specific guideline but it seems better for the Wiki as a whole if similar cases are treated similarly. I fully agreed with what you raised as well but your query went unanswered. The inconsistent application of the guideline seems to be a glaring blindspot when making a change that affects so many articles. From my perspective, it seems necessary to at least explain why the guideline is inconsistently applied before going through with it. Especially when the exceptions seem pretty random. Desertambition (talk) 16:57, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Most of the places in .UK and .ie are disambiguated by county, because they have to be. The same names are used in multiple places. So it is a habit more than anything else. Boston, Lincolnshire should be Boston, England (or even Boston, UK) and no doubt our American readers would prefer that. The general rule is to disambiguate at the highest sensible level (so not Boston, Europe), which suggests that the decision in re SA is the correct one - unless the same name is used twice in SA, in which case it drops down to province (but another unless... One may be the WP: PRIMARYTOPIC). --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:36, 1 January 2022 (UTC) revised 19:50, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

My biggest issue with this is why have the exceptions at all? If it really is that simple, then we should be able to apply it across the board. If more than one place in the country have the same name, specify the province; if not, just specify the country. I understand if England or Ireland just needs to disambiguate more frequently but to have it apply all the time for a select few countries just seems bizarre and pointless. What am I missing here? Desertambition (talk) 20:30, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

What you are missing is the concept of Recognizably… a key component of our WP:Article titles policy. In some (but not all) countries, including the state or province when mentioning a place name is SO common that it is expected. Including it makes the place more recognizable. Blueboar (talk) 21:25, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

That may be the case but then that begs the question of what is recognizable? Nigeria and South Africa both have very distinct states/provinces. To people in those countries, having the state/province listed would be easier to navigate, similar to someone in the US with a place like Albuquerque, New Mexico. Unless I missed something, I have seen no reasoning given as to why Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom are more recognizable than South Africa or Nigeria. I would argue that South Africa and Nigeria have a much stronger reason to have their states/provinces listed than most of the other countries I mentioned. If some of the biggest English speaking countries in the world do not meet the recognizability criteria, I struggle to understand how Ireland, France, or Germany does. Desertambition (talk) 21:59, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

See: WP:COMMONNAME… It’s not the place itself that has to be recognizable in an article title, but the name of the place. We use whatever the majority of sources use… and in the US, Canada etc, when a place is mentioned by name in anything but a local source, it is rare to find them in any other format. That isn’t the case in other countries. The reason we can’t be consistent is that the real world (as represented by sources) isn’t consistent. I don’t know why the majority of sources that discuss places in (say) Nigeria don’t include the province when doing so… but ‘why’ doesn’t really matter… what matters is that they don’t. So neither should we. Blueboar (talk) 00:01, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

After reading over the discussion above multiple times, it really looks like this entire decision was based off pure speculation. Nobody cited any sources and the only link I saw was a link to the rules from 2012 which was in reference to how random they are. No one knows where this list even came from. There is no logical reason to have a rule for disambiguating one set of countries but not all. We are just unquestionably accepting this completely arbitrary list. A consensus was reached but with no sources or actual reasoning as to why these countries are "more recognizable", it's hard to take it seriously. Agreeing that Nigeria and South Africa aren't recognizable enough to warrant disambiguating by state/province based on a feeling just creates inaccuracies. Would it be possible to provide sources elaborating on why these specific countries are more recognizable than others? What have you seen that gives you that impression? Desertambition (talk) 02:52, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

This is not the talk page for an article, to which the verification, reliable sources, and other policies about content apply. This is the talk page for a guideline, a naming convention. The policy that applies is Wikipedia:Article naming, which specifies, among other things, that

Generally, article titles are based on what the subject is called in reliable sources. When this offers multiple possibilities, editors choose among them by considering several principles: the ideal article title precisely identifies the subject; it is short, natural, distinguishable and recognizable; and resembles titles for similar articles.

Naming conventions, such as this one, while constrained by policy, are shaped by community consensus. The lack of sources specifically stating that one form of a name is more recognizable than another form does not trump community consensus. The way to change a guideline is to demonstrate a new consensus for the change. - Donald Albury 15:25, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Understanding WP:PLACEDAB and Consistent Rules

This is the current list of countries where the disambiguation for cities is always City, State or equivalent rather than City, Country. This is a completely random list with no real reason for having special exceptions. It clearly leans to more Western countries and seems to contribute to Wikipedia's problem with systemic WP:BIAS. Inconsistent guidelines make Wikipedia worse. Why have exceptions at all?

• Australia
• Canada
• China - Seems to have the strongest argument because of ongoing naming disputes with Taiwan.
• France
• India
• Ireland
• Italy
• Japan
• Mexico
• United States
• United Kingdom
• The Philippines
• Germany

From my reading of the last conversation, it boiled down to feeling that countries like Nigeria and South Africa are just "less recognizable". I believe we should use more than just our feelings to make sure these rules are consistent and some countries aren't prioritized over others. Almost all countries will have more than one place with the same name. The determination of what countries have more or less unique place names was completely arbitrary as far as I could see.

I do not see why it would be too much work to fix France, India, and Italy if it wasn't too much work to fix South Africa and Nigeria. Surely WP:BROKE would apply to South Africa and Nigeria as well.

Ireland is perhaps the most random placement on that list. Cannot possibly think of a reason Irish place names would need to be disambiguated by county.

Japan and Germany have their own special naming convention as well for no discernible reason.

I believe we should get rid of the exception list. Please provide your arguments for keeping or getting rid of the list. Desertambition (talk) 22:27, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

August 2021 USPLACE thread

After recent move proposals for Nashville, Tennessee and Omaha, Nebraska, I think we must open the floor once again for this perennial proposal.

I fully agree with the comments that there are multiple US cities that would not require the state name in the topic. However, I am unable to find a better rule.

• First, there would need to be discussion of "about how many cities would we expect to move"? Are there 100 US cities that are commonly known without the state name? Would Little Rock and Chattanooga be moved? How about Mankato and Dubuque? Campti and Lapwai?
• The suggestion of "don't have a rule, just use consensus" will result in many tedious and repetitive proposed moves. Should it be Traverse City or Traverse City, Michigan? On the one hand, what other "Traverse City" is there? On the other hand, Americans do tend to use the state name when they talk about that place so the common name likely includes the state. On the third hand, it really doesn't matter; what is more important is not wasting time on RM discussions -- and that is prevented by having a rule.
• A "city population" rule doesn't get what we want; Modesto and Oxnard are both larger than Salt Lake City.
• A "primary city in a metropolitan area" rule has similar issues; Grand Rapids metro is larger than Honolulu.
• If we outsource to some other list to determine prominence, my first suggestion is Globalization and World Cities Research Network; however "names being unambiguous" is not at all their criteria.

