Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)

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Archive to 1 Dec 2006 • Archive to Nov 2008 • Naming conventions (settlements) (Decision to use the AP Stylebook for major US cities (October 2008)) • Naming conventions (places)

About USPLACE

That aforementioned guideline really contradicts numerous other things. First of all, the AP Stylebook is irrelevant regarding an encyclopedia, but relevant for a news service, which Wikipedia is not. Also, if a place of the US is the primary topic for a title, why would it use unnecessary disambiguation when it doesn't need it? Too many people worship USPLACE too much that whenever one opposes the USPLACE-compliant title, a worshipper would oppose the opposer by saying that "per USPLACE.".

Is that what USPLACE is? Hill Crest's WikiLaser (Boom.) (talk) 22:09, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Agree. The USPLACE guideline would be simpler, more helpful and more consistent with other guidelines if it followed the near-universal WP naming principle of disambiguate only when necessary. Right now you can't tell from a given US city title whether it is disambiguated because there are other uses of that name, or it's disambiguated simply because of USPLACE. For example, Carmel-by-the-Sea, California... why is it not at Carmel-by-the-Sea? There is no other use of that name, it already redirects to the article about the city... why confuse users into thinking the name is not unique; that there is another use of "Carmel-by-the-Sea"? Creating confusion is not helpful.

The current convention/guideline never achieved broad community consensus support, but was established by a bot in the early days that automatically renamed all titles of US cities to include ", state" whether disambiguation was needed or not. Getting an exception for the best-known cities (coincidentally those on the AP list) was a difficult multi-year process. It might be time to revisit this issue. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:50, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

• Comment The current guideline has been used too many times to impose a non-Wikipedia like rigidness in the naming of articles. Even many people who invoke this guideline do so admitting it does not make sense. It is time to update, and use some common sense for this subject. Why should this naming guideline be so counter intuitive, and against the main idea of simpler is better?--Education does not equal common sense. 我不在乎 23:28, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Part of the problem is that guidelines are supposed to reflect current practice, and current practice in this area appears to be to disambiguate all articles about incorporated cities in the US with the state, unless they're on the AP list. So it's impossible to find, in practice, evidence supporting a change to the guideline.

    At the same time many people argue against changing any of these titles solely on the grounds of what the guideline says. This of course creates a Catch-22 situation that makes it impossible to change either practice or the guideline, even if consensus supports such change.

    The only way to fix this is to get several such articles moved despite what USPLACE says by persuasively applying WP:IAR (for good reason) to ignore USPLACE. Then, when several articles have been so moved, the argument can be made that the guideline should be reflected to support this. This is why I argued as I did at Talk:Beverly Hills, California#Requested move. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:49, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

• My recommendation is to keep the requirement of using the state name if the city is not in the AP style guide. The normal convention in the style guide is practical advice. There are many places in the United states, and most people know all 50 state names, but have trouble knowing where a specific city or town is, and a huge number of US names are taken from European names. For subjects about a city, such as List of mayors of, there as no need to add the state as it just makes the title longer. Apteva (talk) 00:03, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

AP Style guide is for newspapers, not for encyclopedias. Also, we don't need to disambiguate anything that doesn't need disambiguation. You also contradict yourself, too. If you want to know where the heck a place is, just read the article! Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 01:21, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

If only that was true! I have read an article, clicked the link for the place that it was in and then clicked another link to finally find out where a place is. This is all too common. Too many articles are poorly written. But is that a naming policy issue? Only if you think that article names should be informative for everyone. Vegaswikian (talk) 02:02, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

• The current guideline is the right way to do it. WP is not intended just for US readers. I immediately know where Carmel-by-the-Sea is, but a reader from another country may not even recognize it's a place name, rather than, say, the name of a hotel or a golf course. Personally, I consider our failure to disambiguate in general unless there is a conflict to be singularly unhelpful to readers, which should be our primary end. (current Library practice is also to disambiguate all city names, except for the heading: New York (City). They used to avoid it for major cities, but that was a short cut intended to reduce workload from a time when cataloging was running years behind book production.) DGG ( talk ) 17:41, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Yet another USPLACE discussion

Once again at Talk:Beverly Hills, California. That discussion was closed on August 20 as Not Moved, but the same move was re-requested on September 23. --MelanieN (talk) 04:07, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Blindly following a guideline is not the solution to our problems. The guideline is outdated, goes against the spirit of naming conventions, and needs to be changed. --Education does not equal common sense. 我不在乎 04:10, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

The discussion is there, but I'll just reply that the USPLACE guideline totally follows Wikipedia naming conventions, by being based on what the subject is called in Reliable Sources. WP:TITLE also admonishes us that "If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed" and "Debating controversial titles is often unproductive, and there are many other ways to help improve Wikipedia." Unfortunately some users who dislike USPLACE keep trying to get individual exceptions into Wikipedia, so that they can then point to the exceptions as an argument against USPLACE. --MelanieN (talk) 04:28, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Melanie, the problem with the previous close is explained at Talk:Beverly Hills, California#Premature close, where the justification for a new proposal/discussion is also presented. If you disagree with that reasoning, I suggest you register it there.

No one is disputing that reliable sources use "Beverly Hills, California"; it's just that "Beverly Hills" is more commonly used, and is more concise and natural.

USPLACE has never had consensus support. It has never had a consensus of opposition either, but often in "no consensus" cases consensus is finally achieved by deciding in favoring of the side opposing the status quo.

For example, while Yogurt was at Yoghurt for years proposals to move it back to Yogurt were made almost every year, but always failed due to lack of consensus support favoring the move (there was never a clear consensus opposing the move either). During that time the issues was raised over and over (see Talk:Yogurt/yogurtspellinghistory for a summary of all that turmoil). Finally, about a year ago, enough were convinced for something of a consensus support in favor of the move to develop, and the article was moved. Since then, there have been no issues.

A more apt example, perhaps, has to do with US city articles that are on the AP list. People opposed moving those articles to their more concise names for years before finally enough agreed to it in 2008. Since those moves to the more concise names there too there have been no issues. I don't see why the same would not happen with the remaining US cities that are the primary topic for their concise names (definitively identifiable... when the concise name redirects to the article), like Beverly Hills. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:54, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

• The top recommendation in WP:PLACE says that if a place is listed a certain way in Britanica, Columbia, and Encarta, that's the name. Each of these sources lists a lot more than the 30 U.S. cities on the AP list. The AP provides "comma-state" as an explanatory gloss inside the text of news articles. There is no reason to connect this style to titles or to disambiguation. Kauffner (talk) 01:39, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Right venue?

Where is right venue/board to discuss specific cases of WP:PLACE or to invite interested users to discuss this case? Thanks in advance. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:02, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Normally the discussion takes place on the article talk page. If there is a group of articles, then sometimes there is discussion at the project level. There are multiple methods of inviting others to discuss the case, the most common of which are WP:RM, WP:RFC, and as was already done, posting to WP:VPM. Normally including a link to the article involved helps, though. Each talk page, this one included, is basically for discussing changes to the associated article page. So, for example, if the guideline is either unclear or misleading, it can be improved by discussion here. Trying to decide specific articles, though needs to be on that article talk page. Apteva (talk) 21:26, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

USPLACE RFC?

There's clearly interest in revisiting USPLACE at this point. I'm leaning towards starting an RFC. Does anyone know of any discussions on the guideline in the past, especially as pertains to its origin? Searching the archives here, I only see notifications about individual RMs and this discussion from June. Has USPLACE ever been subject to a robust RFC before? If you just read this page, you'd think there was a strong consensus against, but there's been no shortage of USPLACE defenders on RMs. Do they genuinely like the guideline or just don't want individual exceptions? It's hard to say at this point. So any information you can throw at me right now would be appreciated. --BDD (talk) 23:51, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

There was an RFC in early 2011. I haven't reread the whole thing (it goes on for quite a while), but if I recall correctly, much of the discussion was dominated by a small number of users with very strong opinions. - Eureka Lott 00:24, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

To answer your question: as a "US PLACE defender" at many individual RM's, I genuinely like the standard of City, State as the default, and I think there should be exceptions as long as they are clearly defined and enumerated, and based on what Reliable Sources do. In other words, no uncertainty, no arguments; every city has a clearly defined name. We currently base the exceptions on the AP manual of style, since it is used by most Reliable Sources in the United States. But there are other systems with a larger number of exceptions that could be adopted. At an earlier discussion on an individual talk page here (Talk:Beverly Hills, California#Requested move), someone pointed out that the The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage (another Reliable Source) lists more exceptions than the 30 allowed by the AP - including that perennial flash point Nashville. I expressed myself as perfectly willing to consider using the NYT standard and thus allowing more exceptions (supported by a Reliable Source), but nobody picked up on it. IMO the people who want to "disambiguate only when necessary" - and completely dump USPLACE - those folks do not appear to be open to any kind of compromise. The folks on the "defender" side (like me) want the default to be City, State but are open to exceptions based on Reliable Source usage. I haven't seen any argument from anyone saying "no exceptions at all"; the AP exceptions seem to be universally accepted, and I sense openness to more exceptions if there is a Reliable Source basis for them. What we DON'T want is a system where nobody knows what to call an individual city unless they do the research to find out the "primary meaning". In the US where there are so many cities in different with the same name, not to mention cities in other countries with the same name, that is an invitation to chaos. I should add that the "defender" side would be much more inclined to accept an expanded list of exceptions such as the NYT stylebook, if the "dump US PLACE" side would buy into it - and agree to stop contesting the question on individual talk pages. --MelanieN (talk) 02:03, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

What is it about US place names that warrants such special treatment? AP and similar style guides are fine for the purpose for which they were designed - writing newspaper articles. This is not a newspaper and I see no reason why the same standard that applies to every other place name in the world and indeed every other article in Wikipedia should not apply to US place names. I like it is not a satisfactory justification to continue with this blight on the Wikiscape. This is the English Wikipedia, not the US Wikipedia, the rest of the English speaking world seems to manage quite well without this unnecessary pre-disambiguation. The only time I can see any justification is when there are more than one well known towns of the same name such that none can be considered the primary topic. In all other cases, a dab link at the top of the primary page works perfectly well. - Nick Thorne ^talk 03:59, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I think it's not so much the particular special treatment, but that we found a compromise way to settle the otherwise never-ending stream of arguments of which cities should be disambiguated and which should have the their names stand alone. I think it's a great compromise, working well, and best left as it is. It's very helpful to readers, for one thing, since it's usually clear what the topic is when the title is City, State, and often not otherwise. Dicklyon (talk) 04:05, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

It's also very helpful to content creators. If I am working on an article about someone who was born in Burlingame, California, I know how to wikilink it without having to do any research. But above all, it IS the way cities are named in the United States, for reasons both historic and practical. The rest of the world may not refer to their cities by citing the province or départment or shire; fine, no one is asking them to. But Americans pretty much always append the state name, whether in writing or in casual conversation, making City, State the WP:Common name as well as the name supported by Reliable Sources. In any case, I don't thing user:BDD was asking us to rehash the arguments here for the thousandth time; I think they were asking if there is any basis for an RFC. I suggested such a basis above, but as usual no one seems interested in any kind of solution or compromise. In which case I don't see much point in an RFC. The appropriate guideline is here: "If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed." and "Debating controversial titles is often unproductive, and there are many other ways to help improve Wikipedia." --MelanieN (talk) 05:22, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

On your claim (above) that going with disambiguate only when necessary for US cities "is an invitation to chaos"... for the umpteenth time, we're talking only about those cases where the unadorned city name already redirects to the city name saddled with state baggage. A bot could take care of these in a matter of hours. No chaos whatsoever.

As to the claim that it is helpful to content creators to have a predictable title (e.g. Burlingame, California), it's only helpful to the lazy content creator who doesn't habitually open another tab to verify the link, or at least right-click/open in a new window/tab on the link when previewing. Every link should be verified like this as a best practice. If it turns out it goes through a redirect, you update the link. No big deal. This is, or should be, SOP for all articles. --Born2cycle (talk) 07:07, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Melanie, I appreciate your feedback, but speaking as a firm opponent of USPLACE, I am certainly open to compromise. I appreciate that some editors are wary of large, sweeping changes like those that would be caused by the wholesale abandonment of USPLACE, so I think it's a great idea to grow the exceptions list. I would see it as a weaning off of USPLACE and a demonstration that all hell won't break lose if we go beyond the AP stylebook. Given that it's been almost two years since the last RFC started, I do think there's value in revisiting the discussion, especially since there have been several contentious RMs lately on the subject. I'd just like to see promotion of ranked voting, similar to in Kauffner's Ireland RM/RFC, that could better gauge support for a compromise. I'd be (pleasantly) surprised if there were a solid consensus to throw out USPLACE, but I suspect more of its defenders are open to compromise as well. --BDD (talk) 20:31, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Although the precise number is irrelevant, the last US Census identified ~19,300 populated places in the US. WP:USPLACE is a naming convention that ought to apply to these ~19,300 equally. Make no mistake about it, a naming convention is a style guideline and our style ought to be consistent. Arguments for a specific exception to a consistent style based on Common Name, Primary Topic, the AP style book, that readers are going to be confused, etc., are just IMHO nonsense and just eat up valuable editor time on useless discussion. Useless discussion that breeds contentiousness and literally brings nothing positive to WP. Right now, less than 0.001% of the populated places in the US have WP article names that are exceptions. Some editors clearly want to increase that percentage. But to what end, more contentious debates over Primary Topic and Common Name, more contentious fantasy about what millions of readers do and do not think? If there is an RfC on WP:USPLACE, the question ought to be clear—Should USPLACE specify a consistent style for all place names or should USPLACE be rewritten in a way that encourages contentious, meaningless debates about specific article titles on US populated places?--Mike Cline (talk) 18:28, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Mike, you've framed the question in a strongly POV manner. You're better than that. I could just as easily phrase the question, "Should USPLACE override more prevalent guidelines such as COMMONNAME and PRIMARYTOPIC, or should its arbitrary requirements of unnecessary disambiguation be replaced?" There are good arguments for USPLACE and there are good arguments against it. But you've made me think about the inherent difficulties of the wording of an RFC on the topic. Almost any editor sufficiently interested in the question has strong opinions one way or the other. Suppose one or two editors on each side collaborated on an RFC wording. I think it would be a better prompt for robust discussion than a one-sided, argumentative phrasing. What do you think? --BDD (talk) 20:04, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Indeed you are perceptive. It was indeed a POV statement meant to be retorical, not a suggestion for the actual RfC question. We are going to spend an extraordinary amount of volunteer energy arguing whether or not we should change USPLACE to allow endless, contentious discussion on another 100 titles (< ~.01% of all US Places) with no concievable benefit to WP. Common Name and Primary Topic may have their place in our titling regime, but USPLACE shouldn't be one of them. The flaws in actually determining Common Name and Primary Topic are just too obvious when talking about the names of US populated places. One of my favorite Ngrams: [1] Based on Common Name, all instances of the numeral one should be changed to Roman numeral I. Oh how selective we are. I want a naming convention that is a no brainer, requires no endless, contentious discussions. We are here to build content, not discuss the irrelevant. --Mike Cline (talk) 20:31, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Again... The issue of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for each U.S. city is already resolved. In each case, either the plain name redirects to the article about the city, or it doesn't. We're talking only about those cases where the city in question is already determined to be the primary topic, by virtue of the fact that [[Cityname]] redirects to the article. Maybe there are a few edge cases where that issue is not resolved, but for the vast, vast majority of the 19,300 to which you refer, it is definitely resolved.

You acknowledge that PRIMARYTOPIC has its place "in our titling regime", but you assert, without explanation, that USPLACE isn't "one of them" (one of them what?). You refer to the flaws in determining Primary Topic, but you neglect to acknowledge that those flaws do not apply to USPLACE, because, again, the PRIMARY TOPIC issue is resolved for the plain city name of every article covered by USPLACE.

As to no benefit to WP, the benefits are 1) consistency with how we name almost all of our articles, including most other city articles, and 2) resolving the USPLACE matter once and for all. I made a similar argument about moving Yoghurt to Yogurt for years, to no avail, until it was finally moved, and I was proven to have been correct about that (that issue is now resolved, and almost certainly forever).

I'm sorry, Mike, but your objection makes no sense. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:45, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Although this is not an RfC, I will state my position as clearly as possible. WP is an encyclopedia with 4M+ articles full of content, not 4M+ titles. The actual title of any given article is essentially irrelevant as it is the content (knowledge) in the article that counts. One would think with the energy that is put into changing article titles, that we had 1000s of articles that were invisible to our readers and extraordinary effort was needed to make them visible. I believe USPLACE should be simple and clear—Any US populated place article should be titled with [City], [State] with no exceptions. It is a simple, easily explained and enforced naming convention, an easy style to follow. It would eliminate the useless and unproductive types of debates we must suffer through today. I would enjoy listening to someone that thinks renaming an article such as Beverly Hills, California to Beverly Hills has a net positive to the encyclopedia, when regardless of the article title, it’s the content of the article that is important, not the title. As I said above, there are ~ 19,300 US place names. Please explain why an incredibly small percentage of articles about them should be titled with anything other than [City], [State]. If it requires endless, contentious debate to decide each exception, what is gained by that. --Mike Cline (talk) 23:23, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

In order to have a discussion, you have to at least address the points the other person has made.

