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Australia

Most Australian town/city/suburb articles are at [[Town, State]] no matter what their status of ambiguity is. Capital cities (such as Adelaide) and certain other places (such as Toowoomba) do not follow this pattern, and are titled just [[City]]. Mungindi, as a town crossing a state border, is also not disambiguated. Local government areas are at their official name.

I'm moving the above out of the convention page onto this talk page, while this gets thrashed out. Clearly this convention no longer enjoys consensus. Equally, however there is no consensus to overturn it. There isn't even consensus on what the absence of consensus means here: i.e. whether the status quo remains in force, or is defeated for lack of support. The one thing that does seem appropriate is to say absolutely nothing about how we name articles on Australian places until we can agree on what to say; at least, not on a page that claims to be "a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow". Hesperian 10:16, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I think you're probably right, if people are going to start coming along and writing their own preferred convention in place without any kind of support, as they have been doing today. There is currently no convention, and that's that - people can decide whatever they decide at RM discussions.--Kotniski (talk) 10:52, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
There is agreement on some points, however. Where everyone agrees that disambiguation is needed, [[Town, State]] is the only form used. Local government areas are always at their official name. Not sure if it is worth including these points for now. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 11:13, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Change to guideline (England)

I reverted this edit by Kotniski (talk · contribs). Given this change is not supported by consensus, please propose an alternative wording here for discussion. MRSC (talk) 16:47, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Here is a wording that might work:

"In England, place names requiring disambiguation use ceremonial or administrative divisions wherever it is possible.

For the City of London and Greater London combined [[placename, London]] is used. In local government districts consisting of a single town or city (see WP:UKDISTRICTS) [[placename, district]] is used.

For localities unambiguously within the city proper of towns/cities (as defined by reliable, third party sources) [[placename, town/city]] is used.

Elsewhere in England [[placename, ceremonial county]] is used.

Wherever further disambiguation is required then the district/unitary and not the county is used. Example: two Belmonts in London become Belmont, Sutton and Belmont, Harrow. If there are two places of the same name in the same district/unitary then parishes, wards, or lowercase compass directions are used as appropriate to identify the relative locations. Example: two Woolstons in Shropshire unitary authority become Woolston, north Shropshire and Woolston, south Shropshire.

Where county boundaries have changed, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK counties)."

MRSC (talk) 17:19, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

OK, I'd be happy with that wording. (But it made no sense to revert my version back to a version which clearly doesn't have consensus (since it would imply that places like Beeston ought to be disambiguated by county.)--Kotniski (talk) 18:17, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
Being blessed with a deteriorating memory, and the need for clarity- I have rearranged the above box eliminating choice and cascading the paragraphs so the reader comes across the majority situations before the tricky bits. I am not the least bit offended to be ignored or savaged!
In England, place names requiring disambiguation use ceremonial divisions in preference to administrative divisions wherever it is possible.
In most cases this means [[placename, ceremonial county]] is used. For the City of London and Greater London combined [[placename, London]] is used.
  • However,in local government districts (see WP:UKDISTRICTS) consisting of a single town/city [[placename, district]] is used.
  • However, for localities unambiguously within the limits of towns/cities (as defined by reliable, third party sources) [[placename, town/city]] is used.
Wherever further disambiguation is required then the district/unitary and not the county is used. Example: two Belmonts in London become Belmont, Sutton and Belmont, Harrow. If there are two places of the same name in the same district/unitary then parishes, wards, or lowercase compass directions are used as appropriate to identify the relative locations. Example: two Woolstons in Shropshire unitary authority become Woolston, north Shropshire and Woolston, south Shropshire.
Wherever county boundaries have changed, and the administrative county is needed, the present name must be used. (See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK counties))."
This leaves the definition of town/city hanging.
I would like to say: (as defined by reliable, third party sources::-please provide a <ref>citation</ref>).
--ClemRutter (talk) 18:55, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Do you really need the first bullet point (which also does not define town/city) if you have the second? And it seems a bit odd to include "as defined by reliable, third party sources" for one guideline but not the other - it's really superfluous, almost like saying "provided that the article complies with WP policy".

Can we also decide whether Greater London includes the City of London? The Greater London article says that it does, and the City of London article says that it is within Greater London--Mhockey (talk) 21:32, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with all of Mh's points. I also think we should give at least one example of each case.--Kotniski (talk) 05:08, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Let's try refining this a bit:

"In England, localities requiring disambiguation use [[placename, ceremonial county]] in the majority of cases. Further information: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK counties).

For localities unambiguously located within the city proper (as defined in each case by reliable, external sources) [[placename, town/city]] is used. For example, for all of the City of London and Greater London combined [[placename, London]] is used and the suitable reliable source is the London Plan.

If further disambiguation is required then the district/unitary is used. Example: two Belmonts in London become Belmont, Sutton and Belmont, Harrow. If there are two places of the same name in the same district/unitary then parishes, wards, or lowercase compass directions are used as appropriate to identify the relative locations. Example: two Woolstons in Shropshire unitary authority become Woolston, north Shropshire and Woolston, south Shropshire."

The principles underpinning this are:

  1. There is flexibility that allows for the two naming schemes we currently have in use;
  2. The naming currently used in the majority of cases, by county, is clearly the default; and
  3. The test for being within a town/city is strict and relies on published sources rather than opinion.

MRSC (talk) 06:16, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

In fact, looking at the city proper article, I'm not sure it's the right phrase. The article implies that "city proper" means the area within some administrative boundaries (perhaps a situation more typical of the U.S., where the contiguous urban area tends to spread outside the admin boundaries, rather than the UK where the admin boundaries are more often wider than what people think of as "the city"). What we mean here is not the area within some administrative boundaries, but the area which is customarily thought of as constituting the town or city.--Kotniski (talk) 07:57, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

So let me have a go:

"In England, localities requiring disambiguation use [[placename, ceremonial county]] in the majority of cases, e.g. Halling, Kent. Further information: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK counties).

For localities thought of unambiguously as being located within a town or city, [[placename, town/city]] is used, e.g. Beeston, Leeds. Similarly, for locations within Greater London, use [[placename, London]].

If the county is not sufficient for full disambiguation, then.... (continues as before)."

--Kotniski (talk) 08:05, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

This is too vague and open to interpretation. Looking at the UN definition: City proper is defined as a locality with legally fixed boundaries and an administratively recognized urban status, usually characterized by some form of local government. [1] In the UK context legally fixed boundaries does not necessarily mean a local government unit, just a defined area. For example, Milton Keynes Council defines a "new city area" [2] Let's see if we can refine this a bit more:

"In England, localities requiring disambiguation use [[placename, ceremonial county]] in the majority of cases. For example, Halling, Kent. Further information on which counties to use: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK counties).

For localities unambiguously located within the city proper (as defined in each case by reliable, external sources) [[placename, town/city]] is used. For example, for all of Greater London [[placename, London]] is used and the suitable reliable source is the London Plan. Another example, within the Milton Keynes Council defined new city area [[placename, Milton Keynes]] is used.

If further disambiguation is required then the district/unitary is used. Example: two Belmonts in London become Belmont, Sutton and Belmont, Harrow. If there are two places of the same name in the same district/unitary then parishes, wards, or lowercase compass directions are used as appropriate to identify the relative locations. Example: two Woolstons in Shropshire unitary authority become Woolston, north Shropshire and Woolston, south Shropshire."

We need to explicitly state within the guideline that the judgement of a place being within another town/city is down to an external source and where there is ambiguity the default is to use the county. Where there is needless wiggle room in guidelines we get long and pointless discussions that are best avoided. MRSC (talk) 09:51, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
And what if different external sources conflict? What if they define something like a city area but don't call it a "city proper" (which is rather likely)? There are always going to be discussions, and that's not necessarily a bad thing - but it's better to set out in the guideline what it actually is we're thinking, than trying to define too precisely something that can't necessarily be exactly defined. What do others think?--Kotniski (talk) 09:57, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
I also don't think London is an example or special case of the town/city thing - it's a very close variation on the ceremonial county rule.--Kotniski (talk) 10:02, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
In the case of conflicting sources this guideline would clearly err on the side of caution. Nothing in any guideline is ever going to prevent discussion. Calling on external sources is never a bad thing as far as Wikipedia is concerned. I'm not sure what your point is re: London. This wording gives flexibility, but also gives guidance. MRSC (talk) 10:16, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
Also, having looked at WP:Naming conventions (UK counties), it seems a bit of a mess, and it's hard to see how anything on that page would be much help with anything on this one. I think we should just refer people to the ceremonial counties of England article.--Kotniski (talk) 10:13, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
There are historical reasons why that page has not been rewritten, but you are right it is due to be brought up to date. MRSC (talk) 10:16, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
<lots of ec>Unfortunately sources conflict, and since 1974 some settlements aren't defined any more, so there could be a bit of to and fro anyway. I would have thought that for the majority of places if they were in the pre-1974 borough then that is enough to be accepted as being part of the town/city. Quantpole (talk) 10:22, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
I agree with this analysis. For this reason it is right to make the guideline flexible enough that places in suburbs of any town/city can be disambiguated that way, whilst at the same time there is a heavy burden of proof on such naming. MRSC (talk) 10:28, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

(after ec) The point about London is that it's much more comparable to a ceremonial county than to a fuzzily defined settlement like Leeds, so it belongs in the first paragraph. Try this.

"In England, localities requiring disambiguation use [[placename, ceremonial county]] in the majority of cases (see Ceremonial counties of England). For example, Halling, Kent. Places within Greater London requiring disambiguation are called [[placename, London]], e.g. Addington, London.

For localities requiring disambiguation which are unambiguously located within a town or city, [[placename, town/city]] is used, as with Beeston, Leeds. What are considered to be the boundaries of a town or city should be based on reliable external sources if possible; for example, [[placename, Milton Keynes]] is used within the new city area defined by Milton Keynes Council.

If further disambiguation is required then ..."