I don't see any workable suggestion, but am open to new ideas if they have some hope of finding consensus. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 20:34, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

• Simple rule:

  If the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC of the basename of the city is the city—that is, the base name is a WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT to the article about the city—then the article should be moved to the base name of the city, and can be so moved unilaterally without a discussion, though perhaps via a technical move request if necessary.

Following this rule would be consistent with how we title all our other articles. —В²C ☎ 21:40, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

User:力: I think you're right that the alternatives aren't workable or practical. That's been the conclusion of the community as well, which is why counterproposals have been perennially rejected: the current ~30k US place titles are by any measure extremely stable, follow a single consistent pattern, and reflect common use, reliable sources, engvar, etc. In short, placename, state is simple, practical, and demonstrably successful.

As for exceptions, I personally don't think they're needed, but in the interests of reaching a lasting compromise we decided to follow the AP, which works well because it's an external standard from a significant reliable source, and by following it we avoid the inevitable, subjective, and tiresome wrangling over where exactly to draw our own line. There are certainly other standards than the AP that we could follow, but to change I think there'd need to be some compelling reason, and I haven't seen one. ╠╣uw [talk] 13:52, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

If we follow the simple rule I described above as our standard the line is just as clear. Under both standards we still have to make the subjective decision about whether each city is the primary topic for its base name.

And there is a compelling reason to change: to be consistent with the same standard used to title all other articles on WP—disambiguate only when, and as much as, necessary.

Some contend “place name, state” is a common name rather than a disambiguation for US cities. Well, rarely does anyone answer in that form to questions like, “what’s the name of this city?” and “what’s the name of the city which …?” The point is the name of the state is normally not part of the name of the city. Adding it is for disambiguation. When necessary. When it’s neither unique nor the primary topic for the base name. —В²C ☎ 14:20, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

We obviously have different experiences. For example: in my experience, if you ask the average American “where are you from?” they will almost always give both town and state name. Blueboar (talk) 20:37, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Huwmanbeing. The current convention is a stable one, considering the sheer number of incorporated settlements (30 K+!?) JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 18:30, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

• I've never understood why the rules for American city names are different than the rules for every other country on earth. Our rules for Canadian articles at MOS:CA state that "[Communities] that either have unique names or are unquestionably the most significant place sharing their name can have undisambiguated titles." The rules for Australian place names at WP:NCAUST say "the name of a city or town may be used alone if the place is the primary or only topic for that name." Yet American place names must be disambiguated using city, state unless a third-party (in this case the AP) says we do not need to. Why does Omaha, Nebraska - a community of nearly half a million people - require disambiguation while Brantford does not, despite having one-quarter of Omaha's population? -- Calidum 15:23, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

  Because not all countries are identical, and some aspects of placenaming, common use, etc. vary from country to country. See WP:NCPLACE for WP's various national/regional conventions, or WP:PERENNIAL for some of the US-specific points. ╠╣uw [talk] 16:27, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

  Obviously not all countries are identical, but that doesn't explain why we use one naming convention for the US and a different one (with some minor variations in wording) for nearly every other country. -- Calidum 17:28, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

  That is what it explains: considerations that relate to US places that don't necessarily apply to many others. Particularly when they're rooted in common use, reliable sources, etc. (as they are here), it's appropriate to consider them. ╠╣uw [talk] 18:00, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

• Disambiguation is only half the issue. The other half is Recognizability. It is SO common to include the state name when referring to a city in the US that it is surprising when it isn’t included. Yes, there are exceptions (mostly the BIG cities)… but those are “exceptions that prove the rule.” Blueboar (talk) 16:20, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
  • That’s not WP:Recognizability which is defined specifically in terms of what is recognizable to “someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area”. Anyone familiar with any uniquely named (or primary topic) city in the US will recognize it without the state qualifier. So without the state a US city name meets WP:RECOGNIZABILITY, by definition.

  I’ve lived in the US my entire life. I’ve never been surprised by a reference to a city without the state qualifier. Sure the reverse is true: it’s common and not surprising to include the state qualifier, but is often not necessary and is omitted. —В²C ☎ 17:20, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

  I am not suggesting we automatically move every unambiguous place name in the United States city, state to city, but at least give us the option of doing so. There is no good reason to preemptively disambiguate places like Nashville, Omaha and Sacramento. BeCaUsE tHe RuLeS sAy So or tHe UnItEd StAtEs iS jUsT dIfFeRent are not good reasons. -- Calidum 17:28, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

  Yeah, I too am not saying we automatically move all of them. Not necessarily right away. But I would like to see this guideline support moving cities with unique names, and cities which are established primary topics for their names, to their base names, without requiring an RM, and, once so moved, disallowing moves that add the state to the title when it’s not necessary for disambiguation. That said, if a bot could be written to recognize all US city articles where the base city name is a primary redirect to the article at the state-disambiguated title, and automatically moved them to the city base name, I’d be good with that. As I recall it was a bot that moved many of them to the state-disambiguated titles in the first place. We’d just be correcting for that. —В²C ☎ 18:03, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

• I would certainly love if the guideline allowed for more wiggle room to adjust for our naming guidelines (particularly COMMONNAME and CONSISTENCY). Nashville is a very clear common name -- you would never see a reliable source saying "the museum has branches in Sibton, Flin Flon, and Norak" but you might see one saying "has branches in Liverpool, Nashville and El Paso" -- and yet of those, we are required to include further description for Nashville, Tennessee, while Flin Flon and Sibton are apparently recognizable throughout the world? And yet, the arguments made are not on the merits of the situation and our naming guidelines, but instead as simple as "not one of the AP cities." Even something as simple as "Editors may take into account usage in reliable sourcing, international recognition, and Wikipedia titling policies to determine exceptions that would be consistent with our titling guidelines." that would keep the vast majority of pages the same but allow us to use common sense where fitting. --Yaksar (let's chat) 16:53, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
  • But isn’t what I suggested above even simpler and less subject to controversy: If a city’s name is unique, or the city has been determined to be the primary topic for that name, the article’s title is just the city name (without the state)? What’s wrong with that? It’s applies to all other city articles. Why not US city articles? —В²C ☎ 17:20, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Interestingly there is another place called Sibton in South Africa but it hardly appears to exist to the one in England is probably primary anyway. And I was the one who wrote that article. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:51, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

  Oppose. Limit still <cityname> format for world famous cities, at least those recommended by AP Stylebook. As a user from the Philippines, I will find a hard time recognizing majority of U.S. cities. So in my stand I prefer the use of <cityname, statename> for majority of U.S. cities, even those that are usually highlighted and serified in the early 90s maps of Hammond Map like West Palm Beach, Florida, Tacoma, Washington, and Mankato, Minnesota. Majority of U.S. cities, towns, and villages have no uniqueness characteristics, likely due to having either European (English/French) or Hispanic origins. Majority of print and online sources still use either state identifiers or, state abbreviations (West Palm Beach, FL; Mankato, MN, etc.). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 18:25, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

• There really are only two reasonable options, after all these years.