Your sentences 2, 3, and 4 amount to a general preserve the status quo argument that could be used to oppose almost any article title change. If you don't think titles matter, maybe you should recuse yourself from these discussions.

Sentence #5 is simply a statement of your position, which is supported, a bit, by #6. But #6 ultimately supports any convention for predictability, without regard to our other concerns. The rest of it completely ignores the point I made above, which I repeat here one more time. The proposal is to essentially limit USPLACE to apply only in those cases where disambiguation is necessary - where the primary topic for the plain city name doesn't exist, or is not the US Place. That is, USPLACE would apply only to those cases where the plain city name currently does not redirect to the article about the US city. In all cases where the city name currently does redirect to the article about the US city, the article would be moved to plain city name. There would be nothing to discuss. There would be nothing to listen to. It would be a simple, easily explained and enforced naming convention, an easy style to follow. If the primary topic for the plain city name is the city, then the article about the city is at the plain city name. Very simple. Very easy. Trivial to implement and enforce. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:40, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

B2C, although your position is logical, it has never been supported with the net benefit to WP if we took your naming convention seriously. Its real intent (as far as I can discern is to eliminate so-called unnecessary disambiguation), the benefit of which is unknown and unproven. We disagree on this fundamental point. When it comes to US place names, there is no such thing as unnecessary disambiguation in the [City], [State] naming convention. And, IMHO, there is no net benefit to WP by naming some exception of articles of ~19,300 place names with something other than the [City], [State] naming convention. I understand that you disagree with that. That’s OK. My position is that we should strive for naming conventions that eliminate subjective, contentious titling debates that sap the volunteer energy of the community with no net benefit to the encyclopedia. I trust you appreciate that intent. --Mike Cline (talk) 00:24, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

There are two main problems with B2C's proposal: First, the primary topic is a source of perennial debate, so it would throw many of these titles back into that chaos. Second, it makes many titles worse in terms of recognizability, and sometimes precision (which are long-standing provisions of WP:TITLE that B2C has been working to dilute or remove for years). Dicklyon (talk) 00:29, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Guys, it's not like we're coming up with new US cities. We already have all the US city articles in place. The primary topic issue is resolved for all of them. If for a tiny few it isn't, then it will be debated regardless of which convention we use, because both are affected by primary topic determination (currently, whether the plain city name redirects to the city article; per my hypothetical proposal, whether the city is at the plain city name). So much for the first of the "main problems".

The recognizability argument applies to almost all non-US city articles... why should US cities be treated any differently? See User:Born2cycle#True_naming_consistency. Why is it a "main problem" for US cities, but not Austrian cities, or any other cities? Makes no sense. So much for the second "main problem".

Mike, I do appreciate your intent. What I don't understand is why you won't address my explanation for why the hypothetical proposal is not contrary to that intent. That is, title determination is just as deterministic if we simply avoid unnecessary disambiguation (where one type of unnecessary disambiguation is whenever [[X]] redirects to [[X (something)]] or to [[X, something]] and can be easily remedied by moving the article at [[X (something)]] or [[X, something]] to [[X]]). --Born2cycle (talk) 00:54, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

B2C, I simply don't think the community agrees with your approach, thus it is inevitably contentious. And it is that contention which we should seek to avoid as it is unproductive in the long run. --Mike Cline (talk) 01:40, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

replied below, at #Is avoidance an effective way to resolve a contentious issue? --Born2cycle (talk) 17:42, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

As per Mike Cline, and as per DickLyon above. If something is working, don't fix it. It may seem that there's one or two exceptions which AP doesn't cover, but if a clear case can't be made for a location with entertainment leveraged notability like Talk:Beverly Hills, California then it's dubious it can beneficially be made for many other cities.

Nick Thorne comments "What is it about US place names that warrants such special treatment?" I would think that the answer is that (a) there is less need for disambiguation in smaller countries, (b) I'm guessing a convenient benchmark like AP doesn't exist for Australia or Germany? (c) the AP list is a counterbalance per WP:CSB which intended or not helps to avoid underdisambiguation for users outside US.

Per Melanie N below this thread in itself pretty well what will happen with an RfC, but if there is an RfC, Melanie please notify me. In ictu oculi (talk) 00:07, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, I am not sure what you mean by smaller, but Australia is about the same size as the contiguous United States and whilst we may not have as many people as the US, we certainly have just as many "places". I'm sorry, but your argument on that point seems pretty lame. As for ready references, I can't speak for Germany, but in Australia we can always search on the official government Geoscience Australia web site which provides an easy to use reference to Australian place names. OTOH, AP has no special standing except to those in the press and some here on Wikipedia who seem to regard it as some sort of holy writ. In the end it seems to me that your arguments are simply examples of special pleading, which is never convincing, quite apart from being a logical fallacy. - Nick Thorne ^talk 01:00, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Nick Thorne, as I said (a) there is less need for disambiguation in smaller countries, for example Australia being a smaller country than US only has 1x Beverly Hills (disambiguation) wheras US has 8x. I'm not sure what about this point is "logical fallacy" or "special pleading" or why you need to load up the discussion with such terms when someone gives an answer to your question you do not agree with. Also as (c) some of us might view the AP list is a counterbalance per WP:CSB which intended or not helps to avoid underdisambiguation for users outside US. I don't see why this is a "logical fallacy" or "special pleading" either. It's a view. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:34, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

It is not necessary to use my name at the beginning of a direct answer to one of my posts - it comes across as somewhat aggressive, please don't.

I fail to see how the number of localities named Beverly Hills is in any way a measure of the size of a country. Perhaps you need to consult an atlas, but as I stated in my previous post, Australia is actually slightly larger the contiguous United States. That is a solid fact, not a matter of interpretation. In any case whether the US is larger or not is entirely beside the point, if you want to go that way, perhaps you might like to consider the number of localities in India or China. I am sure anyone would recognise that way madness lies. The special pleading is the attempt to argue that the USA should be treated differently from everywhere else. This is the epitome of special pleading. That the user of such an argument does not recognise the logical fallacy is no surprise, most people that use logical fallacies do not recognise it. Regardless, the argument is still a logical fallacy. - Nick Thorne ^talk 10:20, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Nick,

Alternatively see Springfield. USA has 3x as many Springfields as smaller Anglophone countries like UK, Aus, Canada. This again is a typical situation, hence again the typical need for disambiguation in US geonames. You'll have to explain step by step why the observation that more similar names requires more disambiguation is a "logical fallacy."

But that's point (a), point (c) as above would be that without USPLACE the tendency would always be for Googlehits and TV to mean more article shifts counter WP:CSB. If you consider an argument WP:CSB "special pleading" well the whole point of WP:CSB is special pleading. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:16, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Please do not start direct replies to my posts with my name. I have already asked you to stop this, I will not ask again. Continuing to do this especially right after you were asked not to is uncivil, and I will take it further if necessary.

Since we are talking about only those place names where there is a clear primary topic - ie those for which the more concise name already redirects to the article in question - an argument about "more disambiguation" in at best non-sequitur. I don't think WP:CSD means what your comments imply, the opposite in fact. The special pleading is in attempting to continue with the systemic bias, treating US place names differently to the way we treat articles for all other places and subjects in the world, in other words purely from a US perspective and forgetting that Wikipedia is not just a US venture, it is global. It is special pleading because it is asking for articles about US place names to be treated differently to those for all other places and subjects, primarily it would seem, because some people in the USA like that form. Not a reason to keep this exception to the general rule IMHO. - Nick Thorne ^talk 03:27, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I think we can abandon any hope of actually discussing whether to have an RFC, and any possibility of actually reaching some kind of agreed solution to stop the endless arguing. Nice try, BDD, but forget it, it's hopeless. Instead, this thread will simply rehash the arguments pro and con USPLACE at infinite length for the thousand-and-first time. (I knew that would happen as soon as Born2cycle got here.) --MelanieN (talk) 01:42, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Let's see if we can create a list of the options:

• A. Put all US cities in common-name-comma-state format.
• B. Follow the AP list. (Thirty cities titled at their common names, the rest at comma-state format)
• C. Follow the New York Times list. (59 cities)
• D. Follow Britannica and Columbia. (~250 cities)
• E. Disambiguate only when necessary to avoid title clashes. Kauffner (talk) 02:35, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

In the earlier RFC, I suggested using a population threshold, but the idea didn't go over very well. Perhaps there's some criteria that we haven't yet considered. - Eureka Lott 02:49, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

I think the NYT's list of 59 cities is in the right ballpark, but encyclopdia titling is not logically connected to the issue of newspaper datelines. Kauffner (talk) 03:01, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Maybe not, but Reliable Source usage is. Per WP:Article titles: "This page in a nutshell: Article titles should be recognizable to readers, unambiguous, and consistent with usage in reliable English-language sources." --MelanieN (talk) 13:57, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

You realize that published reference works don't do comma-state, or any other kind of disambiguation? If it was possible to have more than one article at the same title, we would not have this problem at all. This issue is all about compensating for a glitch that is specific to our software. Kauffner (talk) 14:21, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Aside from the 30 U.S. cities, the AP lists 27 cities in other countries. Does anyone think we should follow those lists? Kauffner (talk) 01:57, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

(ec) In re the choice selection above — how could such an RfC possibly provide a result except by counting noses? Weighing arguments (especially since some will propose different choices). I think one could make a point for "A. except NYC" or "B. except disambiguate the few examples which are the most common US place, but not necessarily the most common place or usage". Personally, I think somewhere between those two choices would be optimal. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:33, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

• What I want to know is, Why are U.S. cities treated differently than "Czech, Romanian and Albanian"? The only eastern European city on the AP list is Moscow, so all the rest should be disambiguated. Kauffner (talk) 13:26, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

  Good question, but Europe is much older than the U.S. and many U.S. cities were named after European cities. Speaking from experience, adding France to Paris would not help a lot of Americans - they can not even locate the U.S. on a map of the world, let alone Paris or France. Most are familiar with names of U.S. states, but not with names of European countries. Apteva (talk) 22:05, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

  Apteva, I think that's a little harsh. The reason we don't say "Paris, France" (or to use a less prominent city, the reason we don't say "Ulm, Germany" or "Assisi, Italy") is not because we've never heard of France or Germany or Italy. The reason is that the French and Germans and Italians don't do it that way. --MelanieN (talk) 22:11, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

  Except we do commonly refer to Paris as Paris, France (93,100,000 results), but that's not sufficient reason to have the article at the longer name, Paris, France. Nor is the fact that we sometimes refer to Chula Vista as Chula Vista, California a reason to have that primary topic city at its longer name. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:29, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Is avoidance an effective way to resolve a contentious issue?

Mike Cline, above you wrote: "And it is that contention which we should seek to avoid as it is unproductive in the long run.".

We agree the issue is contentious. But avoidance is often not the solution to resolving contention, as was demonstrated in the 8-year-long yogurt/yoghurt case, in the debates about whether TV episode names should always be disambiguated by series name, or only when necessary for disambiguation, and in countless other cases. Often it's best to take a step back, and imagine what would occur if a given proposal was enacted, without regard to its current popularity. My main argument at yogurt/yoghurt was that because the initial use argument applied only to yogurt (the article was created as Yogurt) and not to yoghurt, once the article was moved back to yogurt, it would remain stable there, because there would be no strong argument to move it back to yoghurt. The argument was dismissed for years, favoring those similar to yours here (it doesn't really matter, just leave it alone, etc. , etc.). The discussion, debate and contentious situation went on and on and on, sometimes calming down, but always eventually heating up again (sound familiar?) until, finally, the article was moved, and the issue was resolved, finally, as I had argued all along.

My argument here is similar. Once we bring USPLACE in better compliance with other titles (disambiguate with state only when the primary topic for the concise common city name is not the city in question), the argument to go back to disambiguating US city articles titles with the state even when the city is the primary topic for the concise common city name would have no strong basis - so the issue will be resolved, finally.

If one's goal is genuinely to reduce contention, then bringing US city articles titles in better compliance with how our other articles are titled, in particular with respect to disambiguating with state only when the city is not the primary topic of the plain city name (as objectively and easily determined by whether the plain city name currently redirects to the article about the city), must be the favored position. There is no good reason to believe that any contention about USPLACE will ever be resolved as long as the current guideline remains. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:42, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

B2C, I think there are two ideas in play here and from my perspective one giant unanswered question. One idea, yours, is that Primary Topic ought to be in play for US place names. Another idea here is, mine, that any contentious debate about US place article names based on our naming convention is wasted energy. And Primary Topic is one title policy that lends itself wholesale to wasted energy. Since anyone can assert that their favorite place is the Primary Topic, we must find ourselves in endless discussion as to whether or not their favorite city should be at [City], [State] or just at [City]. The one giant question—if from this day forward we didn’t change one US place name, didn’t have another US place name RM and all US Place names ~19,300 stayed exactly as they are today, what would be the detrimental impact to WP. IMHO, zero, nada, zilch and whatever other expression one might think of. What is the net benefit to WP in having contentious naming discussions based on Primary Name for US Places? I seek to avoid contentious RM discussions with a naming convention that is simple and uncontestable. You seek to foster contentious RM discussions by introducing another variable for US place names that in the end, provides nothing substantively better than what we have today. We must agree to have different points of view on this. --Mike Cline (talk) 19:24, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

It's hard not to view this as a disagreement with the very idea of RMs. I can assert, for example, that Michael Dawson (footballer) is the primary topic for "Michael Dawson" because WP:ILIKEIT ("Since anyone can assert that their favorite place is the Primary Topic"), but if I can't present compelling evidence for my position, people will oppose the RM, it will be closed as not moved, and life goes on. Unless a user gets disruptive or pointy with such moves, one editor's "waste of time" RM is another editor's valuable discussion for maximizing encyclopedic accuracy or integrity. If the purpose of USPLACE is to suppress RMs, I'm sure we could come up with all sorts of regimes to do so in other areas. I'd love to see the RM backlog shrink or disappear, but this isn't what I had in mind! --BDD (talk) 19:51, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

-----

Mike, we're going around in circles, as you are again ignoring the point I have made repeatedly: the issue of Primary Topic is resolved for all articles within the USPLACE domain, because for every article, either the plain city name redirects to the city article (and therefore the community has decided that city is the primary topic for that plain city name), or it doesn't (some other article, or a dab page, is at the plain city name). You keep ignoring this point, and making statements like this: "Since anyone can assert that their favorite place is the Primary Topic, we must find ourselves in endless discussion as to whether or not their favorite city should be at [City], [State] or just at [City]". Well, sure, but that's true with the current situation too, so that's not an argument against the proposal.

If you really don't see this, perhaps we should look at an actual example, like Beverly Hills, instead of hand-waving theoretically. Even though there are many Beverly Hills, the WP community has decided that the one in CA is the Primary Topic, as Beverly Hills redirects to the article about that Beverly Hills. Now, if we move the article currently at Beverly Hills, California to Beverly Hills, nothing (but the title) changes. That is, someone who might challenge the Primacy of that topic can do so just the same regardless of whether the Beverly Hills is a redirect to the article (as it is currently), or if the article is at Beverly Hills (as I propose). Either way, it is and would be the Primary Topic, and that can be challenged just the same. There is absolutely no change with respect to the Primary Topic situation if the article is moved to the shorter name, since it's already recognized to be the Primary Topic.

As to your "big question" - what would be the detrimental impact if nothing changed - this too has been already addressed, and you've ignored that, though that was stated in terms of what the benefits of changing would be (the flip-side of your "big question" coin). But to answser it again, this time in the terms you're using most recently, the main detriment to not changing is that the contentious situation you say is unproductive would remain unresolved (and unproductive) indefinitely.