--Kotniski (talk) 10:30, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Not much time-so this post may be a bit abrupt + edit conflict.
  • Like localities-- good word
  • Cant say--in the majority of cases-- far to woolly
  • Cant say here--Further information on which counties to use: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK counties).-- it says always use current admin counties/contadiction/not our intention
  • Issues--unambiguously located within the city proper (as defined in each case by reliable, external sources)-- want is unambiguously, city proper is not a term the average intelligent reader would ever of heard of. Every time we use city we must think of St Davids Ely and Ripon. Who decides what the reliable external source is?
  • Examples such as local plans (London Plans) are about aspirations not ceremonial reality.
  • Using MK as an example is unnecessary Olney, Buckinghamshire as been correctly dabbed. MK is merely a voracious unitary in the same way that Medway would like to be. The Halling, Kent example could be said to apply.
Just a few thoughts but remember the reader and keep it simple--ClemRutter (talk) 10:32, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't agree with the observations re MK. If anything MK is a prime example of how a local government district has a "core settlement" and a hinterland. According to the proposed guidelines these will be disambiguated differently, and in fact they are right now. I don't agree that the London Plan is an aspiration, or that the MK defined area is an aspiration. I do agree with some of the wording issues. "in the majority of cases" is redundant, replaced as below.

"In England, the convention for localities requiring disambiguation is to use [[placename, ceremonial county]]. For example, Halling, Kent. Further information on which counties to use: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK counties).

For localities within Greater London [[placename, London]] is used.

For localities unambiguously located within a town/city settlement (according to reliable, external sources) [[placename, town/city]] is used. For example, within the borough of Milton Keynes, for localities in the defined new city area [[placename, Milton Keynes]] is used.

If further disambiguation is required then the district/unitary is used. Example: two Belmonts in London become Belmont, Sutton and Belmont, Harrow. If there are two places of the same name in the same district/unitary then parishes, wards, or lowercase compass directions are used as appropriate to identify the relative locations. Example: two Woolstons in Shropshire unitary authority become Woolston, north Shropshire and Woolston, south Shropshire."

How about this? MRSC (talk) 11:07, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

OK, but you've still left in the reference to the naming conventions (counties) page, which shouldn't be there (unless someone's planning to rewrite it to make it useful for this purpose; in fact that page is so chaotic and misleading as it stands that it really ought to have the "guideline" tag removed)--Kotniski (talk) 11:34, 27 October 2010 (UTC).
I'm happy to remove it until that guideline is updated. As you say earlier, the wording and link to ceremonial county is clear enough.

"In England, the convention for localities requiring disambiguation is to use [[placename, ceremonial county]]. For example, Halling, Kent.

For localities within Greater London [[placename, London]] is used.

For localities unambiguously located within a town/city settlement (according to reliable, external sources) [[placename, town/city]] is used. For example, within the borough of Milton Keynes, for localities in the defined new city area [[placename, Milton Keynes]] is used.

If further disambiguation is required then the district/unitary is used. Example: two Belmonts in London become Belmont, Sutton and Belmont, Harrow. If there are two places of the same name in the same district/unitary then parishes, wards, or lowercase compass directions are used as appropriate to identify the relative locations. Example: two Woolstons in Shropshire unitary authority become Woolston, north Shropshire and Woolston, south Shropshire."

MRSC (talk) 11:45, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I think we're almost there. Just two points: 1. I think you need a qualifier such as "standard convention" or "usual convention" in the first sentence, or someone will complain that there is an internal conflict in the guidelines. 2. We still have the implication that you do not need a "reliable, external source" for the statement that a locality is in a ceremonial county, but we do if it's in a town/city. WP:V requires both. I'd rather have the condition for both sentences or neither. --Mhockey (talk) 11:50, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Usual convention, yes that's better. We need a reliable source for everything in WP, that is implicit. We're just stressing the point for towns/cities because it is a contested concept, whereas ceremonial counties have clearly delineated boundaries. Nothing in the guideline can overrule WP:V.

"In England, the usual convention for localities requiring disambiguation is to use [[placename, ceremonial county]]. For example, Halling, Kent.

For localities within Greater London [[placename, London]] is used.

For localities unambiguously located within a town/city settlement (according to reliable, external sources) [[placename, town/city]] is used. For example, within the borough of Milton Keynes, for localities in the defined new city area [[placename, Milton Keynes]] is used.

If further disambiguation is required then the district/unitary is used. Example: two Belmonts in London become Belmont, Sutton and Belmont, Harrow. If there are two places of the same name in the same district/unitary then parishes, wards, or lowercase compass directions are used as appropriate to identify the relative locations. Example: two Woolstons in Shropshire unitary authority become Woolston, north Shropshire and Woolston, south Shropshire."

MRSC (talk) 12:04, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
I still think that the "For localities unambiguously located within a town/city settlement (according to reliable, external sources)" is not really clear and should be dropped or clarified especially with regard to settlements that are similarly named to the authority such as Bradford and City of Bradford. Keith D (talk) 14:21, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
We can't really drop it since this is the key piece of information that was missing. How would you suggest clarifying it?--Kotniski (talk) 15:02, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
I used However, for localities unambiguously within the limits of towns/cities (as defined by reliable, third party sources) [[placename, town/city]] is used. But even this needs to be worked up.Coming from a local government background, I know about PPGs (Planning policy guidelines, RPGs (regional policy guidelines), County Structure Plans, Local Plans (all pre 2004): all of which have a view about the limit of the urban enivronment as it is crucial to aspirational land usage. Before we can get the exact word we need to know which aspect of the urban area we are trying to define- I am not sure whether I quite understand everyones opinion here. If we are talking about contiguous urban development then 'urbam limits'is adequate. so we could try: For localities unambiguously within the urban limits of a town/city (as described in the relevant Local Development Frameworks)....--ClemRutter (talk) 15:47, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
The problem is that "according to reliable, external sources" will not normally distinguish between the local government district and the settlement and so you will end up with towns within City of X being dabed with the city rather than the ceremonial county. I think we need to go back to earlier ideas where we only use this when the settlement is equivalent to the district/unitary authority, ie there are no towns/settlements that are separate from the city itself. Thus Kingston upon Hull would qualify but places in Bradford would not. Keith D (talk) 19:45, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
It is possible to disentangle the administrative area - whether its a metropolitan district, unitary authority or a mere civil parish - from the urban area of the town. For example, the ONS definition seperates Baildon and Shipley, West Yorkshire from Bradford (see the article on West Yorkshire Urban Area). I'm hoping to have ONS boundary data soon and so will be able to produce maps of just what the ONS deems the Bradford urban area to be.--Nilfanion (talk) 21:43, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
I would be careful about extrapolating the ONS data to try to determine something about the settlement. The ONS figures are for "Urban sub-divisions" which are typically based on pre 1974 borough boundaries (with maybe some changes due to development since then). In the case of Leeds (as that is the one I've looked into the most) the borough boundary was little changed since the 1920s. This means that areas which may now be regarded as part of the settlement aren't part of the urban sub-division. The ONS does not claim that these sub-divisions are accurate representations of current settlements (I think there is a quote somewhere about them still separating the data out for historical curiosity). This works both ways - Horsforth may be part of Leeds despite being a separate sub-division, whilst Calverley would usually be regarded as a distinct settlement from Pudsey despite being in the ONS sub-division of Pudsey. Anyway, I'm treading on dangerous territory here since these issues were the subject of much acrimonious debate at Leeds. Quantpole (talk) 23:40, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
Yep I'm not sure we should think of ONS info as gospel fact either, this map of Leeds shows why - rural exclaves within urban areas should count as part of the conurbation for a start, never mind the more important issues you discuss. That said, its an alternative that matches the true extent of Leeds much better than its admin border.--Nilfanion (talk) 00:25, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
Well that map is developed using a purely statistical measure of population density as a way to get some idea of the extent of the conurbation. I would agree that in terms of area it corresponds more to what may be thought of as the settlement of Leeds, but it misses out large chunks of built up area which are contiguous with the urban sub-division of Leeds, and are commonly thought of (though there is disagreement I should add) as part of the settlement of Leeds. What we could really do with is for universities to spend millions of pounds of social research to come up with definitive answers to where the extents of these settlements now are. Whilst they're at it they should also look at 'tightly' defined administrations like Nottingham. I blame the whole 1974 mess :) Quantpole (talk) 00:47, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Test cases

Chatham viewed from part of Luton

On the basis of what has been said before I think these are wrongly dabbed

And what would you do with

Any opinions, and how does this affect the guideline?--ClemRutter (talk) 09:32, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

