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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4

Revert move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no move to Ann Arbor, restoring to Ann Arbor, Michigan per MoS on US cities. The discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(geographic_names)#RFC:_United_States_cities was closed on 21 Jan in favour of the current guideline specifying that AP style guide cities were the only exception. As a further suggestion, having closed a lot of pages over the years, attempts to loosen the MoS on this have only really worked with the biggest cities. It'd be cases like Memphis, Tennessee or Jacksonville, Florida that would lead to this guideline being loosened. When the AP style guide was brought in, it was merely as an excuse to make exceptions for the most famous cities and appease. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 12:07, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Ann Arbor → Ann Arbor, Michigan — Relisted. Dpmuk (talk) 01:10, 17 January 2011 (UTC) Ann Arbor is not on the Associated Press list of U.S. cities that do not need the state identifier. As such, news reports and the like (excluding local sources, of course) that reference the city will almost always append the state; we should too. --Powers T 21:16, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

  • Oppose and Quick close This article was just moved. Requesting moves less than a week after a move is completed is bad form. I am not opposed revising once the business at WP:NCGN is resolved but until then it's likely better to leave this article be. --Labattblueboy (talk) 01:05, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
    • The problem is that this move, base on thin participation, is being used as an example in the NCGN.   Will Beback  talk  01:27, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
      • Why is that a problem? It illustrates why guidelines that require articles to be at overprecise titles create instablity. What inevitably happens, sooner or later, is that somebody seeks to move the article from the overprecise title to a more concise title, and then it's moved, then somebody objects, etc. That's instability.

        On the other hand, you have the example of the AP cities, most of which each had a history of instability while subject to the comma convention rule, until they were moved to their concise titles. The only unstable one (of those that are primary topics for their plain names) now is the one that wasn't moved, Las Vegas, Nevada.

        This article serves as an example of the instability caused by imposing the comma convention on articles with unambiguous plain names whether this article stays here or not; in fact this "move revert" proposal only strengthens the case (had the guideline been changed to no longer require ", state", there would be no grounds whatsoever for this proposal, and this article would remain here peacefully, indefinitely). --Born2cycle (talk) 01:58, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