I also explained that just above, by comparing this to the yogurt/yoghurt situation. No, they're not exactly the same (most notably, that was one article; this is about hundreds), but the similarities are aplenty, especially with respect to the essence of the arguments on each side. Both here and at yogurt/yoghurt the main argument in support of status quo is/was the claim that the current situation is "fine", "not detrimental to WP", doesn't require a change, etc., while the main argument in favor of change is that the proposed change will finally resolve a contentious situation that has been going on for years. There are other arguments, too, of course, like consistency with how other city articles are titled. --Born2cycle (talk) 20:29, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

No, they're not exactly the same (most notably, that was one article; this is about hundreds) Well, to be more accurate, this is about thousands of articles, affecting hundreds of thousands of Wikipedians - compared to the very small but vocal group who cared about how to spell "yogurt".
As I see it, there are two very firm "sides" to this question, which is why it has been so unproductive to even try for consensus. On the one side, you have the "title purists", who insist on the primacy of "concise" and "primary topic," and who won't even acknowledge other equally-valid criteria for titles such as "common name" and "reliable sources". Most of these folks are either non-Americans (so they don't understand how central "states" are to our thinking) or else they are title specialists (who think every title of every article ought to be done exactly the same way). These folks are a small fraction of Wikipedians, but they are well represented in discussions. On the other side you have the USPLACE folks, tens of thousands of them. I suspect that group is entirely American, since Americans understand why we do city names this way. These people are here to improve the encyclopedia, by adding or improving content. They want to be able to link to city names in a way that is convenient and natural to them - namely "city, state", the way we always do it in America. These folks are not title fanatics, they don't care about in-fighting over Wikipedia rules and guidelines, and so they don't watch-list Wikipedia policy pages (which is why, as BDD noted, the discussion on this page tends to be anti-USPLACE) or even Request For Comment pages (half of them don't even know what RFC stands for, they're not into Wikijargon). The USPLACE folks are not here on this page, unless it gets called to their attention somehow; they are out in the weeds, creating content. But when a discussion crops up on an article talk page, they become aware of it and they make their point: "Just leave us alone, let us write city names the way we always do, and spare us all the wikilawyering about 'unnecessary disambiguation'." They may be under-represented in discussions, but as content creators they are very important to the encyclopedia - and they like USPLACE as it is. The USPLACE convention has been in use for a long time, it is clear, it is stable, and there would be no contention if the "title purists" would just leave it alone and move on to something else. --MelanieN (talk) 23:02, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

I am watching this from the other side of the pond- and try hard not do edits on topics on your side. But to stop this getting too introspective here are few ideas. A link to quoted style guides and city lists would be helpful. Secondly, if I am to do a search for a US city- the autofill throws up suggestion of available articles and a statename confirms for me that it is a US city. An example being Boston, Massachusetts which tells me that I have found the one in the US, rather than the considerable older settlement of Boston, Lincolnshire. Thirdly, personally it is of little importance unless the decision is used in future to impose that style on other countries that have established traditions that are at variance to ones possible in the US, then I could not support a solution that is based on the POV of third party publishers. Grüssli--ClemRutter (talk) 23:06, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. I agree with you that this convention should not be used anyplace where it is not already the norm. Nobody is suggesting that other countries should add the name of the county, départment, province, or other such entity to the names of cities - that wouldn't be right, because the folks who live there don't do it that way. The "state" equivalent is just a political convenience in other countries, not a deep part of your thinking. You might understand how much the states are a part of our thinking here, if you reflect on what the name of our country is. --MelanieN (talk) 23:28, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

I think your point about 'unnecessary disambiguation' is interesting. There is a small but growing consensus that titles need to be informative. To those that oppose 'unnecessary disambiguation' or 'pre disambiguation' this is simply an unacceptable suggestion. Why should a link not be clear about what it is about? Why should a read have to sort though three or 4 articles to find out what country they are reading about? Why do we ignore WP:COMMONSENSE? Vegaswikian (talk) 23:25, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree the group of those favoring informative-beyond-most-common-name titles is small. How you ascertain that it's growing, much less that it's anything close to a consensus, I have no idea.

I don't understand your question about links not being clear. What link is not clear? As to why a reader should have to sort through 3 or 4 articles to find out what country they are reading about... what are you talking about? We're talking only about articles for which the primary topic for the short city name in question is the US city. If there are 3 or 4 articles associated with a given name, then either one is clearly the dominant use in English, and thus the primary topic, or none of them all. What's the problem? --Born2cycle (talk) 00:03, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

You are clearly in the camp of avoiding titles you can class as pre disambiguation. WP:COMMONSENSE is not a valid argument to you. I can understand why you may not be aware of the problems your position causes since your spend most of your time on policy pages and not actually using the encyclopedia. If you need an example, there are thousands of them out there. Not hard to find if you want to look. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:20, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

To the contrary, WP:COMMONSENSE is one reason why I favor using the most common name for any topic as that article's title, whenever reasonably possible. Please do explain your points, with examples, about unclear links and readers having to sort "through 3 or 4 articles to find out what country they are reading about". I honestly don't know what you're talking about, and, unless you demonstrate otherwise, you seem not to either. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:29, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

• Melanie, do you have any evidence for this silent majority of USPLACE fans who don't know what an RFC is? How would we gauge the opinions of such uninformed editors? --BDD (talk) 00:07, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

They are not "uninformed", thankyouverymuch. They are just not involved with the non-content areas of the wiki (areas like this). When I am writing out in the "real world" of Wikipedia, as opposed to the "insider" areas, I am careful to spell out what I mean rather than the constant lazy repetition of jargon and acronyms. When we sprinkle our posts with BLP, XFD, RFC, DYK, ANI, RFA, and the like, we are unintentionally excluding a lot of people, including many regular editors here. Personally I have been here for 6+ years and have almost 15,000 edits, and yet I often have to look up some of these terms thrown around by Wiki-insiders. --MelanieN (talk) 03:56, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I didn't mean any disrespect, but RFC is one of the more common bits of alphabet soup served around here. An editor who doesn't know what it means is uninformed—not dumb, not ignorant, just not yet informed. But again I ask, what makes you think the large mass of such editors supports USPLACE? It doesn't seem falsifiable; I could just as easily say they're frustrated with unnnecessary disambiguation. But if you have evidence, I'd be glad to hear it. --BDD (talk) 05:39, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I tend to agree that RFC is one of the most established acronyms in the real world. On the other hand, B2C is completely wrong as to the titling policies relating to USPLACE, also as usual. WP:COMMONNAME actually does suggest City, State in the US, with few exceptions. (Probably fewer than the AP list, in fact.) And, although not falsifiable, it is rational to assume that more of those in favor of the status quo are silent than those opposed. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:27, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

What do you think I have said here that is "completely wrong as to the titling policies relating to USPLACE", Arthur? Policy details and caveats aside, I observe that Wikipedians generally don't disambiguate our titles unless the disambiguation is necessary, but the current USPLACE guideline indicates titles like Cleveland Heights, Ohio (rather than Cleveland Heights) that are contrary to this general convention, and this sets up an inherent conflict that has produced countless conflicts over the last 10 years, and will do so for the next 10 years, unless USPLACE is brought in line with disambiguate [with state] only when necessary (when the city is not the unique use or primary topic of its concise name). --Born2cycle (talk) 16:06, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Here's an excellent example of why we need to eliminate further change to USPlace Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Regardless of how it got to where it is today, the battle over USPLACE and unnecessary DAB, Primary Topic, Commonname, et al results in contentious behavior and debate. To what end? Nothing positive for the encyclopedia and its millions of readers ever comes out of these discussion. They just waste endless voluteer energy on both sides of the discussion as both sides think their side is best for WP and will defend it endlessly. Let's make USPLACE uncontestable and end these types of waste. --Mike Cline (talk) 14:50, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

That would make it quite a privileged guideline indeed. We could freeze all other naming conventions while we're at it. --BDD (talk) 15:06, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

LOL, Mike. The Cleveland Heights, Ohio controversy is occurring under the current guideline! It exemplifies the very reason we need to change the guideline! A well-meaning experienced editor moved it back in August to be consistent with how we title articles on WP in general... remove unnecessary disambiguatory information! Naturally! Organically! It is the type of controversy that will be eliminated when we finally remove the "USA exceptionalism" contrivances of USPLACE and bring it in line with the same disambiguate only when necessary conventions we use for almost all of our titles, including most of our city articles, because that article would be moved to Cleveland Heights, once and for all, and there would be no basis for any disagreement about that ever again.

Anyone seriously interested in stopping the waste of volunteer energy on silly debates about USPLACE titles would be looking to bring USPLACE in line with how we title most of our articles on WP. --Born2cycle (talk) 15:19, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I had intended to ask that original mover of the article why they happened to do it, and whether it was because someone asked them to (the move required administrator help because a redirect page had to be deleted). However, I see that Born2cycle has already contacted that editor, not just to ask for information, but to solicit [2] them to come to this discussion and support b2c's point of view. Why am I not surprised? --MelanieN (talk) 17:04, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Does WP:CANVASS really apply to informal discussions? --BDD (talk) 19:12, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

User:MelanieN offered a theory above on why these conversations are unproductive and see few new participants. Here's another theory: we have two sets of users with very strong opinions, and they don't hesitate to make those opinions known. They voluminously argue with each other for years, making exactly the same points over and over and over. Neither side will drown out the other, but that doesn't stop them from trying. There's probably a workable compromise out there, but it won't be found when all we do is talk past each other. I suspect that there are many users who haven't weighed in and would like to see this resolved, but are smart enough to stay away from such a toxic atmosphere. Can you blame them? - Eureka Lott 23:00, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Welcome! I must ask... what is toxic here? There are very few personal comments of any kind, much less attacks. There is certainly some talking past each other (I've caught myself missing points in the past, but never intentionally). It's mostly a reasonable and civil exposition of the arguments on both sides, so far as I can tell. I'm really curious as to why it seems toxic to you, and, presumably, uninviting. Thanks! --Born2cycle (talk) 23:16, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Toxic may have been a bit of an overstatement. Polarized is probably more apt. Participants on both sides have dug in their heels to such an extent that compromise seems impossible. The argument goes on, year after year, across who-knows-how-many talk pages, with no sign of getting closer to a resolution. You talk so much that you don't read carefully, and failed to notice that this is my fourth post in this thread. - Eureka Lott 23:41, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Toxic is perhaps not such an exaggeration. The situation is much as I predicted when we were discussing the first attempt at compromise to use the AP list. I suggested then that this would not satisfy the anti-convention faction. There is little point in attempting to compromise with parties whose ultimate goal is to completely undo the position of the other party. older ≠ wiser 23:55, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. Older/wiser, you said it well, and EurekaLott, you are mistaken in blaming the intransigence on both sides. I and other supporters of USPLACE have expressed a willingness to consider using other Reliable Sources which would provide a longer list of exceptions. But these suggestions get absolutely no response or movement from the blow-it-up faction, so I don't see any likelihood of such a resolution. It would merely be a way for the anti-USPLACE faction to keep moving the center line closer and closer to their ultimate goal, which is a complete elimination of the city, state convention. They are not willing to budge an inch from their absolute opposition to any kind of "unnecessary disambiguation" (in their awkward but beloved phrase), and that is why no resolution is likely. (See "bipartisanship"). --MelanieN (talk) 00:15, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Isn't supporting the use of city, state whenever disambiguation of city is required still using the city, state convention, and not favoring "complete elimination" of it? Especially considering that probably the majority of US cities have names that require disambiguation? So, what's wrong with using the city, state convention only when disambiguation of city is required? Is that not a reasonable compromise proposal? What's unreasonable about it? Thanks! --Born2cycle (talk) 00:27, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

That is not a compromise; that amounts to "be reasonable, do it my way." --MelanieN (talk) 01:09, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually, "my way" would be to disambiguate, when necessary, using the standard WP disambiguation form, City (State). Now do you see how disambiguating with a comma is a compromise?

Now, will you explain what's unreasonable about using the city, state convention only when disambiguation of city is required? Or do you just not like it? --Born2cycle (talk) 03:57, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I have explained until I am blue in the face, and after all our conversations about this, it is discouraging and a failure of AGF to see you claim that I haven't explained and invoke WP:ILIKEIT. Nutshell version of my reasoning: "City, State" is the standard way that Americans name a city, both in writing and in conversation. We do this automatically, all the time, whether or not the city name is unique. We do it because it is part of our thinking and part of our culture. Thus, the "city, state" formulation is the correct way to title articles here per WP:COMMONNAME. In addition, that format (with certain specified exceptions) is used by Reliable Sources such as the AP and the NYT; thus it is the correct way to title articles here per WP:RS. You don't add any credibility to your arguments here, or shed any luster on yourself, by dismissing all my previous points as if I never made them.
As for it being some kind of compromise to use "City, State" instead of "City (State)," that's no compromise. It doesn't address the issue under contention. That issue (from your point of view) is whether to disambiguate, not how to disambiguate. The issue (from my point of view) is not about "ambiguity" at all; it's to use the "full name" of the city just as Americans always do - not because of any ambiguity issue, but because "city, state" is our version of the Common Name. --MelanieN (talk) 14:31, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Maybe it's just me, but when I'm asked why position X is unreasonable, I don't believe I normally respond by stating that I've explained why position Y is reasonable, and do it again, completely ignoring the question asked about position X.

Or, are you assuming it's impossible for both position X and position Y to be reasonable? That is, when you say "the "city, state" formulation is the correct way to title articles here per WP:COMMONNAME", are you saying any other way is the incorrect way? By this reasoning New York City is wrong, and the "correct way" is to title it New York, New York. Is that your position? --Born2cycle (talk) 18:25, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

"Unreasonable" was your word, not mine. I'm not going to get entangled in a bunch of semantics, and I don't find it helpful to try to characterize our own and other people's positions as "reasonable" or "common sense" or the reverse. Such self-righteous characterizations simply muddy the water. You know my position on this issue: It's that "city, state" is the natural and standard way to name American cities, with agreed-upon exceptions for some of the largest/best known cities. --MelanieN (talk) 15:19, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

So your position is that it's unnatural and non-standard to refer to Sacramento as Sacramento? Chula Vista as Chula Vista? Frellsen as Frellsen? Maywood Park as Maywood Park? Sugar Land as Sugar Land? Really? I suggest people familiar with each of those cities would strongly disagree. And people unfamiliar with them would not refer to them at all. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:29, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

It is a matter of proximity. If someone is in Rome, New York, they refer to Rome, New York simply as "Rome". If they are in California, they would choose between Rome and Rome, New York (or some other state) or Rome, Italy, depending on if they had just been talking about something that would provide context or not. On the Internet within an article there may be a context, but the article title itself inherently provides no hint of context without providing the state. Eleven U.S. states have a place named Rome, according to the disambiguation page. The current method is simple and easy to apply. Apteva (talk) 23:09, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Except we're not talking about cities like Rome, New York with ambiguous names. We're talking about cities like Chula Vista, which are the primary topics for their names. If I'm in New York talking to someone familiar with Chula Vista (say anyone from the San Diego area), then I don't qualify it with California. Even if I'm talking to someone from Manhattan, if from the context of the conversation it's clear I'm talking about a city near San Diego, I won't qualify with California. ", California" is not part of its name; it's just a convenient and standard way to specify what state it's in, when that's necessary. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:55, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)EurekaLott, my failure to notice that this is your fourth post in this thread suggests that I don't read carefully? Sorry! Nothing personal. I hope you're not offended.

Is it possible that I do read carefully, but I focus much more on what is said, rather than on who is saying it? Does my commentary not amply demonstrate that it is based on a careful reading of what others are saying?

The polarization is probably a fair assessment, but, to find consensus, shouldn't focus be given to evaluating and questioning the arguments made by both sides, rather than on how entrenched the participants may be? I remember the suggestion a few years ago about changing USPLACE to go by some population cutoff (though I didn't remember that it was you who made that proposal). I would favor any proposal that brings treatment of US city titles closer to treatment of other WP article titles, but it seems contrived to me, albeit no more contrived than the current AP list determination. And isn't the contrivance, or, more generally, treating US city articles differently from other articles, the main cause for all the dispute about USPLACE in general, and in individual USPLACE debates? If so, then swapping one contrived special treatment for another probably doesn't address the underlying problem, does it? I mean, isn't the main overwhelming reason people favor city for a title over city, state because we generally favor name over name, something in most of our other titles (whenever name is unique or this use is primary), and that people favor city, state over city primarily because USPLACE says so? I mean, if USPLACE didn't say so, then wouldn't the title of any US city be just city, if its name was unique or that city was primary for that name, just like we title all of our articles?

Call it polarized if you want, but isn't the position that the only way to resolve the problem caused by special/inconsistent treatment of US cities is to end the special treatment really just a simple objective observation of the situation? --Born2cycle (talk) 00:17, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

This isn't about avoidance; it's about accepting a precedent and moving forward without continually disrupting Wikipedia. The principle of stare decisis (that courts should generally abide by precedent and not disturb settled matters) that is followed in legal systems is a sensible one for Wikipedia, too. This principle avoids the continual disruption that would occur if courts considered each question de novo. If certain people would accept the USPLACE article-naming precedent established in Wikipedia, and stop insisting on de novo consideration of every article name, Wikipedia would be a far more pleasant place. --Orlady (talk) 16:26, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

The same argument, in essence, was made in favor of leaving Yoghurt at Yoghurt for 8 or 9 years, ignoring that it was not the same people who kept bringing up the issue, but new people, time and time again, for the same reasonable reasons. The issue was finally resolved by moving the article to a title that was consistent with other WP guidelines.

If you are unable to see that we have the same situation here (times N, where N is the fraction of US cities that are the primary topic for their names), and insist instead on blaming the messengers - those of us who simply point out what should be obvious - I can't help you, just as I couldn't help those who fought so hard to keep Yoghurt at Yoghurt, ironically in the name of "not disturbing settled matters", when the matter could be, and ultimately was, actually and finally settled only when most of them accepted what was always inevitable. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:25, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

USPLACE Collaborative Workspace: PROs and CONs of various positions

NOTE: Please edit this section collaboratively just like an article (no signatures). The idea is to present in one place all reasonable positions with respect to USPLACE, and list the appropriate PROs and CONs for each, as fairly and concisely as possible.