The Medway conurbation is a fairly convincing argument to disambiguate everything by ceremonial county. The divisions between the formerly separate towns (if they were to be used as disambiguators) appear arbitrary now, occurring as they do in the middle of the built up area. MRSC (talk)
Um, not necessarily. The fact some modern conurbations are mergers of historic towns does not mean they all are. For example consider Exeter, Derby, Ipswich etc The fact its harder to separate Chatham from Gillingham does not mean we should have articles like Rose Hill, Derbyshire at that location - its clearly part of "Derby" and should be located as such. I think we aren't helping anyone by suggesting that is a superior location to Rose Hill, Derby
I also don't think we should just dismiss the borders within the Medway area as arbitrary, in the case of Chatham/Gillingham the ONS sub-division corresponds to the pre-1974 borough boundary. That would mean that that line has been used for over 100 years - and probably aligns with local expectations too.
With respect to the 3 ClemRutter mentioned - Brompton is in Gillingham sub-division, Luton is in Chatham sub-division - so the ONS matches up with the historical info provided. As for Walderslade - it crosses district boundaries, so disambig to Kent. If further disambiguation was needed within Kent Chatham would be only logical choice I can see.--Nilfanion (talk) 11:42, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Nilfanion's reasoning here. If Medway were regarded as a town, and the towns within it were no longer regarded as individual towns, then it would be used as a disambiguator. But if there is no evidence that it is regarded as a town, or that its constituent towns are no longer regarded (especially by their inhabitants) as towns, I don't think WP should treat it as a town. Of course, these things can change over time, and there may come a day when Medway is regarded as a town, and Chatham, Rochester and Gillingham are not regarded as towns, but that does not seem to be the case today. And I am reminded of the old maxim, "difficult cases make bad law". If a guideline can cope with difficult cases, that's fine, and difficult cases are useful in clarifying the operation of a guideline. But they should not be the driver. --Mhockey (talk) 13:30, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I put them here as test cases, here are three more interesting cases- the first two seem to confirm the opinions above. It was interesting to note tat local teenagers had no difficulty in distinguishing been the first two- in Chatham at least, the first was pronounced with the stress on the second syllable, and in second the stress was on the first and the Wood, was almost swallowed. If they had to explain the difference- the dabbed with Maidstone and Rainham. To Maidstone youngsters, they only knew of the local estate.
I am not sure of the third example, instinct leads me to think that Parkwood, Tenterden might be better- but I have never visited so I have no local knowledge.--ClemRutter (talk) 20:20, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
First 2 look OK under the proposal (although I think the second should strictly be Park Wood, Medway under the present guideline). The third - if it can survive a WP:N challenge - is odd. The OS has it as Park Wood, Kent CC has it as Parkwood Picnic Site, which seems an odd name for a woodland. Maybe there is a case for bracket disambiguation here (like many other natural features), e.g. Parkwood (recreation area) or Parkwood (woodland). --Mhockey (talk) 21:13, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Parkwood is also the name of the student village on the University of Kent's Canterbury campus. I'm not sure how much of a distinct identity it has outside of the university itself but IIRC it was used on postal addresses. Timrollpickering (talk) 01:27, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

A question...

...relating to the above discussion. We currently have Burton, Gowy and Burton, Ledsham and Willaston. In my opinion it is nonsensical and unhelpful to disambiguate in this way between two villages, both within the former Cheshire and now both within Cheshire West and Chester, on the basis of local government wards which almost no-one understands. My reading of the advice emerging above is that the article titles should become something like Burton, central Cheshire and Burton, western Cheshire. But, to me, it would make much more sense to use terms like Burton, near Tarporley, Cheshire, and Burton, near Neston, Cheshire - which are locations that most people looking for the right village would understand. Can - indeed, should - the guidance be adjusted to accommodate cases like this? Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:33, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

"near" is a (now obsolete) postal designation, and we've tended to avoid postal geography up until now. It might make more sense for one of the articles to be named Burton (parish). Although Burton, Gowy and Burton Hall contradict each other at the moment as to the name/nature of the settlement vs. parish name. MRSC (talk) 12:55, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
It may be obsolete as a postal designation, but at least people understand what it means. Burton, Ledsham and Willaston reads to me like three villages in one article. Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:59, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
I agree - saying "near X" seems to me to be the most natural manner of disambiguating in cases like this.--Kotniski (talk) 15:01, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
Well to my mind the most 'natural' form of Burton, Ledsham and Willaston would be Burton, Wirral, but that doesn't really comply with anything! Quantpole (talk) 15:08, 27 October 2010 (UTC) And I've just noticed that is what it was until a year ago. Quantpole (talk) 15:08, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
Oh yeah, I'd go along with that too. Cases like this are so rare that there's really nothing to comply with - I'd leave it up to common sense as to what works best in any given situation.--Kotniski (talk) 15:11, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
I agree, these are cases so rare that it isn't possible to anticipate many of them. MRSC (talk) 17:32, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
Burton, Wirral would be sensible and fine, were it not for the fact that the village is not in Wirral. Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:23, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
Ay, but it is on Wirral! Looking at the full history of it is quite interesting. The IP who started it just said "Burton is a village on Wirral, Merseyside, England." If someone talks about the Wirral I would assume they were talking about the whole of the sticky out bit not some administrative area. Interestingly, searching google for "Burton Wirral" gives similar numbers to "Burton Neston". I guess this is just one of those where we have to use personal judgement. Due to the size of the place it is very unlikely that we'd be able to find reliable sources giving a definitive one way or the other. Quantpole (talk) 15:46, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
A very sensible view. But I must admit I've tended to stay away from discussions like this in the past, knowing that some very experienced editors here are less sanguine about these matters. Is sanity now prevailing? Ghmyrtle (talk) 19:18, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
The area of Wirral in Cheshire is very often described as South Wirral, and Burton, South Wirral would probably be the least confusing name. However, we are in danger of opening up continual and repeated edit wars the more ambiguity we build into the naming conventions, not to mention the danger of finishing up with multiple articles on the same place, simply because editors don't realise the other article exists.
The best rule we can adopt is keep it simple. Whether that is Placename, Ceremonial county, Placename, Upper tier local authority or Placename, District as the first option is a matter of choice, but let us at least try to avoid a multiple format that is only going to lead to confusion and endless wrangling. The same applies when you have to go down to the next level of disambiguation. If everyone knows it is County–District–Ward–Parish (or whatever else we choose), the less likely we are to encounter problems. The Placename, Ceremonial county format (though it wouldn't be my personal choice), worked extremely well, avoiding the problems that are encountered for other countries. Admitedly, some of the titles might have struck people as a little strange initially, but they are disambiguators: nothing more.
It's worth remembering that most people, if they need to check, can get hold of a map that shows local authority boundaries (at least counties, as most road maps show these). If we use ONS urban areas as disambiguators, the vast majority of readers (and probably editors) wouldn't have the first idea where to look. Skinsmoke (talk) 12:37, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
Well keeping it simple is generally appropriate. However, don't mistake simplicity for "laziness". The existing convention is failing is with inner city areas in particular. For example, Woodgate, Leicestershire, Montpellier, Gloucestershire and Hyde Park, South Yorkshire are named consistently with the present guideline. However, each of these is not the disambiguator that people would naturally use - so its at odds with COMMONNAME and more important common sense. An reader will associate an area of a town, with that town first and then the county - not the other way around. ONS areas are an example of a reliable source to handle the "difficult" cases, but remember in the vast majority of cases its obvious if a district is part of a larger town or not (a road map would show this). The easiest measure is: If there is reasonable doubt as to whether the place is part of a larger town - do not use the town, use the county.
Incidentally, the majority of UK places in Category:Suburbs by city are located at place, city - which suggests that that is the de facto convention adopted by editors, despite what this page says.--Nilfanion (talk) 13:23, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) I think what Nilfanion says is basically how we agree it should be - do we have any conclusions yet as to the wording to use in the guideline? --Kotniski (talk) 13:37, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Just to remind ourselves, the last proposal to come out of the fairly productive discussion above was (MRSC's wording):

"In England, the usual convention for localities requiring disambiguation is to use [[placename, ceremonial county]]. For example, Halling, Kent.

For localities within Greater London [[placename, London]] is used.

For localities unambiguously located within a town/city settlement (according to reliable, external sources) [[placename, town/city]] is used. For example, within the borough of Milton Keynes, for localities in the defined new city area [[placename, Milton Keynes]] is used.

If further disambiguation is required then the district/unitary is used. Example: two Belmonts in London become Belmont, Sutton and Belmont, Harrow. If there are two places of the same name in the same district/unitary then parishes, wards, or lowercase compass directions are used as appropriate to identify the relative locations. Example: two Woolstons in Shropshire unitary authority become Woolston, north Shropshire and Woolston, south Shropshire."

Does anyone think they can do any better than that?--Kotniski (talk) 13:40, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

All right, in that case, I'm going to put this text into the guideline (I'll add a few more examples to it.)--Kotniski (talk) 11:56, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

New question

Still with regard to disambiguation of English places, we now have Lincoln, England, which is generally agreed to be better than what the convention would imply, namely "Lincoln, Lincolnshire". Can we add to the convention a rule as was proposed somewhere above, that if the town requiring disambiguation gives its name to the county (and if it is the unique or primary usage of its name within England, as I imagine it always will be if the first condition holds), then we disambiguate using ", England" ?--Kotniski (talk) 12:11, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I agree, although I think Lincoln is the only one at present. --Mhockey (talk) 13:52, 6 November 2010 (UTC).

US neighborhoods

  • Where possible, neighborhoods within cities use [[neighborhood]]. Where disambiguation is required [[neighborhood, city]] is used unless there is a conflict with that too, in which case the state is included in the title as well: [[neighborhood, city, state]].

This text was added today. Where was this discussed?   Will Beback  talk  01:00, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

It was bold. To be clear, it wasn't a fundamental change from what it previously said: "... neighborhoods within cities do not [follow the comma convention], unless disambiguation is needed. ". I just clarified how they tend to be disambiguated when the disambiguation is required, and moved the part about neighborhoods out of the paragraph about cities and into its own paragraph. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:12, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
That text appears to have been added in March[3], incorrectly labeled "ce". Was that change discussed?   Will Beback  talk  01:41, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
I don't know, but the key "neighborhoods do not [follow the convention]" was already there prior to that edit too. I mean, that edit is fundamentally just a clarification like mine was today, so the "ce" comment is not so bad.

Ah, it is the previous edit where it was added.