  1) status quo, in which we have our bright-line rule, but also have a handful of RMs for Nashville, Omaha, etc. every year in perpetuity; or

  2) go with the rest-of-world primarytopic standard, in which case we immediately move all articles for which the basename redirects to the City, State page.

No expansion of the exception is worthwhile - there will always be other cities on the other side of the line that someone will RM if they don't make the cut. Those arguing for the status quo are correct that City, State is a ubiquitous convention in the US, and is thus WP:NATURAL. But leaving out the ,State is also extremely natural, even for the tiniest municipalities. The ROW folks are correct that in the WP context, USPLACE sticks out like a sore thumb, but do ignore a WP:CONSISTENCY argument: I had done some sampling on this a looong time ago, and only about 1/4 of U.S. placenames are unique and/or primarytopics. A key point is that WP:RECOGNIZABILITY is not an argument pro or con either of the conventions. Otherwise, we would mandate ,Province in Canada, or ,Country for basically the entire planet, regardless of primarytopicness. Another key point - both solutions are equally easy to figure out - 1) is either on a list or it's not, and 2) is either already a primarytopic or it's not.

I've gone back and forth on USPLACE throughout the years. Honestly, at this point, I think the best permanent solution would be to drop USPLACE and go with the typical WP primarytopic solution. It's easy to implement. It fits better with other WP guidance. It's essentially invisible to most readers and editors - just a swapping of primaryredirects. No broken links or cleanup needed. Further, I just don't think we'd see counter-RMs anywhere close to the frequency that we see RMs with USPLACE in place - if we see them at all. If we make the change, we will essentially end USPLACE RMs and discussions. For status quo folks who are like, "but we already decided this long ago", the WP community reminds us over and over and over that it has not been a satisfactory solution. Maybe we try the other one. Dohn joe (talk) 20:32, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

I would change in the opposite direction. Remove the list of exceptions. Make all US cities "City, State". Every one. Yes, that includes New York, New York. --Khajidha (talk) 18:10, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

@Khajidha sounds great and more natural and consistent. It is also more stable. Printed 1995 Compton's Encyclopedia uses this format ("Los Angeles, Ca." or "Los Angeles, California"). While this is not a print encyclopedia, the mandatory use of state name gives more stability to the article titles. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 01:14, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

I prefer all or none also. Having the exceptions was contentious from the very beginning, and quite frankly should have never been allowed, having been suck in without much notice of the change being made beforehand. And since the US is the only place where a city, state format is required, I'd prefer seeing it dumped altogether, except for necessary disambiguation. It made some sense when Canadian placenames followed the same guidelines, but not since they dumped it around the same time the US exception was made. BilCat (talk) 01:50, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Talk:Carson City, Nevada#Official name in first sentence

Your input is welcome at Talk:Carson City, Nevada#Official name in first sentence, where there is a discussion about the interpretation of this guideline. Magnolia677 (talk) 11:18, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Bokmål and Nynorsk translations of Norwegian

Am I correct in assuming that the section on relevant other language names definitively implies that all articles containing both Bokmål and Nynorsk translations should have the Bokmål translation precede the Nynorsk translation? 2A02:C7D:B612:AD00:E83C:C796:568:B426 (talk) 23:15, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Two-part place-dabs

If we have an ambiguous placename, say Elmwood Cemetery, and one lies in a place with a two-part name, say North Brunswick, New Jersey, my take is that the dab should be the whole two-part name for consistency reasons – i.e. Elmwood Cemetery (North Brunswick, New Jersey) – even if the first part is enough to make the page name unique.

If there is another feature that doesn't happen to be unique, we would end up with different dab patterns:

• X (North Brunswick)
• Y (North Brunswick, New Jersey)

That's not desirable.

I recently moved the article to the target name indicated, but User:Amakuru – who apparently had it on his watchlist – moved it back without discussion.

HandsomeFella (talk) 22:37, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

I'd say that avoiding disambiguation where it's unnecessary should apply to this situation too -- i.e. avoiding double disambiguation where single suffices. There's an added problem here in that the places with Elmwood Cemeteries are largely in the US, where unambiguous place names are typically disambiguated on WP. However, the dab page linked above is full of doubly disambiguated names, which are then repeated (e.g. "Elmwood Cemetery (River Grove, Illinois) in River Grove, Illinois"). Not only is this redundant, but it's also an effort to parse. Daß Wölf 08:42, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

• What about cases where the place being qualified is a double place name, see List of double placenames such as Placentia, Newfoundland and Labrador that was moved to Placentia (Newfoundland and Labrador) that was moved by User:F.d. 82.212.68.183 on the Swedish Wikipedia because it looked like a list of places. Also see this comment about South Bank, Redcar and Cleveland by User:Fayenatic london back in November. Should we move the likes of South Bank, Redcar and Cleveland to South Bank (Redcar and Cleveland? How would this affect places disambiguated with Rhondda Cynon Taf (I didn't even realize this was a multi-placename until reading the double places article) and Neath Port Talbot? Crouch, Swale (talk) 09:05, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
• The purpose of a disambiguator is to identify which of two or more possible entities the title refers to. As such, it need only be as long and precise as to satisfy WP:CONCISE and WP:PRECISE, as well as being RECOGNIZABLE. Readers looking for this article will almost invariably recognize it with simply "North Brunswick" in parentheses, and adding the state name simply adds extra length for no real benefit. Consistency with others using the same disambiguation style isn't reply mandated either. Take Kaká (footballer, born May 1991), which specifies a month of birth, versus Danny Mills (footballer, born 1991), which only has a year, as there are no others from the same year. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 11:05, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
• I'd agree with Amakuru that unless there's a rule that the state must be induced I'd not include it unless needed, that is to say there are other commentaries called "Elmwood Cemetery" in other places called North Brunswick. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:25, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

• There's not a rule that says that the state must be included. For some cities, e.g. Detroit, its state (Michigan) isn't part of the article name, so in that case, the dab would be "Detroit", not "Detroit, Michigan". What I am suggesting is that we are consistent with the dab always following the corresponding article name. If we aren't, we will inevitably end up in situations like the one above, where one article randomly needs only the first part of the article name as the dab to be unique, but another article needs both.