AP list (30 cities) Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Honolulu, Houston, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York City, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington.

New York Times list (59 cities plus New York City) Albany, Albuquerque, Anchorage, Atlanta, Atlantic City, Baltimore, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Colorado Springs, Dallas, Denver, Des Moines, Detroit, El Paso, Fort Worth, Hartford, Hollywood, Honolulu, Houston, Indianapolis, Iowa City, Jersey City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Memphis, Miami, Miami Beach, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Nashville, Newark, New Haven, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Omaha, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Rochester, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, St. Paul, Syracuse, Trenton, Tucson, Virginia Beach, Washington, White Plains, Yonkers.

1. All US cities use [[Cityname, Statename]].
   • PRO:
     1. Simple. Predictable. No exceptions.
     2. Using a US city's "full name", which arguably includes ", Statename", is not disambiguation.
     3. Meets WP:Common name; most Americans standardly use "city, state" in both in writing and in conversation, regardless of whether the city name is unique. (If I say I come from Missoula, most Americans will reply "Missoula, Montana?" - even though the name Missoula is unique.)
     4. "City, state" for American cities, with a few clearly-defined exceptions, is the standard followed by WP:Reliable sources such as newspapers.
     5. Does not affect the naming of cities in any other country, because other countries do not follow this standard.
     6. Provides simplicity for use of (City, State) in disambiguation, as in First Presbyterian Church (Nashville, Arkansas) being the clear name of NRHP-listed building. And all 14 other notable Arkansas churches of name "First Presbyterian Church" get same predictable name. See First Presbyterian Church (disambiguation). It would be nightmarish to keep track of which obscure places within Arkansas have a temporarily unique name, until it is found not to be unique.
     7. Only option that finally resolves debate about USPLACE and related titles. Provides a simple system which can only result in confusion if [[Cityname, Statename]] is ambiguous.
   • CON:
     1. Any convention that indicates titles other than the concise common name for the topic, except when necessary for disambiguation, inherently conflicts with normal WP conventions, and is bound to foster discontent and contention. We have a 9+ year history of many people objecting to this format on the grounds that we don't disambiguate concise commonly used names of most other cities for their titles, no matter how obscure they may be, unless there is an ambiguity conflict within WP to be resolved.
     2. While [[Cityname, Statename]] may also be commonly used to refer to a given city, there is no question that [[Cityname]] is more concise, is more commonly used among those familiar with the city, and just as precise, when the city is the primary topic for that name.
     3. People are much more rarely the primary topic of a concise name than are cities, but when they are, we do use that for the article title (e.g., Cher, not Cherilyn Sarkisian). This is also true for almost all of our titles. There is no good reason US cities which are the primary topic for their names should be treated any differently.
     4. Treats American cities differently from others.
     5. If USPLACE dictates [[Cityname, Statename]] for a given city, then that city's relative importance is diminished in determining the primary topic for [[Cityname]], so another use is likely to be found primary for that name, rather than making it a dab page (e.g., Cambridge is about the English city, not a dab page, despite how prominent the Cambridge in Massachusetts is). To many, an article being at a title other than its concise name per a guideline like USPLACE is giving up consideration for that topic in determining the primary topic for the concise name.
     6. Doesn't follow WP:COMMONNAME, especially for cities with unique names, because ", California" is not part of the name of a city like Chula Vista; it's just a convenient and standard way to specify what state it's in, when that's necessary. When it's not necessary, it's normally not included[3] [4] [5] [6] [7], nor should it be in a WP title.
     7. Even when a US city name is qualified by state in reliable sources, there is no evidence that the full state name is most commonly used as is represented by this convention. At least as often the 2-letter or other abbreviation for the state is used.
2. All US cities, except New York City, use [[Cityname, Statename]].
   • PRO: Simple. See PRO for #1. Only one well-known exception for which there is especially strong consensus support for dropping the state name.
   • CON:
     1. Unnecessary disambiguation. See CON for #1.
3. Cities on the AP list (30 cities) which are the primary topic for their concise names use [[Cityname]]; all other US cities use [[Cityname, Statename]].
   • PRO:
     1. Status quo in use for years. This is the current convention, which should only be overturned for good reason, per WP:TITLE.
     2. See PRO for #1. Fairly simple. A few well-known exceptions. Good compromise.
     3. Based on WP:Reliable sources.
   • CON:
     1. Unnecessary disambiguation. See CON for #1.
     2. Uses primary topic evaluation to determine whether the concise name is the title (e.g., Washington is not the title of the article about the city) arbitrarily for only cities on the AP list, rather than for all US cities.
4. Cities on the AP list or the New York Times list (60 cities) which are the primary topic for their concise names use [[Cityname]]; all other US cities use [[Cityname, Statename]].
   • PRO:
     1. See PRO for #1. Expands current list to more exceptions.
     2. Based on WP:Reliable sources.
   • CON:
     1. Unnecessary disambiguation. See CON for #1.
     2. Uses primary topic evaluation to determine whether the concise name is the title arbitrarily for only cities on the AP or NYT lists, rather than for all US cities.
5. City entries in Britannica and Columbia without the state in the entry name (~250 cities) and which are the primary topic for their concise names use [[Cityname]]; all other US cities use [[Cityname, Statename]].
   • PRO:
     1. See PRO for #1. Expands current list to even more exceptions than Option 4.
     2. Based on WP:Reliable sources.
   • CON:
     1. Retains ", state" in title as unnecessary disambiguation for all cities which are the primary topic for their respective city names, but not so treated on Brittanica and Columbia. See CON for #1.
     2. Not simple or clearcut. The list of relevant cities may not be readily available. Even the actual number ("~250 cities") seems to be in doubt.
     3. Uses primary topic evaluation to determine whether the concise name is the title arbitrarily for only certain cities, rather than for all US cities.
6. Cities with population over a certain threshold, like 100,000, and are the primary topic for their concise names, use [[Cityname]]; all other US cities use [[Cityname, Statename]].
   • PRO: Expands current list to even more exceptions than Option 5.
   • CON:
     1. Retains ", state" in title as unnecessary disambiguation for all cities with population below the threshold even if they are the primary topic for their respective city names. See CON for #1.
     2. Purely arbitrary criterion with no basis in Reliable Sources.
     3. Uses primary topic evaluation to determine whether the concise name is the title arbitrarily for only certain cities, rather than for all US cities.
7. Cities which are the primary topic for their name use [[Cityname]]; all other US cities use [[Cityname, Statename]].
   • PRO:
     1. Simple. Follows WP:TITLE, using USPLACE only when disambiguation is required.
     2. Only option that consistently uses primary topic evaluation to determine whether the concise name is the title for all US cities, not arbitrarily for only certain cities.
     3. Only option that finally resolves debate about USPLACE and related titles. By using the state-qualified long-form of a city name only when necessary for disambiguation, the underlying problem of treating US cities specially is solved. If adopted, then all US city titles could be objectively determined without debate based on whether the city is the primary topic for it's concise city name, a question which is already resolved for all US cities.
     4. Affects only those cities in which [[Cityname]] currently is a redirect to [[Cityname, Statename]].
     5. Contrary to claims to the contrary, has no effect on number of primary topic debates. Whether a city is the primary topic for [[Cityname]] has to be determined regardless of whether [[Cityname]] is being considered as the title for the article or as a redirect to the article.
     6. Referring to a US city which is the primary topic for its name, by its name, is not an unfamiliar system to most Americans.
   • CON:
     1. Less familiar system to most Americans, who standardly refer to cities by "city, state".
     2. Not the way it is done by Reliable Sources such as newspapers and encyclopedias.
     3. Overturns an existing convention which has been stable for years.

Discussion about Workspace

I think it's important that the "pro" and "con" arguments be as short as possible - ideally a few words or a single sentence, not an essay with examples and arguments. If it gets too wordy, people will dismiss the entire survey as TL;DR. Some of B2C's pros and cons and rebuttals are already approaching this level; I would hope that B2C would condense them himself rather than having others condense them for him. --MelanieN (talk) 16:43, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Having had a past experience with an RfC in which the pro/con sections which were too long, I concur. The shorter the whole thing is, the better. There will be a discussion area anyway where each pro/con point can be further explained if necessary.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); November 1, 2012; 16:53 (UTC)

And defer rebuttals to the discussion. Dicklyon (talk) 16:55, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Fully concur with Dicklyon on this. Let the PROs and CONs stand on their merits. Allowing rebuttals inline just allows someone to say loudly I don't agree, therefore I must discredit this position ASAP. --Mike Cline (talk) 17:22, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

One point not brought up as a con is that some editors believe that since these names are disambiguated, they can not be the primary topic when compared with other localities. Vegaswikian (talk) 17:34, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand that point, or which choice it is a "con" to; but can you reduce it to a sentence and add it to the arguments above? --MelanieN (talk) 17:43, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

It is a con for most/all of them. Editors use the USPLACE convention to argue that any article that follows this naming gives up is claim to cityname and must stay at cityname, statename. This has been raised in a number of WP:RM discussions. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:23, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Completely concur on this issue. In past WP:RM discussions attempting to move unqualified British city names (including Worcester, Dover and Plymouth) to disambiguated titles due to the lack of a clear primary topic, many editors opposing the moves have argued that since American cities must be titled using the CITYNAME, STATENAME convention (whereas British cities can simply be titled as CITYNAME), the British cities have an automatic claim to the unqualified title - even if the primary topic is not clear and a dab page may be more suitable. The best example is probably Worcester, Massachusetts, which is a larger city and gets more page hits than Worcester, Worcestershire; however, the British city remains at the unqualified title based on the above reasoning. IMO, this is a good reason why making USPLACE consistent with worldwide geographic naming conventions would be beneficial. Cheers, Rai•me 16:03, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Can someone explain to me why this extensive discussion about a US-specific matter is happening here at all and not, for example at say Wikipedia:WikiProject United States? Ben MacDui 18:05, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Because this is where country-specific conventions are located. Check the archives for similar discussions regarding other countries that took place here. Plus, one aspect of the debate is whether and how the USPLACE convention fits into the WP-wide titling scheme, which has been of interest to non-U.S. editors. Dohn joe (talk) 18:14, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

There are some such discussions of course, but I find it hard to imagine this endless and protracted discussion about US places, which keeps cropping up, is of great interest to many editors who are not interested in US places as such. I shall be taking this off my watch list for a while. Perhaps someone would be kind enough to let me know if something of interest on a different topic crops up meantime? Ben MacDui 17:42, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Question: In option #1, "CON" point #1, it says the dispute has been going on for "10+ years". Since Wikipedia itself has only been around for 11 years, that suggests that the dispute goes back to the very earliest days of the pedia, and I doubt if that can be proven. The current convention ("city, state" except for the AP Stylebook cities) appears to be only 4 years old.[8] I suspect "10+ years" is an untenable exaggeration but I am open to evidence. --MelanieN (talk) 19:42, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Good catch. The earliest related discussion I can find (in a few minutes) is from July 2003[9]... so 9+ years. Fixed. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:59, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

My understanding is that after the 2000 census, a bot created articles for most places in the US using the city, state naming. That has been referenced in older discussions on this issue. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:44, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

B2C, you put this back in after I took it out once: under PROs for your preferred solution you listed " Only option that finally resolves debate about USPLACE and related titles. By using the state-qualified long-form of a city name only when necessary for disambiguation, the underlying problem of treating US cities specially is solved. If adopted, then all US city titles could be objectively determined without debate based on whether the city is the primary topic for it's concise city name, a question which is already resolved for all US cities." In the first place, your arguments are getting wordy and argumentative again (you are probably going to have to go through again and again and condense your arguments down to a single sentence; if you don't, someone will have to do it for you). In the second place, people can still argue about the "resolved" question of which city is the primary topic. But most important, your claim that your preferred method is the "only option that finally resolves" the debate is POV and unjustified. It could just as well be argued that the current AP convention is the "only option that finally resolves" the debate, since it has been in place for four years and seems to win every current argument on the subject. Your preferred option is not going to eliminate those "organic, grass roots" suggestions that you are so fond of when they support your side; for example, when somebody in the future tries to change Sleepy Eye to Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, or Cayucos to Cayucos, California. The only recourse to such a suggestion will be for you or your equivalent to charge in and say, "sorry, reject, that's not part of the agreed upon convention" - just as happens now, over your strong objections, when someone wants to remove a state name. In any case, either take out your unjustified claim that doing it your way will "finally resolve the debate", or I will add the same argument as a PRO for the AP convention. --MelanieN (talk) 01:54, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Regarding "wordy" - this is a work in progress, not even a day old, and getting the arguments stated is Step 1 - stating them concisely comes later. But thanks for the heads up!

It's true that people will be able to argue about whether a given city is the primary topic for its name, but this is true regardless of whether the city is at its short name or its long name. That part of it has nothing to do with the ongoing 9+ year debate related to USPLACE. I mean, consider Menlo Park. Currently it's a dab page with three places, while the city in CA is at Menlo Park, California. But it being at its long title does not prevent someone from arguing that the CA city is the primary topic, and so Menlo Park should be moved to Menlo Park (disambiguation) so that Menlo Park can redirect to Menlo Park, California. That is, following the comma convention does nothing to prevent, inhibit or settle this type of argument.

Arguing about redirects vs. dab pages will always be possible, but the "primary topic" issue becomes much less relevant if we are using the "city, state" convention. But that wasn't my main point. I was just challenging your smug assertion that the question of primary topic has been "resolved," for all U.S. cities for all time. --MelanieN (talk) 04:35, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I never said "for all time". That's a straw man.

Smug? The issue is about as resolved as any issue ever is on WP. Even Las Vegas and St. Louis seem to have been resolved, finally. Do you know of any cases where the question of primary topic regarding a US city is not resolved? As far as I know the issue of primary topic is resolved for every single US city in one of the following ways:

1. It is the primary topic for its concise city name, demonstrated by the concise city name being the title of the article (e.g., San Francisco).
2. It is the primary topic for its concise city name, demonstrated by the concise city name being a redirect to the article (e.g., Chula Vista → Chula Vista, California).
3. It is not the primary topic for its concise city name, demonstrated by the concise city name being a title of another article (e.g., Paris, Texas, Paris).
4. It is not the primary topic for its concise city name, demonstrated by having a dab page at the concise city name. (e.g., Portland, Oregon, Portland).

Actually, I can think of one type of case where the issue might not be as resolved as it could be, but that's because of the comma convention. This was Vegaswikian's point, about cities like Cambridge, Massachusetts, where the comma convention is used to dismiss consideration for the MA city in determining whether another use is the primary topic for "Cambridge". Flawed as their reasoning may be, enough dismiss the view counts of Cambridge, Massachusetts in determining primary topic for "Cambridge" on the grounds that since the convention disallows the article from being at Cambridge, those view counts are irrelevant to primary topic determination, that support for the English city being the primary topic has tended to achieve local consensus support.

Anyway, the inability for anyone to identify any other US cities for which the primary topic issue is not resolved is why I contend that the issue is resolved for all US cities.

I also don't see how it becomes more or less relevant depending on which convention is used. Even for Cambridge, the argument is not that that city is the primary topic and its article should be at Cambridge; the issue is always about whether the English city or the dab page should be at Cambridge, and that's the situation regardless of which convention is used for US PLACE. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:20, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

The reason this last option is the only option that finally resolves the issue is explained there: "If adopted, then all US city titles could be objectively determined without debate based on whether the city is the primary topic for it's concise city name". Yes, it's true the question of primary topic can be raised, but, again, that's true regardless of which convention is used. That is, the fact that a previously resolved primary topic decision can be raised again is not an argument against any of the options since it applies to all of the options equally. That's just a fact of life on WP due to consensus can change.

If you want to argue that the current convention resolves the issue because it wins every time it's challenged, go ahead. If that's your idea of resolved, I guess you're right.

Let's run with your Sleepy Eye example, but take it a little deeper than you did. In the current situation if someone proposes moving Sleepy Eye, Minnesota to Sleepy Eye their policy-based argument is likely to be some form of "unnecessary disambiguation", just as it was made (by an admin, by the way, not a newbie, which is significant) for the Cleveland Heights, Ohio to Cleveland Heights move in August[10]. And the only argument to move it back is "follow the rules (i.e., USPLACE)".