It seems that most of these of pages moves are by known partisans in this discussion. It's one thing if these were random editors, it's another when it is folks like us who have been around this block and made our views on this subject well known. If I were to open up a page move on Seattle, Washington during the holidays and was successful with a 3 person consensus, it wouldn't be very fair of me to use that as an example that the "exceptions" clause has a "history of instability" and likely to only cause more problems. AgneCheese/Wine 02:05, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
B2C, things only seem unstable because a few people have decided they don't like the U.S. convention. That's not evidence that they're necessarily right. =) Powers T 02:53, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
The instability caused by predisambiguation extends far beyond U.S. city articles. This is one of the reasons the practice has been abandoned from categories ranging from Canadian cities to TV episodes to even royalty to some extent. It's caused because just about anyone who pays attention to WP naming will notice the consistent practice to use concise titles and not be any more precise than is necessary for disambiguation, until they stumble onto an exception, like, for example, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Then they naturally try to fix it. Once titles are at their most concise names they are stable because nobody has a good reason to move them. See User:Born2cycle#A_goal:_naming_stability_at_Wikipedia. --Born2cycle (talk) 04:16, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
This is not so much predisambiguation but an attempt to apply COMMONNAME to a class of articles with consistency rather than having no way to know what title the city is at without looking at the article. Powers T 13:32, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
The state that a city happens to be located in is not part of the name of the city. "What is the name of the city in which you live?" is a different question from "Where do you live?" - and the former is the one we should be asking with respect to how to title the article about the city in which you live. Being able to know an article's title without looking is nice, but not a high priority goal of how to title articles - it does not warrant compromising conciseness or only as precise as necessary to disambiguate. If a more concise and less precise common name is available, it should be used. Besides, if we were consistent with that, it would still be easy to predict an article's title (those with unambiguous names would be at [name] and those with ambiguous names at [name, state]). Have you been having a hard time predicting the titles of cities on the AP list in the three years since they were moved? --Born2cycle (talk) 22:56, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
      • Not to be disrespectful but where was everyone three weeks ago, and don't use Christmas holidays (as some are trying to do) as an excuse. Nearly everyone here was editing between the 18th and the 26th and this worked its way through RM without barely a peep. The rather public listing or RMs makes "under the radar" all but impossible. Move discussions relating to US cities have been taking place, almost continuously, for over a month. The debate regarding San Diego since early November. So I have hard time seeing this as shocking news. Maybe WP:CITIES should begin employing an article alert bot, like AAlertBot. Getting to the matter at hand. The WP:COMMONNAME is Ann Arbor, plain and simple. In terms of WP:PRECISION, the state name is not needed as a disambiguating factor. The name on it's own is precise enough.--Labattblueboy (talk) 03:53, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
        • If I knew how I missed that particular RM, I wouldn't have missed it. Anyway, I disagree; if we look primarily at references to the city that come from outside the state of Michigan and neighboring areas -- places where the location of Ann Arbor is already known well -- the state name is very frequently appended. That makes "Ann Arbor, Michigan" the common name of this city. Powers T 13:32, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
          • For media that utilize the AP stylebook (AP online and print newsmedia) I think you're correct. However, in terms of wider published material, I don't think so. For instance, if you look at an aggregate of news articles at google news posted in the last 24 hours there are 155 hits for Ann Arbor, Michigan[1], 1,590 hits for Ann Arbor, Mich (most related to football and appearing to use republished AP new releases)[2] and 3,502 hits for Ann Arbor with Mich and Ann Arbor, Michigan removed.[3] Even with AnnArbor.com removed (although I don't believe local should be discounted, I still get 2,200 hits[4] In terms of books, I get 1.1M google book hits for Ann Arbor -Mich -"Ann -Arbor, -Michigan"[5] and half that many for Ann Arbor, Michigan[6].--Labattblueboy (talk) 19:15, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Support reversion to "Ann Arbor, Michigan"' to conform to naming conventions. Those cities which have been exempted from those conventions are the largest and most prominent ones, which Ann Arbor does not qualify as. The previous discussion, which took place during the very slow pre-holiday period, should have been re-listed for further input rather than closed. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:36, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Support reversion to Ann Arbor, Michigan per guideline. This was a quiet, under the radar RM that only circumvents consensus building at WP:PLACES. The objective should be to build consensus towards a cohesive, consistent guideline rather than trying to do isolated RM requests when no one (okay, maybe 4 people) is looking. A consensus of 3 editors is no consensus at all. AgneCheese/Wine 01:42, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Support reversion. We already have a naming convention that keeps us from having to guess where an article is.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 01:43, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose: Fuck WP:PLACE#United States. There is only one "Ann Arbor" of note and this is it.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 01:44, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
    I suppose we can add WP:CONLIMITED to the list of guidelines we're "fucking off"? AgneCheese/Wine 01:49, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
    I am not basing my opinion on the previous consensus. I am working to promote a new one. It is very clear that this is the only Ann Arbor of any note in any jurisdiction on the Earth. It is therefore entirely unnecessary to disambiguate the page title to say that it is in Michigan when there are no other Ann Arbors around to require a different title for this particular page. The only reason that there is a discussion to revert the move is because several people on this project have nothing better to do with their time than to make ulimately restrictive guidelines set into the manuals of style based on everything but common sense. The only reason anyone is bothered about this is because they do not think that there should be any exceptions to any of the manuals of style. If you already use the location as redirect because it is the primary topic, why the hell do you need to disambiguate the title?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 01:52, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
    And WP:COMMONSENSE dictates that we have guidelines because we have a broad spectrum of articles that have to be dealt with and it makes more sense to have something consistent versus a patchwork quilt of "whatever". While Ann Arbor maybe the only city called Ann Arbor it is not the only US city article that we have an article on Wikipedia about. So we can either go with "whatever" as a guideline for dealing any article someone just happens to feel like doing a page move on OR we can try to build consensus on the guideline that impacts all US city articles. AgneCheese/Wine 01:59, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
    It seems to me that the current guideline has everything backwards. Rather than have every US city appended by it's state's name, except for a few cases listed in the Associated Press's style guide, it should be that every US city should not be appended by its state's name, unless there is another city (or article) that has the same name (Paris, Texas, Athens, Georgia, Springfield, Massachusetts, Springfield, Illinois, Albany, New York, Albany, Georgia, Phoenix, Arizona, Buffalo, New York). That seems to be more common sense than following some external policy on how to refer to city names.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 02:04, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
    Now we are limiting "common" sense to your personal opinion which, may not be used to the common vernacular in the US of referring to locations with the City, State convention. Yes, the Wikipedia convention for US articles is different from other global city articles because the real life usage in the US different. If some news events happens in Assawoman, Virginia, people in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, etc are not going to be talking about "that event in Assawoman". Heck, even the headlines about the possible firing of the University of Michigan's football coach are datelined with "Ann Arbor, Michigan". That's just the way the US vernacular is that even when talking about the University of Michigan, it is still habit to say "Ann Arbor, Michigan". AgneCheese/Wine 02:18, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
    Ryulong, naming guidelines provide stability to article names, and per Wikipedia:Article titles#Explicit_conventions its is policy to follow such guidelines because they "neutral and common convention specific to that subject domain". It's quite clear that your beef is with the guideline rather than with this one place an exception to them, so go argue for a change in the guideline. Unless and until such a change is made, the correct title for this article is per the current version of WP:PLACE#United States. -BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:31, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
    The guideline should not be a law written in stone. There are clear that there are exceptions to be made, and this is one of them. Just because the guideline is there doesn't mean it has to be followed on this page.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 05:11, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Support reversion, per guideline. The previous discussion was a bad close, because there was no counter-argument to the 4th editor's invocation of the guideline. The closing editor should not have closed just by a headcount, when only the minority view was the only one which addressed the guideline. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:48, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Speedy close per Labattblueboy. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:58, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Speedy closeOppose -- Move was proposed by someone who is well aware that a discussion about the U.S. place naming guideline is ongoing. I'm sure if any of the guideline discussion participants on the other side did it, this would also be the reaction. --Polaron | Talk 03:28, 5 January 2011 (UTC) -- Clarified my position now that it seems this won't be speedy closed. Current title is consistent with Wikipedia-wide guidelines of using the most concise name that is sufficient to distinguish the article. If others contest that this is the primary topic for this name, then they should go about opening a requested move for the disambiguation page. --Polaron | Talk 02:21, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
    • Polaron, you're truing to have your cake and eat it. The RFC discussion was ongoing when the christmas-time move was made. If article names are going to be frozen while the guideline discussion is underway, freeze as it was when the guideline discussion started on 19 December 2010. The contested and under-attended move req took place while the RFC was underway, so it's quite perverse to let that stand but seek speedy closure of a better-attended one proposing its reversal.--BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:17, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
      • The person who proposed the original move was not, however, involved in that guideline discussion. The person who proposed this one was. --Polaron | Talk 13:38, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
        • The person who proposed the original move made several cookie-cutter proposals for different places, by way of disregarding consensus, and is an "involved party". S/he should have discussed it and even announced it publicly rather than stirring up local trouble in many different places. --Doncram (talk) 15:59, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
          • There is an argument to be made for having created one multi-article proposal, but there is no requirement to do so. And the idea that you should have a discussion before starting a discussion (essentially that's all these are) is absurd. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:09, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Support revert, per the standard name guideline for US. The guideline has not changed and these changes to name without state should be rejected as trying to create the 'instability' and confusion. Soon every city an editor thinks is so 'well known' to not need state will be subject to rename. This is 'my city' puffery promotion, regardless where one lives. Hmains (talk) 06:13, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose, we don't have to blindly follow conventions, particularly those which seem no longer to enjoy consensus support. Disambiguation of this title is superfluous.--Kotniski (talk) 07:03, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose, this is not a postal address. Article titles should be concise. --JinJian (talk) 09:22, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
    • Why does concision take precedence over commonality? Powers T 13:33, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
      • If I want more information, I would dwell on the body of the article. Although the AP style does mention that there are 30 U.S. cities that "do not need to be followed by the state name", it appears that the exceptions are intended for the datelines, or a "must" that should included in the article bodies. It does not state that it should be applied for the headlines or article titles. Please see [7] for the AP style I am referring to. This is an example of a news story from CNN, [8]. I have yet to see a news article title that includes state name Michigan for Ann Arbor. At the very least, there is no consensus from media outlets that headlines should always bear the state name. They know the importance in keeping their article titles short and would not likely keep their headlines from becoming overloaded or complicated. Encyclopedia Britannica [9] uses only Ann Arbor for its title. Hence, Ann Arbor, Michigan as an article title cannot even be considered as common at all. Appending state name is an unnecessary redundancy since the article can provide that information. Ann Arbor can stand on itself so let it be. Disambiguate only if necessary. --JinJian (talk) 15:33, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
        • An outstanding point I don't believe I've ever seen made before. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:35, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
        • This is not a case of disambiguation since, as you note, there is only one Ann Arbor. It is instead a case of COMMONNAME. Powers T 20:03, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
          • But the evidence presented is that "Ann Arbor" is more common than "Ann Arbor, Michigan". Even if it was just a wash, obviously the shorter one wins on conciseness and preciseness (it's not overly precise). The only principle criteria by which the overprecise title is favored is consistency... consistency with a guideline that is in dispute (if not in disrepute). --Born2cycle (talk) 21:05, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
            • Found it interesting that the CNN article does not use "Michigan" in the headline, but the very first sentence of the article says "Eight Ann Arbor, Michigan, schools..." Substitute "Detroit" for "Ann Arbor" and the word "Michigan" would be dropped completely. --JonRidinger (talk) 05:46, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Support revert, per the standard name guideline for US, per Hmains statement above. --Doncram (talk) 15:59, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Support reversion to "Ann Arbor, Michigan"' per naming convention. The trickle of non-sui generis individual challenges to the convention is getting old. Change WP:PLACE#United States first. — AjaxSmack 00:05, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Ryulong. Enough of this walled garden where special rules apply; let common names that are disambiguated only when needed apply all over Wikipedia. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 01:28, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Support reversion to original title also per naming convention and the. Ann Arbor is not a hugely well-known city relatively speaking which is why the AP doesn't list it as one that does not need a state with it. I also think the initial move to simply "Ann Arbor" was improper, particularly with the oppose on it that cited a relevant policy guideline; more time should've been given and more input should've been sought first. Look at the response it's getting now that more people are aware of it. I don't watch this article; I was made aware by a simple posting on the WP:CITIES talk page. --JonRidinger (talk) 02:26, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
    • WP:PLACE is not a policy. It is a guideline.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 05:21, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
      • That is true, but my support for the reversion still stands. The reason to go against the guideline in the first place was not strong as the cities given as examples for the change (Detroit, Milwaukee) are all much larger and well-known than Ann Arbor. Not only was WP:PLACE given as a reason, but the ongoing discussion about it and the possibility of changes was also referenced. The main argument here seems to be directed at the guideline itself, not so much Ann Arbor. --JonRidinger (talk) 05:46, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Support reversion to "Ann Arbor, Michigan" per naming convention. The United States isn't a "walled garden". Naming conventions serve a purpose, aiding both readers and editors.   Will Beback  talk  07:55, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Support in line with long-standing convention. Deb (talk) 18:52, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
  • A speedy close is not appropriate here, but I oppose reversion. "Ann Arbor" is a sufficiently unambiguous title, and as WP:TITLE suggests, in the absence of ambiguity, "shorter titles are generally preferred to longer ones." The WP:PLACE#United States guideline ought to be updated to more closely match the policy, but that's for the RFC to decide. 28bytes (talk) 19:26, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Support reversion to form used by the Associated Press (a reliable source writing in American), which will restore consistency to Category:Cities in Michigan. Please note that consistency with articles in the same categories is one of the principles of WP:TITLE. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:03, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
    • Did you see the post above from JinJian stamped 15:33, 5 January 2011? The AP uses the city, state in datelines, not in titles. In titles they rarely use the state. To follow what reliable sources like newspapers do, we would not specify the state in our titles (except when necessary), and specify it in the closest equivalent of the dateline in our articles... the lead.