Two-part place names are needed for two reasons: the first is uniqueness and the second is for the reader/listener to understand where a place is. An example of the first, let me take Portland. There are two fairly wellknown cities by the name, one in Maine and one in Oregon. An example of the second is the name we're talking about here, North Brunswick. New Jerseyans may know where North Brunswick is, but in most cases, other people wouldn't. That is why newsreaders invariably say North Brunswick, New Jersey in their first mention in a segment. Without the state name, there is obviously a lack of preciseness.

Let me give a clearer example. Let's use two fairly common cemetery names, Woodlawn and Forest Lawn. Let's say Woodlawn exists in both Portland, Maine and Portland, Oregon, while Forest Lawn exists in Portland, Maine, and a city other than Portland, Oregon, requiring a dab there too. The two articles on these fictional Maine cemeteries would then be

• Woodlawn Cemetery (Portland, Maine), and
• Forest Lawn Cemetery (Portland), respectively.

That is not desirable, first of all, because Portland is ambiguous, second because of the inconsistent dabs. Clearly, this is not tenable.

Now, let's check which cemeteries actually exist in the two Portlands:

• Category:Cemeteries in Portland, Maine
• Category:Cemeteries in Portland, Oregon

It turns out that no two cemeteries in those cities have the same name. Some of them still have a dab – because there are cemeteries with the same name in other cities than the other Portland – but, oddly enough, none of them have only "Portland" as a dab. They all have Portland, Maine or Portland, Oregon as a dab.

So, if we follow what y'all claim here, all those articles should be renamed to use only Portland as a dab, right? Don't you think we would lose some preciseness then, hmm?

Finally, categories and subcategories strictly follow the name of the corresponding article. I propose the same goes for dabs.

Now, what more proof do you need?

HandsomeFella (talk) 21:51, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

WP:USPLACE overrides WP:CONCISE for U.S. place names. The question is whether that applies only to complete article titles or also to disambiguating qualifiers, and we don't seem to have a guideline about that. Precedent is to include the whole article title in the qualifier, e.g. Elmwood Cemetery (Birmingham, Alabama) even though there isn't one in Birmingham, England etc. Elmwood Cemetery (Detroit) also follows that system, as the city article is simply Detroit. Certes (talk) 22:54, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

The precedent outside the scope of WP:USPLACE seems to be the opposite, see e.g. Category:Buildings and structures in Lincoln, England. Daß Wölf 07:35, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

The northern edge of the cemetery strays into New Brunswick, New Jersey. If we'd named the article after that place, the best qualifier would have been obvious: we wouldn't want readers to assume it was in Canada. Certes (talk) 23:05, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

The article says that the cemetery borders New Brunswick, but if it does extend across city limits, we could have Middlesex County, New Jersey as a dab instead, but not just Middlesex County. HandsomeFella HandsomeFella (talk) 12:22, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

• (ec) Just throwing this out there, but wouldn't Elmwood Cemetery (New Jersey) be WP:PRECISE enough? If there were 2 NJ Elmwoods, then you would further dab with Elmwood Cemetery (North Brunswick, New Jersey)? "(North Brunswick)" isn't really helpful to non-NJinas. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 23:02, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

  Yes. If we think WP:USPLACE doesn't apply here and is trumped by WP:CONCISE (a reasonable opinion) then Elmwood Cemetery (New Jersey) is better than Elmwood Cemetery (North Brunswick). Certes (talk) 23:08, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

  IME, outside the US, buildings and structures are usually disambiguated on the level of cities, towns and municipalities, rather than states or countries. Daß Wölf 07:46, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

• Other types of places (such as buildings) in England are normally disambiguated by county (if sufficent) as with settlements per WP:UKPLACE such as Hardwick House, Suffolk unless they are in a settlement such as Stoke Hall, Ipswich unless like Newark Castle, Nottinghamshire there is an overlap with the settlement name. Other than churches (mainly on Commons) its rare for buildings to exist in the same settlement and county so the American form generally isn't used here. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:04, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
• If a place name is used inside a disambiguator, then it should normally have the same form as used in the article title of that place. But the principle applies to the spelling or the choice among synonyms (say, "Swaziland" vs. "Eswatini", or "Kiev" vs. "Kyiv"), there's no need for this to be carried over into copying the article's disambiguators as well: a main principle of disambiguation is that you use as much, or as little, is necessary in each specific case. There are some non-US instances of overdisambiguation of the type discussed here (Mrakovo, Kugarchinsky District, Republic of Bashkortostan), but that pattern does appear to be overall rare: it's Neda, Galicia and not "Neda, Galicia (Spain)", Church of Our Lady of Hal, Camden and not "Church of Our Lady of Hal, Camden Town" or "Church of Our Lady of Hal, London Borough of Camden". However, a valid argument for HandsomeFella's preference is recognisability, which as far as I understand it is the reason why US state names are used in disambiguation even when not strictly necessary. – Uanfala (talk) 16:16, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Falkland Islands naming convention in Spanish - potential change

In accordance with the Government of the Falkland Islands' wishes, change the field at the top of Wikipedia pages to display both Spanish names, instead of just 'Malvinas'.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Titfortat-skag (talk • contribs) 12:18, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

The correct place to discuss this would be Talk:Falkland Islands, in the context of WP:ALTNAME. You'll need to make an argument why this Spanish name is sufficiently relevant for inclusion. BilledMammal (talk) 13:21, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Titfortat-skag. Go here to discuss. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 21:38, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

References

Question

Does anyone know why this piece of the guidelines mentions towns only, and not cities?

In some cases, including most towns in the United States, the most appropriate title includes the non-parenthesized state name as a tag, even when it is not needed for disambiguation.