But if we change USPLACE to Option 7 above, and move that article to Sleepy Eye accordingly, what policy/convention-based argument might be given to move it to Sleepy Eye, Minnesota? There would be none. And the argument to leave it at Sleepy Eye would be based not only on USPLACE, but also on WP:TITLE criteria like concision, as well as unnecessary disambiguation. Sure a newbie might still occasionally make such a proposal or even a unilateral move, but it would clearly be a no contest situation. And there wouldn't be any basis for anyone to bring up this topic on this talk page either (disagree? what would the basis be?). That's why I say it would be finally resolved (as "final" as anything can be on WP, of course). Does that make sense? --Born2cycle (talk) 02:32, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

That's pretty much what I thought you would say, and what it adds up to is this: you and your faction will not accept any result here except option 7. If there is some other result - for example, if USPLACE gets reaffirmed - you will continue to regard it as "contentious" and will argue about it, here and at talk pages, every chance you get. It will be contentious because you will make it so. It makes me wonder whether this proposed RFC is worth bothering with. There is no point in going through with an RFC, if one side is going to refuse to accept the results - on the basis that their preferred version is the only correct one, or as you put it, "the only option that finally resolves debate". --MelanieN (talk) 04:35, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, reason is predictable. But it's not me nor other regulars that cause the contention that I'm trying to address with #7, and have been trying to resolve for years. I'm almost certain I've never crossed paths with the admin who moved Cleveland Heights in August (as one example off the top of my head), nor do I have anything to do with initiating all the USPLACE related moves every year, or starting discussions on this page, like #About USPLACE, still at the top of this page (as another example).

This is just like the Yogurt/Yoghurt situation, where the regulars like me who favored the move to Yogurt were blamed for all the move proposals that were made each year, year after year, even though it was almost always previously uninvolved editors who were doing it, just like here. And it's not just regulars who strongly support moves like Beverly Hills based on consistency with other titles. If you think the problem here is caused by regulars like me, you're totally missing the problem we're trying to solve, and not understanding why the issue will never be resolved as long as USPLACE stands out like sore thumb calling out for titles in a manner that blatantly contradicts how other article titles are named.

I have a theory that I have not verified. I think what happens to people is that they learn about "unnecessary disambiguation" when they try to move an article to a more informative or descriptive title, and get reverted by a clear consensus saying the move adds unnecessary disambiguation to the title. So, they get it. And go on like that for some time, supporting other titles accordingly, then one day they come upon a uniquely named US city which never-the-less has the state in its title, or they read this convoluted guideline, and they have a WTF moment. As long as this or a similar guideline remains in place, that will never change. As long as any form of the comma convention by default remains a pointless anomaly in the title namespace, people will have these WTF moments, and contention will reign. It has not subsided in the last 9+ years, and I have no reason to believe it will in the next 9. Do you?

To blame me and other regulars who support consistency with other titles for USPLACE articles for this is to ignore the evidence, including what I pointed out with the Sleepy Eye example above. It's not my fault that #7 is the only one that is going to resolve this, nor is it my fault for pointing it out. Cheers! --Born2cycle (talk) 05:14, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

The yog(h)urt contributors shows who was driving that mess. The edits here since you started are on a similar path. To act like your work is settling problems, as opposed to fueling them, seems disingenuous. How much would it hurt to leave this one working as it is? A lot less than this hurt you keep whipping up, I think. Dicklyon (talk) 05:30, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Yogurt is resolved. There hasn't been a peep about the title in the year since it was moved. And, as I always said, that would be the case as soon as it was moved, since once it was moved there would be no basis in policy or conventions to move it again. If I had been listened to when I first pointed that out, it would have been resolved years earlier. The same thing is going on here. Once Option 7 is adopted, there will be no basis in policy or conventions to disagree with it. Don't blame the messenger, even if he is wordy. :-)

By the way, the big break-through at Yogurt occurred after the various arguments were laid out so they could be compared against each other. Maybe there is hope for final resolution here too, finally. --Born2cycle (talk) 05:35, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

And my point is that the amount of ink and angst expended on yogurt would have probably been 95% less if you had not felt that you had to take every opportunity to argue with everyone who disagreed with you. Would it still be at yoghurt and still get an occasion attempt to move it to yogurt? Who knows, and who cares? It would have been a lot less disruptive and famous. But you can brag on it now, because you finally got your way, but on the rationale that we'll never be able to decide on any basis, so leave it as the first editor did it. Great triumph. But what happens now if you leave USPLACE alone? Continued disruptive move discussions forever? Or the welcome relative peace of having Born2cycle shut the fuck up for a change? Dicklyon (talk) 05:42, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) B2C, there is no hope for resolution, as long as you (and those who think like you) are unwilling to accept any "resolution" except complete agreement with you. There is no point to this RFC if you think its only acceptable outcome is "once option 7 is adopted". I suggest that this RFC process be aborted as a sham. You have apparently not proposed it in good faith, and you make it clear you will not abide by its result unless it is the result you prefer. --MelanieN (talk) 05:51, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Do you even read what I write, Melanie? You repeat your same points as if I said nothing. I accepted the AP list "compromise" several years ago, but that did not resolve the situation. Related RMs still often end up "no consensus". Nothing is resolved. Maybe I'm annoying as hell, but points like the one made at #About USPLACE have nothing to do with me or anything I ever said or did. I also had nothing to do with the contentious Beverly Hills discussion in August, that resulted "consensus is split" Talk:Beverly_Hills,_California#Requested_move_Aug_2012. Maybe all you guys have left is to make this about me. That's a good sign. --Born2cycle (talk) 06:04, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Baloney. You have NOT accepted the AP list compromise (commonly referred to as USPLACE). Every time something like Beverly Hills or Cleveland Heights comes up, you rush in and make a federal case out of what could have been a simple "revert per USPLACE" situation. The only reason you had nothing to do with the first Beverly Hills discussion was that you didn't know about it - and as soon as you found out about it, you unilaterally reopened the closed discussion, so that you could continue to hammer away at USPLACE. The truth is that these "contentious" RM's you are so worked up about are not frequent. They come up maybe three or four times a year, and could be resolved very easily by applying USPLACE. But you did not accept USPLACE, and you have made it clear you will never accept USPLACE. And that is why I say this RFC should not proceed unless you retract your insistence that only #7 will satisfy you - and agree to accept the result whatever it is. (As for "you guys making this about me" - take a look at the statistics cited by Dicklyon and it becomes clear that this IS about you to a considerable extent.) (striking that comment as unhelpful and beside the point; what I really want to know is whether you - you personally, Born2cycle - will accept the result and drop your advocacy if something other than #7 is the result of this RFC. Yes or no?) --MelanieN (talk) 14:35, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

If there is consensus support (not just barely a majority) for a proposal, I will support it, just as I have accepted that there is consensus support for disambiguating US cities with the comma convention rather than with parentheses, even though I personally support the latter.

In other words, if this discussion doesn't result in an overwhelming consensus (which you know is not going to happen), or if is closed in a way you don't like (based on "barely a majority"), you will second-guess the closer, declare the question unsettled, and continue to attack USPLACE. I think that is unacceptable. Either agree to accept the results of this RFC, or don't propose it. --MelanieN (talk) 17:43, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

By the way, this is why I think the format of the RfC is to request everyone to list all options that they find acceptable. In other words, even if option X is your 3rd favorite, if it's acceptable to you, then we should be able to recognize that as support for X. But if someone's 3rd favorite is Y, and that's unacceptable to them, then we should also be able to recognize that as not support for Y. In other words, the structure of the RfC should be able to distinguish between those two types of cases. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:47, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

And yogurt/yoghurt was festering and burning up untold cycles years before I arrived. I was instrumental in getting it finally resolved. I support solutions that bring finality to conflicts, especially conflicts that have been going on for a long time. Not Band aids. Not temporary fixes. Not incremental improvements. Real solid fixes. And that's what I support here.

I also shy away from conflicts where I don't see a good final resolution. But once I'm convinced that a given conflict can be resolved, yeah, that's what I support. --Born2cycle (talk) 07:10, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it is about you. Before you showed up Yoghurt, Derek Ross was the bully with as many talk edits as the next three guys put together, and he got his way. Since you showed up, you took over the bully role, maintaining as many talk edits as the next three most active editors for OVER FIVE YEARS until you got your way. Bragging that you intend to keep employing the same tactic here is what MelanieN is complaining about, I think. I concur. Dicklyon (talk) 17:39, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

• Abort this RFC; do not proceed with it. It would be an exercise in futility. The person proposing the RFC, who is also the main person causing "contention" against the current system, has made it clear in comments above that he will not accept the results of this RFC unless it agrees with his position (option #7), or unless there is "consensus support" (by his definition) for one of the other options; "barely a majority" (his words) would not be enough to get him to drop his anti-USPLACE campaign. This is the same basis on which he has opposed the USPLACE convention for the past four years - his claim that it was not based on a "real consensus" - and he seems poised to continue the same course unless his option is decided on. He has made his refusal to accept a contrary result clear by inserting into the "PRO" arguments, twice, the argument that option #7 is the "only" option that will settle the question, and by his responses to challenges of that position. (Of course, if his option #7 winds up being chosen, even if it's by "barely a majority" rather than a clearcut consensus, he will insist on enforcing it as holy writ.) It's evident that Born2cycle regards this proposed RFC as a "heads I win, tails you lose" proposition. Unless he clearly states, without hedging, that he will accept the result of this discussion as interpreted by the closing administrator, there is no point in proceeding with it. --MelanieN (talk) 16:34, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
  • What RfC? No one has proposed one, so far as I know. Certainly I haven't. The exercise above is an effort to collect all possible solutions, and their pros/cons, which will hopefully help us find consensus regarding USPLACE, finally. Whether that involves an RfC or not is unknown, so far as I know. Trying to stifle discussion is a classic example of WP:Stonewalling. Discussion is how we develop consensus on WP. See Wikipedia:Consensus#Reaching_consensus_through_discussion. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:45, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

"What RfC", huh? It seemed obvious that you were proposing this as an RFC because it is based on the RFC model that Kauffner was developing here. And in fact, you yourself referred to it as an RFC just a few lines above: this is why I think the format of the RfC is... So let's not pretend that wasn't in your thoughts. So now it's not an RFC proposal, it's a ... what is it? I don't know how you plan to get "a clear consensus" any other way; there are only half a dozen or so of us currently engaged in the discussion, and you certainly can't overturn an existing convention based on a small sample like that. And in any case I don't see any way to ever develop "consensus" as long as you continue to insist that there is only one possible choice, namely, do it your way. But it sounds like we agree that at least this thing is not ready for RfC any time soon. --MelanieN (talk) 23:43, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

My thinking is that the regulars would prepare the presentation, and THEN someone (not me) would propose an RfC that would solicit input from the broader community. Sorry that wasn't clear. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:02, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

See? Now there is an RfC. --Born2cycle (talk) 04:08, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

And will you accept the result, even if it isn't the choice you prefer? --MelanieN (talk) 04:28, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Survey (Apteva)

3. But with places that are other than or are not cities, towns or counties named using common name, for example, Mayors of Sacramento gets to use the title List of mayors of Sacramento even though Sacramento would be located at Sacramento, California, Research Triangle Park, Pebble Beach Golf Links, etc. Apteva (talk) 22:22, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Can't parse this. Not following. Sorry. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:37, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

U.S. counties

Here is something for you "unnecessary disambiguation" folks that might be fixable and uncontroversial: the naming of U.S. counties. Placer County, California; Nassau County, New York; Clackamas County, Oregon; it looks as if every one of them has "comma, state" added to their names, even though that is not a natural or common usage, and even if their name is unique. Was this based on some kind of decision process, or is it just left over from the way Wikipedia was when it started? Are there people who support this usage and would argue against changing it? Personally I can see no point in adding "comma, state" to all county names. Unlike the WP:USPLACE convention for cities, this usage is not supported by the WP:Common name or WP:Reliable source guidelines, or by any other guidelines I can think of. Thoughts? --MelanieN (talk) 17:35, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Since a county is an administrative subdivision that is bound to a particular state, it is useful to specify the state in the article title. That doesn't constitute unnecessary disambiguation, but rather relates to the administrative structure of the states. I would also question the assertion that this usage isn't natural or common. Likewise, specifying the state in which a city exists provides the same basic level of clarity, directly in the title. Both editors and readers are, I feel, aided by a consistent application of this principle. Omnedon (talk) 17:41, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

There was no mention of counties in USPLACE until August of last year, when it was inserted as a by-product of a looong (but ultimately fruitful) discussion (see here) about what to do with minor civil divisions such as townships. There was no explicit discussion of why or whether we should always include the state in a county article - it was just a recognition that currently, that's what we've done. Dohn joe (talk) 17:52, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

MelanieN, I was not aware of that, or forgot. I admire the consistent application of your argument. Of course, I agree with you on this. Maybe that's something we should work on. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:55, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Omnedon, the problem with the "useful" argument is it can be used to advocate for the inclusion of all kinds of "useful" information in article titles, bounded only by people's imaginations, or maybe the entire content of the article lead. So, a line needs to be drawn, and by convention established long ago, we draw the line at the concise most commonly used name for a topic, whenever reasonably possible, adding more information to a title only to the extent it is needed for disambiguation. The alternative, ultimately, is opening Pandora's Box with respect to what can be added to titles. That is, no one has ever come up with an alternative equally clear line that can apply in general to all articles. Drawing the line specially for each group of articles just confuses things and leads to conflicts. The question -- why should a general rule not apply to articles in some particular group? -- will never go away. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:55, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

This is not a Pandora's box. Including the state in the title for a county's article is more consistent and easily-defined than including it sometimes but not others. This line, for counties, is perfectly clear. As for trying to apply the exact same principles to all types of articles -- that may not be feasible. Hence this discussion and all its predecessors. Omnedon (talk) 19:35, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Option 7 is applying the exact same principles to USPLACE articles as to all other types of articles - and it's clearly feasible (just move every USPLACE article currently at city, state to city, if city currently redirects to city, state - a bot could do it). The fact that it's feasible will never change, as won't the fact that USPLACE articles are being treated different from other types of articles, even though it's feasible to avoid the inconsistency, unless option 7 is adopted. That unnecessarily creates a situation ripe for conflict, debate and endless discussion. These are indisputable facts. Don't shoot the messenger. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:51, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Your definition of "feasible" ignores all the disagreement about this. If it was feasible, there would be no problem, yet here we are -- it's a problem. Option 7 doesn't make sense in this context. Omnedon (talk) 19:55, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

My definition of "feasible" is "possible to do". If you're ruling out an option as "infeasible" because you don't believe it can muster consensus support, then you're putting the cart before the horse. Let's have a serious discussion about feasibility (and other considerations) of each option independent of how popular each option might be, then see where consensus lies. --Born2cycle (talk) 20:01, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Exactly -- I'm not sure this is possible to do, given this environment. And the Pandora's Box allusion is the slippery-slope fallacy. In any case, I'm not convinced that the same naming conventions can always be applied exactly the same to all types of articles. You refer to inconsistency -- but in my opinion, in the case of geographical articles, the "least disambiguation" principle leads to inconsistency rather than avoiding it. Some degree of flexibility is surely called for with a project that has the kind of scope that Wikipedia has, dealing with all kinds of subjects. Trying to force a round peg into a square hole is possible, but that doesn't mean it's best. Omnedon (talk) 20:06, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

In any case, in my experience, counties do tend to refer to themselves in the "County, State" form. I don't buy that this is not common usage; in fact it seems to be quite common usage. Omnedon (talk) 20:16, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I see nothing to suggest that "County, State" is unnatural. Quite the reverse, actually – it's a form I see and hear pretty frequently. For instance, I see that the website of my own uniquely-named county uses it prominently; looking around at neighboring counties ([11], [12], [13], etc.) I see the same there too. Upon what basis, then, is that "not a natural or common usage"? ╠╣uw [talk] 20:17, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Of course it's possible. At some point we'll have a completed set of options and associated pro/con arguments, and then someone will have an RfC, and lots of people will comment, and whether there is consensus for any of the options will be determined.

How is the slippery-slope argument a fallacy? You think USPLACE is never used as a precedent to support adding more information to other titles?

The round peg in this case is "use the long form consistently even when the short form is not ambiguous", while the square hole is "disambiguate only when necessary". Sure we can fit that round peg in that square hole, and we've tried for the last 9 years or so, but it's really not a good fit.

Use the long state-enhanced name only when the city is not the primary topic for the short city-only name has been proven to work remarkably well for cities on the AP list. Why not follow suit for all the others? --Born2cycle (talk) 20:24, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure why the County, State convention should be a "slippery slope" or a "Pandora's box"; it's been in use for quite some time and I haven't observed it sparking a slide into unnecessarily verbose naming. Also, the convention seems to be in common usage (as posted), and it's also good to point out the guideline of common sense. In this case I think there are reasonable and sensible bases for the "County, State" naming convention, and would prefer to see it continue. ╠╣uw [talk] 00:57, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

The "County, State" convention is itself evidence of the slippery slope. Normally, adding the state to the title would not be warranted, unless it was needed for disambiguation. But, since we add the state to most city titles, it seems acceptable.