      Consistency with how other similar articles are titled is only one of five principle naming criteria listed at WP:TITLE, in this case the guideline/convention in question does not have consensus support, and using just "Ann Arbor" is consistent with how most other city articles are named, because two other relevant criteria here are conciseness and only as precise as necessary. Last I checked, 2 > 1 (I presume a wash in this case on the other two criteria, recognizability to those familiar with the topic and naturalness). --Born2cycle (talk) 23:19, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

      • Concision is a good thing; so is consistency. Those who have read WP:TITLE will see we value both; since both forms are recognizable - and Ann Arbor, Michigan is if anything more recognizable and natural than mere Ann Arbor (it will assure the reader that this is not a dab page) - we can afford not to set the riddle of why this city (alone in Michigan) should be undisambiguated. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:31, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
        • Well, not quite alone in Michigan, although close to it. 28bytes (talk) 23:41, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
        • If it was only a matter of conciseness vs. consistency, it would be a toss-up, but the shorter name is also clearly in better compliance with only as precise as necessary to distinguish an article from other uses. That makes it 2 to 1.

          If you really believe one or the other is more natural or recognizable (to those familiar with the topic), I suggest you're interpreting those criteria in this case in a way that they are not intended to be understood.

          Please note that by that interpretation of "natural" and "recognizable", almost every article in WP about cities and towns with unambiguous names should have its title extended to be more "natural" and "recognizable". That is, if Ann Arbor, Michigan is more natural and/or recognizable than Ann Arbor, then Tecate, Baja California is more "natural" and/or "recognizable" than Tecate, and so it should be moved as well.

          In fact, with that interpretation, countless titles about any topic that is not as well known as any city on the AP list should be extended to be more "natural" and/or "recognizable". In other words, it's an interpretation of these criteria that is not used for naming any other articles, so why should it be used here? Clearly, that's not how they are intended to be understood, and which is why, for example, recognizability is clarified to apply only to those already familiar with the topic.

          Sorry, but this really seems like just another I just don't like it rationalization cleverly (and perhaps not intentionally) as an apparently reasonable position. This Wikipedian, for one, ain't buyin' it. Got anything else? --Born2cycle (talk) 00:12, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

There's nothing novel here; it would be more helpfully put as "Oppose; WP:I don't like it"; we know that. When Born2Cycle is quite finished repeating the same points, do let us know. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:37, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
Actually, I don't recall ever making this argument before - essentially, that it's fallacious to interpret recognizability and naturalness specially for this article, or for all U.S. city articles, as the argument you just put forward apparently is. Am I the only one to find the "nothing novel here" excuse to not reply to the substance of this argument to be telling? If you have responded to this point before, a link would be appreciated, for I am truly interested in what that response might be. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:51, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
You are incorrect that the naturalness and recognizability arguments are equally applicable to Mexican cities. Communities in the United States are very frequently referred to with the state identifier attached -- it is, thus, natural for American editors and readers to write the names of the communities that way. American readers are also quite used to seeing the state appended on first reference, and not just in datelines, either, making it more recognizable as referring to an American community. These traits are apparently not seen to the same level in other countries, including Mexico. Powers T 01:00, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, I think there might be some misunderstanding due to clumping the two criteria together, so let's look at them separately.

The issue isn't whether "Ann Arbor, Michigan", is more natural than "Tecate, Baja California" (I agree it is), it's about whether "Ann Arbor, Michigan" is more natural than "Ann Arbor". I don't see how it is (and that goes for any U.S. city or town). That is, it's perfectly natural to refer to a U.S. city by its concise name, and so referring to it as "city, state", while also (arguably equally) natural, is not more natural. That's why I said above that with respect to naturalness, the two titles being considered here are a wash.

With respect to recognizability, if you ignore the "to readers who are familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic" phrase, one might conceivably argue that "Ann Arbor, Michigan" is more "recognizable" than "Ann Arbor". But by that interpretation, "Tecate, Baja California" is more "recognizable" than "Tecate", and Regensburg, Bavaria is more "recognizable" than Regensburg ("Regensburg, Bavaria" is also quite "natural", by the way[10]). We don't move those cities (or countless other articles) to make them more "recognizable" in that sense, so that must not be what that criteria is about. Therefore the only way to see "recognizability" as favoring "Ann Arbor, Michigan" over "Ann Arbor", is to interpret "recognizability" specially for this article (or for U.S. city articles)... it's a classic JDLI rationalization. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:21, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

No, not at all. My whole point was that due to the differences in how cities in the U.S. are commonly identified (versus in other countries, like Mexico), the longer form is more recognizable. There's no reason why the same logic necessarily must apply to cities in other countries. Furthermore, even if some of us would prefer that those titles for articles on foreign cities be expanded to include the country or region name, there's a bit of a gentleman's agreement at WP:PLACE that editors from a particular country are best positioned to choose the ideal naming conventions for that country, so I, as an American editor, would not presume to dictate to the Mexican or German editors what their convention should be. Powers T 03:26, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
If I'm wrong please correct me and ignore the rest of this paragraph, but I think you're saying that independent of the generic recognizability boost that all cities get by being qualified with a higher level jurisdiction region like Michigan, Baja California or Bavaria, U.S. cities get an additional peculiar boost in recognizability from being qualified by state because state qualification is so commonly used in the U.S. (which I'm not disputing), and that peculiar American boost in recognizability is why "city, state" should be preferred over "city", even though the generic boost in recognizability is not counted. Remember, we're talking about cities with unambiguous names, and recognizability from the perspective of "readers who are familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic". Are you seriously suggesting that someone familiar with Ann Arbor is going to be more likely to recognize "Ann Arbor, Michigan" than "Ann Arbor"? I'm sorry, and I don't doubt your sincerity, but this whole argument strikes me as rationalized contriving to the point of absurdity.