And I found some discussion about it here. --Born2cycle (talk) 03:31, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, but that's not really a significant discussion. I'm going to restore the old text and we can start a thread to cover this.   Will Beback  talk  03:39, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
You asked a question, I answered it. Last I checked there was no requirement to have a "significant discussion" for every edit, nor is there basis to revert to wording from over 6 months ago because there was no "significant discussion" for that. We have no way of knowing how many decisions were made since March based on that wording. Reverting that far back is simply not productive or helpful. The changes made since then are simply clarifications. Do we really need an ANI on this? --Born2cycle (talk) 06:41, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
A significant and virtually undiscussed change to a commonly used and contentious guideline was made with an edit summary of "ce".[4] Just because no one noticed the almost hidden edit immediately doesn't mean that it has developed a consensus. I don't think that represents best practices however I don't think we need to create an ANI complaint against the editor who did it. It may have been a mistake. In any case, there's no evidence of a consensus for it. Per the threads posted below, the previous discussins did not lead to a consensus. Let's try to create a new one rather than rely on the extremely thin reed of that March edit.   Will Beback  talk  07:01, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
There was some discussion going on here at the time (apparently neither one of us was involved but that's no reason to invalidate it) and so it's reasonable to presume that those participating looked at the edit and did not object. It's not reasonable to assume the opposite. Further, there must have been unknown numbers of editors who must have read it since then and apparently did not object, at least not enough to start a discussion here. There is even no objection now, except for "no discussion", which is hardly an objection. The change is perfectly in line with naming policy (see below). If the change was in violation of policy or guidelines that too would be different. Finally, on something of a personal note, the change was made by Pmanderson for crying out loud. If he and I agree on something with regard to article naming, that's about as close to consensus as you're ever going to get, LOL! --Born2cycle (talk) 07:14, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
Only two people participated in that discussion, and the heading was "communities", no indication that it concerned neighborhoods. And a misleading edit summary. This is not how a significant change in a contentious issue should be made.   Will Beback  talk  07:21, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
I agree that's not how significant changes should be made, ideally. Unfortunately, neither the world nor Wikipedia is ideal or perfect, and sometimes things do change like this. While we can fix things soon after they occur not like they should, when this much time goes by I believe we're better off accepting whatever we've got and working from that, for better or for worse. We can't just roll back the clock and pretend that wording hasn't been there since March with untold effect on countless situations. --Born2cycle (talk) 07:36, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
  • untold effect on countless situations
Has it had an effect on any situations?   Will Beback  talk  07:51, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I added text to the US section to reflect the neighborhood naming standard used for New York City, which has been [[neighborhood, borough]] for quite some time, with "borough" being used as a qualifier in almost all cases. Alansohn (talk) 04:21, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Proposed changes to New Zealand naming conventions

There are two proposals under discussion for changes and additions to the naming conventions applicable to articles on places in New Zealand:

  1. Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(New_Zealand)#Draft_change_to_conventions - bringing the convention into line with general guidelines that geographic features should use parentheses for disambiguation rather than a comma.
  2. Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(New_Zealand)#Draft_addition_to_conventions - formulating a policy on dual-language official names.

Comment is welcome dramatic (talk) 05:37, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Neighborhoods of US cities

Except for the list of cities in the AP guidebook that are used alone, all US city articles follow the "City, State" convention. This is largely due to the fact that so many names are repeated, and also because it follows with idiomatic usage. Previous discussions of neighborhood article titles include:

Those discussions don't seem to have resulted in a consensus. Some have asserted that the common usage is "Neighborhood, City". That's a simple convention to follow, and is consistent with the convention for cities. It'd be nice to achieve consensus on this, but let's not add conventions that don't have a consensus.   Will Beback  talk  04:24, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I was never convinced that it was true that most U.S. cities require disambiguation, but I concede it might be true. And of course "city, state" is a common way to refer to a city, so at least that's a reasonably recognizable and natural name for a U.S. city. Neither of these factors are true for neighborhoods. That is, I don't think anyone even claims that most neighborhoods require disambiguation. Today I went over San Diego neighborhoods and found the vast majority to have plain names that are unique of their own right in Wikipedia. And "neighborhood, city" is simply not a common way to refer to neighborhoods; it's not idiomatic at all the way "city, state" is.

The discussions here might not have ever established consensus about U.S. city neighborhood naming, but the principal naming criteria at WP:TITLE are supposed to reflect broad consensus of the Wikipedia community, so I suggest we follow that (not to mention it is policy). A lot of time and effort went into constructing the principal naming criteria by people with lots of experience in Wikipedia article naming; this is the criteria we're supposed to follow in deciding how to name articles:

  • Recognizability – an ideal title will confirm, to readers who are familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic, that the article is indeed about that topic. One important aspect of this is the use of common English names as used in reliable sources on the subject.
  • Naturalness – titles are expected to use names and terms that readers are most likely to look for in order to find the article (and to which editors will most naturally link from other articles). As part of this, a good title should convey what English, in an encyclopedic register, actually calls the subject (this does not mean Wikipedia must follow other encyclopedias' titles).
  • Precision – titles are expected to use names and terms that are precise, but only as precise as is necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously. For technical reasons, no two Wikipedia articles can have the same title.[1] For information on how ambiguity is avoided in titles, see the Precision and disambiguation section below and the disambiguation guideline.
  • Conciseness – shorter titles are often preferred to longer ones.
  • Consistency – titles which follow the same pattern as those of similar articles are often preferred. Many of these patterns are documented in the naming guidelines listed in the Specific-topic guidelines box above, and ideally indicate titles that are in accordance with the principal criteria above.
I suggest this principal naming criteria clearly favors articles about city neighborhoods to be at the plain undisambiguated neighborhood name where that name is unique (does not conflict with any other use of that name in Wikipedia), for the following reasons:
  • Either neighborhood or neighborhood, city is equally recognizable to readers who are familiar with the topic; so Recognizability is a wash.
  • Since most (all?) neighborhoods are best known by their plain names and hardly ever (if ever) referred to as "neighborhood, city", clearly the plain neighborhood name is more natural. The "name or term that readers are most likely to look for in order to find the article" is clearly the name of the neighborhood, not "neighborhood, city". The plain neighborhood name beats "neighborhood, city" (or any other disambiguated form) on naturalness hands down (contrast this with cities for which city, state is arguably just as natural as is city).
  • Wikipedia titles are supposed to be precise, "but only as precise as is necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously." For any neighborhood with a unique name, which is all that is relevant here, clearly the plain name of the neighborhood wins over "neighborhood, city" in terms of precision.
  • Clearly the shorter plain "neighborhood" beats "neighborhood, city" in terms of conciseness.
  • Current usage indicates that "neighborhood, city" is probably the more popular usage right now among neighborhoods in U.S. cities, so "neighborhood, city" probably beats "neighborhood" on Consistency.
So, "neighborhood, city" beats "neighborhood" on Consistency, but loses on Naturalness, Precision, and Conciseness, while Recognizability is a wash. So, what do we do? Well, WP:TITLE gives us guidance there too: "Most articles will have a simple and obvious title that is better than any other in terms of most or all of these ideal criteria."

Of course, we can ignore WP:TITLE, but we're supposed to have good reason to do so. But if we follow WP:TITLE, even accounting for consistency, we should be preferring plain neighborhood names where possible, because that is the "simple and obvious title that is better than any other in terms of most or all of these ideal criteria", and only disambiguating with additional precision (most likely "neighborhood, city") where necessary. --Born2cycle (talk) 06:12, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

"Neighborhood, City" is more consistent with the existing naming convention for cities. Let's see what other editors have to say.   Will Beback  talk  06:23, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
Maybe..., but, at best, consistency with how other similar articles are named is only one of the five principal criteria to be considered. Three of those -- Naturalness, Precision, and Conciseness -- clearly indicate "Neighborhood" should be preferred over "Neighborhood, City" where possible. --Born2cycle (talk) 06:53, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Consistency : titles which follow the same pattern as those of similar articles are often preferred. Many of these patterns are documented in the naming guidelines listed in the Specific-topic guidelines box above, and ideally indicate titles that are in accordance with the principal criteria above.
Consistency is why we have naming conventions.   Will Beback  talk  07:29, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
Of course, but there is consistency in general (which is why we have naming conventions) and the specific kind of consistency in which we try to name similar articles according to the same pattern. It's this latter specific kind of consistency which is the basis for "neighborhood, city" and which is also only one of the five criteria we're supposed to consider in trying to name our articles consistently in the general sense (that is, consistent not only with the pattern of similar articles, but also with conciseness, naturalness, etc.). --Born2cycle (talk) 07:41, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
Scope
Some editors may prefer that the default for neighborhood titles is "Neighborhood". But even then situations will arise when we'll have to be more specific. It seems logical that the pattern would be "Neighborhood, City", and if that's not enough, then "Neighborhood, City, State". Thoughts?   Will Beback  talk  09:23, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
That sounds entirely reasonable. Generally I believe we should adopt the principle (regardless of which country we're in - we shouldn't have randomly disparate conventions for different countries anyway) that places which are (generally referred to as) neighbourhoods of cities should be disambiguated (if disambiguation is needed) by referring to the city. Or possibly a subdivision of the city, but not by jumping straight to some larger administrative unit, which tends to be unnatural and potentially confusing.--Kotniski (talk) 10:01, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure if this needs to be spelled out that way. For example, I note that, presumably because of the existence of this guideline, we have Flushing, Queens when it should really be Flushing, New York which is the more natural title. The problem with overly specific guidelines is that they tend to take over and replace both common sense as well as our common name policy. Thus we had Manhattanville, Manhattan as a totally unnecessary disambiguated title (I just moved it to Manhattanville). --RegentsPark (talk) 14:37, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
Flushing, New York is not more natural at all. Flushing is known as a neighborhood in Queens. Neighborhoods in Manhattan perhaps should be referred to as being in "New York," but neighborhoods in the outer boroughs should clearly be disambiguated by borough. john k (talk) 19:53, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
What seems to be wrong with the convention of Neighborhood (City, State)? To me, the really weird example of this is Soho and SoHo (note the capitalization of the third letter is the only difference) and then you have Soho, Tampa and Soho, Hong Kong, and Bluff (Pittsburgh) (read the article to see where it ties in here). In all five instances they seem to be a bit forced in terms of how this is being done, and it also demonstrates the inconsistency for how articles are being named.
In terms of smaller sub-divisions of a neighborhood, about the only thing I can think of is perhaps a precinct. Considering notability issues (often neighborhoods have notability problems too), the question is if something of a municipal configuration is to achieve notability and be the topic of a Wikipedia article due to some cultural or newsworthy event, would it be noted as something in a particular neighbor, or simply a part of a city? To me, the naming conventions for a smaller subdivision would be essentially the same for something smaller than a neighborhood as it would be for any given neighborhood. Perhaps, and this is stretching it a whole bunch, if some particular neighborhood has several precincts or other smaller subdivisions that are notable then perhaps it would be worth going through the effort to come up with a naming system that references the neighborhood. Still, it seems like for anything that would have a Wikipedia article it would be such an exceptional location that the naming of the article would be a side issue and not really something of concern, other than perhaps disambiguation purposes. Likely the popular news media would be treating the area like a separate neighborhood anyway. Can you come up with any articles that would comprehensively cover and detail a portion of a neighborhood as something distinctive and unique beyond the neighborhood as a whole? I really can't think of any at the moment, but with a couple million articles in this project I can't say that I've read every article on Wikipedia to answer that question. --Robert Horning (talk) 14:50, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to start by saying that many of these discussions about U.S. neighborhood naming have gotten nowhere. I believe this is because there is no clear and obvious answer; we need to be more nuanced. I am delighted that this discussion is respective of that, and hopeful we might finally come up with a guideline that has consensus support.