As far as I know, towns and cities follow the same naming convention: Place, State. HandsomeFella (talk) 08:37, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

"Town" is used on several places in the guideline in a manner that indicates that it means all populated places (see, for example, sub-section 3 in "General guidelines", the "Use English" section, and the "Failure to reflect only English usage" sub-section of "Search engine issues"). I think it would be clearer (although wordier) to use "populated place" instead of "town" in those sections. Donald Albury 17:53, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

If this has the potential to cause confusion, the definitions of "town" and "city" being different in different English-speaking jurisdictions, it would probably be best to avoid their use in a guideline. I'm rather surprised that a statement that applies only to the US uses "town" anyway, as my understanding was that Americans call anywhere incorporated a "city". Phil Bridger (talk) 18:48, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

It's more complicated, because each state defined the LEGAL terms for their populated communities/places. See table 9-1 on the 3rd page of this PDF from the U.S. Census Bureau. Each USA community article should only use the legal terms for their respective states. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 19:34, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

Since each country / state / region uses different local terms for their populated communities, we probably should fix this issue to clarify it. I recommend the article be changed from "town" to "community", then define the term "community" at the top of this article to mean any populated (or previously populated) community or place, such as cities, towns, villages, hamlets, boroughs, unincorporated communities, ghost towns ... • Sbmeirow • Talk • 19:34, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

"Settlement" is the neutral word that I've often seen used, covering cities, towns, villages, hamlets, and "census-designated places". Station1 (talk) 21:29, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

Settlement is fine by me. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 00:47, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

I have replaced "town" with "settlement" where the latter seemed to better represent the intent of the guideline. Donald Albury 14:30, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

So, our choices seem to be "populated place" (which I will admit, is quite clunky), "community", or "settlement". Any other suggestions? I'll accept any of those three, but do we need to seek more participation before changing things? - Donald Albury 22:24, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

• A rather...interesting offshoot of this discussion is that HandsomeFella is trying to apply it to cemeteries at Talk:Elmwood Cemetery (North Brunswick)#Requested move 3 June 2022. I think it's obvious that cemeteries are not settlements—although they are technically populated by dead people. Do we need to clarify this? -- Tavix ^(talk) 18:14, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

To any reader that is paying a minimum of attention, it's obvious that I'm not trying to apply it to cemeteries. If so, I would have proposed Elmwood Cemetery, New Jersey, just like you mentioned, wouldn't I?

For other readers here, I have been proposing – for a month now – that the dab tag, which is what is being discussed, should follow the name of the article it refers to. I.e., what I am proposing is a move from Elmwood Cemetery (North Brunswick) to Elmwood Cemetery (North Brunswick, New Jersey). The corresponding article is at North Brunswick, New Jersey. Nobody outside NJ (hyperbole) knows where North Brunswick is, so the dab tag obviously needs the full dab tag consisting of the article name on the city.

HandsomeFella (talk) 20:46, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for finally acknowledging what the application of that guideline would look like, I feel like we're having a breakthrough. It's still unclear why you are insisting it has to be at a too WP:PRECISE disambiguation though. The "corresponding article" could just as easily be New Jersey. -- Tavix ^(talk) 21:03, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

I am shocked. I am shocked to realize that I have misread the guidelines, something I accused you for. Jesus. Facepalm.

What I thought the guideline I quoted mandated: Elmwood Cemetery (North Brunswick, New Jersey).

What it really mandates: North Brunswick, New Jersey.

I still think that my proposal for the cemetery is the best, even self-evident – though I can't use this guideline to support that – but let's discuss that on the cemetery talkpage.

HandsomeFella (talk) 16:09, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

No worries, it happens to the best of us! Yes, let's continue the discussion there now that we agree on the application of the guideline in question. -- Tavix ^(talk) 16:26, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Tanzania Admin 1 names

Hello, I am working on Tanzania and one of the first level government articles has different name on wiki than its name, and the other first level articles. I am unsure of if I should move as someone else had moved it to its current location to conform with wiki guidelines. Unfortunately I do not know the guidelines and need advise and guidance.

The article in question is Kagera (region) that was moved from Kagera Region with redirect. All other admin 1 zones have _Region as that reflects the actual names, "Mkoa wa Kagera" all caps and no parentheses in the name. For example when speaking of Kagera region, not Kagera Region, of the Great Lakes that area includes parts of Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi of the Kagera region. The article is not about the Great Lake region, but the first level part of Tanzania that is governed. Same happens for Mara Region and Kilimanjaro Region, with Kenya having parts of those areas. Also to other borders like south it happens. It is just how they were made. However those others do not use (region) like Kagera. Only Kagera does.

Ultimately, I am hoping for guidance to have some consistency to Tanzania's adm1 articles. Maybe can use kiswahili rather than English? That would be most clear. But would be easier to just use their actual English names rather than the wikipedia guideline? That way only one page needs to be moved back. Any advise is greatly appreciated! BevoLJ (talk) 06:19, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

I see that Kagera Region was moved to Kagera (region) three years ago by User:Eric. I recommend that you contact Eric on his talk page to discuss the move. If, after talking to Eric, you still want to move the article back to Kagera Region, follow the instructions at Wikipedia:Requested moves#CM to start a discussion on the move. - Donald Albury 17:15, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Hello all- I posted at Talk:Kagera_(region)#Doing_some_work. Eric ^talk 20:42, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Birth countries: Soviet Union

I've been noticing quite a few Ukrainian bios (people born before Ukraine gained independence in 1991) have their birth places as "Ukraine" or "Ukrainian SSR". The birth place should be "Soviet Union". Have these bios always been this way? or were they changed recently, due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. GoodDay (talk) 15:56, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Is there a place in the MOS or guidelines that specifies this? MOS:BIRTHPLACE says nothing about birth places. I'm having trouble thinking of terms to search for in AN or AN/I to see if something was settled earlier on how to list birth places. - Donald Albury 17:37, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Why would we use an anachronistic place name when describing the birthplace? Mobutu was born in Belgian Congo (not Zaire or Congo), Hu Jintao was born in the Republic of China (not PRC), etc... 162 etc. (talk) 18:40, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Assuming I'm understanding your question correctly, the layout for these should be: Town, SSR, Soviet Union. For example, in my most recent article, he was born in Bazarchai, Armenian SSR, Soviet Union. Curbon7 (talk) 17:48, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Given the size and political structure of the Soviet Union, that makes very good sense to me. - Donald Albury 20:09, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Just wanted to be sure going forward. Though there a is bit of opposition, when "Estonian SSR, Soviet Union"; "Lithuanian SSR, Soviet Union" & "Latvian SSR, Soviet Union", is involved. GoodDay (talk) 15:10, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Recommend addition to FAQ

Recommend an addition to FAQ, explaining why "Great Britain" and "United Kingdom" are usually excluded from the birth/death places of bios, post-1707. GoodDay (talk) 15:15, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Clarification requested on alternate names

The "General Guidelines" section begins:{{blockquote|text=These are advice, intended to guide, not force, consensus; but they are derived from actual experience in move discussions.