As to the argument that editors from each respective country should make these decisions, see WP:OWN and Balkanization. --Born2cycle (talk) 04:20, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I know I read about that last bit somewhere, but I'm having trouble finding it. Powers T 12:04, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose The current title, Ann Arbor, complies better with the five principle naming criteria at WP:TITLE than does the proposed title. It is more concise, and is not overprecise. It's just as natural and recognizable (despite LtPowers' valiant effort to argue otherwise above). "Ann Arbor" is also more consistent with how other similar articles (articles of city and towns with unambiguous names throughout the world) are named. The U.S. specific convention to disambiguate with state is useful for those articles about U.S. cities that require disambiguation - but that is not the case here.

    Also, per Wikipedia:Article_titles#Explicit_conventions, which says that the "practice of using specialized names [not strictly the common name] is often controversial, and should not be adopted ".

    Finally, articles that are not at their concise titles face a turbulent future fraught with page moves and page move proposals. Only when articles like this are moved to the concise names, and the guideline is consistent with WP:TITLE naming criteria, can stability be expected, as demonstrated by the tranquility that ensued after the cities on the AP list were moved to their concise names. There is no reason to believe the same would not be true for this article, and every reason to believe it would. --Born2cycle (talk) 07:42, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

    • You know, I've been thinking about your stability argument and why I don't find it persuasive. I think it's because the stability that you describe is not the result of any inherent superiority of the "concise names", but rather due to the near-ubiquity of that rule in Wikipedia. It's true that the U.S. guideline is an exception, so editors unfamiliar with the exception will of course try to bring the articles into conformity. This does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that the exception is undesirable or should be eliminated, though! It could be that stability would also be achieved with wider knowledge of the exception. (As an aside, I also think you're overestimating the stability problems; considering the number of communities in the U.S. that have articles, the number of move requests is really quite small on the whole -- and until recently there was rarely any support for said move requests among experienced editors. Also, a simple move request is not evidence of instability; a successful move request is.) Powers T 12:04, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
      • Awesome. I always love clarity in thinking. I can tell you've given this some serious thought as you've made some excellent points. I don't really disagree with anything you said. I probably put too much emphasis on the stability argument. The main point regarding that is that whatever instability we have with respect to U.S. city articles, it would almost certainly be reduced if mandatory enforcement of the comma convention was dropped (after a reasonable transition period). While I also agree it's theoretically possible to achieve stability without dropping it, I suggest that not happening after a decade with the comma convention required for US cities even with unambiguous names is an indication that we should try dropping it, especially considering how quickly stability was clearly achieved with the unambiguously named cities on the AP list when it was dropped for them. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:01, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Follow the guideline, whatever this might be after the current RfC on it is finished. I think the move was too hasty, and a better course would have been to relist it for further discussion, but I see no need to immediately revert the move. --Avenue (talk) 14:02, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Support reversion to form.Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:09, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Support move to Ann Arbor, Michigan. We have a longstanding guideline saying that this should include the state name, and three editors on one talk page are far less significant than the many editors who have helped to form the consensus at the naming conventions page. Nyttend (talk) 04:30, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose reverting the move, per WP:TITLE/WP:PRECISION. U.S. cities don't need special naming conventions not found anywhere else in the world, the AP Style guide isn't Wikipedia policy, and that section of the guideline in any event is just the view of a very small number of editors, without wide consensus. Jayjg (talk) 20:50, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
Your comment makes no sense. Of course, US cities have the naming convention of US cities (which is City, State) because US cities are not found anywhere else in the world. Alanscottwalker (talk) 04:14, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
On the contrary; there is nothing inherent in the nature of U.S. place names that makes them require unnecessary disambiguation using state names. Many other countries have states or similar political sub-divisions (e.g. provinces, territories), yet we do not demand this WP:PRECISION violation for them. Roughfort, a village of 200 people, apparently doesn't need disambiguation because it's outside the U.S., but Ann Arbor, a uniquely named city of 113,000 people does, because it's inside the U.S.? It's just Gahlai, not Gahlai, Uttar Pradesh, but the uniquely named cities of Yonkers, New York (pop. 202,000) and Schenectady, New York (pop. 62,000) must disambiguated by state? That makes no sense. Jayjg (talk) 04:41, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
On the contrary, what? It is in fact inherent in the name of US cities that they are referred to by municipality, state. What they do in Lower Austria or Uttar Pradesh is an irrelevant red herring. They probably don't call orange, orange, either.Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:35, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
You seem to be conflating postal designation usage in the U.S., which is "Postal Area, State" (where "Postal Area" is often but also often not the name of the municipality or a nearby municipality), with municipality designation, which tends to be "City of Name" (e.g., see the official Ann Arbor page).--Born2cycle (talk) 22:56, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
The page you refered me to prominently says: "City of Ann Arbor Michigan." That does not support this move, rather the opposite and just goes to show that (municipality, state) is the inherent name of this US city.Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:26, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
Are you just being argumentative? I presume you're looking at the city seal. Yes, most city seals state the name of the state that the city is in, as well as the official name of the city ("City of Ann Arbor" in this case). But I was referring to the page title next to it... "City of Ann Arbor". Also, if you look at the title of that page (the name it displays in your brower tab, for example), it is "Welcome to the City of Ann Arbor - Official Home Page". In any case, won't find "Ann Arbor, Michigan" anywhere on that page, nor anywhere in the city charter. The claim that municipalities in the U.S. are referred to as CityName, State is apparently not true; certainly not true for Ann Arbor which is what is relevant here. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:09, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
Of course its true. Once again you direct me to a document that prominently proclaims 'Ann Arbor Michigan. Please keep it up and you'll prove to everyone the soundness and universality of municipality, state as the inherent name for this city and other US cities.Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:55, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
Okay, so you are just being argumentative. Let me know if you want to have a serious discussion. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:59, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
I'm totally serious. Your repeated attempt to read Michigan out of these documents is what's unserious. Your complaint about me being argumentative is almost as laughable.Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:08, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
You are Moving the goalposts from "inherent in the name of US cities that they are referred to by municipality, state" (my emphasis) to "Michigan is in the document". Of course you will find references to "Michigan" on the official web page and in the city charter. But there is no dispute about that.