Will, your suggestion above matches almost exactly the wording you questioned at the top of the previous section. That is, default to neighborhood name, but disambiguate with just city when that's sufficient, and add on state only when it's not. I agree with Kotniski that that sounds reasonable, but RegentsParks has a good point too. On the one hand we can handle New York City as a singular exception, but I suspect more are needed. Robert Horning suggests the only small sub-division is the precinct, but San Diego, for example, has officially recognized "communities", some of which are less formally divided further into neighborhoods, at least some of which are notable. Bay Park, for example, is a neighborhood of the community of Clairemont.

I think there is a lot to be said for Robert's point about disambiguating with parenthesis. First, unlike cities, neighborhoods are not naturally named using the comma convention; their natural name is just the name of the neighborhood. The standard way we disambiguate in Wikipedia is with parenthesis. Only when there is a natural form of disambiguation, like First Last for names of people, formal titles in names of royalty, [city, state], [city, province] or [city, country] in names of cities, [Manufacturer Model] in names of cars and other products, do we disambiguate without parenthesis. In the case of neighborhoods there really is no natural disambiguator. Let's also not forget that titles are supposed to "convey what English ... actually calls the subject" [*]. Neighborhoods are not normally called "neighborhood, city". Few ever say, for example, "Pacific Beach, San Diego", and, so, giving an article about that subject that title is misleading, because it wrongly conveys that what it is normally called is "Pacific Beach, San Diego". However, if we disambiguate with parenthesis, since parenthesis are a natural way to express a "by the way" remark, what's in them is not taken as part of the name. So if we name an article, say, Pacific Beach (San Diego), we are effectively disambiguating from other uses of that name while still correctly conveying that what the subject is normally called is just "Pacific Beach". Some object on the grounds that "Pacific Beach (San Diego)", taken literally and completely, is also not common usage, but that's missing the point of using parenthesis for disambiguation - the parenthesis convey that the stuff in parenthesis is, well, a parenthetic remark, not part of the name of the subject. There is no implication that the entire title, including the parenthetic remark, is common usage. That implication is there when the comma convention is used; Plymouth, Massachusetts, for example, correctly and accurately conveys that that city is normally called "Plymouth, Massachusetts". Again, the problem with, Pacific Beach, San Diego, California (or even Pacific Beach, San Diego) is that that title incorrectly conveys that that neighborhood is normally called "Pacific Beach, San Diego, California" (or "Pacific Beach, San Diego"). It's not.

The current wording about neighborhoods is not too bad, but needs work. It is as follows:

Where possible, neighborhoods within cities use [[neighborhood]]. Where disambiguation is required [[neighborhood, city]] is used unless there is a conflict with that too, in which case the state is included in the title as well: [[neighborhood, city, state]]. Neighborhoods within New York City have been identified by the standard [[neighborhood, borough]], where "borough" is one of the five boroughs: Brooklyn, Bronx, Manhattan, Queens or Staten Island.

Incorporating all of the above discussion and considering actual practice, it might be more accurate to say the following:

Where possible, articles about subdivisions within cities such as communities and neighborhoods use [[subdivisionname]] as the title. Where disambiguation is required various forms of disambiguation are used depending on local convention and the nature of the subdivision. For example, neighborhoods within New York City are identified as [[neighborhood, borough]], where "borough" is one of the five boroughs: Brooklyn, Bronx, Manhattan, Queens or Staten Island. Where [[neighborhood, higher-division]] is a common way neighborhoods are called that is used, otherwise [[neighborhood (higher-division)]] is recommended. Important to consider is that titles are supposed to convey the name that the subject is normally called, and generally anything inside parenthesis is not part of the name while anything not in parenthesis conveys it is part of what the subject is normally called. When the resulting disambiguated title still has conflicts, another higher division is generally used: [[subdivisionname, city, state]] or [[subdivisionname (city, state)]].

Is that better? --Born2cycle (talk) 18:17, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

The text is OK to a point, but as a policy matter I think we should be using the longer version, "Neighborhood, City" routinely. There will be thousands of neighborhood article that will require dismabiguation, so for consistency with those and with US cities, we should have a naming convention. I suggest this text:

Where possible, articles about subdivisions within cities such as communities and neighborhoods use [[subdivisionname, higher-division]] as the title. For example, neighborhoods within New York City are identified as [[neighborhood, borough]], where "borough" is one of the five boroughs. When the resulting title still has conflicts, another higher division is generally used: [[subdivisionname, city, state]].

Otherwise it will be a mess of different styles.   Will Beback  talk  02:01, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
This suggested wording dismisses the arguments made above by most of those participating, including the point that defaulting to a disambiguated form is verbose, unnatural, more precise than necessary and does not correctly convey the name of the subject, all principal naming criteria we're supposed to be considering per policy. As you know, we have a proposal that involves moving the majority (40) of San Diego neighborhood articles to their plain names; many if not most neighborhoods have unique names; there are many more policy-based as well as practical reasons not to disambiguate than to disambiguate them.

Let's consider what the KISS wording might look like...

Where possible, articles about subdivisions within cities such as communities and neighborhoods use [[subdivision]] as the title. Where disambiguation is required, use [[subdivision (higher-division)]], where "higher-division" is the next higher entity that creates a unique title for that name (usually(city), but could be (borough), (city, state), etc. as appropriate).

--Born2cycle (talk) 04:26, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
Or, even simpler:

Articles about subdivisions within cities such as communities and neighborhoods use [[subdivision, higher-division]], where "higher-division" is the next higher entity that creates a unique title for that name (usuallycity, but could be borough, city, state, etc. as appropriate).

That removes the confusion.   Will Beback  talk  01:11, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
What confusion?

Your wording appears to suggest a simplification of the process of naming these articles, but it doesn't really do that (because conflicts still have to be considered and accounted for as part of the process), and it unnecessarily complicates the titles of the majority of these articles (because they could be at their simple plain names). --Born2cycle (talk) 17:15, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Will, I overlooked this opening sentence in your earlier comment above:

Some editors may prefer that the default for neighborhood titles is "Neighborhood".

I suppose it's true that some editors may prefer that. But it's also true that other editors may prefer that the default for neighborhood titles is to predisambiguate all such titles somehow using the comma convention. But what editors may or may not prefer is not relevant, and we need to get away from thinking and discussing in those terms.

What is relevant is consistency, consistency with how titles throughout Wikipedia are named, and thus consistency with the principal naming criteria clearly specified in article naming policy that guides us on how to do that. The discussion really needs to continue in those terms, otherwise we have comments like your most recent one that simply promote a POV not expressed in terms of naming policy criteria and principles, and the discussion will turn into yet another pointless episode of I like it/I don't like it.

In your most recent comment you opine:

...as a policy matter I think we should be using the longer version, "Neighborhood, City" routinely.

How is that expression of pure personal preference, "I think we should be using the longer version", a policy matter?

You also declare:

There will be thousands of neighborhood article that will require dismabiguation, so for consistency with those and with US cities, we should have a naming convention.

  1. No one is saying we should not have a naming convention. We're all discussing what that naming convention should say.
  2. Please correct me if I misunderstand, but by "naming convention" you apparently mean a naming convention that specifies a consistent fixed pattern to be used in all titles within the group in question, whether disambiguation of a given article's plain name is required or not, such as lowerdivision, higherdivision. Most naming conventions, even most of the conventions listed at WP:PLACE, do not specify such a fixed pattern for all articles within their scope, but only for those articles that require disambiguation. Using "naming convention" to refer only to those guidelines that indicate following a certain pattern regardless of whether disambiguation is required is an unorthodox use of the term in the context of Wikipedia.
  3. There are thousands of neighborhood articles that do not require disambiguation (if San Diego is a fair indicator of how unique neighborhood names tend to be, significantly more neighborhood names do not require disambiguation than do), so for consistency with those and with the US cities that probably have the greatest number of notable subdivisions (the ones on the AP list, whose titles are not disambiguated), we should not disambiguate these titles where possible.

You then make your suggestion for wording that indicates use of [[subdivisionname, higher-division]] "where possible" (not just where disambiguation is required) and declare, "Otherwise it will be a mess of different styles."