By the way, why not be even more informative and clear by adding ", United States" to the end of each title as well? --Born2cycle (talk) 01:24, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

yourlogicalfallacyis.com --MelanieN (talk) 17:12, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

If anything, County, State shows the absence of a slippery slope. After all, if it is indeed as dangerous as you claim, and given that it's already been the convention used here for many years, we presumably should already have seen a move to County, State, Country or even County, State, Country, Planet; however, that clearly hasn't happened, nor can I recall it ever being seriously considered. That to me suggests that we're on a reasonably flat plain with good traction. :) ╠╣uw [talk] 11:04, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Is there evidence that county articles have been moved a lot, or have been the subject of protracted naming debates? If not, then we clearly have a de-facto naming convention there, of the sort that Born2cycle says that he likes to make and then represent in guidelines. So why is he now talking of going the other direction? As for whether it's support by common usage, I did a survey of one unambiguous county name; seems OK. Dicklyon (talk) 21:05, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

If there are only a few people moving them around, and nobody is noticing, that's not really a good example of organic consensus building. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:18, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Dicklyon: Agreed; my own quick check also shows common usage of the form. That being the case, I'm not sure what the basis is for the MelanieN's earlier suggestion that "County, State" is an unnatural and uncommon construction. ╠╣uw [talk] 00:34, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

People like Melanie believe that the City, State construct is so common, that it is effectively a common name of the city, and, so, warrants including the state in the title of an article about a city which is the primary topic for City, even though it's not needed for disambiguation. In contrast, the Countyname, State construct is much less common, and so is clearly not the name of the county. As such, including the state qualifier is justified only if needed for disambiguation. At least that's how I understand it.

By the way, this is a perfect example of the slippery slope in action. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:18, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

You claim that County, State is much less common. On what basis? It seems to be quite common, as has already been pointed out. Omnedon (talk) 01:33, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

If a vote happened right now for the USA county names, "<Name> County, <State>" is what I would choose for 100% of the counties. This is where I stand, and I'm not changing my mind on it, so please don't waste your time "comment baiting" me. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 07:48, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Born2cycle: Much less common? As I already showed, my own uniquely-named home county uses the County, State convention prominently; many of its neighbors do too. (See again the links I posted earlier.) Further, a quick spot-check on Google shows numerous other resources doing the same: US Census Bureau, CityData,StatsIndiana, legal sites, property sites, genealogy sites, local news, etc. Where is the idea that County, State is "uncommon" coming from? ╠╣uw [talk] 10:38, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your research; it shows a lot of Reliable Sources using this formulation. I may have been wrong. I based my original comment on the fact that I don't hear people using "county, state" in everyday conversation - unlike they way they do with cities, where they always say "Muleshoe, Texas" or "Gaithersburg, Maryland" at first mention. But then, people probably don't talk about counties much in everyday conversation, except for counties in their own state or locality so the listener would know what is meant. You have demonstrated that there is in fact a basis in Reliable Sources for the "county, state" formulation and I am fine with it being kept. My main point in bringing it up was to wonder why the "don't disambiguate!" faction is so intensely focused on trying to undo the "city, state" system - a system that has a lot of support and a strong basis in Wikipedia policy - while they ignore so many other "unnecessary disambiguations" in titles here. I also thought, erroneously as it turns out, that this would be non-controversial and would let them feel good about having "fixed" something. My mistake. --MelanieN (talk) 16:16, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

RfC: US city names

Which U.S. cities require disambiguation by state? Example: Atlantic City or Atlantic City, New Jersey? Kauffner (talk) 16:33, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Reliable sources tend to list better-known cities at their concise names, without a state name attached. The capital of Tennessee is given as "Nashville" by Britannica, Columbia, and Encarta. But on Wikipedia it is titled as Nashville, Tennessee because it is not one of the 30 U.S. cities that the Associated Press gives in datelines without a "comma-state" tag; only the 30 cities listed by the AP get concise titles on Wiki, according to WP:USPLACE.

• The AP list

The cities that "stand alone" in AP datelines are: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland,Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Honolulu, Houston, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York City, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington. (30 cities) Source: Associated Press Stylebook, p. 66.

• The New York Times list

The cities that stand alone in New York Times datelines are: Albany, Albuquerque, Anchorage, Atlanta, Atlantic City,Baltimore, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Cincinnati,Cleveland, Colorado Springs, Dallas, Denver, Des Moines, Detroit, El Paso, Fort Worth, Hartford, Hollywood, Honolulu, Houston, Indianapolis, Iowa City,Jersey City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Memphis, Miami, Miami Beach, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Nashville, Newark, New Haven, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Omaha, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Rochester,Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, St. Paul, Syracuse, Trenton, Tucson, Virginia Beach, Washington, White Plains, and Yonkers. (59 cities, not counting New York City) Source: The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, p. 99.

• Other encyclopedias

Columbia has an entry for Wichita Falls, Texas, ranked 269 by population, but not for Palm Bay, Florida, ranked 270. Britannica has entries for Wichita Falls and Palm Bay, but not for Centennial, Colorado, ranked 271. Consulting other encyclopedias is the first recommendation of WP:PLACE, and this is also recommended in WP:ENGLISH.

• General disambiguation guidelines

"If the article is about the primary topic to which the ambiguous name refers, then that name can be its title without modification, provided it follows all other applicable policies," per WP:PRECISION. There are numerous cases where a concise U.S. city name is a redirect. That is to say, the city has been designated primary topic, but its article title remains in name-comma-state format.

Indicate order of preference among the following options:

• A. Put all articles on U.S. cities, aside from New York City, at [[City, State]].

• B. For cities on the AP dateline list, use [[City]], where [[City]] is already the title or currently directs to [[City, State]]. Otherwise use [[City, State]]. (Note: this is the current convention.)

• C. Extend the current convention's list of cities that can omit state to include cities on the New York Times list, in addition to those on the AP list.

• D. Extend the current convention's list of cities that can omit state to include any city given in both Britannica and Columbia.

• E. Do not require state unless needed to avoid article title conflict, for all U.S. cities.

Kauffner (talk) 16:33, 4 November 2012 (UTC) As modified by Dohn joe (talk) 20:19, 4 November 2012 (UTC) Wording tweaks/clarifications. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:01, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

NOTE: The wording of these choices is under dispute as possibly non-neutral; see discussion below. Furthermore, they were changed by the proposer to a far less neutral and more slanted format after discussion had already started. --MelanieN (talk) 17:12, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

And I have returned it to what I hope is a more neutral and less controversial wording. If anyone objects, please just restore the original wording that the !votes refer to. Dicklyon (talk) 18:33, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

I withdraw my objections; the wording supplied by Dicklyon is clear, neutral, and uncontroversial. --MelanieN (talk) 18:37, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Survey

• DE, as nom. Unnecessary disambiguation in large type across the top of an article looks ugly and unprofessional. In a dateline, such disambiguation is merely patronizing. So our list of U.S. cities that can be put at their concise names should include all those that are given this way in newspaper datelines. Britannica and Columbia have entries for these cities, as well as for various others. They include a few cities that I'd rather see in name-comma-state format. But following the style of other encyclopedias is certainly an encyclopedic solution. Kauffner (talk) 16:33, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
• ABCDE. The argument that we should follow the titling style of other encyclopedias is inapposite (I may change this word later, as I go through my thesaurus), as they can have more than one article with the same title. WP:COMMONNAME suggests that all except about 5 cities be predisambiguated — and we'd disagree on which 5. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:54, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
  • So you acknowledge that the basis of the current convention is a technical glitch, i.e. the fact that MediaWiki does not support multiple instances of a title? If so, it follows that every city should be its common name, with disambiguation only as required to avoid title clashes. As far as what the common name for any particular city is, that is something that can be tested with ngram and similar tools. Kauffner (talk) 02:54, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
• CBA (changing to BCA per Dicklyon's reasoning below and per WP:TITLE: "If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed.") per WP:Common name and WP:Reliable sources. I have not seen the list of cities that fall under "D" and I am not sure that such a list is readily available, or even exists. NYT (option C) and AP (option B) seem like the most readily accessible and easy-to-understand Reliable Sources for this purpose. --MelanieN (talk) 20:49, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
• BCA – I favor B mainly because it is the current guideline, which was worked out as a compromise. Adding a few more, or a few less, to the list of exceptions might be OK, but I see no good reason to do it. I agree with Arthur Rubin on the inappositeness of following other encyclopedias on this; there is really no good reason to be removing the state from a few hundred selected city article titles; it would be that harder to track and implement. I see no evidence of any "consternation and confusion by dozens if not hundreds of people about using the comma convention" as Born2cycle claims; just a few cases that are easily cleared up by pointing out the guideline, and a few fanned into big messes by Born2cycle himself. Dicklyon (talk) 21:29, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
• B: Oppose change from existing US Names standard This has been repeatedly addressed and a new RFC serves no good. No good to nonstop argument; a settled standard exists. No gain to wikipedia article creation is possible from this debate. STOP THIS and go back to working on articles. OPPOSE the RFC. OPPOSE any change. OPPOSE any further discussion for 5 years. --doncram 22:13, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
• EDCB - Unnecessary disambiguation - it would be best to make US naming guidelines consistent with international naming standards. We do not follow newspaper stylebook standards for other countries - the AP stylebook also lists only a few worldwide cities that can be listed without qualifiers, but there will certainly be no debate as to whether Gort should be moved to Gort, County Galway to follow WP:RS. I also don't believe that cityname, statename is the WP:COMMONNAME for almost all American cities as stated by many users in the above discussion. States are added to city names only when additional clarification is needed - just as "the singer" would be added to Lenka if a person is unfamiliar with the subject matter at hand. Cheers, Rai•me 22:19, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
• B On the grounds that if it ain't broke don't fix it. I can live with idea that a Massachusetts village should take the place of a major metropolis in Lincolnshire. A is just plain silly, and C has become arbitary. --ClemRutter (talk) 22:23, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
• Edcba. I submit that almost 10 years of consternation and confusion by dozens if not hundreds of people about using the comma convention even where the city is the primary topic for City and City redirects to City, State, is far more than sufficient evidence that this guideline is broken. Since the other choices are just slight variations on this, for the better or worse, I find them all almost equally unacceptable for the same reasons. It should be obvious to anyone that has paid any attention to all the USPLACE-related unilateral moves, RM proposal discussions usually ending in "no consensus", and no consensus discussions on this talk page over the years, that the current guideline is broken and that this issue will not be resolved until we stop treating US city article titles differently from other WP article titles, including most other city article titles. Only E resolves this issue, so far as I can tell. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:28, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
• B On the grounds that if it ain't broke don't fix it per ClemRutter, Dicklyon, MelanieN, Doncram. C as second choice if it can expanded to replace one stable list with a longer NY Times one including Sacremento and Atlantic City. Very strongly oppose E for exactly the reason that Born2cycle supports it, that it will open the door to endless unstable lengthy RMs. A complete waste of time. Complaints that Australia, Canada or UK don't have a similar stable fix aren't any logical reason for removing the stable fix from the biggest pool of Anglo-Saxon geo names. If it is removed the knock-on effect will destabilize other Anglo-Saxon geoname countries' articles as well. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:32, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Please see: #Please explain: How will "E" lead to an endless stream of RMs? --Born2cycle (talk) 19:58, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
• E American cities should be treated the same way every other countries' cities are treated. People who say "American cities are referred to by city, state" are wrong. Pure and simple. We say Tallahassee, Sacramento, Atlantic City, and plenty of others without needing to disambiguate by adding the state name. And people who say that allowing more exceptions will create more work are just being lazy. Using either the NY Times list or the encyclopedia ones would be acceptable, as they at least eliminate some obvious ones that don't need disambiguation such as Jersey City and Virginia Beach.Hot Stop (Edits) 04:59, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
• BCEDA. B has served us well for several years. There's been scattered disagreement on one side from those who want most pages at [[City]], and on the other side from those who seriously argue for titles like "New York City, New York". However, consensus does not require every single user to agree. B is probably our best solution in the interest of reducing both conflict and unnecessary disambiguation. C contains some examples that make sense to me as [[City]] titles, such as Miami Beach. But IMO the main caveat to the New York Times Manual of Style list is that it's designed specifically for audiences in the New York metropolitan area, explaining the presence of ambiguous titles like Albany and Rochester (Albany, Georgia and Rochester, Minnesota are just as "primary" as their New York State doppelgangers IMO). I would support E in an ideal world, but it'll create disruption due to a massive forest fire of move requests, so it wouldn't work on Wikipedia. D is a no-go because Wikipedia doesn't and shouldn't "do what other encyclopedias do", and it's inherently based on WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. A is exactly where we were before the AP solution came into effect. It didn't work then, and it won't work now. szyslak (t) 05:38, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Just to clarify on the point about Rochester and Albany, the idea would be to restrict the list to only those cities if other conditions (a current redirect or clear primary topic) were met. So if C or D were the 'winner' here, prime topic would need to be determined for those cities. Hot Stop (Edits) 05:43, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
    • Understood. In fact, what you describe is basically what we do now, except that we use the AP list. I still stand by my point that the NYT list is geographically biased toward New York City and environs. szyslak (t) 05:55, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
      • Agreed. It probably under-represents other areas (the South for one). Hot Stop (Edits) 06:01, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
        • Because of the "where City is already a redirect to City, State" qualifier in the RfC, Albany and Rochester are not relevant to this RfC as both are dab pages, not redirects to any articles about cities with titles in the City, State form. IOW, the WP community has already decided that there is no primary topic for these two names. Albany and Rochester would remain dab pages under all options being considered here, even E, just as Washington remains a dab page under the current guideline, despite being on the AP list. And titles of articles about all cities with either name would remain disambiguated with their state name under all options here. To illustrate one's opposition with examples, choosing a relevant one would be more, well, illustrative. Thanks! --Born2cycle (talk) 06:10, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
      • Can we please keep all discussion in the "discussion" section below, to keep this "survey" as clean and readable as possible? If someone has a qualification or point about one of the options, they can include it in their comments, but ideally all responses would go in the "discussion" section instead of here. Would you folks be willing to move your comments there? --MelanieN (talk) 17:44, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
        • Agree, this is a voting section, so all rebutals need to be removed! • Sbmeirow • Talk • 23:26, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
• BC, Oppose E: Status quo is good here. E gives license to any random editor claiming their pet city is the Primary Topic which will lead to endless, unproductive and possibly contentious RM discussions with no net benefit to the encyclopedia. If not one of the ~19,300 US Place names ever changed again, WP would not be harmed in anyway and all the volunteer energy saved could be used to improve content. --Mike Cline (talk) 12:48, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
  • I have refuted this claim every time you've made it, and you've never addressed it. Once again, ... Bulk of this moved to #Please explain: How will "E" lead to an endless stream of RMs? --Born2cycle (talk) 19:50, 5 November 2012 (UTC) --Born2cycle (talk) 18:01, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
• E. Strongly oppose A, oppose BC, neutral on D, and disagree with Mike above that E would open doors to numerous contentious RMs. When a primary topic concern exists for any given US city, it should be considered and resolved on its own merits. Within the framework of primary topic discussion, it makes absolutely no difference what naming convention is otherwise used because a true primary topic case should override any of them regardless. Interestingly enough, it is actually the A/B variants which stand in a way of a considering primary topic concerns properly by introducing artificial constraints in the form of the "State" disambiguator, as the Nashville case so amply demonstrated. Also, why would there be "endless contentious" debates in cases where XXX is currently (and has been for ages) nothing but a redirect to "XXX, State"?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); November 5, 2012; 14:25 (UTC)
• Oppose any change - If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Carrite (talk) 15:13, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
• AB, strongly oppose E Though A is the simplest, the status quo (B) works. It can be stated and defined very easily without the need for any judgment calls. Option E would lead to many needless debates, as each individual city has to be treated individually. It would not result in some sort of "final resolution", regardless of the claims that it would. Option E complicates, whereas the status quo is simple and straightforward. In any case, WP:TITLE allows for the use of other naming criteria. We have a functioning standard that has been in place for years; let's leave it alone. Omnedon (talk) 15:37, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Please see: #Please explain: How will "E" lead to an endless stream of RMs? --Born2cycle (talk) 19:58, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
• EDC The original <city, state> format was the result of a bot creating the place articles en masse. Other place articles that evolved more naturally do not have this artificial constraint. Allowing place articles to be titled under the more general Wikipedia-wide article titling criteria will result in sufficiently precise names. I am also okay with titling using the same convention as other encyclopedias (as Wikipedia is an encyclopedia) as a second option. Barring that, I can live with an expansion of the current AP exception list using certain criteria of significance. I do not necessarily care for the NYT list as it is regionally biased but I am using that choice as a proxy for some kind of expansion of the current AP list. --Polaron | Talk 17:47, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
• Maintain the status quo under the guise that the titles are stable, and the system isn't broke. In my experience, Americans use "City, State" as the place names on first mention in regular conversation unless the context makes it clear which state is involved. Imzadi 1979 → 18:13, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
• BDEAC. The AP treatment is fine, and is far better than The New York Times. The audience for the encyclopedia is global, but the NYT is decidedly a U.S. (and New York) publication, whereas the AP is much more global in scope, and thus probably reflects a global perspective more accurately. It works, and I haven't seen strong arguments for why it needs to be changed. I don't feel particularly strongly about the other options, but it would certainly make sense to leave open the possibility of consensus leading to divergence from the AP in specific cases, because that's how we operate here. In sum, there's no need for hard and fast rules, but the AP is a good starting place. --Batard0 (talk) 18:35, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
• DCB. The list certainly needs expanding and while E sounds like the most open and reasonable I agree with other posters that it could likely begin an endless stream of rm's. If we have authority figures like encyclopedias and newspapers we should take advantage and use then to help us out here since too often our rm's boil down to something out of a Republican/Democrat style clash, where no consensus is reached and we've wasted our time. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:57, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Please see: #Please explain: How will "E" lead to an endless stream of RMs? --Born2cycle (talk) 19:50, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
• E. Unfortunately, the option of always having City, State was not given. Op47 (talk) 22:55, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Then why not A which is what you apparently want with NYC being the only exception? Vegaswikian (talk) 23:09, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
• ABCDE. Places in the USA are typically referred to as City, State overall. There's something called "consistency" that is valuable for an encyclopedia: people should be able to assume that all articles about a certain class of topics will be titled in the same way. If we decide on E, people like Born2cycle, who have already been responsible for a long stream of RMs, will begin an endless stream of fights to get one city or another declared the primary topic. By saying that all places get the state name, we avoid the need for RMs entirely, except for disruptive RMs that effectively seek to declare consensus irrelevant, and those can be quashed by any admin. Nyttend (talk) 00:06, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Re: "an endless stream of fights to get one city or another declared the primary topic.". Please see: #Please explain: How will "E" lead to an endless stream of RMs? --Born2cycle (talk) 00:10, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
  • It is not just city v city but city v county, city v metro area and who knows what else? Vegaswikian (talk) 01:07, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
• EDCBA I see no reason why US cities should have unnecessary disambiguation. Let's go with COMMONNAME and use the simplest standard. David1217 ^{What I've done} 01:01, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
• BCADE. In common speech across the U.S., "City, State" is quite a standard way to discuss a place; certainly contextually just "City" is used a lot as well, but one hears "Boston, Massachusetts" or "Kansas City, Missouri" as often as just "Boston" or "Kansas City". The existing convention works fine, defaulting to "City, State" for nearly all cities, excepting a limited number which are completely unique or dominant, the AP style guide OR NYT standards are reasonably short lists. --Jayron32 06:01, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
• AB. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 12:05, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
• BCA D is distant fourth option. E is unacceptable. older ≠ wiser 12:37, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
• ABCDE, for many of the reasons already well stated above. As a convention, A is entirely consistent, extremely simple, easily understood by even new or casual readers/editors, and reflects common usage. The others (particularly E) are in my opinion none of those things. (That said, I would consider B an acceptable path, since the exceptions its introduces are tightly constrained and explicitly defined, and as the current convention it's served us well for many years). ╠╣uw [talk] 13:47, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
• Strong E, then A, weak DCB - E is best per WP:COMMONNAME, which as far as I can tell is the standard for the cities of most other countries on WP. "City, State" is unnecessary diambiguation in cases where "City" redirects to "City, State". - BilCat (talk) 14:19, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
• Strong support A, support B- This is an English encyclopedia, not American. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 17:32, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