What you won't find in either of these documents is a reference to the proposed name of this article, Ann Arbor, Michigan, which is what is relevant here. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:29, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not moving anything. These documents prominently refer to Ann Arbor Michigan. In ordinary English, you write that: Ann Arbor, Michigan.Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:52, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
Are you suggesting these documents are not written in ordinary English? Of course they are, and, yet, they don't use "Ann Arbor, Michigan" to refer to the City of Ann Arbor municipality. I'm sure you can find plenty of references that use "Ann Arbor, Michigan" to designate the general area in and around the municipality, perhaps as part of a postal address of something around there, perhaps even a property owned by the municipality. But you will not find a reference using "Ann Arbor, Michigan" to refer to the municipality.

There is no basis in these documents or anywhere else for your claim that "inherent in the name of US cities that they are referred to by municipality, state", at least not with respect to Ann Arbor, which is all that matters here. --Born2cycle (talk) 03:15, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

No, these documents prominently refer to Ann Arbor Michigan in typset. In writing that in ordinary English, its Ann Arbor, Michigan. They fully support the title of this article being Ann Arbor, Michigan and Ann Arbor, Michigan being inherent in reference to this municipality. Alanscottwalker (talk) 03:32, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
You continue to make assertions without any evidence; on the contrary, the sources all contradict what you say. And by the way, in Ireland they generally call an "orange" an "orange". Jayjg (talk) 04:04, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
On the contrary, they do support what I say. Besides, in Irish orange is an t-úll but no one is talking about Ireland.Alanscottwalker (talk) 04:32, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
But in Roughfort (pop. 200) - note, not "Roughfort, Northern Ireland" - they speak English, and they call an orange an orange. Jayjg (talk) 02:30, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
Now that you've demonstrated that Roughfort, Northern Ireland needs to be disambiguated in your own comment for anyone to know what your talking about, one can see how little sense there is in your position.Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:14, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
Disingenuous Talk: page comments aren't helpful, Alan. Roughfort doesn't "need to be disambiguated" because it's uniquely named (see WP:PRECISION), and our naming guidelines are quite clear on this. There's been no reason given why place-names in the U.S. need be named differently from any other place names (or indeed, than all other articles), other than circular statements that "that's what the guideline says", or hand-waving about "that's the standard way they're referred to", which is has so far been entirely unsupported by anything other than refuted assertions. Jayjg (talk) 01:01, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
I made no disingenuous comments. You, on the other hand, breached trust when you made an administrative move on this page (as shown below), even though you are an involved administrator.Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:18, 17 January 2011 (UTC)


  • Support Whilst I support a change to the Naming Convention for the United States, consensus has not been achieved, and the status quo should stay until it is reached. The Christmas move to Ann Arbor was an attempt to pre-empt that discussion, and completely at variance with our procedures. Skinsmoke (talk) 06:12, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
    • How was it an attempt to pre-empt that discussion? Why would you say that? Do you have any evidence that indicates the person who proposed the original move in December even knew about the ongoing RFC? --Born2cycle (talk) 06:22, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
    • In fact, the previous proposal was created on December 18, while I started the RFC on December 19. How could it be an attempt to pre-empt a discussion that had not even started? --Born2cycle (talk) 06:26, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment - Since I closed the last move request, I won't be closing this one. I would comment, however, that the arguments for using the state name in this case seem to me somewhat officious and bureaucratic. I don't think anyone intends that, but we should remember that according to WP:5P, "Wikipedia does not have firm rules". We all know about WP:IAR and WP:WIARM. Guidelines are not decided in an ivory tower and then applied to articles; they are decided at the article level, on a case-by-case basis, and then the guidelines are abstracted from those individual cases once a "best practice" becomes apparent. I would be inclined to give very little weight to any argument that boils down to "follow the rule because it's a rule". If there's no specific advantage to adding ", Michigan" to the title of this article, then I don't see why we should do it.

    I would also respond to the above comment by Skinsmoke that "the Christmas move to Ann Arbor was an attempt to pre-empt that discussion, and completely at variance with our procedures." I can assure you that my closure and move was not an attempt to "pre-empt" anything. It was an attempt to close the move according to the discussion there, in order to help clear the extensive backlog at WP:RM. I have no dog in this fight, but I know what I know about Wikipedia guidelines being determined in a bottom-up fashion, not a top-down one.

    As for being "completely at variance with our procedures", I think I can say that, having closed literally thousands of move requests in the last 4 or 5 years, I have a pretty clear understanding of what our procedures are. In particular, we decide things by consensus, in a bottom up, case-by-case manner.

    If my closure is reversed, I won't argue, but will note what happened and keep it in mind as another bit of evidence regarding the community's thinking on this issue. -GTBacchus(talk) 19:18, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I accept that there may be good reasons why a general guideline should not apply to a particular article. My main objection to your close is that no such reasons were given, and in fact the entire move discussion before the last comment (mine, made only hours before you closed the discussion) proceeded with no reference to the guideline. Perhaps there was consensus to move, but not an evidently informed consensus. To me, what seemed overly bureaucratic here was your closing the discussion without allowing further discussion of this critical point. --Avenue (talk) 01:11, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
GTB, the closing admin, addressed the guideline and your objection based on it in the closing comment: "The only opposition seems to be related to a guideline that is under discussion, and it is discussions such as this that ultimately inform the guideline, and not the other way around.". Given the bottom-up nature of WP, I think it's unfair to characterize those involved as "uninformed" simply because they did not explicitly address the guideline they were choosing to ignore. While the proposer of the move may not have known about the guideline, the three in Support did know about it. The reasons for ignoring were given, as follows: "disambiguation by state doesn't appear to be necessary in this case", "Ann Arbor is always this one [unique use of 'Ann Arbor']", "It'll be easier to link to." and "needless disambiguator". These are all implied but rather obvious references to the good reasons of concision and "no more precise than necessary" to ignore the specific naming guideline. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:29, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
Thank you Born2cycle, and thank you for your comments, Avenue. To you, Avenue, I'd say that there's a little more going on than might be immediately apparent. I recognize the names of those who supported the move (it's hard to close 3 move requests without running into Kotniski, for example), and I know them to be informed regarding our naming guidelines, as well as our more general way of determining guidelines, by treating particular cases on merit and later extracting best practices. Their comments seemed to me to address precisely the question of why we should call the article Ann Arbor despite the guideline, and not in ignorance of it.

If you look at the way we've handled US cities over the past.... decade, then you'll see that we've been moving in this direction for some time. We started with a big database dump of practically every US settlement, all created without any individual discussion, and as we've worked through them over the years, we've been refining our way of treating American cities. This is what I've observed, anyway, and I try to close moves in accordance with my observations of emergent community consensus. I may be wrong in this case, but I don't think so.