The vast majority of all articles in Wikipedia, and even the majority of those that fall under WP:PLACE, are governed by a guideline that indicates use of the plain/obvious/natural/most common name where possible, and dictates a particular pattern to use only when disambiguation is required. What is so peculiar or different about U.S. neighborhoods that it would be a "mess" to give the titles of their articles this same treatment? --Born2cycle (talk) 12:14, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

The question I have is: what is wrong with having a "mess of different styles"... what with disambiguation, are readers really having difficulty getting to the article about the city, town, neighborhood, etc. they are looking for? Or is this just conformity for conformity's sake? Blueboar (talk) 23:13, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
I would note that San Francisco Chinatown is a much more natural-sounding solution than Chinatown, San Francisco, where the article currently resides. As far as I can see, this does not generalize to neighborhoods other than Chinatown, Japantown, or Koreatown, though. Should these be a special case?
I suppose I'd be OK with Chinatown (San Francisco). --Trovatore (talk) 03:25, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
In general there is preference for disambiguating the name of a given subject with additional precision in the title using a parenthetic remark because such a title still clearly conveys the name. In this example, though I agree San Francisco Chinatown is a more natural reference to its subject than is Chinatown, San Francisco, neither San Francisco Chinatown nor Chinatown, San Francisco clearly and naturally convey the name with which the subject is usually called -- Chinatown -- as Chinatown (San Francisco) does. And so it is with all other neighborhoods, unless there are some that are commonly and naturally referred to as neighborhood, city or whatever (I know of none like that). --Born2cycle (talk) 18:42, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
I think Born2cycle's reading of Wikipedia's naming policy is correct. I am for using just the neighborhood name as title whenever possible (per WP:precision), and I am for using 'neighborhood (city)' as the standard disambiguation when disambiguation is needed. However if in some instances 'neighborhood, city' is a commonly used name for a neighborhood, which title needs to be disambiguated, I would not be against using that as the title. But, as Born2cycle rightly pointed out, I don't think that that is generally the case for US neighborhoods.TheFreeloader (talk) 13:22, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, TheFreeloader. Below, discussion shifts from the initial focus of this section -- how US neighborhood articles should be titled-- to how US neighborhoods are actually currently titled. Of course, the two subjects are related, for consistency with how other similar articles are titled is one of five principal criteria editors are supposed to consider when deciding how to title another similar article.

A survey of how such articles are named will show a mixture of uses among [[plain name]], [[neighborhood, city, state]], [[neighborhood, city]], [[neighborhood, borough]], and [[neighborhood (higher division disambiguation)]]. If we did a survey a year ago the distribution of these patterns would be something, if you do it today it will be something else, and, a year from now it will be something else again. I suggest that providing guidance here for how these articles should be named, and thus influencing what this distribution will look like in the future, is ultimately why we're having this discussion here.

I don't see much point in seeing exactly what that distribution happens to be right now, though it can't hurt. But regardless of what that is, we need to come back to this discussion, which is why I've created a separate subheading below, #Current practice, for the separate discussion about a survey of what current practice happens to be. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:39, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Current practice

Survey

Born2cycle has elsewhere pointed out that policies and guidelines should be descriptive rather than proscriptive. I think I can do a survey using AutoWikiBrowser. I'll see if I can get statistics on which styles are most commonly used for neighborhoods in US cities. Other editors may wish to compile their own statistics so that we have a variety of approaches.   Will Beback  talk  01:15, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

To start, I've posted a list of articles from the Category:Neighborhoods in the United States in Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)/US neighborhood survey.   Will Beback  talk  03:41, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

LOL! Great minds run in the same channels. I also did a survey of current usage, but I tried to summarize. I feel this discussion should start from an awareness of what actual editors have done in the hundreds of existing articles about neighborhoods in the United States. It seems to me that the guidelines developed here ought to at least start from the consensus (if any) that has been built up by countless users editing real articles. I’m not trying to suggest a particular naming convention at this point, just saying that we ought to start by looking at reality, namely, what already exists on Wikipedia. Below is my survey of how some major U.S. cities currently list their neighborhoods. --MelanieN (talk) 03:58, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

--MelanieN (talk) 03:58, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I think we can all agree that a survey of how such articles are named will show that there is some distribution among these: [[plain name]], [[neighborhood, city, state]], [[neighborhood, city]], [[neighborhood, borough]], and [[neighborhood (higher division disambiguation)]]. I think we can also agree that that distribution was probably somewhat different a year ago, and will be different again a year from now. Isn't it also fair to say that providing guidance about how such articles should be named is ultimately why we're having the discussion above, and so we should return to it?

As to Will's point that I've previously said that guidelines should be descriptive rather than proscriptive, yes, but guidelines like this one which are specific to a particular group of articles should take into account general naming usage, policy and practice in Wikipedia as well as current practice for the articles in question, because current practice in a particular group of articles can sometimes reflect a "tunnel vision" that is blind to how articles are normally named in Wikipedia, and seeking consistency with such practice is but one of five principal criteria editors are supposed to consider when naming articles, so a guideline that indicates names that contradict the other naming criteria is likely to be ignored for good reason. That's why I think it's important that we go back to the discussion in this section above to focus on how to provide US neighborhood naming guidance that is consistent with as much of the principal criteria as is reasonably possible. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:39, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Part of the problem here is that we are trying to set consistency standards on something that is not consistent in the real world... Just to illustrate, I live in New York, and New Yorkers are very inconsistent in how they refer to their neighborhoods. New Yorkers tend to be Manhattan-centric, they assume everyone knows what you are talking about when you refer to a Manhattan neighborhood... so they never bother to include the borough when referring to them. They say "SoHo", "Tribeca" and "Harlem" not "SoHo, Manhattan", "Tibeca, Manhattan" and "Harlem, Manhattan". The opposite is true for the Borough of Queens... New Yorkers tend to assume that few people know where those neighborhoods are, so we explain... saying: "Astoria, Queens" and "Woodhaven, Queens", etc My point is... if the locals are not consistent when it comes to way they commonly refer to their neighborhoods, how can we expect to reach a consensus on consistency here on Wikipedia? I think this is one area where we just have to allow things to be inconsistent. Blueboar (talk) 19:20, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
New York City has always been a special case, and I don't think that we should strain to find a solution that necessarily fits NYC along with cities without boroughs.
The point of a naming convention is to have similar names for similar articles. Looking at the survey conducted by MelanieN, it looks like the most common usage currently is "Neighborhood, City". No one benefits by having ten different styles for neighborhood article names. Consistency and clarity are important. Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)/US neighborhood survey also shows that most neighborhood names are not simply "Neighborhood". The reason we have a naming conventions of US cities that defaults to "city, state" is that so many city names are repeated in different locations. That is even more true with neighborhood names.   Will Beback  talk  01:31, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
This is false. The point of naming guidelines is to provide guidance on how to name articles; the point is not to have similar titles for similar articles. The point to have similar names for similar articles is but one of five principal criteria we are supposed to consider when naming articles, according to policy. --Born2cycle (talk) 03:30, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
Born, the name of this section is "Current practice." Please address the current practice, instead of brushing it aside with airy generalizations like "there is some distribution among..." The fact is that of the dozen cities I surveyed, only Honolulu regularly uses Neighborhoodname without disambiguation. Atlanta uses Neighborhood name (city). All the others, including the biggest cities in the country, use the comma convention, naming the city (or in New York's case borough), with some exceptions for very well known neighborhoods. Some also include the state, but the recent trend has been to omit the state. This has been the system for some time and nobody seems to have much of a problem with it, except you. You have been trying for years to get Neighborhoodname declared as the standard, but I have never seen you acknowledge that this policy would rename virtually every neighborhood article in the country. It seems to me that such a drastic change would require much more compelling reasons than you have presented so far, and a very broad consensus that it should be done. But let's argue about reasons in the section above; in this section let's please address the reality of what exists now, and how (or whether) current usage should be considered in determining a naming convention. --MelanieN (talk) 11:43, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Current wording of the guideline

This is another subject which should be kept separate from the original question of how neighborhoods SHOULD be listed. Discussion on that subject should continue to be under the main heading above. I have been thinking about a separate issue: the wording of the guideline as it is currently given on the project page here. It says, "Where possible, neighborhoods within cities use neighborhood. Where disambiguation is required neighborhood, city is used unless there is a conflict with that too, in which case the state is included in the title as well: neighborhood, city, state." Based on the results of my survey above, this statement is factually incorrect. It states as fact that neighborhoods use the format Neighborhood, but in fact most of them don't. In my survey of a dozen major U.S. cities, I found only two situations where Neighborhood is used without disambiguation: neighborhoods which are extremely well known (such as Haight-Ashbury or Hollywood), and neighborhoods in the city of Honolulu. I don't have a suggestion for what the wording should be changed to, but as it stands it is simply false; that is not how most U.S. neighborhoods actually are listed here. And yet it is stated here as fact, and could continue to be if the discussion here leads to "no consensus". Comments? --MelanieN (talk) 00:11, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

It seems to me that the current language is what we should be doing. Northern Liberties redirects to Northern Liberties, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Why? There is apparently only one "Northern Liberties" of note. It is perhaps not an incredibly well known neighborhood outside Philadelphia, but I'm not sure what relevance that has when a name is unambiguous. The article itself will obviously explain at the beginning that it is a neighborhood in Philly, and any article it is linked from will presumably have context to the same effect. I'm not sure what purpose is served by giving the city and state when this is not necessary for disambiguation. john k (talk) 20:03, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
Then the wording of the guideline should be changed (if and only if consensus agrees) from "are" to "should be". In other words, "Where possible, neighborhoods within cities should use neighborhood. Where disambiguation is required neighborhood, city should be used unless there is a conflict with that too, in which case the state should be included in the title as well: neighborhood, city, state." My point is that the current guideline saying that's how they are named is simply false. That's not how they are named - not now. --MelanieN (talk) 01:37, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
When editors who don't understand and fully appreciate how articles are named at Wikipedia decide how to name articles, they are likely to make decisions inconsistent with Wikipedia naming policy, guidelines and conventions. The current state of U.S. city neighborhood article titles is an example of that, perhaps being particularly prone to misguidance since U.S. city names are themselves out of step with most of the rest of Wikipedia in terms of them being disambiguated when unnecessary. These guidelines should discourage this kind of inconsistency. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:08, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
Which doesn't alter the fact that it is untrue for the guidelines to declare, flatly and in the present tense, that neighborhood article names "use" the version you think they should be changed to. That is a false statement. They don't use that format - not at present. --MelanieN (talk) 16:52, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
It's moot now since all mention of neighborhood naming has been removed (arguably appropriately since there is still no consensus about that) except for the note about NYC neighborhood naming. --Born2cycle (talk) 20:27, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