(Meta) discussion: B2C does have a point as to whether the question of which options a person would consider unacceptable (aka harmful to Wikipedia) should be in the list. My position is something like ABCXDE, while B2C's is probably EXDCBA. (He's said he wouldn't accept consensus on anything other than E. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:19, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

It needs to be noted that options B, C, and D are subject to E; Lists B and C only need to be primary in the sence of being places, and possibly even US places (list D doesn't necessarily even meet that), while our guidelines require that the unadorned name has to be primary among all uses to avoid disambiguation. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:23, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Arthur, I said, and repeat: I will accept consensus on any of the options. But I'm talking about WP:CONSENSUS consensus, not a slim majority. If my favorite achieves most support but by only a slim majority, I wouldn't expect others to necessarily accept that the issue was resolved. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:17, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Prejudicial question – Kauffler's question "Which U.S. cities require disambiguation by state?" is inherently prejudicial in framing WP:USPLACE in terms of "disambiguation" and "require". It would be better to think in term of what should our naming guideline be; e.g. which U.S. city article titles should be of the form "City, State", and which should be simply "City"? Dicklyon (talk) 21:23, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Prejudicial question – can someone edit it to make it less slanted please? In ictu oculi (talk) 03:39, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

• Yeah, like you care about U.S. placenames. You follow me everywhere and encourage editors to vandalize my posts. What a sweetheart. Kauffner (talk) 13:45, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

• I believe the wording of the options as currently presented is prejudicial. I propose the following alternate wording:
  • A. Put all articles on US cities, aside from New York City, at [[City, State]].
  • B. Follow general article naming conventions at WP:TITLE only for cities on the AP dateline list, using [[City]], where [[City]] is already a redirect to [[City, State]]; otherwise use [[City, State]]. (Note: this is the current convention.)
  • C. As for B but include cities on the New York Times list.
  • D. As for C but also include cities listed as "City" in both Britannica and Columbia.
  • E. Follow general article naming conventions at WP:TITLE for all cities that are uniquely titled or are already the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for that title: use [[City]], where [[City]] is already a redirect to [[City, State]]; if pre-disambiguation is required use [[City, State]].

Nick Thorne ^talk 04:03, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

On the last one, not "pre-disambiguation"; just "disambiguation" (pre-disambiguation is never required!)

Also, we should clarify that for B (and thus implying for the variations C and D) that even for those on the respective list, we use City only if the city's name is unique or is the primary topic (e.g., Washington is on the AP list but never-the-less is not about the city). --Born2cycle (talk) 04:06, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Nice try, Nick, but that's no improvement. "Follow general article naming conventions at WP:TITLE" is slanted and a value judgment. Some of us are aware that the general article naming conventions include Common Name and Reliable Source - that they aren't just about disambiguation as others seem to think. I say leave out that phrase and simply show what the format would be. --MelanieN (talk) 04:08, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Not just slanted and value judgement, but intentionally so and pointy. I believe WP:USPLACE is completely within the spirit of WP:TITLE, if you don't discount the weights on the recognizability and precision provisions to be near zero compared to the conciseness provision, which is what Born2cycle has been trying to get us to do for the last five years. He has to resort to calling the state "unnecessary disambiguation" to have any case at all. But that's not how I think of the state, so there's really no exception to WP:TITLE needed; just a fair interpretation. Dicklyon (talk) 05:02, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

It's not just me, Dicklyon, who is arguing "unnecessary disambiguation". Countless people were saying that about this guideline before I arrived, and still are.

The recognizability provision at WP:CRITERIA is quite clear about the goal being to make sure the title is recognizable to those who are familiar with the topic. Your effort to remove that wording was not only rejected by consensus, it was unanimously rejected, and yet here you are trying to use an interpretation as if it's not there. Anyone familiar with the city of Chula Vista can recognize what an article with title Chula Vista is about; that's all that is required to meet recognizability, and you know it.

There is also no precision issue that is relevant to WP:TITLE considerations when the use of the name in question is unique, or if the topic is the primary use of that name. There is exactly one topic on WP to which Chula Vista refers; you can't get more precise than that. But you know that too.

Therefore, for a city which is the primary use of City, City, State has no advantages over City in terms of what recognizability and precision mean in deciding WP titles, but concision clearly favors the more concise choice, City. It is that simple.

This is especially clarified if you consider what happens if an article like Chula Vista, California is moved to Chula Vista. The argument that it should be moved back to Chula Vista, California, if based on recognizability and/or precision, much less the claim that those considerations in this case outweigh concision, would utterly fail. That's why such a move, and all those just like it, would result in a finally resolved title. --Born2cycle (talk) 06:29, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

• It's a ridiculous notion to think that consensus can be cobbled together by a massive cacophony of people attempting to string together ranked orders of preference of 5 options. We have a current guideline; if there proposal to change it, it should be made concretely and a yes/no consensus obtained on the change. Carrite (talk) 15:12, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

• For the purposes of discussion let me see if I can come up with a more neutral formulation than either of the current proposals:
  • A. Put all articles on US cities, aside from New York City, at [[City, State]].
  • B. For US cities on the AP dateline list, use [[City]], provided that [[City]] is already a redirect to [[City, State]]; otherwise use [[City, State]]. (Note: this is the current convention.)
  • C. As for B, but include cities on the New York Times list.
  • D. As for C, but also include cities listed as "City" in both Britannica and Columbia.
  • E. For all US cities, use [[City]], provided that [[City]] is already a redirect to [[City, State]]; if disambiguation is required use [[City, State]].
  • Maybe it should be stated explicitly somewhere that being a redirect is an indication that the name is unique and is the primary use of that title; otherwise it can be kind of unclear why that matters. --MelanieN (talk) 15:43, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

About related use of "(City, State)" disambiguation convention in article names of buildings, neighborhoods, etc. The survey and most discussion so far ignores larger number of article titles given stability by the US NAMES convention (many more than number of city and town articles alone), by the related de facto standard for use of "(City, State)" convention in disambiguating, in article names. See First Presbyterian Church (disambiguation) for a couple hundred examples. There are approximatetly 3,421 disambiguation pages including NRHP-listed places (itemized in Category:Disambig-Class National Register of Historic Places articles), with many thousands of "(City, State)" style entries that should not each become a new battleground, too. I don't welcome change from solid City, State convention that will likely have big unintended consequences of extending contention among editors and confusion for readers. --doncram 16:04, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Doncram, would you also like to express a preference above in the "survey" section? Comments here are welcome, but they may not be "counted" for RfC purposes. --MelanieN (talk) 17:10, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

They are not related. Blah (city, state) can remain Blah (city, state) even if city, state is moved to city. Likewise, If Blah (city) is unambiguous, then that's fine even if city redirects to city, state. That's why the survey and discussion about titles of US City articles ignores this issue.

There is no basis in convention, much less policy or guidelines, for the notion that the title of an article about something in a city that requires disambiguation needs to use the exact title of that city's article for its parenthetic disambiguation. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:08, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

one way that endless discussions will ensue, is about disambiguation where "(city, state)" is settled now I do not believe Born2cycle's suggestion that everyone would keep to (city, state) in disambiguation. Either I suspect B2C would be among the first to start moving settled articles, or that B2C knows full well that others would be attracted to making such moves, which would cause confusion. To B2C: Like if you had your way about "Nashville, Tennessee" moving to "Nashville", and a bunch of obscure places like "Lonoke, Arkansas" moving to "Lonoke", then there would be you or others moving "First Presbyterian Church (Nashville, Tennessee)" to "First Presbyterian Church (Nashville)", and moving "First Presbyterian Church (Lonoke, Arkansas)" to just use Lonoke. And maybe not you, but me and many other editors, would be faced with disorder and all sorts of arguments about in-between places. What if all of the First Presbyterian Churches in Nashville are deemed not currently notable, or if its article is moved to Downtown Presbyterian Church, Nashville or "Old First Presbyterian Church". Then people will be attracted to thinking First Presbyterian Church (Nashville, Arkansas) (currently a redlink, but a valid article topic) should get the honor of the shorter name, "First Presbyterian Church (Nashville)" Wouldn't you say yourself that keeping "Arkansas" would be "unnecessary disambiguation"? And on and on. If not led by you then certainly led by many confused others. And there would be a hodge-podge of changing names that currently seem orderly within First Presbyterian Church (disambiguation). And more RMs constantly as articles are started and/or as individual churches come into and out of notability in faraway, unrelated places. --doncram 00:15, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

• The argument that ", Arkansas" in First Presbyterian Church (Nashville, Arkansas) is unnecessary disambiguation is just as valid under any of the options. Switching from one to the other does not affect the strength of this argument. But this is another example of the slippery slope created by the comma convention, encouraging another class of articles to use titles that are inconsistent with those indicated by normal conventions. Thanks for bringing this problem to our attention. I guess in that sense it is related. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:17, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Limiting comments in Survey section

Discussion about limiting comments in Survey section that was moved from the Survey section. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:17, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Can we please keep all discussion in this "discussion" section, rather than as responses and comments directly under people's choices, to keep the "survey" as clean and readable as possible? If someone has a qualification or point they wish to make as part of their !vote, they can include it in their comments, but ideally all responses from others would go here in the "discussion" section, rather than the "survey" section. If any of you have started or participated in threaded discussions within the survey, would you be willing to move your comments here? --MelanieN (talk) 17:48, 5 November 2012 (UTC) Disagree. General discussion about the RfC should be here. Discussion about a specific comment should be just below the comment being addressed. That's SOP on WP. Don't see why we should be any different here. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:01, 5 November 2012 (UTC) B2C, If you plan to follow your usual habit of arguing at length with everyone you disagree with, anywhere and everywhere, you will make this RfC completely unreadable IMO. But let's see what others have to say. --MelanieN (talk) 18:14, 5 November 2012 (UTC) Thinking further about this: I think an RfC is different from a discussion. A discussion is just that; people can participate if they want; you can try to overwhelm them with words and dominate the discussion if you want. But an RfC is saying to the community, "We want your opinion, we invite your opinion" - with the clear understanding that their opinion will be respected and given due weight, rather than swamped under a ton of counterargument. Please reconsider on this point. --MelanieN (talk) 18:32, 5 November 2012 (UTC) Okay, if more than one person makes a statement I'd like to address, I'll start a sub-section about that, and link to it from their comment in the survey. I've already done this with the "endless stream" comments. Better? --Born2cycle (talk) 19:56, 5 November 2012 (UTC) Better, thanks. If you just CAN'T resist arguing every point with everybody, that at least gets it mostly out of the way, and combines the repetitive points in one place. --MelanieN (talk) 20:11, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Please explain: How will "E" lead to an endless stream of RMs?

Several have indicated that the reason they object to E is because they believe it will lead to "endless, unproductive and possibly contentious RM discussions".

I find this reason to oppose E to be ironic because it's the current USPLACE Guideline that provides grist for "endless, unproductive and possibly contentious RM discussions". That grist is the indisputable fact that the title USPLACE currently indicates for the article of any city which has been determined to be the primary topic for its concise name contradicts with the title indicated by the general conventions we use for titling most articles. In general, with few exceptions, a move of an article at X (Y) or X, Y to X, when X is a long established redirect to the article, is non-controversial.

For every single US city, without a single exception, the issue of whether that city is the primary topic for its concise name is resolved. That is, City either redirects to the article about the US city, or it doesn't. The practical effect of E would be to move articles from City, State to City only in those cases where City currently redirects to City, State.

Let's take Cambridge, Massachusetts, as an example. Cambridge, currently, is not a redirect to the Mass. city, so it would be unaffected by adopting E. But nothing under the current convention prevents a random editor from claiming that city is the Primary Topic for "Cambridge", and so Cambridge should redirect to that article. Changing the guideline to E would only mean that if his argument achieved consensus support, Cambridge would be the title of, rather than a redirect to, the article.

How adoption of E would create a basis for even one RM, much less an endless stream of RMs, is beyond me. I mean, if there is an argument to be made that the city is the primary topic, then that topic can be made just as easily under the current guideline as it would be under E. Can someone please explain? Ideally with an example of a city that you believe is more likely to be subject to dispute if E is adopted than it is now. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:44, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Comment: those "endless" discussions, that you are so concerned about, actually come up maybe two or three times a year. And they wouldn't be "endless, unproductive and possibly contentious" if you would simply allow them to be decided per USPLACE. --MelanieN (talk) 20:23, 5 November 2012 (UTC) Moved from being inserted after Paragraph 2 above. --Born2cycle (talk) 20:33, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

We can discuss the significance of the debates that are brought about by the current guideline, but there can be no debate that the current guideline creates an inherent conflict, and thus grist for debate, between what it indicates and what would be indicated without it in every case where the city is the primary topic for its concise name. But the question here is how adopting E would ever lead to any debates. --Born2cycle (talk) 20:33, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Having A, B, or C being a formal guideline (which, at least, B2C doesn't accept it to be) would reduce B2C's (and his previous editor name, and one editor before he joined WP) insessint edit warring about US place names. If it were in effect, whenever someone proposes removing the state identifier (using the term "disambiguator" or "pre-disambiguator" begs the question, even though I admit to using the term in the past), there would be a series of !votes saying "follow the guideline", leading to a likely "snow close". Having "E" as a formal guideline would lead to edit-warring over primary names, requiring readjustment of a large number of Wikipedia links whenever the change is made. There are a fair number of "primary topic" battles arguments discussions throughout Wikipedia, and eliminating them by having a guideline (such as "A" or "B"), or potentially even "D", in place, would reduce those. We could still have the "primary topic" argumenst, but it wouldn't lead to RMs. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:52, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Isn't B a variant of what has been the formal guideline for almost 10 years now? Yet we're not seeing 90, 80 or rarely even 70% support consistent with the guideline, often less, in numerous RMs per year. That's because the title it indicates in all these cases contradicts the name indicated by the formal policy we follow for articles that are not treated as special cases.