1. The title: When a widely accepted English name, in a modern context, exists for a place, we should use it. This will often be a local name, or one of them; but not always. If the place does not exist anymore, or the article deals only with a place in a period when it held a different name, the widely accepted historical English name should be used. If neither of these English names exist, the modern official name (in articles dealing with the present) or the local historical name (in articles dealing with a specific period) should be used. All applicable names can be used in the titles of redirects.
2. The lead: The title can be followed in the first line by a list of alternative names in parentheses, e.g.: Gulf of Finland (Estonian: Soome laht; Finnish: Suomenlahti; Russian: Финский залив, Finskiy zaliv; Swedish: Finska viken) is a large bay in the easternmost arm of the Baltic Sea.
   • Any archaic names in the list (including names used before the standardization of English orthography) should be clearly marked as such, i.e., (archaic: name1).
   • Relevant foreign language names (one used by at least 10% of sources in the English language or that is used by a group of people which used to inhabit this geographical place) are permitted. [Emphasis mine] Local official names should be listed before other alternate names if they differ from a widely accepted English name. Other relevant language names may appear in alphabetic order of their respective languages – i.e., (Estonian: Soome laht; Finnish: Suomenlahti; Russian: Финский залив, Finskiy zaliv; Swedish: Finska viken). Separate languages should be separated by semicolons.}

The wording under question in Australian contexts is this:

…or that is used by a group of people which used to inhabit this geographical place…

This wording is being used as justification to insert additional names into the first sentence of an article using the apparently permissible reason that before European settlement in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries, Indigenous Australians lived in Australia and had their own languages and names for places. Eg.

Jelly Bean (Quenya: Gummibar) is a sweet little town in New South Wales.

Such Indigenous names are rarely in current common use or have significant literature, though there are well known exceptions such as Uluru or the many instances where the European colonisers simply appropriated the existing name for their own use, generally Anglicising it to some extent, such as in Canberra. The sort of sources being used to justify additional Indigenous names are generally specialist or tertiary sources, such as a sentence on the town council website eg. "Jelly Bean (or Gummibar as the Aboriginals used to call it) was first settled in 1806 by Captain Harry Beau who farmed sugar cane and koala bears."

There is no dispute over a "Name" or "Etymology" or "Early history" section in the content giving well-sourced details of the previous occupants and their languages and culture and what they called the region, but the insertion in the lead sentence of an archaic name that is not in wide current use, does not appear on maps or in GPS devices, and is found only in a few specialist or tertiary sources, is causing some hearted discussion. Some editors feel that they can redress some of the evils of colonisation by recognising the first Australians in adding an Indigenous name to as many Australian articles as they can find council webpage sources for. It would be helpful in minimising ongoing disruption and conflict if the wording noted above could be clarified to either support or reject such usage as a blanket rule. I don't think that we are at the RfC stage yet. --Pete (talk) 22:34, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Clarification needed for relevant foreign language names

This line in the guideline is very vague: ..or that is used by a group of people which used to inhabit this geographical place. Should we list all names/translations used by every group of people who ever lived in the geographic place, even if the name falls below the "10% of sources" requirement? Is there another guideline that provides a more detailed information about the rationale of including foreign language names? — Golden ^{call me maybe?} 18:28, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

To my interpretation, this refers moreso to a Gdansk/Danzig type situation than a Paris/Lutetia situation. It seems more like a somewhat recent past thing in most cases. Curbon7 (talk) 18:20, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

That, in my opinion, still leaves too much room for interpretation. How recent is "recent"? How large should that group of people be in order for their language's name to appear in the article lead? Should the name even be there if less than 10% of the sources use it? — Golden ^{call me maybe?} 19:35, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

To me "recent" in this context means after 1900. Before that such names should be limited to the Infobox and History sections. The group would need to have constituted a significant part of the population, say 35% or more, or have been the rulers. --Bejnar (talk) 20:59, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Most content of Wikipedia articles leaves room for interpretation. If there is any disagreement about any particular article it should simply be discussed on the article talk page and decided by consensus, just as everything else is. Any bright-line rule will inevitably have exceptions, so we should not aim for one. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:37, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

The answer is "it depends", for the reasons Phil gives. If you think a particular name should or shouldn't be included on a particular article, then either just add/remove it (if you think it will be uncontroversial) or propose it on the talk page (if you think it will or might be controversial) and see what the consensus is. In some cases a name used by only one or two sources will be appropriate to include (maybe because they are the most prominent sources, or official sources), in others a name used by well over 10% of sources will not be appropriate (perhaps it was only ever used in a context too specific for a given article - e.g. the Polish name for a non-Polish place is absolutely appropriate for an article about Polish people in that place, but might not be for the main article about that place - especially if there are multiple notable ethnolinguistic groups). Thryduulf (talk) 01:47, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

The infobox is a prominent location, perhaps in some cases even more prominent than the first sentence of the lead. They should capture the most salient points of an article, so undue alternative/historical names usually would not belong there either. CMD (talk) 02:25, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

This wording has come up in discussion here, as justification for placing Australian Indigenous names in the first sentence of the lede. Judging by the comments above, this doesn't seem to be the intention. No Australian town or city had any existence before European settlement: Sydney and Beaconsfield, Victoria are examples at either end of the population scale. Is there any specific discussion on this? --Pete (talk) 23:49, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

@Skyring as you are well aware, this discussion has been had and finished. See here: Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board#c-ScottishFinnishRadish-20220719151700-RfC for inclusion of Australian Indigenous placenames within the lead and infobo

Forum shopping is not helpful for anyone. Wikipedia:FORUMSHOP Poketama (talk) 11:51, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

User has the right to start a new discussion if he sees a problem with the article - so the user has edited correctly and this has nothing to do with Wikipedia:FORUMSHOP. Wikipedia:FORUMSHOP is clear, it involves creating multiple threads on the same subject to prevent one consistent discussion, however, there was one coherent discussion on this matter, the result of which is unequivocal: no consensus. In such a situation, the new discussions after the end of the RfC are correct. Subtropical-man (✉ | en-2) 19:43, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't think you grasp the point being made about the wording in WP:PLACE. The specific wording being used as justification is "Relevant foreign language names (one used by at least 10% of sources in the English language or that is used by a group of people which used to inhabit this geographical place) are permitted." Here we must use the interpretation intended at that page, rather than override a global guideline locally. --Pete (talk) 23:33, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

IMHO, we should use only the english version of geographic names. Why? Because this is the English-language Wikipedia & not the Multi-language Wikipedia. GoodDay (talk) 00:21, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

By that logic, we would have to move Uluru back to Ayers Rock and Denali back to Mount McKinley. We usually use the name that is most commonly used in English sources, but other considerations may apply. - Donald Albury 01:27, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

No, we're not talking about moving articles, just using alternate names in the lede, especially where those names are no longer in common use or have a substantial presence in literature. If a name was once used "by a group of people which used to inhabit this geographical place" centuries ago and is now no longewr in use, does it belong in the lede? I am of the opinion that this is valuable information for a "Name" or "History" section but not so much that it needs to take up prime real estate in the lede. The guideline mentioned here is being used to justify this sort of thing. Indigenous names that have become (or possibly never stopped being) in common use are no problem; we may refer to numerous sources, and often these names are formally changed to become official. Not so for Kemgrim mentioned above which doesn't seem to have any real-world relevance or practical use. There was never a village named Kemgrim, for example. --Pete (talk) 02:08, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