England again - suburbs

There is a move discussion at Beeston, Leeds where the topic of this guideline (the section on England) has been raised. I seem to remember that the general view was that places should be disambiguated using city/town rather than county if those places are thought of as "part of the city/town" rather than adjacent localities, and in order to achieve this, the phrasing was introduced into the guideline saying that the borough should be used rather than the county if the borough consists of a single city/town. It would seem, though, that this rule doesn't always achieve its desired objective, since it is claimed that the City of Leeds consists of more than just Leeds, and so the guideline would imply that even places that are unquestionably integral parts of Leeds ought to be disambiguated by county (I don't know whether that applies to Beeston, but there are undoubtedly some such cases - every large city has its districts). Could we perhaps consider a more flexible guideline?--Kotniski (talk) 12:52, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

This was only discussed back in August, but the gist was that for a lot of places there is no suitable definition for whether somewhere is a suburb of a town or a separate settlement. In the case of Beeston, I don't think there would be much argument that it is a part of the settlement of Leeds (having been incorporated into the borough in 1626), so I don't see that there is a problem with it being disambiguated by 'Leeds' other than it not complying with the guideline. (One other thing to note of course is that 'Leeds' would be the next step down in disambiguation if there were two settlements of the same name in West Yorkshire).
I tend to think that these sort of guidelines should be used in a relaxed way anyway, and only called upon when there is disagreement. Quantpole (talk) 12:31, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

The discussion in August arose from the objection that "town" and "city" (as used in the previous guidance) did not have easily defined meanings in England. Attempts to define "town" and "city" were dismissed as not straightforward. The compromise we ended up seems to have given rise to a new set of anomalies - I fear the Beeston case will not be the last. I would favour a return to something like the previous words: "for districts and suburbs within towns and cities, [[placename, Town/City]] should be used". In theory, that could result in occasional debates about whether or not a place is in a town/city, although there do not seem to have been any such debates when the previous guidance was in force. But that would be better than a guideline which, interpreted literally, gives counter-intuitive results, and thus generates many exceptions.--Mhockey (talk) 21:42, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly my view. Unfortunately some people do take guidelines literally, to the point of trying to change things for no other reason than to bring them into conformance with the wording of the guidelines, so they ought to be worded in such a way that implies flexibility and common sense.--Kotniski (talk) 05:49, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

In the light of this discussion, I suggest rewording the guidance to the following:

In England, place names requiring disambiguation

  • for places in Greater London use [[placename, London]]
  • for districts and suburbs within towns and cities, use [[placename, Town/City]]
  • elsewhere in England use [[placename, ceremonial county]].

Wherever further disambiguation is required...(as before)

Thus the guideline would not attempt to define "town" or "city". Previous experience suggests that that should not cause problems (if it does, we may have to consider a more complicated guideline, but let's not go there unless and until it is necessary).

Any views, for or against?--Mhockey (talk) 11:57, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that seems good. (Though we might have to clarify that by "within towns and cities" we mean the customary towns/cities themselves, not necessarily the local government districts that may be named after them.)--Kotniski (talk) 12:16, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
There needs to be some clarification of what city/town means - which is the whole problem with using this approach. Keith D (talk) 20:08, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
Absolutely. It is wrong to remove the criteria from the guideline. MRSC (talk) 21:30, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
I wish I hadn't found this discussion. All I say is that the August compromise is wrong, and the proposed solution will not work either. Kent is always a hard case due to its peculiar eighth and ninth century settlement patterns. Frindsbury gives an notion of some of the problems, where the village was split for local government purposes between Frindsbury (within the City of Rochester) - and Frindsbury Extra which was outside the city. Both however were with in the later City of Rochester-upon-Medway. Both are within Medway- but both regard themselves as part of Kent. The Unitary authority name is artificial. Maybe the under thirties living locally will have a concept of Medway- but ask anyone living more than 50 miles away where the authority is- and you will get some very colourful answers. Simply, Ceremonial county is the way to refer places within this unitary. Can I pose the High Halstow, Lower Halstow question? Whether in Sydney, Cape Town or Ontario- or anywhere where they have heard of the Battle of Trafalgar- they will speak of the dockyard in Chatham in Medway- I think not. It is Chatham, Kent. In Ontario, they borrowed both the name of Chatham and Kent County, so they refer to their Chatham as Chatham–Kent, Ontario. I also have problems with the London, Greater London debate. On either side of the Thames, we have Rainham (Essex), and Rainham, Kent- it makes senses to (just) to say Rainham, Greater London but London no. Then we have the whole swathe of Kentish places that have been subsumed into the London Boroughs of Bromley, Bexley and even Greenwich. Take the Kentish locations of Chislehurst, St Maryś Cray, Orpinton, Farnborough and Biggin Hill none of which are London, but could be said to be in Greater London. However, most of the articles I have created are in Greater Manchester. Try telling the good souls of Hyde or Ashton that they are in Manchester! Leave it be- these last two compromises just obfuscate. --ClemRutter (talk) 22:04, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Two systems exist in the real world that we could copy:

  • Data from Royal Mail, using post town and postal county for disambiguation. This is used by directories such as Yellow Pages [5]
  • Data from Ordnance Survey, using upper tier local authorities for disambiguation. This is used on maps and some web services. [6]

Both these systems produce some results that people will not expect - as does our system, and it will continue to do so if it were amended as suggested, as ClemRutter has detailed. The benefit of either of these systems is that we have an external source and they can be copied systematically. Rather than muddle through with incremental changes, perhaps we should imagine what kind of system would be devised if we were starting from scratch. MRSC (talk) 22:47, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I feel like a guest at a strangers funeral here- having not followed the earlier debate. It would seem sensible to adopt one or the other existing system- and as the PAF Royal Mail system in the main follows the pre 1974 geographic counties this seems closest to our needs. But reading our own articles Postal counties of the United Kingdom exposes two problems. Support is to be phased out in 2013- and to get a license will cost £75 a month- it is copyrighted. The OS system, is designed to tie locations to current local government boundaries which doesn't match our aims. Also I haven't found a reference to that dataset, or how it may be obtained. Do we have a reference for a CC dataset that we can examine? --ClemRutter (talk) 10:01, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
(ec)I fear that any automatic system will produce the wrong results in some cases. But luckily, Wikipedia editors (some of them) are endowed with a modicum of common sense and real-world knowledge, and can make good judgements as long as they are not constrained by inflexible rules.--Kotniski (talk) 10:07, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Let's just explore how ClemRutter's examples would work under the proposal:

  • Frindsbury is not disambiguated, but if it needed to be, it would not go under Frindsbury, Medway, because Medway is not a town or city (at least the article on Medway does not describe it as such). It may be one of the few examples of places which straddle boundaries, but if it is not wholly within Rochester, it would go under Frindsbury, Kent.
  • Chatham, Kent would stay - Chatham is not a district within a town, it is a town
  • Hyde, Greater Manchester would stay - if it is not a district of Manchester

The examples in Greater London I have no strong view on, although I note from Wikipedia:WikiProject London/Naming conventions that it is a long-standing convention that London is used to disambiguate.

Concrete examples are very useful. There will be some difficult cases in any system, but I fear the Beeston, Leeds debate shows more potential for controversy in the current guidelines. --Mhockey (talk) 10:30, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't see how Beeston demonstrates that. Can it be argued that Beeston is not in West Yorkshire? Either suffix adequately and precisely explains its location relative to any other Beeston. MRSC (talk) 14:32, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

My point is that Beeston is being debated, because some editors are not satisfied with a literal interpretation of the present guideline. A guideline which creates a lot of debate is not a very satisfactory guideline. What would be interesting is an example which would create controversy under the proposed guideline - e.g. an example of a place where there is doubt as to whether or not it is in a town/city. --Mhockey (talk) 14:45, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

But the alternative suggested encourages debate on whether a locality is in a town or not. It will not stop these kinds of discussions. The opposite in fact. MRSC (talk) 14:52, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Can you give us an example of such a debate (or even a potential debate), please? --Mhockey (talk) 14:57, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Any place on the fringes of a town. Here are some currently disambiguated examples that would become ambiguous under the proposal:
Of course it is hard to predict which places are likely require disambiguation at a future date. MRSC (talk) 15:27, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

That's more useful, thanks. Going through them:

This exercise demonstrates that in most cases we already decide (in the content of articles) whether a place is a suburb/district/area of a town or city, without getting bogged down in exactly what we mean by Luton or Slough. There may be the occasional difficult one like Quarrendon, but nothing like the problems that are going to arise under the current policy in suburbs of Leeds, Preston or other places.--Mhockey (talk) 17:38, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, with the difficult ones, by definition, it doesn't matter that much if we get the result "wrong". But the rule should not be phrased in a way that forbids us from getting the easier ones "right". The Beeston case shows that the rule as presently phrased (or probably any rule which tried to exclude local knowledge nad judgement) will sometimes give answers that people who know the places in question reject as clearly inferior.--Kotniski (talk) 18:18, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
In other words widespread renamings or at least uncertainty, should we use your opinion in each of those cases. The proposed change in wording does not make things clearer, it creates more ambiguity and need for debate (the opposite of its stated intention). MRSC (talk) 20:18, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm suggesting we just use the facts stated in the articles. I don't see why that creates ambiguity or uncertainty, or increases the need for debate. I cannot find one example of a naming debate during the period when we had something like the proposed guideline (except when some editors did not realise that the guideline had changed). But the change in guideline in August has created uncertainty and debate (and potentially widespread renaming), because editors are not comfortable with the anomalies it throws up (why should a suburb of Leeds be treated differently from a suburb of Birmingham?) and it requires quite a detailed knowledge of English local government arrangements to apply literally. Can we just apply some common sense? --Mhockey (talk) 21:07, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Can I just throw in this spanner. If the Post Office are dropping their definitive list does that behove us to develop and publish our own. Please say no!--ClemRutter (talk) 00:34, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

The "spanner" is the proposal that Medway becomes a City, but that would not make it a city. We already have examples of towns within a City (e.g. Wetherby in the City of Leeds but not in Leeds, Herne Bay in the City of Canterbury but not in Canterbury), but not, I think, towns within a city. And I don't think WP should be in the business of prescribing its own rules for matters outside WP - WP is about the world as it is, not as we would like it to be. --Mhockey (talk) 09:02, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Two tests that may help determine what to do with places on the edges of towns/cities:

  • Is the location in the same civil parish as the town/city? For this purpose, treat unparished areas within a district as a single parish.
  • Is the location in the urban area (as defined by the ONS)? If the location is in a different ceremonial county ignore this.