Maybe I'm just being dense, but I just don't see how E would lead to edit-warring over primary names. Can you come up with any examples to support this concern? I mean, certainly cities with unique names, like Chula Vista, Carmel-by-the-Sea, etc., etc. are not going to create such problems - there would be no grounds for anyone to argue that they are not the primary topic. Then there are cities with clearly ambiguous names, like Paris, Texas, Portland, Maine, etc., etc. Those too couldn't create problems, because they are clearly not primary, and nobody could even argue that they are. So what's left? We've experimented with cities on the AP list for several years now. Not everyone supported that. Similar concerns were expressed about them, but that did not pan out. Well, sure we've had discussions about Las Vegas and St. Louis, but we've also had discussions about Cambridge and Plymouth. Those discussions about primary topic occur independent of which convention applies by default.

And if there are a few changes in titles once in a while, so what? We deal with that all the time.

And how about this. What if the guideline said that if there is a dab page for a US city name, then the title of the article about that city must have the state in its title, unless that city is on the AP list. Would that alleviate your concerns? --Born2cycle (talk) 21:31, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

I can certainly picture someone (one of those grass-roots folks that you are so fond of) requesting a change of Sleepy Eye to Sleepy Eye, Minnesota simply to make it clear that it is a town - or asking for Hawaiian Gardens to be changed to Hawaiian Gardens, California to make it clearer that it is not in Hawaii. Your reply to such requesters would be "nope, sorry, this is just the way we do it" - and that reply can be given just as well for somebody requesting an exemption from USPLACE. --MelanieN (talk) 21:57, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps a few RMs (like Sleepy Eye or Hawaiian Gardens) would occur with choice E, but it is also true that RMs will probably continue to occur if we stick with choice B (as evidenced by the recent move requests for Beverly Hills and Nashville). In other words, I don't really see how "an endless stream of move requests" would be a problem specific to option E but not B when we have already dealt with two major move requests over the past 3 months. Cheers, Rai•me 22:09, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

The experience from Australia when moving away from mandatory disambiguation was that there were less RMs after the change rather than more. In fact, all the claims made above about the supposed negative consequences of moving away from mandatory disambiguation (i.e. "E") in the US were all made when the same change was proposed for Australia. All those claims were shown to be baseless. I am confident the same will apply in the US. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 22:28, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The crucial difference, Melanie, is that if E was adopted and affected articles retitled accordingly, subsequent proposals like moving Sleepy Eye back to Sleepy Eye, Minnesota and Hawaiian Gardens back to Hawaiian Gardens, California would be rejected for the reason "that's not how we do it", but that reason would be based on policy (WP:CRITERIA, WP:COMMONNAME) as well as WP:D and the WP:USPLACE guideline, and there would be no sound policy or guideline based argument to be made supporting such a move. I mean, RM arguments of the form "it's more descriptive" or "more helpful" have been so thoroughly trounced that people rarely try them any more (e.g., see Talk:Catholic_Memorial_School#Nine_months_later).

I really think such proposals would be very rare, and would be easily and quickly shutdown.

Contrast that to the current situation where strong policy and/or guideline-based arguments can be made in both directions - that's the source of all the debate and consternation (e.g., see Talk:Nashville,_Tennessee#Requested_move).

That's why I keep saying E is the only option that even addresses this; plus it resolves it. That's why I find it so ironic that people are rejecting E on the grounds that it will create more debates. I just don't get it.

P.S. I see just above that we have empirical evidence supporting what I'm saying from the Australia experience. Thanks Matt! --Born2cycle (talk) 22:42, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

The present debate comes out of questioning an existing guideline that's been in place and functioning for some time. Follow the current guideline, and there is no problem. Yes, debates spring up, even with policies and guidelines that might seem unassailable; this is Wikipedia, and it's like no other "place" I know. Having read the claims and arguments to the contrary, I still maintain that adopting option E would indeed generate controversy and difficulty, and would also add unnecessary complexity (which is a separate objection). In the case of US place articles, simple and straightforward is best, and what we currently have is simple and straightforward. Option E is neither. It is problematic, and I do not and will not support it. Omnedon (talk) 04:02, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree: what we currently have is simple and straightforward; and it works. The only reason there'd be less problem with contentious moves if B2C got his way in throwing it out would be because he'd stop stirring up messes. His Sleepy Eye, Minnesota and Chula Vista, California examples are purely hypothetical, as those pages have never been moved. The Cleveland Heights, Ohio article was moved once, in August, losing the state, and I fixed it in October. That would have been the end of it if B2C hadn't jumped in to fan the flames of argument, provoke a contentious losing RM, etc. The present guideline at USPLACE is not the problem; the vast majority of city articles have never been moved or had their titles disputed; and moves and title questions usually settle quickly with reference to the guideline (the exceptions being largely those where B2C shows up). The problem is that B2C fights the guideline constantly, dominating the discussion every chance he gets, as he is doing here. Dicklyon (talk) 05:29, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

(in reply to B2C's comment about B being the guideline for 10 years). Actually, it was A. B2C fought for a few specific changes (Chicago, Philadelphia), as well as E, for a number of years, now. B was considered a compromise position, which B2C is no longer willing to accept. Because of that, I lean toward A to counterbalence !votes which I consider harmbul if implemented. B is acceptable, but I consider A an improvement. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 05:43, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

This type of misreading/misrepresentation is at the heart of most of my disagreements with you, Arthur. I wrote: "Isn't B a variant of what has been the formal guideline for almost 10 years now". I was referring to A and all the other incremental changes we had before settling on B by saying that B is "a variant of what has been ...". And A has a proven record of being unstable and the source for contention (and you can't seriously put all or even much of that on me, because it was all occurring before I showed up on WP).

I'm still waiting for a single example of what kind of disputes there would or even could be, if E is adopted. Melanie suggested Sleepy Eye and Hawaiian Gardens, not me. Chula Vista just happens to be a city I know Melanie knows with a unique name; that's why I used it. I just pointed out why they wouldn't be problematic. I'm glad to see Dicklyon agrees. But that still leaves the main question of this section unanswered: what city articles would be opened to more dispute than they are under now with the adoption of E? I mean just saying you "know" it will happen doesn't cut it. Especially considering the evidence from Australia is to the contrary.

I repeat my main point. The situation will be stable if and only if E is adopted because once E is adopted there will be no strong policy/guideline based argument to change any US city article title, unless there really is a good reason (like a new topic in WP using the same name). Refute that, someone. Anyone? --Born2cycle (talk) 16:54, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

If E is adopted, there will still be the same strong policy based guidelines against it and in favor of B or C that there are now, namely, WP:Common name and WP:Reliable source. Your insistence that "conciseness" is the only policy guideline that matters in choosing titles is getting very, very old. The only reason things might be more stable if "E" is chosen is because YOU are the main arguer and disrupter with regard to US city names. "Choose E because it's the only way to shut B2C up" is not a policy based guideline. --MelanieN (talk) 17:18, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) LOL, I just noticed this: B2C says I'm still waiting for a single example of what kind of disputes there would or even could be, if E is adopted and then in the very next sentence he mentions the two examples I gave! The fact that he dismissed them (to his own satisfaction if no one else's) doesn't mean they weren't offered. --MelanieN (talk) 17:25, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

The situation would/will be stable if editors would/will simply abide by the existing guideline which works perfectly well and which is quite straightforward. And I agree with MelanieN that there is more than just one policy which applies here; in any case, WP:TITLE explicitly allows for variations. Thus, if E is adopted, it will generate conflict. Omnedon (talk) 17:23, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

For any given US city, one can find numerous sources referring to it either as "City" or as "City, State", with the split often revolving around 50/50, so the "reliable sources"/"common name" statement is really a non-argument. And when several variants of a possible "common name" are identified, our guidelines normally side with a more concise title, as they should. Also of note, the same reliable sources tend to append the name of the country to names of places outside the US—it doesn't mean we should be doing the same.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); November 6, 2012; 17:48 (UTC)

For any given US city, one can find numerous sources referring to it either as "City" or as "City, State", with the split often revolving around 50/50. I'd like to see some evidence of that; sounds like Original Research to me. On the other hand, options B and C are firmly and provably based in the way Reliable Sources style the names of US cities. That is a "non-argument"? Only to those whose minds are immovably made up for option E. --MelanieN (talk) 17:54, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

This was addressed at #USPLACE_Collaborative_Workspace:_PROs_and_CONs_of_various_positions, CON #6 under Position #1. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:47, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Omnedon, almost 10 years of experience with US city titles, and several years with Australian and Canadian titles, shows us that your assumption doesn't pan out in reality. When a guideline indicates titles that differ from titles indicated by conventions regularly used to determine titles for most other articles, the situation is anything but stable. Maybe this is non-intuitive, but that's what the evidence tells us.

Melanie, I didn't merely "dismiss" your two examples. I explained why they would not be problematic under E.

Now, let's assume E is adopted, and, so, all articles about cities at City, State with redirects from City, like Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, are moved to City. You claim that at least some people are likely to propose moving such articles back to City, State based on WP:COMMONNAME and WP:RS, and that such arguments would be strong. They would not be strong, because the arguments to keep such articles at City would also be based on WP:COMMONNAME and WP:RS, but other policies and guidelines too.

We agree that under E, the policy/guideline/convention support for the argument to move City → City, State for any city which is the primary topic for City would be:

• WP:COMMONNAME/WP:RS (City, State is commonly used in RS)

But the support to keep such articles at City would be:

• WP:COMMONNAME/WP:RS (City is also commonly used in RS)
• WP:TITLE/WP:CRITERIA (City is more concise, City is recognizable to those familiar with the topic)
• WP:PRIMARYTOPIC (This city is the primary topic for City)
• WP:D (disambiguate only when necessary)
• WP:USPLACE (it says to use City when the city is the primary topic)

It would be no contest, every time, and, so, much more stable than the current situation.

Without USPLACE, the argument to use City, State over City when the city is the primary topic for City is nil. That's why B is so weak, and why it has never achieved broad community consensus support (the same reasoning applies to why adopting A, C and D would also retain the contentious environment).

I again mention the late great yog[h]urt debate where for years people argued the solution was to simply accept the status quo and stop arguing. The problem was that there were good strong arguments to change the status quo. Now that the title is changed to yogurt, there are no strong arguments to change it back, and this was known before, just as it is known here: there are strong arguments to change the status quo to E; once E is adopted, there will be no strong arguments to change again. It is that simple. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:41, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I see no actual evidence that option E would lead to stability here. The current situation in re the guideline is stable -- except for certain editors who are determined not to accept it. You are clambering for change of an existing guideline in the face of massive resistance. That's not a formula for stability. What we have works fine. Omnedon (talk) 19:00, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

For the record, you have not addressed a single point I made in explaining why E would be stable. You're simply dismissing my argument, without basis, and not engaging in the kind of productive discourse that is likely to lead to consensus. You're certainly not providing examples of US city article titles that you believe would be challenged with strong arguments under E. Do you even have an argument? I reject your baseless claim that the current situation is stable. The archives of this talk page, not to mention the talk pages of many, many US city talk pages (including if you dismiss all of my commentary, which is a lot of it), strongly indicates that the situation is not stable. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:09, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

For the record, I have repeatedly addressed your points, as have others. You simply choose to ignore this. I'm not going to repeat myself, except to say that I will not support option E. Omnedon (talk) 19:13, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I just reviewed all your comments on this page. I had read them all before, and they are all mostly expressions of jdli opinion, like this: "Having read the claims and arguments to the contrary, I still maintain that adopting option E would indeed generate controversy and difficulty, and would also add unnecessary complexity (which is a separate objection).". Nothing of the form, "Adopting option E would indeed generate controversy and difficulty, because ______". The closest you've come to anything substantive supporting your claim that E will not lead to stability is this statement made a few comments back, "WP:TITLE explicitly allows for variations. Thus, if E is adopted, it will generate conflict. ". But even this is a logical fallacy, begging the question. WP:TITLE allows for variations, for good reasons. The question here, put in your terms, is asking what the specific good reasons would be for specific examples supporting variations on WP:TITLE if E is adopted, that would override the list of 5 bulleted items I listed above in the 18:41, 6 November reply to you and Melanie, including with USPLACE clearly indicating use of City as title where the US city is the primary topic. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:42, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Scope/definition concerns

I see that the USPLACE naming convention applies broadly to all "settlements in the United States", with particular cities being exempted only in terms of the AP Stylebook list. However, the options presented above in this RfC explicitly refer to "all U.S. cities".

That raises an important question: what qualifies as a city? It's not clear-cut, as the city article notes:

In the United States of America, the classification of population centers is a matter of state law; consequently, the definition of a city varies widely from state to state. In some states, a city may be run by an elected mayor and city council, while a town is governed by the people, a select board (or board of trustees), or open town meeting. There are some very large municipalities that are labeled as towns (such as Hempstead, New York, with a population of 755,785 in 2004 or Cary, North Carolina with a population of 112,414 in 2006) and some very small cities (such as Woodland Mills, Tennessee, with a population of 296 in 2000), and the line between town and city, if it exists at all, varies from state to state.

This means that applying an option like E (which specifically addresses "all U.S. cities") would be extremely problematic and likely fraught with confusion and disputes about what particular subjects the convention does or does not apply to.

Alternatively, if the scope of the RfC is such as to overturn the current USPLACE convention in its entirety (for all settlements and not just cities), then that needs to be made clear. ╠╣uw [talk] 18:20, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

There is no intent to change scope. Whatever article falls under USPLACE today using B (all articles about US settlements) would also fall under E, if E were adopted. For example, Fallbrook, California is not a city, but an unincorporated settlement in San Diego County, and is the primary topic for Fallbrook. Under E, this article would be moved to Fallbrook. Why this would be "extremely problematic and likely fraught with confusion and disputes" is beyond me. The algorithm is trivial:

FOR all cases of articles with titles Name, State

IF Name is a redirect to Name, State THEN

MOVE Name, State → Name.

It's really not a big deal. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:00, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

You can't see that this is in fact a formula for dispute? Really? Having read everything that has been said against it thus far? It is a big deal. Leave the guideline as it is; it works fine. Omnedon (talk) 19:02, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I have read all of it, very carefully. Have you? I have asked repeatedly for examples of cities that would be disputed if E was adopted. The only ones provide are two by Melanie, and I've explained why they wouldn't be under dispute, twice. No one has pointed out anything wrong with my explanation. If there is anything wrong with it, I would like to know what it is. If there isn't, I still want to know why people are so sure there would be disputes if they can't even provide a single example that holds up to a little scrutiny. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:16, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Born2cycle: Your example doesn't make sense. Option E (as stated in this RfC) applies to "U.S. cities". Fallbrook is (as you say) not a city, and so therefor would not be subject to E as it's currently stated.

Your explanation is also rather confusing I'm afraid. The only articles that currently "fall under USPLACE today using B" (B being the option to exempt only those cities on the AP list) are those 30 cities on the AP list. That being the case, applying the E convention to them doesn't yield any change, since those cities are already exempted from the City, State requirement by dint of USPLACE.

The current convention's extremely easy; this new proposal seems about as confusing as one can imagine... ╠╣uw [talk] 19:29, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

You're not understanding. First, I just boldly added the following clarifying note to the top of the RFC:

NOTE: Use of the term "city" in this RfC is synonymous with "settlement" as used in the current USPLACE wording. That is, "city" refers to any US settlement that has an article in WP with either title or redirect of the form Name, State.

If that is not the proposer's intent, he can remove it. But, again, I'm sure it is.

Second, it is not true that "The only articles that currently 'fall under USPLACE today using B' ... are those 30 cities on the AP list". As B itself states, "this is the current convention". The current convention is what USPLACE states today, and what USPLACE states today is that it applies to all settlements in the US. Also, the first sentence in B refers to cities on the AP list. The second sentence applies to all others, "Otherwise use City, State. ".

I have added a parenthetic clarification to my explanation above.

What is being proposed for E is to title US city settlement articles like any other article on WP:

If the US settlement is the primary topic for its name, use Name, otherwise use Name, State.

What is confusing about that? Can you identify even a single article whose title might be in question under this rule? --Born2cycle (talk) 20:04, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I see and have reverted that change. Please note that it's highly inappropriate to go back and deliberately alter the central subject of an RfC (particularly someone else's) after it's been opened and received significant comment. The explicit subject of this RfC is naming convention for cities; it cannot now be retroactively changed to all settlements. You are, however, free to open a new RfC of your own on that subject. ╠╣uw [talk] 20:13, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Much of the wording in the RfC, including clarifying that B is the current convention, suggests your interpretation, insisting on the formal/official definition of "city", makes no sense. How can B be the current convention if it applies only to cities, or only to cities on the AP list as you said above, since the current convention applies to all US settlements?

All references to "city" in the RfC are obviously informal, and clearly apply to unincorporated settlements as well as to officially incorporated municipalities. --Born2cycle (talk) 20:20, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Your ignoring my question above, asking if you can identify even a single article whose title might be in question under "If the US settlement is the primary topic for its name, use Name, otherwise use Name, State", challenges my ability to continue assuming good faith here. I mean, if you still really believe E to be confusing and likely to lead to disagreements, then show us some examples. If you don't, then please agree to stop making spurious claims about E being confusing or leading to disagreements. If you refuse to do either, then I really don't see how you could be working in good faith. --Born2cycle (talk) 20:25, 6 November 2012 (UTC)