We'll see, but I predict that in a year, many more well-known US cities will have articles titled without state-name disambiguation. I hope that I'm reflecting this trend passively, because it is never my intention to be any kind of activist RM closer. That's why I'm observing this discussion closely, to see whether I mis-stepped. I hope that my action doesn't seem "bureaucratic", when viewed in that light. -GTBacchus(talk) 05:35, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your responses. Born2cycle, I said that the consensus was not evidently informed regarding the guideline (emphasis now added), and I still think that's true. I didn't mean to imply that the earlier participants did not know about the guideline, just that their comments did not address it directly. Kotniski's comment, in particular, raised the issue of consistency, and guidelines seem highly relevant to that. GTBacchus, I'm certainly not a regular at RM, and I'm happy to take your word about the other participants' familiarity with title guidelines. At the time your close did seem to me like an activist move, but I can see that was not your intent. Thanks again for the explanation, and for giving your views on the broader picture. --Avenue (talk) 00:03, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for your clarification and explanation, Avenue. I now understand why you got the impression that you got, and why you said what you did. The "regulars" should probably take more care in explaining their reasoning in these discussions so as to not leave the wrong impression. In our efforts to discourage WP:JDLI reasoning, we need to also discourage arguments that look like JDLI thinking. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:20, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose - this is clearly the primary topic and the naming guideline which "forbids" its location here is not supported by consensus. john k (talk) 16:53, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Primary topic, common name, and concise. There is no need to add a disambiguating state name. --rgpk (comment) 23:39, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Support - I find it preferrable to use the standard of Cityname, Statename for the titles of articles. When we do it one way for some and a different way for others it becomes confusing to newcomers and casual readers. Even in cases were the meaning is clear, such as Seattle, Washington is preferable to Seattle IMO. One standard for all eliminates any doubt about what we are referring too and prevents problems like distinguishing between different things named Plymouth. --Kumioko (talk) 02:05, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
    • Do you have any evidence that it's "confusing to newcomers and casual readers" to have Seattle and all the other AP cities not at their disambiguated names like Seattle, Washington? Or are you just imagining this confusion exists? The original move on this page, proposed by a newcomer, is evidence that it's confusing to newcomers to have titles unnecessarily disambiguated, and yet you want to move it back? If the confusion of newcomers is truly your concern you should opposed this move. Please also consider that inconsistency in disambiguation is the norm at Wikipedia - see User:Born2cycle#True_naming_consistency for examples. You may simply "prefer to use the standard", but that's no reason to support any move; see WP:JDLI#Title discussions. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:26, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
    • Why would Seattle be "confusing to newcomers and casual readers" but Vancouver not be? Jayjg (talk) 01:06, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
    • Is Los Angeles also confusing? Is the confusion supposed to arise from readers not understanding why some US cities take one format, and some take another? If so, then the only non-confusing position is to forget the AP's list and go with New York City, New York. The more rare the exceptions, the more confusing they would be under this argument, isn't that right? -GTBacchus(talk) 03:13, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
    • Yes, in my opinion LA is also a problem, but in the rush to rename all of the exceptions, I think any valid concerns where pushed aside. If you do a Google search on Disneyland you get about 14,000,000 hits. Add in LA you get 3,200,000 hits. Use Anaheim instead of LA and you get 1,600,000 hits. Clearly the world views LA as being more then the city or the same named county. Vegaswikian (talk) 10:02, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Support reversion of move. It seems to me that there was little support for the change to Wikipedia:Article_titles#Explicit_conventions which disparages them. Sorry, my mistake. However, that clause in Wikipedia:Article_titles#Explicit_conventions clearly applies to those who wish to create new conventions; it requires a leap of faith for a rational person to attempt to apply it to existing, stable (at least before B2C got into the act) conventions. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:45, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
    Besides, although I know where it is, having a colleague there, I don't know there aren't other US cities with the name, nor would I expect to. There is no reason to change the convention to support this. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:59, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose The name is unambiguous. All the arguments in the world about AP conventions will not change that. WP:AT is clear "Be precise but only as precise as is needed" (my emphasis). Arguments about the supposed special requirements of United States place names are little more than special pleading. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 10:06, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Support Despite claims to the contrary, it is now clear that the Naming Convention for the United States does, regrettably, enjoy consensus support. On that basis, this article should move back to Ann Arbor, Michigan. Skinsmoke (talk) 16:04, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
    • Note: one vote per person, please (you already voted above, on 12 January).

      Also, the closing admin has clarified on his talk page that the statement about consensus support for the guideline was based on the presumption that the guideline "already [had] a broad consensus", not that the RFC showed there is actual consensus support now [11].

      Further, when a guideline like "the canonical form ... is [[Placename, State]]" conflicts with policy like "concise titles are preferred" and "only as precise as necessary", as it does in cases like this where the topic has a concise and unique name that needs no additional precision for disambiguation, "editors may assume that the policy takes precedence" (see Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines#Conflicts_between_advice_pages). Although the WP:TITLE policy states that many article titles follow the pattern used by similar articles as established in guidelines, it also notes that such guidelines "ideally indicate titles that are in accordance with the principal criteria ..." (including conciseness and only as precise as necessary). The title indicated by the guideline in this case, "Ann Arbor, Michigan", is not in accordance with the principal criteria because it is not as concise as "Ann Arbor", and is more precise than is necessary for disambiguation. The conflict with policy that exists in special cases like this with clear and unique concise natural names is about as good of a reason to ignore a guideline as there can be. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:03, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

    • For the benefit of the closing admin. the (city, state) convention does enjoy uniform support in the result of all the recent proposed moves and justifies reading the the guideline as being in accord with the naming policy not opposed to it, as well as counsels moving this article back to Ann Arbor, Michigan:
Talk:Carmel-by-the-Sea#Move Request
Talk:Tallahassee, Florida#Requested move
Talk:Sacramento, California#Requested move
Talk:Boise, Idaho#Requested move
Talk:Las Vegas, Nevada#Requested move
Talk:Austin, Texas#Requested move

Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:36, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

That's only the case because of the blind support of WP:PLACE's current reading. There can be exceptions to the rules and new rules made.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 19:49, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Support. Clearly there is no consensus here to support retaining this article at the current title. Since the previous move did not receive anywhere near this amount of discussion, it can not be used as a justification for moving this back to the expected name from the guideline. The vast amount of comments here should render the previous move null and void especially when you consider the comments from the closer. Vegaswikian (talk) 09:54, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Should University of Michigan have a project

Looking at Category:WikiProject Universities, it seems like University of Michigan might want to start its own project. I would start it myself, but I am already running WP:CHICAGO, WP:FOUR and WP:WAWARD.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 17:48, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Borders is bankrupt

Borders Books has filed for bankruptcy, and even the downtown store (on the corner of Liberty and State street) is closing. Should the article be updated to reflect this? S33plusplus (talk) 23:06, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

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Top employer list

The top employer list looks suspect to me. Three of the employers aren't even located in the city. Kendall-K1 (talk) 16:09, 7 November 2012 (UTC)


Until someone can provide a good reason for including the table, I am placing it here for further discussion. PentawingTalk 07:22, 7 February 2013 (UTC)


According to the City's 2011 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report ["City of Ann Arbor CAFR" (PDF). Retrieved 2012-11-02. ], the top employers in the city are:

# Employer # of Employees
1 University of Michigan 27,003
2 University of Michigan Health System 19,614
3 Saint Joseph Mercy Health System 5,304
4 Ann Arbor Public Schools 3,578
5 VA Ann Arbor Healthcase System 1,600
6 Washtenaw County 1,339
7 City of Ann Arbor 710
8 Borders 619
9 Washtenaw Community College 576
10 Domino's Pizza 550

City hall

The City Hall photo and its caption seem to be out of date. Ideally we would have a new photo, otherwise can someone familiar with the situation update the caption? Kendall-K1 (talk) 00:08, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Local paper?