In the cases of the examples given by MSRC: Farley Hill: Within both the unparished area of Luton and Luton urban area Langley: Within both the unparished area of Slough and the Slough urban area. Quarrendon: The modern estate of Quarrendon is within both the unparished area of Aylesbury and Aylesbury urban area. However Quarrendon CP is an adjoining rural parish which contains the medieval village and church. The CP is also entirely outside the urban area (the article is factually incorrect there). Barnwell: Within both the unparished area of Cambridge and Cambridge urban area. Bardsley: Within the unparished area of Oldham. Within the Greater Manchester Urban Area.

These two tests both agree with Mhockey's analysis of 3 of them. Langley is different, the distinction being the result of the history of the village I suppose. As for Bardsley, the quick test breaks down because of the larger urban area.

This seems to suggest the tests are reasonably sane and if they both agree we should use that result. If they disagree it will be harder but they still provides guidance. An example of a place where they may be less useful is Roborough (in Plymouth Urban area but in Bickleigh, South Hams CP): is Roborough, Plymouth or Roborough, South Hams better?--Nilfanion (talk) 10:19, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Whoa, Dobbin whoa! I really do want to achieve consensus but I can't get my head round the last few statements. I understand that one regional definition of a city is a seriously big village with a population exceeding xx thousand, but the wording of guidelines has to satisfy all 'normal intelligent readers' so all this malarky about big c cities and little c cities just doesn't hold water. Ripon and Ely are cities, as is St David's (population 1,797 ). And whats more they all have been cities for at least 850 years. Other places have achieved city status through the divine right of the monarch based on the rights of a lineage that goes back to 443 BC- and in 2012 we will have more cities to consider. Googling around shows that definitive article on the subject City status in the United Kingdom is one of ours!
Now the suggestion that that we should regard the civil parish, just doesn't help as that will always skew the debate towards the current Unitary etc and away from the ceremonial county- just by the definition that the civil parish must be a subdivision of a larger current authority.
Now how does a Part of a Urban Area simplify the issue. "Bardsley: Within the unparished area of Oldham. Within the Greater Manchester Urban Area". Well looking at the map shows it is in the countryside twixt Ashton-under-Lyne in Tameside and Oldham, on the north bank of the River Medlock, and the Hollinwood Branch Canal. Luckily, it doesn't need to a dab. If anything, Bardsley, near Oldham would do
But whatever, clever arguments, though fun are irrelevant if the general reader can't follow the guidelines and generate a dab that all other general readers understand. --ClemRutter (talk) 22:21, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
The OS defines Bardsley as part of the Manchester Urban Area, whilst your interpretation of the map is not a reliable source of course. Admittedly in that case its kind of pointless - the point is that the metric fails there so its possibly better to use the county. And when I was referring to civil parishes I was envisaging the case of ones like Aylesbury, not where the urban sprawl crosses a county border. In these cases, the CP is typically the current administrative border of the town (a common sense line on the map a normal reader would typically accept as the town border), it would not favour the unitary over the ceremonial, rather the town over both.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:45, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
The "part of an urban area" helps with the parishes that contain large towns and a large swathe of countryside - Tiverton, Devon is an example there (would anyone say Cove, Devon is part of the town?).--Nilfanion (talk) 22:47, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Another thing to consider is why the guideline of using ceremonial counties as disambiguators was decided in the first place. It is because everywhere in England is unambiguously located in one and it is never wrong to describe any place in England as being within a cerermonial county. The same can't be said for towns. The guideline corresponds to the way the majority of places that require disambiguation have been disambiguated since at least 2003, that is by ceremonial county. MRSC (talk) 11:04, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

The use of ceremonial county makes it easy to determine what should be the dab for most places, leaving the few where there are multiple places of the same name in a ceremonial county and using district clears up most of these. Trying to apply city/town/civil parish is just complicating things and giving only those with local knowledge a chance of getting what is deemed to be the correct dab. Keith D (talk) 12:46, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
But it does give them the chance, that's the point. Oversimplifying these things has been found to give unsatisfactory answers.--Kotniski (talk) 12:57, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

And it depends what you mean by "wrong". It is right to say that Lincoln is in Lincolnshire, but that does not make it right to describe the city as Lincoln, Lincolnshire - it is unnatural, it was never a "correct" postal address (and would have been a solecism once).

And what is complicated in describing a place as x, Town when the article itself describes the place as being in Town - and in some cases (e.g. Barnwell, Cambridgeshire) does not say which county it is in? It is more complicated to have to consider which county a suburb is in when the natural way of describing a suburb is to say which town or city it is a suburb of.--Mhockey (talk) 13:15, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

The suburb and county town discussions have got mixed up again. Incidentally its incorrect to say all English localities can be tied to a single ceremonial county - Stockton-on-Tees and Tosside are examples of settlements (and if you look at geographic features you'll find a ton more). If there were Tossides in the USA - how on earth would we disambiguate the English one? On the suburbs issue: In general, CP boundaries are relevant (you don't need local knowledge to read an OS map) as if its a town, with a town council, then the CP boundary is the administrative boundary of the town. There are cases where the CP is clearly a much larger area than the town proper - for instance Cove, Devon. But that information provides guidance. I would say, if you can easily associate a place X with a town, great put it at X, town. If clearly not part of the town put it at X, county. If there's any doubt put it at X, county. In all cases, set up the appropriate redirects! Sure there's a grey area, but if we err on the side of caution where's the problem?--Nilfanion (talk) 21:03, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) "Complicated" because, what today may appear to be a suburb of a larger settlement, in the past may have been a settlement in its own right – and may still be thought of as such by some, despite the coalescence.
Regarding parishes, I think there are many places where the official parish name (if the place is parished) would not be readily recognised as the name of the settlement or with reflecting the boundaries of a place in the way that many people with a knowledge of the area would conceive them. Similarly for wards and any other administrative or electoral areas. But could we not assume a degree of common sense for edge cases, rather than imposing a structure that will in many circumstances lead to obscure results?
I am concerned that, whatever our guideline happens to be, it keeps getting changed (rather than refined). Any guideline will, to some extent, make arbitrary choices between conflicting approaches – which is exactly why we have guidelines in the first place. If we keep oscillating between conflicting arbitrary policies, we reduce Wikipedia from an encyclopedia to a debating society for have-a-go taxonomists. Or was it ever thus?
— Richardguk (talk) 21:15, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Firstly, I would think mass moves or re-moves would be disruptive and should be discouraged. The problem is that there are different guidelines and policies in conflict. On the one hand we should try to be consistent, but on the other we should use the common name for places. In the case of Beeston it is almost always referred to as being part of Leeds, so in accordance with WP:COMMONNAME it should probably be at Beeston, Leeds, but that may not be consistent with how places are generally named. My personal opinion is that we should set more store by what a place is commonly known as than consistency. This is because consistency is more generally an issue for editors than readers, and I like to think that readers are more important.
However, I do think it is important that we have some sort of guideline where things are disputed. For example, if someone was to say that Yeadon, West Yorkshire should be dabbed as Yeadon, Leeds I'm sure there would be reasonable objections (got its own town hall, only part of the municipal borough since 1974 etc). In summary I think the guideline should be altered to say that the common name should be used when disambiguating, and if it is unclear or disputed what the common name is then the guideline should kick into action. Quantpole (talk) 11:48, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
Common name and common sense - sounds good to me :) I think all this fretting about places on the margins of cities is causing problems for places that are integral parts of the place. Two examples would be Rose Hill, Derbyshire (an "inner city suburb") and Pennsylvania, Devon (built as a "suburb"). Both were moved from the city to the county in 2007. What to do about places on the edges, or villages that have got absorbed into the city need discussion and the guidelines should clarify this. But why should places that are clearly part of the city be disambiguated to the county, when it would be much more helpful to say its part of the city?--Nilfanion (talk) 12:09, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
We are moving into towards a recipe for disaster here, and have been doing since we agreed to allow Southampton suburbs to opt out of the Placename, Ceremonial county format. The problem is already begining to manifest itself (and I can't remember the two examples I came across!) with articles co-existing for Placename, City and Placename, Ceremonial county (for the same suburb, for example Woolston, Southampton and Woolston, Hampshire)—it wasn't Woolston I came across—and this is going to become more prevalent as time goes by. When we had the simple rule that we disambiguate by ceremonial county (unless there are two of the same name in the county) everyone knew where we stood, and such duplications were unlikely to occur. Can we please go back to an easily understood system that leaves no room for confusion. It really doesn't matter whether Beeston, Leeds is more common than Beeston, West Yorkshire as all we are talking about is a disambiguator in an article title, not renaming the settlement. Skinsmoke (talk) 12:12, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
Irrespective of which location we put the article at, we really should set up redirects (whether the article dab is county or town isn't the point). If this is done properly we won't get double articles.--Nilfanion (talk) 13:31, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
It keeps naming places simple if we disambiguate by county, not by city/town. Also Beeston, Leeds is separated by the M621 motorway so it isn't really a suburb of Leeds, West Yorkshire Crouch, Swale talk to me My contribs 17:06, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Senkaku Islands again

Comments are needed at Talk:Senkaku Islands#What should the title of this article be?. The point is what is the most common name in English. Please participate in the discussion. Thank you. Oda Mari (talk) 05:44, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

  1. ^ Some on-line encyclopedias use arbitrary numbers to distinguish pages, hence article titles do not need to be unique, but Wikipedia uses a system whereby no two pages can have identical titles. It is technically possible to make articles appear to have the same title, but this is never done, as it would be highly confusing to readers, and cause editors to make incorrect links.
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