We use English names and only add foreign language names when they are used in English, because if they are used in English they are, or are becoming, English words: assimilation. I would say Uluru has by now become an English word due to being commonly used. Therefore, Uluru is used because it is an alternative English word, not because it is a foreign language word. Its origin is irrelevant. The foreign names of most minor places are usually not used in English which means we do not use them (except when specifically needed, such as in the history section). When and if a foreign language word has made the transition into becoming an English language word, is the relevant discussion point. Terminology is important but also confusing. Here, a foreign word means just that, foreign. If used in English it is as close to its foreign condition as possible; it does not mean a word of foreign origin that has become assimilated into English. Then it is better described as a borrowed (into English) word, or a loan/ed (from another language) word. So, to the indiginous people of central Australia, "You cannot copyright your name for that rock: languages develop and change and adopt and alter etc all the time. Take pride in the knowledge that the English language is using the name you originally came up with for that rock, but don't tell the English language how it should use, pronounce, spell that name." Roger 8 Roger (talk) 02:49, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

I think I'll pull out of this discussion. Something of concern has arisen over at another article. GoodDay (talk) 06:40, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

I've returned, now that some Canadian pages have been given attention. So.... what's the consensus here? GoodDay (talk) 16:23, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Non-english translations should only be provided in lead if that name makes up a good chunk of the sources (say 10% or more). Simply stating that a name "that is used by a group of people which used to inhabit this geographical place" should be listed in lead is too vague and leads to complications as above. — Golden ^{call me maybe?} 16:52, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

I think each case should be discussed on specific article talk and consensus should be reached based on the arguments provided, because there are astronomically different context to different countries. Zangilan for example may be very different from the Canadian page(s) you're talking about. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 07:42, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Besides your weird comments around assimilation, your argument doesn't stand up to what is the current consensus on Wikipedia. See China Beijing Russia Japan. I'm not going to list out dozens of pages, just have a look. Poketama (talk) 08:44, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Poketama, if your post refers to me, please use my name to alert me. If you don't understand what language assimilation means, or in fact any other term you don't understand, it is probably best not to describe it as weird. Similarly, if you do understand but disagree with the way it is used, labelling it weird isn't the most constructive response. I am not sure what you are actually trying to say - could you elaborate to make it clearer? Some advice on Wikipedia consensus decisions - very many of them are wrong or are simply not consensus decisions anyway. In any case, consensus decisions do not override WP policy or what a significant number of reliable independent secondary sources say. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 09:28, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

@Roger 8 Roger: I disagree with you. It is meaningful to speak of a name being assimilated into English (or Anglicized) when the structure and pronunciation of the name have been modified from the original to accomodate the rules of English structure. Thus, we have "Moscow" for "Moskva", "Lisbon" for "Lisboa", "Naples" for "Napoli", and the largely abandoned "Leghorn" for "Livorno". The latter is interesting because the assimilated form "Leghorn" has been largely replaced as the name of the city by the Italian "Livorno" in general usage in English since the end of World War II. As our article says, Anglicization "does not cover the unmodified adoption of foreign words into English". - Donald Albury 15:35, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Donald Albury I think the flaw with that reasoning is assuming assimilation is the same as anglicisation which it is not. Assimilation means just what it says, assimilated/part of. A word becomes used/assimilated in English as an English word in different ways, frequent usage being one of them, as is spelling adaptation. Sometimes there is little obvious evidence of assimilation because there is no need for it. There is not much we can do to change words like 'Paris' to show they have become assimilated. If such words have not been assimilated we would have the absurd situation of not having a English word for the capital of France, or Germany, or the Netherlands. Anglicisation is simply one method by which a word undergoes assimilation. That method is going out of favour in recent times where there is a preference to keep the foreign spelling if at all practical. I looked at the anglicisation article. It is largely unsourced but there are two sources apparently telling us what Anglicisation means. Source v2 says: 'Anglicisation' is one of those myriad terms in general use which everyone understands and hardly anyone defines. It concerns the process by which non-English people become assimilated or bound into an' It is about people (the Welsh) becoming assimilated, not words. Source 3 says 'Beyond gaps in our information about who or what was affected by anglicisation is the matter of understanding the process more fully in terms of agency, periodisation, and extent and limitations'. I am still trying to understand what it means but it does also seem to be referring to people. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 01:12, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Will an RFC on this matter be required? If so, I'd assume (this being WP:PLACE) the results would effect all geographic place pages. At the very least, we'd have a centralised discussion. GoodDay (talk) 16:30, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

@Roger 8 Roger:@GoodDay: We have gotten off the subject here. Wikipedia:Article_titles#Use_commonly_recognizable_names is the policy, and I do not see anything in that policy that is affected by how a name came to be commonly used in English sources. - Donald Albury 18:36, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

What goes in the lead and/or the infoboxes, I assume is what's being discussed here. GoodDay (talk) 20:50, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, agree with both - we are going off topic. This then is probably the best time and place to bring up a contentious point about exactly that. I am happy to create a sub-section if this is also deemed a secondary issue. How do we define what is a 'commonly used name'? If the answer is 'as used by reliable secondary sources', then what do we do if those sources that might usually be seen as reliable are using a particular name because they have to by law. Does that make the source not reliable? Examples might be names on govt maps and govt official publications where not commonly used names are inserted, because they have to be by law. My hunch is we would dismiss such names if the sources came from certain govts we deem as unreliable, such as China, but not from others, such as New Zealand? Why? Sources from both use certain names because they are forced to? If we say any govt based source is primary anyway, what about secondary sources in those countries that are still bound by the law? This sort of govt interference is often used to push a policy change and in a western democratic state often does not receive much opposition, but should it? Thus, should we dismiss all sources that use a particular name because they have to use it? I cannot say with any first hand knowledge, but I would guess that Uluru was used in many govt publications due to a particular govt policy backed by law, long before it gained wider usage in society. A similar situation exists for Argentine maps where Argentina is depicted as covering a chunk of Antarctica and many south Atlantic islands. WP uses such maps despite their having no basis in reality - the Argentine sources are created like that because they have to be push a national myth. So why doesn't WP refuse to accept those sources as being unreliable? Roger 8 Roger (talk) 22:03, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Article titles#Use commonly recognizable names, which is part of a policy page, says, Wikipedia "generally prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources)..." If there is any disagreement on whether a source is reliable, you can ask about its reliability as a source in a particular context at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. As I understand it, the rationale is to use the name that will be most commonly used by potential readers looking for the article. It doesn't matter whether it is the official name, or if use of the name is mandated in some jurisdiction, we are looking for the name that is most commonly used in "independent, reliable English-language sources." In practice, recent sources will count more than older ones if one name is in the process of replacing another as the most commonly used. If there is an official name that is not the most common name, it can be mentioned in the article. - Donald Albury 23:51, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm guessing it would be near impossible to (RFC route or otherwise) impose any kind of blanket rule, across all geographic pages. If only there was a way to avoid repetitive content dispute on page after page, etc. GoodDay (talk) 21:43, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