On a recent visit I noticed the local paper, the Com, seems to be gone and the News is back? Or maybe it's the same paper with a new name? Can someone who knows the story fix this? Kendall-K1 (talk) 00:15, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Geography - Neighborhoods

I think the "Geography and cityscape" section can be expanded and improved. Using the outline format similar to San Diego, which is like many other cities:

  • Geography
 ** Neighborhoods
 ** Cityscape
 ** Climate
 ** Ecology

The Cityscape subsection could incorporate many of the paragraphs in the current "Geography and cityscape"

The Climate subsection could be the same as the current Climate subsection.

The Ecology subsection could allow a better explanation of the Huron River and its tributaries, the history of enclosing some tributaries and the reopening of others such as Mallet Creek. It was also allow an explanation of the human activities along the river, etc.

The Neighborhoods subsection could list the names of the neighborhoods within Ann Arbor by area. There are a number of resources that list these neighborhoods such as realtor websites (for example see Ann Arbor Neighborhood Links at the bottom of www.bouma.com, but keep in mind a realtor stretches the meaning of Ann Arbor to mean Ann Arbor Area),

There are different formats that could present the information. One that would be useful if details of the locale were added later would be:

Central Ann Arbor

  • Ann Arbor Hills
    • Tuomy Hills
    • Woodhaven Hills
  • Almendinger Heights
  • Burns Park
    • Lower Burns Park
    • North Burns Park
  • New West Side
  • Old West Side

Northeast Ann Arbor

  • Arbor Hills
  • Geddes Lake
  • Glasier Way (formerly incorrectly Glacier Way, currently incorrectly Glazier Way)
  • Orchard Hills/Maplewood
  • Plansmart
    • Arrowwood
    • Leslie
    • Northeast

Northwest Ann Arbor

Southeast Ann Arbor

  • Bryant
    • University Townhouses

Southwest Ann Arbor

The above format is used on many city pages. But consensus may be to use a table format as shown below, yet this might be difficult for smart phone users to navigate:

Further information: Neighborhoods in Ann Arbor
Neighborhoods in Ann Arbor
Location Area
km²		 Pop.
Census
2000		 Pop./
km²		 Neighborhoods
Central Ann Arbor 0.00 0 11,459 Ann Arbor Hills (Tuomy Hills, etc.), Bach, Downtown, Old Fourth Ward, New West Side, Old West Side (Almendinger Heights, Virginia Park, etc.), Burns Park (North Burns Park, Lower Burns Park), etc.
Northeast Ann Arbor 0.00 0 8,452 Arbor Hills aka , Bromley, Chapel Hill, Earhart Village, Foxfire, Geddes Lake, Glasier Way (formerly incorrectly Glacier Way, currently incorrectly Glazier Way), Northeast, Orchard Hill / Maplewood, Plansmart,
Northwest Ann Arbor 0.00 0 8,452 Hollywood Park, Lakewood, etc.
Southeast Ann Arbor 0.00 0 8,452 Bryant, Clinton-George, Freeman Estates, Kimberly Hills, Southeast, Turnberry, etc.
Southwest Ann Arbor 0.00 0 2,593 Vernon Woods, Lawton, etc.
Ann Arbor 0.00 0 9,632  

I put in the extra information about the Glasier Way neighborhood so you can see how information could be expanded in each format.

Comments please.24.11.169.223 (talk) 14:04, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

www.mapquest.com shows the names of various areas and neighborhoods, and the Ann Arbor Planning Department lists some neighborhood groups at http://www.a2gov.org/government/communityservices/planninganddevelopment/planning/Pages/ResidentialAssociations.aspx, and the historic societies have information about each of them (i.e. Mallets Creek Settlement 1824-1853 which became Platt Community in Pittsfield Twp, the City of East Ann Arbor in 1947, then annexed in 1956.24.11.169.223 (talk) 12:09, 5 April 2014 (UTC) Another source could be http://annarborobserver.com/cg/t1305.html24.11.169.223 (talk) 12:17, 5 April 2014 (UTC)


Law and government

The Mayor of Ann Arbor has changed, and it was noted at the table at the head of the article, but the section in Law and Government needs to be updated 1/05/15 Vincens165 (talk) 02:09, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

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Sources for article expansion

For a historical context, both

but it's worth noting that you can't just automatically use their descriptions of period Ann Arbor as descriptions of what Ann Arbor is like today. Things changed over the course of the 20th century. — LlywelynII 06:26, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Skyline image

I'm not sure the "Washington at night" photo is the best replacement, but I hate the skyline photo. It's not so much a photo of the Ann Arbor skyline as of the two billboards, which I don't think are even there any more. A daytime photo of Main Street would be nice if we had one, or a skyline of downtown. Kendall-K1 (talk) 11:00, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

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Weasel words?

I understand we need a source for this, but what's weaselly about it? "Ann Arbor became a focal point for political activism and served as a hub..." Kendall-K1 (talk) 19:10, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

@Toddst1: can you enlighten us? Also, did you check p. 153 of A History of Ann Arbor. ISBN 978-0-472-06463-2., which is given later in that paragraph? – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:41, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
Of course I didn't check a source mentioned later. See WP:BURDEN. That's a significant, maybe even WP:EXCEPTIONAL claim and needs support. If it was a hub, where were the spokes? Or is this just a weasel word to sensationalize and maybe even glorify the activism on campus? Toddst1 (talk) 00:30, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
Fair enough. I looked at the history of this article and the entire paragraph was first unsourced, then partially sourced to this website that makes no mention of the civil rights movement (on any page), before being changed to A History of Ann Arbor. I don't think this claim has a source, and I support removing it. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:46, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
Yes, take it out. It's still not weaselly though. Weasel words would be if for example we said "experts agree that Ann Arbor became a focal point..." What we have isn't vague attribution, it's no attribution. And by the way I also dislike the mixed metaphor. So it's both a focal point and a hub? What would that look like exactly? Kendall-K1 (talk) 19:04, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

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Safest cities in Michigan

I removed the part about Ann Arbor being one of the safest cities in Michigan. The cited source does say "Munetrix, a Michigan-based data aggregator, has compiled a list of the 15 safest cities in the state."[12] The Munetrix study[13] ranks Ann Arbor number 11 of cities over 50K population. There are 31 such cities, putting Ann Arbor at the 65th percentile. I think we need to draw a distinction between "list of cities ranked by safest" and "list of the safest cities." Kendall-K1 (talk) 22:06, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

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List of public schools

I started to update the list of public schools from the district web site,[14], but it's not straightforward. The schools no longer fit neatly into Elementary, Middle, and High school categories; we have three schools that combine aspects of several. I don't think we really need to list schools other than the notable ones, so that's what I did. Please don't just revert if you don't like this, put in the effort to update the list. Kendall-K1 (talk) 01:52, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

USCITY endorses not listing schools in larger cities, which I think Ann Arbor is. Perhaps a list article is in order? There is a newish editor that has a strong interest in Metro Detroit schools, Kendall-K1, so I'm going to ping Finchwidget to see if he'd be interested in working on it with our help. John from Idegon (talk) 01:57, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
Caught the ping just now; I'd be happy to work on it! Glad you thought of me! Finchwidget (talk) 09:57, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
I'm not sure a list article makes sense, given that the AA schools seem to change frequently and that anyone who is interested can get the current list from the school district web site. But I will defer to whoever wants to put in the effort (not me). Kendall-K1 (talk) 02:51, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Change the main Ann Arbor city photo

The main city photo on the current Ann Arbor page is a picture of two billboards and doesn't adequately represent Ann Arbor. I suggest changing it to the following photo, which I took and uploaded today:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Michigan_Theater,_Ann_Arbor_2020-05-05.jpg

It's not a great photo - it was too overcast today - but I think it's a decent representation of the town.

I also uploaded this photo of Main Street in downtown Ann Arbor, which is also an iconic view of the city:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Downtown_Ann_Arbor,_2020-05-05.jpg

There are other images that may be suitable, like Michigan Stadium or The Law Quad, but those represent The University of Michigan more than the City of Ann Arbor.

Comments? Chriswaco (talk) 22:45, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

  • John, you need to take a chill pill. I am trying to help and you're just being aggressive by attacking both me and that nice person on Reddit who was just trying to help update this page. Your snide comebacks and remarks are not need. Obviously, we need to acquire permission from the copyright holder before we can even judge whether or not we want to use this image. Re-read my note and realize that I'm not speaking for the consensus on Wikipedia but merely stating a potential option. Note my usage of the words "might...would...could". In order to use a image on Wikipedia the copyright holder must release their copyright privileges almost entirely. Not release them to me, or to Wikipedia directly, they must release them to everyone who wants to use that image. The Wikimedia Commons has a helpful diagram explaining this. BeeBeoxus (talk) 03:30, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
    • And frankly, that's a great advertising image, but an awful illustration of the city. It's an unusual angle, busy and there is no subject. "A shot from a fourth floor office of a part of the community?" A good test for a photo to be used for illustration is to write an accurate caption for it. The mural is distinctive, and maybe worth noting, but that would be copy for a piece on it, not the community. It's a poor illustration for most any purpose due to the weird angle. It's clearly a purpose created image designed to attract attention, not convey information. John from Idegon (talk) 04:30, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
  • I understand that this is a great advertising image, which is why we asked them if they would be willing to release it. They don't have to, but in order for us to judge whether or not we want it in the montage, we need to know whether this is even an option. If we can't acquire permission to use it we cannot judge it. BeeBeoxus (talk) 03:30, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
  • A montage isn't a bad idea. There are several interesting individual areas but the aerial/skyline photos I've seen are neither impressive nor demonstrative for some reason. I think it's because the largest buildings in the city are some of the ugliest too. Chriswaco (talk) 02:10, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
  • I like the idea of a montage too, but I think we should concentrate on images not associated with the University. The Big House is the most notable campus image I'd think; perhaps the Quad. Other suggestions: the train station, a view of the valley from the ridge off Plymouth Road. John from Idegon (talk) 02:45, 6 May 2020 (UTC)


Please read

This isnt reddit. This is Wikipedia, and there is no deadline. The image in question isn't going to change today, tomorrow or likely even this month. This is an FA article and it will stay open for discussion until many many more editors have chimed in. I'll be posting appropriate notifications and requesting protection for the actual article. We don't vote around here. WP:ILIKEIT isn't an argument. Picture will remain status quo until an actual CONSENSUS is reached. John from Idegon (talk) 05:43, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Stepping in with a second opinion: I believe that the newcomers are here to edit in good faith and wish to see the page improved. As image choices are more a matter of personal taste than text contributions, we shouldn't be too hasty in threatening a lockdown over a small disagreement. I don't think it warrants a personal fight. SounderBruce 06:32, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
The Art Fair picture might be better used in the Culture section, where we discuss Art Fair. It's a nice enough pic, but does not seem to me to be a good choice for a standalone infobox pic to illustrate the city as a whole. Meters (talk) 07:22, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
I agree with Meters on his assessment of the Art Fair Picture. (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ann_Arbor_Art_Fair,_2019.jpg) It would be a great picture for the cultural section of the article about the Art Fair but not a good standalone picture since it features a specific cultural aspect of Ann Arbor that is covered in other sections of the article. Let's look for a picture that does not feature the Art Fair. Who has other suggestions? Thank you John from Idegon for your guidance. BeeBeoxus (talk) 07:56, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
  • I am definitely going to agree with John from Idegon on this one. It is not a new-user vs. established-user mentality on this issue. There are guidelines for reaching a consensus, especially when it concerns a featured article and one of top-tier importance like Ann Arbor. Protection status can be used if recurring edits are made without a consensus. No one should change the infobox image until one has been decisively agreed upon in this talk page. While the overly-saturated Art Fair picture looked nice, it definitely was not agreed upon and may not be suitable for the main image. It seems agreed that a montage would be best, and we can discuss what 4–5 images would be suitable for a new image. In the meantime, the older two-billboard skyline photo will have to remain. —Notorious4life (talk) 08:14, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Reverted back to status quo again today when one of the disputed images discussed here was re-added by a brand new user in his first and only edit. Things that make one go "Hmmm", ya know? John from Idegon (talk) 21:09, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Whoa! I had no malicious intent when I changed the photo! I am a frequent user of Wikipedia but have always been reluctant to edit hence why that account was brand new as I've never had an account. I just knew I always thought the current picture is so poor that it had to be changed immediately, I had no idea at all that there was this huge talk page and that people would be upset and suspicious. Literally my only intent was to improve the perception of the lead image, not to impose my will on everyone or something! I only ever intended to make that one edit and I literally already can't remember the password from the account so I had to make this one. Sorry for any misunderstanding. However, that photo really needs to be changed ASAP, to literally anything else. I put that skyline photo up as I thought it was a great photo of the skyline and showed plenty of landmarks in a nice photo. I like the Art Fair photo too. For the love of god though, someone has to change the photo to some other placeholder as the current one is just so bad, after which this debate can resume. JuwanGOAT.1 (talk) 00:52, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I've gone ahead and replaced the main image with the previous version that is more up to date and representative of the current situation in the city. Consensus has been reached that the image needs to be replaced. If users have qualms about the current version now would be the time to speak them. I will be applying for protection on this article to prevent any attempts to revert the main photo since this is a popular subject. BeeBeoxus (talk) 02:27, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

"Ace Deuce" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Ace Deuce. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 February 28#Ace Deuce until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 03:19, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Population

Are the population figures quoted inclusive or exclusive of the student/faculty populations of the university? With order of 30,000 staff and 40,000 students, those two figures would diverge quite sharply depending on the composition. Bluedudemi (talk) 13:15, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

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