A RfC decision here would avoid many of the repetitive arguments across many pages, so I do think that an RfC would be a good idea. — Golden ^{call me maybe?} 05:53, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

It indeed would be near impossible, I would say erroneous, to have a single RfC / blanket rule for all geographic pages. Each country/region has different context, using a single rule for all just doesn't make sense. And as I and others have also noted, discussing on article talk page in such cases and reaching consensus seems to be the best option. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 07:40, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

I partly agree that having a one size fits all decision would not work. However, I am also concerned when different areas come to their own decision in isolation because we end up with different approaches for the same issue. An example of this, not about place names, is the interpretation of what is an 'official language'. The UK says official status comes from universal usage; the US as stated in legislation. Therefore English is and is not an official language in the UK depending on which article you read. I can see the potential problems with a blanket rule, but I also think that there should be some sort of wiki-wide guideline on how to handle officially imposed place names that are used by normally reliable independent sources. NZ articles are a good example of how legislation coupled with bureaucratic policy decisions has led to many placename discussions. For example, the title of the Stewart Island article has recently changed from a couple of years as 'Stewart Island / Rakiura' back to Stewart Island. (The dual name is the official name by legislation that must be used on NZ maps and in govt publications, and generally promoted by govt controlled agencies, but it is not the commonly used English language name.) Roger 8 Roger (talk) 09:08, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

New York and Washington

@RGloucester: As far as I'm aware the preferred title for these cities is "New York City" and "Washington, D.C." even if they were primary for the actual names "Washington" and "New York" per WP:COMMONNAME. IMO this should be clarified so that editors know that even if we decide they're primary they should probably not be moved to the shorter titles. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:30, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree. Outside the United States, "Washington" and "New York" in their unqualified form often refer to cities. Inside the United States, Washington (state) and New York State mean that the cities are almost never referred to that way. Per WP:ENGVAR, editors should be advised to use "New York City" and "Washington D.C.". User:力 (powera, π, ν) 17:50, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

Britannica still uses the longer names for these cities even though the longer names don't seem to be an integral part of the name but yes per 力 they should probably generally be called by their longer names at least when introducing them. Note that many of the non-English Wikipedias use just "New York" while for Oklahoma City all or almost all seem to use "Oklahoma City" and the AP Book uses "Oklahoma City" rather than "Oklahoma". The word "probably" was added because while I don't expect there would be consensus to move New York City and Washington, D.C. to the shorter titles that doesn't mean it won't happen. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:59, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

This guideline is not the place for confusing supposition about how two specific cities should be referred to. It is definitely a nonsense to say that the cities of 'Washington' and 'New York' are never referred to as such, whether inside the United States or outwith it. Context makes clear which of the two things are being referred to in any given situation. The comparison with 'Oklahoma City' is bizzare; that city's official name is 'Oklahoma City', not 'Oklahoma'. In any case, this guideline is specifically about article titles, not about content in the body of articles, and therefore there is no need for this addition. RGloucester — ☎ 18:58, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree that "Oklahoma City" is completely irrelevant. I don't actually know which talk page this is, so I won't comment on that point. And: no, while you can rely on "context" to distinguish between Washington DC and Washington (state) in running prose, you should not do so the first time you mention Washington DC. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 19:10, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

Of course, I agree with you. My point is, this is a naming conventions page, and naming conventions pages specifically deal with article titles, not prose, as it specifies at the top of the page. It is wrong to insert commentary into this page that does not reflect consensus, and does not really have anything to do with this page's premise. RGloucester — ☎ 20:59, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

The clarify needed here is that both "New York" and "Washington" are in the AP Stylebook can just be at "City" unless they are not the primary topic for that name, the clarify needed here is that even if we decided those cities were primary for "New York" and "Washington" we would probably have a WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT like Nashville even though unlike Nashville these are in the AP Stylebook. I could certainly see a case for moving New York City to New York since many people probably won't expect "City" to be part of the name but I don't think I'd support the move mainly per ENGVAR. "Washington DC" is in my experience normally used so I'd expect such as move would be even more unlikely leaving aside the ambiguity. Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:24, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

You should probably be aware that the previous discussions of both of these specific titles are of legendary scope, taking up pages and pages worth of back and forth to lead to the current state of affairs. See, e.g., Talk:New York (state)/Archive 5#Requested move 9 June 2016 and Talk:New York (state)/July 2016 move request. BD2412 T 21:46, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

It's fine to mention the two cities aren't at the base name because there is no consensus about them being the primary topic, but the supposition about whether or not there are other reasons why they shouldn't be at the base name should not be included. Calidum 22:42, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

@Calidum: Its not just the issue about if these cities are primary for the shorter name which you correctly note there isn't consensus but also the issue about if people would support moving New York City to New York even if primary and if people would support moving Washington, D.C. to Washington even if primary. Both points need to be mentioned, firstly that they aren't primary for the names listed in AP but secondly that they may not belong at the short names even if they were. If you did want the cities to be at the short names it would be a good idea to do it in 2 steps namely start RMs on Talk:New York and Talk:Washington proposing moving to New York (disambiguation) and Washington (disambiguation) and redirecting "New York" to "New York City" and "Washington, D.C." and if successful then propose moving "New York City" to "New York" and "Washington, D.C." to "Washington". In both cases I'd probably be neutral on New York but oppose Washington. Crouch, Swale (talk) 08:04, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

@Calidum: The point is even if the topic of each of these two city articles was deemed primary for both names respectively, the longer name for each would remain the title. That has nothing to do with article content, RGloucester, and Crouch, Swale thinks it’s worth noting here. —-В²C ☎ 14:54, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes indeed it needs to be mentioned that even if the cities were primary they probably shouldn't be moved to the base name. This may be somewhat moot for now but should probably be clarified. Crouch, Swale (talk) 16:06, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

• @力: Your proposal is a very bad idea. Again, this page only deals with article titles, not text in the body of articles. Please do not include text relating to the body of articles in this page. RGloucester — ☎ 23:43, 19 March 2022 (UTC)